Does This Beach Make Me Look Fat?: True Stories and Confessions (9 page)

If only there was a
ritardando
in real life. But you can't hold on to one minute longer than any other. And the more you try, the faster the minutes seem to go.

I thought of all that those hands had done for me. How many meals had they prepared? How many other babysitters served homemade ravioli as an afterschool snack? How many times had they stroked my hair? Touched my cheek? How many gestures of love can a lifetime hold?

In my grandmother's case, countless.

So I held on to her hands while she slept. And I whispered to her, told her things, some important and some mundane, some I'd said a thousand times before, some I'd never said 'til then.

I hoped she could feel in my hands the love returned to her, the lessons learned, the strength she'd instilled in me now trying to be strong for her.

I always admired my grandmother's combination of grit and warmth, she could be tough and tender, hard and soft.

Although she was all soft with me.

She loved without rough edges.

After some time she woke up, or maybe she hadn't been asleep at all, and she ran her thumb over her fingertips. She smiled. “Good,” she told me, and she blew me a kiss.

I wondered if she had heard me say that I loved her enough to hope she could let go.

Even though I wanted to hold her hands a while longer.

 

Mother Mary and Frank Sinatra

By Lisa

I'm sorry to have to write that Mother Mary has passed, and we are all deeply, profoundly shocked and heartbroken.

I don't want this to veer into the maudlin, so I won't elaborate on our emotions. You know them if you've been there, or if you have a heart.

But permit me to say one last thing on the subject.

It's my last word.

On her last words.

Let me begin by saying that all of us, including my mother, were surprised when we found out she had late-stage lung cancer and that her death was imminent. Her kind pulmonologist explained it all to her carefully, so she knew the end was near. But another doctor happened to mention the term “end-of-life” care, which went over like a lead balloon, one of Mother Mary's favorite expressions. When we got home, her throat hurt too much to talk, so we got her a Sharpie and dry-erase board, and the first thing she wrote, in large letters, was: DON'T SAY ANYTHING ABOUT END OF LIFE AROUND HERE.

So we didn't.

And when a visitor asked her how she was feeling, she wrote, OUTSIDE OF ALL THIS CRAP, I'M DOING FINE.

And to one of her friends, Nino, she wrote, SEE YOU IN THE SUMMER.

Secretly, I kept wondering if she was in denial about her own death. I'm a bookish sort, so I read the pamphlet they gave us from hospice, which advised that the terminally ill often want to talk with loved ones about the important events of their lives, offer them parting gifts or mementos, or say good-bye in a variety of other ways.

Mother Mary did none of these things.

She hadn't read the pamphlet.

And even so, she wasn't the type of woman to do anything by the book.

During her last few days, I used to lie awake at night, worrying that she wasn't going to have the typical, or normal, death, whatever that is. We weren't going to say good-bye, like in the pamphlets or the movies. I was fine with that, but I worried that if she didn't accept her own death, would she be fearful when it came?

Thankfully, no, she wasn't.

She was dozing, under a dose of morphine that eased her pain but not her senses. She squeezed my brother's hand one last time, three squeezes that were her signal for I Love You.

Those were her last words.

In retrospect, I realize that Mother Mary knew she was ill, but she wasn't ready to accept death, offer us mementos, or say good-bye.

Why?

Because she had hope.

And she kept that alive.

Mother Mary did it her way and always kept us laughing.

And in return, hope kept her alive, for much longer than the doctors expected.

She didn't provide us the storybook final scene as she passed from this earth, but it wasn't supposed to be about our comfort. It wasn't about us at all, or the pamphlets or the movies.

It was about her, and she faced death the way she confronted life—on her terms.

It won't surprise you to know that her favorite singer was Frank Sinatra and her favorite song, “My Way.”

In all things, she did it her way.

She wouldn't concede to cancer. The only way it would win was to beat her, and in the end, she still won.

Disease took her body, but not her soul.

Her spirit was full of hope and life.

Her last words were about love.

This will be my last word on the sadness and grief on the subject of her passing. From now on, I choose to write about her the way we all knew her—funny, strong, sassy, and full of life. Francesca and I have received an incredible outpouring of sympathy cards, emails, Facebook posts, and donations, and it's a comfort to see that many of our readers loved Mother Mary and saw their own mothers in her, through the stories that Francesca and I wrote about her. We are overwhelmed with gratitude by them, as Mother Mary would be. It's testament to the kindness of our readers, as well as to the power of books.

And I promise there will be more Mother Mary stories, because she was full of surprises. After all, it was only recently that I discovered her real name was Maria, not Mary.

So stay tuned and see what's in store.

In the end, Mother Mary will get the last laugh.

 

Who Needs It?

By Francesca

Sometimes life throws you too much to process at once. After I broke up with my boyfriend of two years, I barely had enough time to tell my friends when, just five days later, my mom called me to say that my grandmother, Mother Mary, was being hospitalized in Pennsylvania. I left my apartment and went home that day.

