Over the Rainbow

My mother would have been 83 today.

Somehow, I doubt that she would have enjoyed being that old, or at least being reminded of it, but I thought it appropriate that someone should remember. Someone should, after all, bear witness to such days. I have a brother somewhere, and, perhaps, he remembers this day, too. Or perhaps not. All I know is that I do.

My mother died when she was 59, having made it two years past the age my father was when he died a decade earlier. Practical joker that He is, in both cases God managed to arrange things so I would be the one to find both of their bodies after they were done using them. My father may be chalked up to simple fate and bad luck; but my mother, well, that's not so simple. She had gotten ill and was progressively deteriorating and, rather than shuffle her off to a home as my brother wanted to do, I moved back home to take care of her. I had an idea, I suppose, that things would not end happily, even if I wasn't able to admit that to myself. But what else was I supposed to do? Does not the child bear an obligation to his parent? At least she was in her own home when the end came.

There are metaphors everywhere around you, if you care to look for them. My mother died on a night when Nature herself seemed to be in a rage, over what I can not say. Pure nihilism? Spite? A desperate, hopeless cry against the unjust and the inevitable? Take your pick. The wind beat furiously, uselessly, against the unyielding glass and steel of our apartment building, and Lake Michigan herself spilled out from her confining bowl to wash out the Outer Drive. Perhaps that is just the way of it when a star sputters out as it falls into the black void.

One of my mother's favourite movies was The Wizard of Oz, a movie from her childhood, from a simpler time before her father and her brother went off to war. When I was a child, whenever it was on television, she would gather my brother and I together to watch it. And, when the time came, she would break into an intentionally over-the-top falsetto and sing along with Somewhere, Over the Rainbow.

Which is where she is now. Or maybe not. Perhaps there is nothing after this life except the silence of the grave and the weight of eternity. For my part, at least, I hope that she has finally been reunited with my father, the great love of her life. But I can only hope, and only she knows for sure.

They say that God gives people no more weight than they can bear, but I'm not so sure. If that's true, then He must think I have a soul of adamantine. And He's wrong. Somewhere along the line, I gave up. I've spent so much time living with the dead, I've forgotten how to be with the living. Too much time, I suppose, wading through the blood and wreckage of other people's lives to worry about my own.

Why did you leave, mom? Why was I unable to keep you alive? Dying is easy, everybody can do that; living is what's hard to do. Did you give so much of your fire to me that, when you needed it the most, there was nothing left for you? But I did what I was trained to do, I fought for your life, and I lost. It's no easy thing to admit that my best just wasn't good enough.

My mother should have been 83 today. But she is not, and I miss her terribly. My mind tells me I was playing a game I never could win, but the mind does not always rule the heart, some wounds just do not heal. And I can't even tell you how sorry I am, for so many things. But I will remember this day, until the time comes when I, too, can remember nothing at all.