I Saw Her

I saw her.  My mother.  She is dead.  But I saw her.  In the mirror.  My legs had become hers, the shape, the curve up from the calf, past the knee, a few inches higher and there she was.  In the flesh, so to speak.  As the weight came off of me, Ma latched on.  To my thighs.  I saw her in a mirror in my dorm room at a retreat center in upstate New York. Here, snuggled into dense woods on the top of a hill, not high enough to give you a heart attack if you are out of shape, but enough to make it hard to talk and climb simultaneously, I was literally in Bumblefuck.

She is following me.  One body part at a time.  There she was, on a hill in New York, at a women's retreat.  How did she find me?  I left her behind, graveside, a short drive west of Chicago, just six years ago.  Why couldn't she just stay put?

She infiltrated my life first with her damn keys.  She could never find them.  And she asked every 5 minutes where her damn purse was.  It sat alongside her.  Now, I too never know where my own keys are minutes after putting them down.  Oh, and I also have some sort of disability with the ability to locate my sunglasses every time I take them off.  They are missing right now.  I have no flipping clue where I put them.

Then it was the names.  I can't remember people's names.  Yeah, yeah, I know.  Repeat the name in your head after introduction; say their name with each comment, each question.  Problem is that I find myself not listening to these new people in the first place.  Just like her.  She is haunting me.  She has infiltrated my psyche.  And now the body parts.

Jowls.  I am starting to look like a basset hound.  Basset hounds run in my family, on Ma's side.  Forget about the droopy boobs.  In a few years my cheeks will need a support bra.

I did throw away the grey sweat pants with holes in the crotch.  I think we almost buried Ma in hers.  I forced myself to toss them.  No.  My husband forced me to.  The vision of Ma in bed next to him, ratty sweat pants and drooling jowls, must have given him nightmares.  I wonder how he feels about her thighs in bed rubbing up against his.

My ears are increasingly selective, just like Ma, hearing obscure words and phrases that are completely out of context, non-sense but I hear them. I am reminded by my son of Ma's response to his comment, I am looking for the valet', when arriving at Sis's wedding:  Why? Are we going to the ballet?  I have now become Mrs. Malaprop.  At a recent wedding, the priest asked us to open the hymnbook to ‘The Servant Song.’  My ears, of course, heard something different: The Circumcision Song.  Not an unreasonable gaff; religions have celebrated the circumcision, just not at weddings.  Or the doctor telling me he will give the medicine to me in pill form.  My response?  Why do I need an appeal form?  My family just shakes their heads in bewilderment.

My mother is back.  First in my mind, and now latching onto my body.  She will come for my soul soon.  I just know it.  There is no use running or hiding.  She keeps finding me.  If she found me in upstate New York, she can find me anywhere.  I can't ditch her.  We should have cremated her.  Then she would still be trying to pull herself back together, particle by particle, instead of following me.  I would have a long jump start on her if we had only scattered her ashes in multiple locations.  Not in her favorite places, as she had none.  Except possibly, the bank.  She had accounts in many banking institutions.  A few certificates of deposit in each because she was certain we were all after her cash, so she felt the need to hide it.  “We” as in everyone and anyone. 

No, her ashes should have been spread in all the places she ruined for her family, like Mikonos Greek Restaurant, where she pissed of Dad so bad that he proceeded to drink till he just about passed out and we had to carry him out.  Or the Family House Restaurant, where she ruined my first date.  Or Wisconsin Dells, where she allowed Sis to almost drown me; when I finally wriggled out from my near death experience, I tried to drown her, all while Ma was sunning nearby.  

We would have run out of ashes.

But no, we had to plant her next to Dad.  He was against it, conjuring a torrent of ice and snow on her burial day, the week after Easter, in May.  The sun came out immediately after the graveside service.  He must have given up.  He had no more fight.  He would now have to spend eternity with her.  I bet he tried kicking her out.  He wanted peace for eternity after spending 50 years in hell on Earth with her.  I can hear him now, six feet below, bellowing, 'You take her. I'm done.’

So she must have left.  And now she's after me.  Like a body snatcher movie.  Taking over my body, my mind, one piece at a time.  I’m hanging on tight to my soul.