Bits and Pieces From a Fallen Catholic

Memory was born as a dream.

It was my “fozey” dream, because it had that awful, ugly sound. I thought that if I could describe it, I could make it go away. I didn’t know the words. Always it came when I was sick.  Always the same.

Finally, I knew the words. I could say that in the dream, I had to get through a doorway,  but I was carrying a huge mass of wallpaper cleaner  that was so heavy, it was crushing me. I used all the strength I had, straining to lift that spongy pink stuff that smelled of ether. I had to carry it with toothpicks, and I HAD to get through, but it was smothering me. It kept getting heavier and heavier until I couldn’t breathe.

Then I’d wake up, gasping and crying.

With the words, the dream began to fade, no longer a physical memory. Normal nightmares took over.

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Awake now, my first  memory is of hanging on to the bars of my crib, looking at  pictures on the wall in front of my nose.

Two little children were walking across a rainbow bridge. I looked all over the wall for different scenes, wondering what happened next. Where were the children going, and what did they do there?  But all of the pictures were just the same, their story left untold.

There was a window on one side, and on the other, an open door. Behind me, the big bed, into which I would someday graduate. Then I’d be a “Grownup.”

But for now, I was just little.

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My mother came with a ready-made store bought mind.

I don’t think she ever changed it in her life. Maybe they left out the part that makes you think. Sometimes, if she was worn down by irrefutable logic, she would “give in,” and then sulk for awhile.  Then she did the necessary repairs, and recast her brain in its proper mold.

The thing is, everyone who knew her appeared to like and admire her. She was a nice person: attractive, outgoing, and with good taste in all things and behavior. She always remembered to say and do the right thing, socially.

It was the little things that annoyed me: the way she would sing out her “Yoo-hoo” on arrivals, like a wind-up doll. Or when she’d see a baby carriage and say, “Oh, see the cute baby!” (How did she know if it was cute? Or maybe the carriage was empty?)

Perhaps there were valid reasons for me to stay locked in Adolescent Gear with her. (That time in your life when you know your parents  are phonies and hypocrites who’ve never had the wits to experience a mental conflict, or a real, expanding emotion.) But I won’t go into that.

And I never wanted to hurt her.

So, when Paul suggested that she should come to live with us in her dotage, I was grateful. Grateful that it was HIS suggestion, and not mine, to invite the tension I knew would ensue.

She was feeble when she came, but soon made friends, and waxed for several years, while I waned. One day, while she was playing bridge with “the girls,”  she dropped dead.  One more week, and she’d have made it to 90.

And she’d been practical. Never as devout in her faith as Dad, she’d ignored the Church’s edict and arranged for cremation. Junior was to get her ashes, which he did.  But once he had them, they never showed up again.

Who knows where Mother is? Or if she ever was?

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