Eight Years

The years, eight. I had to count them actually. I'm terrible at remembering dates these days. I feel like part of it is life flying by. Maybe this is a thing, that as you get older, the time goes faster? I thought it was as your kids get older and more self-sufficient, the time flies, because you get more time to yourself. When E was a baby, I remember every hour feeling like a day and wanting to hand my husband a baby at six o'clock in the evening and run. I tried filling as many hours a day with activities as I could to make the time pass faster. Now that he's like, a real person, downtime doesn't mean that I have to entertain him. He can entertain himself. Not that we even really have downtime. Anyway, eight years seems like a long time. It doesn't feel that long. I don't know what it feels like. I don't like the years going by because it's that much further away from when she was here.

Because my life is a blur, I realized today, as I got dressed and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, at forty three, and as I was walking into work, that it's almost the deathiversary of my mother. I don't feel like looking back to see if I wrote something last year. I may not have. It's just not my thing to lament over death, her death, publicly. I'm public about most everything, but what is there to say really? She's dead. It's been eight years. I wonder what life would be like if she wasn't dead. The way life has gone for us since she died, I think it was look totally different, like the difference in a Choose Your Own Adventure series book. Holidays would look different, maybe even friendships, since we do so much with friends because we don't have family. Not that I really did holidays with my mother, but I may have because of E. I just don't know what it would be like.

I thought of her today because I don't always look in the mirror anymore before I leave the house. And I KNOW she didn't. While I will always have more fashion sense, which isn't difficult considering she was carrying around an acid-washed denim fanny pack, wearing scrunchies in her hair, men's athletic socks on her feet, and blue mascara until she died, I sometimes glimpse my mother looking back at me when I look in the mirror. Yesterday I left the house in the afternoon in a ribbed tank top (one of her staples) and cargo pants. Hair in a bun, wisps of grey now showing and sticking out, and no make-up aside from mascara (black). She didn't wear any make-up besides the mascara, and some powder bronzer. She didn't have to since she was tan all year round. I don't always see her in the mirror, but there are definitely some days more than others.

I think about what we would talk about. How I could tell her I finally get why she didn't want to be besties with the moms of the girls I liked in my grade. Not that she wasn't friendly or that I'm not. Just more that I get having "your people". And that trying to make mom friends out of people just because your kid likes their kid isn't easy. That it's like dating. And once you find your people, you're good. There just isn't enough time or energy to be best friends with everyone. Social climbing wasn't for her and it's not for me. Not that I needed to learn that or that I ever did it, but I just get it more now than ever in my life.

I have questions I get annoyed I can't ask. I found out that all the information that was around about my ancestry and heritage were thrown out. I'd done ancestry.com and 23andme.com tests and people are coming out of the woodwork as second cousins. I've had people send photos to me with my grandparents and their siblings in them and I have questions I would've liked to ask her. Not that I would've gotten anywhere since Rita was known to make things up, but I still would've liked the chance.

I would've asked her to show me how to make HER turkey. Not just any turkey. HERS. I have the recipe and my friend Alex said she'd help me try it out, but I would've liked to watch her make hers at least once. The thought of trying to put something UNDER turkey skin makes me want to puke, but I still want to try it out. I mastered my grandmother's brisket, so I'm sure I could do a turkey, but it has to be her way. I've never had any other turkey that could compare. I can still see it in my head- turkey slices, in it's own juice- never "gravy", with a plastic cup of cut, raw veggies. Every time I take a baggie of raw green beans to eat, plain, and Alex goofs on me, I think of my mother. The way E will think of me when he gives that to his kids as a "normal side dish" at dinner.

I don't think about her all the time. I don't. I don't miss her all the time. Sometimes missing her comes on like a surprise. I don't know what to say to people who have lost their moms, even years ago, and still feel as sad and full of loss as they did whenever it happened. Everyone grieves differently and feels differently about their loss. Time has definitely lessened the pain of loss, it's dulled the sense of missing her, and memories aren't as flooding or as often. I'd been sick on and off over the last month, and that's when I think about her more- when I'm sick. When I get sick, the first thing to happen usually is swollen glands and a sore throat. I'd make her rub the outside of my neck from the front with her thumb and forefinger- like you were going to choke someone. It didn't really help but it helped, if that makes sense.

I think everyone turns into a big baby when they're sick and I'm no different. She'd have me lay in her lap and she'd rub the outside of my swollen glands. I picture this at my grandmother's condo in Fort Lee, because I tend to get sick at the change of seasons, and we'd be at my grandmother's this time of year for Rosh Hashanah. My paternal grandparents lived fifteen minutes away but we only saw them on holidays. So that's just what I think of in the fall when I'm sick.

I think about her when I go through Entertainment magazine, the issue with the Fall TV line-up. I think about what she'd be watching. I see a movie like Edge of Seventeen and know she would've loved it. E and I watch America's Got Talent and I know who she'd be rooting for to stay, and who she'd be happy to see go. I think about how she would've kvelled over a multi-room DVR, how it would've just made her life. Knowing it would be at 98% at any given time. 

I don't remember the date of her deathiversary. I think it's Oct 2nd. I know Sept 30th is the day she had surgery, so it must be the 2nd. I know it's soon, as is her birthday. I'm sure someone will remind me when it is though, as usual- seeing as someone will probably write on her Facebook page and it will come up in my feed. Or one of my three thousand contacts, that no longer have names attached in my phone, will inevitably send me a text that they're thinking of me. Then I'll say back, "thank you, I really appreciate it, but I have no idea who this is...." like I've had to do in the past. When I got my iPhone before this one, the names were magically removed from my contacts. It's great that I never have any idea who's texting me so it's like a game. Sometimes the name comes back, sometimes comes up as a nickname I didn't put in there, mostly just a number. Always a crapshoot.

I don't really have much else to say. But these anniversaries of death in the fall come up, and I feel like I'm forced to think about them. I hate fall. I hate fall because it means the end of summer. I don't hate fall because of death. Fall, by definition is death, so really, what better time for it? Flowers die, leaves fall, it gets cold and bitter. Let's get everything death related out in one season. I just don't really like to think about it. I'm not particularly sad or angry. I don't think about this all day. I don't need a hug. I'm the same as I am any other time. Just maybe thinking about her more. Other people might pour one out for their loved one. Have a drink to them. That wouldn't do it for her. Maybe I'll just make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for someone else and lick the knife while making it, do a little dance to Michael Jackson, while wearing a scrunchie and give someone random incorrect facts to celebrate her properly.