Winning The Lottery With Mom
Yesterday afternoon, on a trip to our local Kroger’s, I saw my elderly mother wheeling her cart at the far end of an aisle. I knew, of course, that this vision of mine was really just someone else’s frail, white-haired parent, but from a distance, she seemed to be my own. I wanted to put my hand up, wave to her and call out her name. Sadly, the idea that she could be mine was not rooted in any kind of reality because Mom had died some ten years back. Nevertheless, this didn’t stop me from seeing her again and again in a fantasy that both tantalized me and caused me pain simultaneously. The sight of her quite simply made my heart beat triple-time.
It was never the physical resemblance alone that stopped me from pushing my own cart any further. Most days, when I spied one of my mother’s doppelgängers––whether in front of the grocery’s Jell-O shelves, or while checking the price on the Butternut bread––it was the store coupons the look-alike had clenched in her fist that prompted me to pause and stare at her out the corner of my eye. These mirror images of Mom clutched the little slips as if each were a hot lottery ticket ready to be redeemed. Just as my mother had, each of these ladies pulled the coupons one by one out of their little cloth envelopes in which she’d organized them (all presumably alphabetized).
On this particular shopping jaunt, I behaved as I usually did whenever such a sighting occurred. I casually wheeled my cart down the aisle and parked far enough behind her so as not to create a four-wheeler jam. Once there, I watched her slow movements as she carefully added items to her mostly empty cart; and smiled to myself when she reached for a can of soup. Low-sodium, I guessed silently. And it looks as if she’s cooking for one.
Despite my impulse to walk past and take a quick peek at her face, an impulse that was very familiar by now, I knew better than to venture too close. Not only would I risk scaring the poor dear, but my daydream about my mother’s return would be forced to a quick end.
So, instead, I just waited for the expected scold, an internal one, to sound in my mind. The reproof came fast––even before this day’s stand-in had time to shuffle to the end of the row, turn, and then disappear. Jeez, give it up, already! the voice chided. Stalking little old ladies? That’s really weird. What was unusual on this day, however, was what happened next: rather than brushing off the rebuff, I began to ponder these covert admonishments more seriously: Aren’t you just fooling yourself into thinking that you’ve truly accepted your loss? Maybe you haven’t done such a hot job in letting Mom go, after all.
Like so many daughters, my relationship with my mother had been emotionally complicated. In my memoir, In Pursuit of Radio Mom, I share the way I’d longed for a loving embrace; however, her undiagnosed mental illness––consisting of a sharp depression and violent temper––resulted in a painful rejection of both me and my needs. Shouldn’t I have assumed, then, that the entire grief process would have been tangled, too?
Yet, in the book, I examine more than our interactions, which were so marked with pain. After many years of hard work in therapy—the process by which I dived deep into my emotional past—I eventually developed a relationship with my mother wherein she could risk expressing her love for me in small ways and also accept mine for her. In fact, by the time of her passing, I had been reaping the benefits of a deep sense of healing on an emotional level. This included a more openhearted love for my Mom, beginning with the onset of her late years and continuing right up to her death. My sadness in losing her, tender as it was, did not approach the all-encompassing grief I’d felt as a child reaching out for a mother who did not—who could not—reach back.
Several days after spotting the Kroeger’s apparition, I was out in the yard raking the last leaves of autumn up into a heap; all these thoughts were buzzing through my mind once again as I finally ditched the “daughter who fails to let go of her parent” hypothesis as the motivating factor for my Mom-Not-Mom encounters. The topography of my life, I reminded myself, had changed significantly in the decade she’d been gone: I did not feel mired in a grief which left me yearning for her, or a longing for her that felt unbearable, or—most especially—painful emotions that would make it impossible to move forward in my life.
As I pulled wrinkled leaves out from under the bushes, I began thinking, too, about an article I’d read some time ago which described a “continuing bonds” theory of grieving. It challenged the traditional and more popular model of grief which emphasizes “letting go.” It proposes instead the importance of maintaining strong and vibrant emotional connections to those loved ones who are lost to us.
Over the course of the afternoon, a new perspective began to hit me: by the time I’d pulled a dozen lawn bags to the curb, a different explanation began to seem entirely reasonable and didn’t seem “pathological” at all. It also seemed much closer to the truth I had been experiencing during my “crazy” episodes in the supermarket: Isn’t it something akin to nostalgia that leads to your interest in these strangers who carry “pocketbooks?” my inner critic asked. Surely it was nostalgia that led me to remember those oversized purses that all elderly ladies hooked over their arms—even if they were half empty. Surely these bags—generally made of vinyl—were, like Florence Crylen’s, mostly loaded with tissues and hard candies, as well as a checkbook and plastic pen. Isn’t the truth a simple one,” my inner critic then answered herself. Doesn’t observing a certain type of aged woman present an opportunity to hang out, for a bit, at the edge of your memory lane?
Now, as I stood at the edge of the street with my rake and watched the sun begin its dip below the horizon, memories of carting my arthritic Mom to the food market flowed into my mind. I remembered how, (with Mom stubborn in her quest to feel in control), these frequent excursions to go shopping nearly always began with an offer from me: Let me run to the store for you! I’d exclaim, to which she’d deadpan, Oh God, no, I can’t trust you to shop for the sales.
A warning came next, delivered on our arrival as we walked through the glass doors together: Now don’t try to rush me, Terry, she’d say, and then add, don’t go throwing food that I don’t need into the basket. A moment later, she’d wave me off toward the meat counter to fetch a pound of ground round as a way of getting rid of me in case I interrupted her harmonizing with the groceries on the shelves. Fifteen items and forty-five minutes later, she’d peer at her shopping list one last time before looking up and noticing me. Okay, now I’m all set! she’d tell me in a soft voice.
This morning, I am surrounded by reminders of my mother: a picture of her in my study; the vase of fresh roses on a coffee table the color of the ones from her yard; her worn wooly sweater, kept at home for the days in winter when I am chilled.
For us all, there are countless private rituals, and conversations with those who are cherished but gone, as well as visits to places we both went together. For so many who have traveled through the process of grieving, these represent the emotional links to those we’ve loved and still miss, even after a great deal of time may have passed.
Today, I have no plans to take a spin through Kroger’s. No need for an impromptu sighting of a faux Mom. But am I inclined to take a few moments to visit in silence with my own? Tell her once more how sad it was to see her struggle, but how much I admired her tenacity? Tell her again that I still have to laugh at how uncompromising she could be? Yes, yes, and yes.
Likely, when I visit with her in my mind next, I won’t bring up that she shouldn’t hold out hope for me redeeming a coupon for a box of Shake ‘N Bake—ever. But I will remind her that at any given time, I carry with me a long market list of memories, just as she once carried her beloved clippings from the supermarket’s circular in her purse no matter where she went. Through the gift of remembering, I grasp tight a fistful of nostalgia. And treat it like the lottery win it is.