A few days ago my mother in law died. She had been sick for years, but still, it is always sad; death is! Although we weren't close, in the last ten years I had made peace with her and learned to appreciate who she really was, what she had been through and how she became who she was; strong, a survivor.
But the reason I'm writing is mainly about family. Because of Myra's death, our kids and inlaws came together to support my husband, their father and father-in-law, in light of his and their loss. After our beautiful dinner I reflected on how utterly short life is. When I finished cleaning up and before I actually sat down to listen to the conversations going on, I looked at my phone and saw a post my nephew put on facebook. It was a picture of his father and himself years ago. His remarks under the picture said, "I can't believe it's been twenty years." Jim, his father, died twenty years ago. Seeing the picture heightened my feeling of being in a pensive sort of mood, melancholy.
Looking up from my phone was a dreamy, almost surreal sight. It was as if I was a character in a play watching myself and others perform. I glanced at my family; lively, conversations strong and varying, kids playing candles lit and what I could describe as an etherial haze over the room. I used to be the parent of the kids playing. I used to be one of the charasmatic wanna-be conversationalists who spoke with passion and certainty about anything from fashion to the political atmosphere of the world.
I thought of my mother. She used to sit, like I was at that moment, and let the activities go, the conversations flow, and the debates happen. She played the part of an observer. But not always. At one time, long before I knew her, she was a fiestly , pretty little rebel who ran away from her small Illinois town and went to Chicago looking for her dream. A Catholic girl full of charm, beauty intelligence and passion who wound up marrying a strong Jewish guy who wore a black leather jacket, from the Jewish ghetto who had his own dreams of fame. She really was way before her time. I believe that instead of being a mother of four, she would have been happier as an extremely successful career woman, although she never would have admitted that.
My husband losing his mother caused me realize yet again, how long it has been since I haven't been able to hear my mother's voice or sit with her alone, just her and me, at her kitchen table and share our lives. Mostly me sharing mine and I missed her...yet as all daughters do one time or another, I have become her. During family gatherings at her home, most of the time she remained quiet, cleaned up and then listened. For a few times last night I felt like I was disappearing....invisible. Surely my mother must have felt that way. Not many times did anyone ask her opinion, or inquire about what things were like when she was young. Sometimes, when it was just her and myself, she would tell me about her life before me, about her boyfriends, how she would manipulate her way out of having to do chores, and how her father would sit up and wait for her to come home from dates, sitting in the dark, my mother able to see his cigarette lighting up through the window. Once when my father and her were seperated, she told me how she went out with one of her more exicitng friends, and how much fun they had. Her eyes would alway light up when she told stories about her own life, full of memories and lost opportunites.
That's what happens when you get old. The people with their kids, their busy lives and their young worlds lead the conversations and, I'm assuming, go home and perhaps reflect a little on what they said. Or maybe not. With time, roles change, hopefully we become wiser, more patient, more loving, more tolerant. But definitley roles change and you're never ready to take a different part, it's inevitable.
I regret not listening more when I was younger, to my mother, my father, my grandmother and great grandmother. I regret not asking more questions about their lives, their opinions what life was like when they were young...the world situation and how it affected them. I regret not savoring moments of passion, youth and the feeling I could change the world.
Life and family teach us so much, but usually it's when we look back in retrospect.
I'll end with a quote from one of my favorite authors, Anne Lamott...a quote from her new book, "Almost Everything"
" If the earth is forgiveness school, family is your postdoctoral fellowship. The family is the crucible in which these strange entities called identities are formed, who we are and aren't but agreed to be. Enen in what might pass as a good family, every member is consigned a number of roles intended to keep the boat of family afloat, which because of the ship's rats - gentics, bad behavior, and mental illness - is not as easy as it sounds. It's the hardest work we do, forgivng our circumstances, our families, and ourselves. And forgiveness is hardest of all."
