Thirty Last Days and the Lost Lottery Ticket

How could I be angry at my dying mother? But I was and it made me feel guilty. It wasn’t right, but it was honest. Let me tell you how it happened.

I’ll never forget the day before it all started: one of the worst days of my life. Even the weather seemed to echo the events to follow. The dark and gloomy clouds hid the usually shining sun, while rain fell heavily from the sky, making the soggy ground even more wet, adding to the brown mud and large puddles splattered across my entire back yard. My mother was, as usual, writing in that peculiar little black book she always kept with her; the one which I have always found odd, with the blue leather strap and black cover; you don’t know, but it was the one she wrote all the winning lottery numbers in, thinking there was a secret formula in the random patterns and she would be the one to find it. She had been writing in it for at least a few years now.

That day, March 20th, however, was different.

Mother usually stayed here at home because she was old and there wasn’t much for her to do outside. I ran all the errands to meet our needs, but sometimes I still worried about her when I’m at work and had left her alone. People said we looked nothing alike, my mother and I. She was in her early seventies, an elegant build, luxurious, fair hair which seemed to glisten in the neon light of day, a usual faint wisp of an expression, not a laugh, not even a slight smile, and yet I always had a sense of comfort from her look. Her gorgeous light blue eyes reminded me of a bright sky, and according to her, in her youth her eyes had been a deep blue, but as she had gotten older, they had gotten lighter. I never could quite tell if she was telling the truth, for pictures of her youth were either lost or without colour.

She was kind and smart, funny and graceful. In short, she was – well, she was perfect. But old age had gotten the better of her, and her memory had begun to fray, she was always forgetting this and forgetting that, seeming to be stuck at the mental age of 25, the age she often talked about as her golden age, but also tended to forget it was over. She talked of Lizzie and Sarah, speaking of them as though she had conversed with them only yesterday, forgetting they had cut ties over 10 years ago.

As for me? I was … To put it frankly, I was nowhere near perfect. My hair, unlike hers, was dark, tangled and constantly greasy, no matter how many times I combed it, or washed it. My eyes were an emerald green, which may have perhaps been bright, if they were not overshadowed by the bags under my eyes. My mother often noticed this, and always told me, “Don’t overwork yourself, Cynthia,” to which I always replied, “Well, someone’s got to put a roof over our heads!” I usually said this in a temper, and felt guilty afterwards, but I still made this mistake multiple times.

My stature was a thin build, small and scrawny. I’m not really that funny, and whereas other people have talents such as art or music, I had none of that. I was just an average person - no, an under-average person, at an under-average job.

It was March 20th, 1998, that day. I remember it well. She had not been herself recently and for the first time in months, even years, my mother stood by the door, ready to leave the house.

“Where are you going?” I asked, head tilted in a slightly aggressive manner, with an accusatory tone.

“Oh, just somewhere.” she replied, picking up her black handbag and matching little black book, and for the first time, I felt no warmth through her expression. I wrinkled my eyebrows in confusion, but said nothing, just giving a slight nod. I collapsed back on the sofa. Where was she going? And, why had her eyes been so - so empty?

I had my chores and needed to go grocery shopping. By the time I came back, I noticed mother was already home, the car was parked in the wet drive. My shopping trip had not been an enjoyable one, and I was soaked with rain after having stumbled over a stone in the road and dropping a few of the items I had bought.

When I came back, I was in for a surprise.

When I reached the kitchen, I noticed the black book on the table, and that was my first clue, because my mother never, never left her black book simply lying around, but it was there, and I walked over, noticing a type of form - a medical form underneath the book. I glanced quickly at the form, gasped, and dropped my groceries.

My mother had terminal cancer.

It was a shock, and it hurt. It hit me hard, and I nearly broke down before I heard my mother coming down the stairs.

“What’s this?” I ask angrily, waving the notebook in her face. I didn’t really understand why I was angry. “When were you planning to tell me? After you died? Did you think I wouldn’t find out? I wouldn’t notice if you were here one day and gone the next?” As I was about to put the notebook down, something fell out. What was that? Was it a lottery ticket?

“Are you kidding me? This is what you’re wasting time thinking about? A lottery ticket?” I sighed, realizing what I just said, and my mother turned to leave. “Wait! I didn’t mean to say that.”

Mother turned back for a second and looked back at me. I motioned for her to come sit with me next to the table.

