"Hi, Cher, this is Mom."

In 2003, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was still living in Parma at the time, at 3326, the house I grew up in. I was on the phone with her daily, and visited when she needed me to help her through some medical challenge. But I didn’t live in the same city, and there was so much I couldn’t do from DC. I sent her a letter telling her how courageous I thought she was and how much I admired her, and I received a voice mail message in return. I could tell by her tone of voice how moved she had been by my letter, as she thanked me and told me how much it meant to her. Since she was not one who easily expressed tender feelings, I just couldn’t bring myself to erase it. And since I didn’t know whether she’d come through the cancer okay, I began to save other messages from her.

“Hi, Cher, this is Mom,” most of them began, and they went on to wish me happy birthday and happy Easter, to warn me not to drive to Cleveland to visit her during a predicted snowstorm, to tell me about something I’d enjoy on TV, to tell me she was being taken to the emergency room, to tell me how happy she was that she remembered my sister’s birthday. I didn’t save every message from her, but over the years they added up, and if I got a message from someone else, I’d have to hurry to press the delete button fast enough so that I wouldn’t have to scroll through all those messages from Ma, yet again, to erase the non-mom message.

Some time this spring, my answering machine had begun to tell me in its robo-voice that I had only four minutes of recording time left. I had begun to worry that I’d run out of recording room. I knew I’d have to do something about those messages from Ma, but she was so sick, and I just couldn’t think about it right now.

Well, you know what happened next. This past April 9th, my mother died (of causes unrelated to the breast cancer, which she weathered well, by the way). Those messages are still on that phone. With only four minutes recording time left, I know I have to get them off of there and onto a more permanent medium, and I will, once I finish sorting through boxes and estate-related papers. I’ve saved e-mails from her as well, and I have lots of things she wrote to me over the years, but nothing substitutes for her voice telling me how much she loved me, time and again. I plan to listen to those messages on my birthday, on Easter, during snowstorms and any time I need to. I found a place that can transfer them to a CD, as separate tracks, so I can listen to any one I want at any time. I probably won’t do it for a long time, but it’ll be nice to know I can.

On Being Awake and Aware

If you know me, you probably know that my mother recently died. I've felt compelled to write about it, and in the process I've gotten back in touch with that long-dormant suspicion that I might have something to say that others might be interested in reading. And as I think and write about my mother, I am finding that she's all mixed up with lots of memories I have of life lived with her and without her, with other people I've loved and places I've been. Thornton Wilder had Emily Gibbs say this about it:

"....It goes so fast. We don't have time to look at one another. I didn't realize. All that was going on in life and we never noticed. Take me back-- up the hill-- to my grave. But first: Wait! One more look. Good-by, Good-by, world. Good-by, Grover's Corners, Mama and Papa. Good-by to clocks ticking, and Mama's sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new-ironed dresses and hot baths, and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?-- every, every minute?"

I'm not saying good-bye, but since my mother so recently has, the necessity to realize life while I live it, every, every minute, seems clear. To Emily's question, the Stage Manager replied, "Saints and poets, maybe..." I'm no saint or poet, but nevertheless, here goes.