At first I didn't know how bad things were; none of us did. In the waiting room at the ER, my uncle and I caught up casually, and I mentioned the breakup.

“Don't tell Mom, okay?” my uncle requested. “I don't want her to hear anything to upset her.”

I frowned. I didn't agree the news would disappoint my grandmother; she had liked my boyfriend, but she wasn't so traditional as to fret over my marriage prospects. As a two-time divorc
é
e herself, she had excellent perspective on romantic woes.

But at that moment the doctor called us in with the results of her CAT scan and radiographs, and then I remember him saying those words that blot out other thought:

Lung cancer. Metastasized. Advanced.

And those that still echo the loudest: “a matter of weeks.”

The rest of her life measured in weeks. It seemed absurd.

It was impossible to process.

My grandmother, however, was just happy the doctors said she could go home.

While the three of us cared for her at my mother's house, my grandmother handled everything with grace and her characteristic humor, but little sentimentality. We were given a pamphlet that encouraged hospice caregivers to reminisce with their loved ones and ask for stories of the past. But my grandmother would have none of it.

She didn't want to look at old photo albums, and she didn't want to say anything approaching a goodbye. She refused to lie in a bed, so instead we set up camp on the couch.

But our family is Italian, so trying to get our relatives to tone down their emotions was a different story. For them, overcooking the eggplant is reason enough for tears. Learning our matriarch was in hospice called for opera.

So our family members visiting from South Philly were crying before we opened the door. But then, so were we.

Seeing relatives file in made it real; they were coming to say goodbye.

I busied myself with the trays of food—of course, we had food—so that they'd have some time alone with my grandmother.

Imagine my surprise when a few minutes later, I heard laughter. I brought in the tray of snacks.

“Look what she wrote!” Aunt Nana said when I came in. She held up my grandmother's whiteboard:

“Did you bring the Dago red?”—slang for homemade Italian wine. Then my grandmother snatched it back, and added, “I'll give you $100 for two quarts.”

Her messages were so charming and funny, my family started taking pictures of them. That set off my grandmother's maudlin-meter, so her messages got increasingly profane.

I now have Kodak moments of my relatives holding signs with messages of hope, such as: “Eat Shit.”

Suitable for framing.

My grandmother entertained our extended family for several hours, holding court the way she always did. As they were leaving, one relative jokingly scolded us for “scaring” them by saying she was close to the end, when she “clearly” had plenty more time.

She didn't.

Her decline happened whether we were ready for it or not. My grandmother soon became too tired for many visitors. Her waking hours became fewer. Her handwriting on the whiteboard became more slanting and wiggly. Her speech became very difficult.

Though I could usually understand.

One day, my mom convinced my uncle to get out of the house with her, and I took care of my grandmother by myself. She wanted to nap on the couch with the television on and her feet in my lap, and I was more than happy to oblige. I was thrilled to know what exactly she wanted and to be able to do it, for a change. So, I sat still as a statue, as she slept to the lullaby of her favorite shows—
Judge Alex, Judge Judy, Divorce Court.

I must say,
Divorce Court
is an excellent program.

When she woke, I prepared a balanced lunch of her specific request: lukewarm coffee, Sprite, light beer, Milano cookies, and a variety of sorbets.

We were rocking hospice.

After lunch, she wanted to sit up for a while. I wanted to give her a conversational break from answering the same questions about her health: Are you okay? Are you hungry? Are you thirsty? Do you have to go to the bathroom? She was ailing, I knew, but she was still in there.

And knowing her as I do, I thought she might be bored.

But the only thing non-hospice related that I could come up with was my breakup. Not because I wanted to unburden myself—any part of my life a few weeks ago seemed miles and miles away—but I wanted to talk to her without taxing her.

So I commenced a monologue. I didn't know if she was listening, but occasionally she would nod, so I barreled on. I explained the lead-up to the breakup, the first signs of trouble, the ways I tried to fix it, the ways it couldn't be fixed, the things I'll miss most, the things I did wrong, and what I'll try to do better next time.

I was rambling.

Until my grandmother stopped me and motioned for her whiteboard. I held it steady for her while she inscribed, slow enough to build suspense:

“Motto—Who Needs It???”

Then she burst out laughing, which made me crack up, and we both dissolved into a fit of giggles.

Who needs it?
In other words,
enough, let it go, next.

Toward the end of my relationship with my boyfriend, I had been consumed with considering every angle of interpretation, every possible misstep I might have taken, every potential outcome that didn't come true. But with one simple phrase, my grandmother had offered an instant dose of perspective.

Perspective doesn't mean seeing all; it means seeing what matters.

My grandmother had never been the most reflective person. She couldn't afford to be. Growing up in very difficult circumstances taught—or forced—her to act instead of ponder, to escape instead of fix, and to move on instead of regret. This may not be the perfect way to live, but it was the only way she could survive.

I grew up the child of several troubled marriages. I am the watcher, the thinker, the healer. I read people, I adapt, I fix—or try to. And if it fails, I stew on all the ways it could've gone differently. This is not always a bad way to be.