“Tell you what,” I said, “If we win this one, I’ll take you everywhere before you die. Remember, how you always wanted to see that famous gallery? We can go there, and so many other places -”

“Cynthia, don’t waste the money on me! I’m already half dead. When I’m gone, you enjoy it...if we win. You can get a new, bright start.”

“No, mother. I’m not the only one who should get to enjoy it. We can enjoy it together.”

She sighed, saying nothing. I quickly changed the subject, and asked, “I’ve been meaning to say this for a while. Why do you keep the numbers in that book? You’ve been doing it for ages.”

“Oh, that!” she said, smiling, that warm expression returning to her face. “Well, you see, it did take a while, but I finally figured it out. There’s a pattern to the lottery numbers. And this will be the winning ticket. Don’t say I didn’t tell you!”

“Ok,” I smiled, but it was hard to hold that smile, when I knew my mother was dying.

“Look,’ she said, happily, “I put the numbers in my notebook and wrote them on the ticket!”

That weekend, my mother came shouting, “Come, quick! They’re going to announce this month’s lottery numbers!” She had the notebook, opened, on the page, her hands trembling.

“For a prize of $20,000! The numbers for this month are…..1…….9…….2…..7….3..8!” cried the TV host.

“We - We - Mother, we won!” I screamed for joy, jumping around the living room as though I was a child again. “Quick, where’s the ticket? Let’s check…”

“Wait - I thought I gave it to you!” my Mother said.

“No, no, remember? I tried to ask for it, but you just wouldn’t give it! You folded the ticket and placed it carefully in that notebook of yours,” I paused, “Oh, no, you didn’t lose it, did you, mother?” I was angry. I grabbed the notebook from her. It had the numbers on the last page and in big capital letters it said: ENJOY!

“Enjoy?” I said, ”Enjoy what!?”

Do you understand my anger now? I can’t believe she did that!

My mother had forgotten something important again! I remember, when I was in 8th Grade, I had a very important project due that day, and if I didn’t hand it in I would get an F.

“Oh no! Mother, it doesn’t fit in the car!” I had said, in a moany, discontented high-pitched voice.

“Don’t worry, Cindy! I’ll bring it later, I’ll figure something out!” my mother replied.

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“OK, just make sure you bring it by 11!” I said, worrying.

“Alright, alright. Let’s go now, school starts soon!”

But 11 came, and then 12, and then 1 and by 2 school was over and I had gotten an F.

After my mother lost the ticket, we spent hours, days searching for it. Even when she became confined to bed, instead of spending time with her, I spent all the time looking for the ticket. In searching for it, I had forgotten the true purpose of winning that lottery to begin with - to make her happy. The little time I did spend with her was shouting at her for losing that ticket. One day, it sank in that the days had gone by quickly, and I realized a month had passed, my mother had continued to deteriorate and I finally came to my senses, and ran upstairs to apologize to mother for being so harsh.

“Mother, I -” I entered the room, and found my mother lying in her bed, eyes wide open. “Mother? Mother!” I cried, rushing over and quickly checking her pulse, only to find no heartbeat.

I stumbled, dizzy and shocked. Gone - she was gone - and yet, even after the funeral. I found myself expecting her to be there when I got home, seated in the living room. It was an odd, negative feeling at first - but it was one I soon identified as regret. Regret that I had shouted at her, regret I had hurt her, regret - plain, pure, painful regret. When I got home, it was empty, cold, silent. Everything she had made warm about it was now gone: the lights seemed dull, the wood creaky and my bed no longer able to keep me warm. I couldn’t take it, but as I was clearing my mother’s room, I noticed something. The black notebook! It was open to its final page, and written in large letters, in what was clearly my mother’s handwriting, it said:

ENJOY!

Again, I thought to myself: enjoy? Enjoy what? What did that mean? I smiled. That was my favourite thing about mother, she rarely made sense, but she always made me laugh. That’s what made me grin. Then my lips began to tremble, my eyes began to water, and tears cascaded down my face like a waterfall, and even though I had finally broken, afterwards it felt good. Before this, I had felt pent up, trapped, I suppose was preventing my emotions from coming through, but now that was gone. I forgot about that lottery ticket, as the whole purpose of it was to make mother happy.

Still, the words in the notebook puzzled me. Finally, on Saturday, as I usually do, I went to go check the mail. I found a letter - but it was different from others. The name on the back was handwritten, and most of the letters I got nowadays weren’t, and it was sealed with – was that a heart sticker?

I opened the envelope, and out fell the lottery ticket! I stared at it with shock, before reading the note in the envelope:

I said, ENJOY!

Love,

Mother