tonycliff
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A personal post, a cautionary tale.
🕑 Added 2021-11-04 18:23:04 +0000 UTCThis is a cautionary tale, and is a personal story about my mother’s death. It is not gruesome, but you might not want to read something like that, for a whole variety of very good reasons.
I am not asking for condolences. On the other hand, I have discovered that it can lighten your heart to connect with others who have had similar experiences, and to share your own. If you feel like doing so in the comments below, you are more than welcome to, of course.
This post is perhaps not “on brand,” and I don’t feel especially well-suited to this sort of thing, but my reasons for posting it should be self-evident. I wrote it as a sort of anniversary marker, but coincidentally, there is not a lot to look at on the DD4 front, since I’m in the process of transferring my thumbnails to the big sheets.
I share it with you, Dear Reader, partially because DD4 is a book with themes of “family,” partially to poke at the idea of story-craft brushing up against our lives, but primarily to make a simple request, as you will see.
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My mother died a year ago. It was as sudden and unexpected as it could possibly have been. One dark, wet November evening, my partner and I were sitting on the couch eating dumplings, about a third of the way into the first episode of THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT, when we received a phone call from my father. The kind of phone call you know, logically, that people receive, but that I certainly did not ever expect to receive, not for a long long time, ideally not ever. We drove to my parents’ house, where I was very unavoidably confronted with the fact that my mother was no longer alive, and I was overwhelmed by feelings of, “I thought I would have more time.”
Our baby was brand new, only a few months old, and his grandmother was so excited about him that her concern and enthusiasm could have swallowed the globe. I was looking forward to seeing the new and novel ways in which she would spoil him, and how happy he would make her, over the years. It is a cruel tragedy that she should know him for only so short a while, and that he will never know her. We can only mourn the relationship my mother and her grandson might have had. This, and what the loss means for my father, are the two things that make me most sad, and are the most out of my control.
There is a third aspect that nags me, though. My mother and I had our disagreements and problems, and I would have liked to work through them at some point. Nothing crazy, just the little conflicts a family accumulates over the years. I wish I had got in the habit of returning her phone calls more promptly. And every day, now, it hurts me to think that my mother may not have known how much I loved her, not with the certainty she ought to have. I worry that she doubted, and there is much I would trade for one last, tiny opportunity to put any doubt to rest.
When did I think might be a good time to work through those problems and grievances, or to offer more of my heart to her? What was I waiting for? Did I imagine some sort of third act to both our lives in which all those loose threads would be tied up? Have I swallowed such a regular and monotonous diet of three-act entertainments that I believed this would be the pattern of my life? Was I saving heart-warming scenes for “the denouement,” whenever that might be? I cannot say for certain, but I am open to the possibility.
So I offer this encouragement to you, Dear Reader: if, for some reason, there is a loose thread dangling between yourself and someone else, and you can imagine it being tied-up one day, why wait? I have told you this story. You have read it. If even just one person is able to avoid a repeat of my experience, I will be happy. Heal a wound that can be healed. Bridge a gap that can be bridged. Send a message you’ve been scared to send. It might be difficult—very difficult—I know. And some wounds can’t be healed, and some kinds of closure can only truly be accomplished alone. I trust you to do what’s appropriate.
Story-craft tells us that disasters are foreshadowed, that great doom is preceded by thunderclouds and a flock of crows. And while stories can both reflect and shape our lives, life rarely respects dramatic conventions. If you are used to thinking in terms of story, or unravelling dramatic threads (either as a writer or an avid reader), beware the mistake of thinking your life can similarly be plotted. Please, consider it a personal favour to me: do not wait for page one-hundred and fifteen—for some imagined, ideal time—to reassure your mother that you love her.
Comments
Eva Volin
Advice taken. Thanks for this, Tony.
My dad died in a similarly sudden way five years ago (I got two phone calls, spaced thirty minutes apart, one "he is suddenly in a bad way and is en route to the hospital," and then "he is gone"), so I know how this goes. My condolences.
