Half my life

This morning I participated in a 5-mile trail run. For me it was more of a 5-mile walk/occasional jog, as I haven't really trained and my pre-race carb-loading yesterday consisted of several pints of Blue Moon and 2 pieces of toast, with about a pack of cigarettes thrown in.

On my way to the park, Writers Almanac came on the radio and Garrison Keillor reminded me that today is March 8. It's the anniversary of my mom's death. A couple of months ago I realized that this year is the 18th anniversary, meaning that my mom hasn't been there, at least not physically, for half my life.

Shortly after the race started, I passed two women who were hurriedly walking back to their car. Both were crying, and one was on her phone, telling someone they would be there as soon as they could. She hung up and wailed, "We should have left yesterday!" and they both broke down sobbing. Today's going to be somebody else's anniversary, too, I thought.

I choked back tears, remembering the day my brother called my dorm room and told me I might want to come to the hospital. There was no urgency in his voice, and he told me to be careful and not to hurry. When I got to the hospital 2 hours later and got off the elevator on the second floor, the door to the room where my mom had spent most of the previous 3 months was closed. A nurse met me and told me my mom had died and that my family had gone home.

To this day, I don't know what time she died, whether or not I could have made it to the hospital in time to tell her goodbye. I don't want to know, and I'd already told her everything I needed to, knowing every time I left her to go back to school might be the last time I saw her.

For the rest of the walk this morning, on the snow-covered trails along the river, I thought about her, playing that "What would she think of me?" game. It's hard to imagine what it would be like to have her in my life now, to imagine what our relationship would be like.

A few months ago, I ordered some hand lotion from Avon. As soon as I opened it, I realized it was the same kind my mom used to use. It smells like her. It's rare to find those tangible connections to her anymore, something like the car she drove or the purse she carried or the lipstick she wore. Mostly she's just there in my memories, which fade and blur with time.

In the years before she died, my mom and I butted heads a lot, as do many teenagers and parents. I got her wide smile, bright eyes and brains, but my dad's stubbornness and appetite for mischief. That poor woman. I know she grew exasperated with my pretty much constant trouble-making. I didn't do anything that the older 4 kids hadn't done before me. It's just that I did everything all 4 of them did.

There were lots of fender-benders and ignored curfews and coming home tipsy and suspicious stories about where I'd been and who I'd been with and how exactly my back ended up covered with poison ivy. She'd never grounded any of the other kids, but as a result of her mostly unsuccessful attempt to control my behavior, I spent most of my senior year of high school grounded. It didn't really slow me down much. With school, sports and a 30-hour-a-week job at the grocery store, I wasn't home much anyway.

In the year or so before she died, our relationship had begun to mature. On nights I had to work (which was most nights), she'd make a dinner plate for me and leave it in the fridge so I'd have something to eat when I got home around 10. Sometimes she would get me little gifts. Nothing much, just trinkets like a keychain or a book of cookie recipes. I loved them all--they made me feel very special and very loved, at a time when I mostly felt awkward and unhappy. I never left the house without giving my mom a hug and telling her I loved her, even though my family didn't do that kind of thing.

She was my biggest, and sometimes only, supporter. I was a monumental underachiever, and she kept encouraging me to reach higher. At the end of my completely dismal first semester of college, I told her I thought it might be best if I came back home. My grades were awful, and she was getting sicker. She told me to tough it out one more semester, that she'd talked to lots of people who said the first semester at my school was really hard. I remember being surprised that she talked that much about me with other people.

At the end, after the cancer had spread to her brain and she was on a morphine pump, I spent a couple of rough nights at the hospital when the doctors weren't sure if she'd make it till morning. Most of the time I had to sit in the waiting area just outside her room, because whenever she'd wake up a little and see me, she'd ask me what I was doing there, and tell me that I needed to be at school and I should go back.

At about mile 4 this morning, I decided that if she were still around, things probably wouldn't be much different between us. We'd still butt heads sometimes over how I live my life, and she'd still be my biggest supporter, the one encouraging me to make use of my talents and to not just coast through life just because I can.

Toward the end of the walk, the sun came out a little and the wind died down. It turned out to be a great morning to take a hike and clear the cobwebs out of my head. And although it might have looked like I was by myself, I wasn't. It was nice to have the company.