Bare but far from Barren

My mom and I were driving home one winter evening. We were on our way home from getting groceries for the week, this was our Monday ritual. As we drove along the familiar road I stared at the windshield. I was lost in thought looking over it’s frost-covered edges at the intricate patterns the ice crystals had formed while we had been inside shopping. I watched as the growing heat from inside the car radiated onto the glass, causing them to slowly shrink and recede into droplets. It was a common winter pastime of mine when lost in thought. I began thinking about how excited I had been for this week's grocery haul in particular. Tomorrow marked the first day of the first full week of the new year, which meant tomorrow morning I would be feasting on toaster waffles and cantaloupe for breakfast. See, Mom liked to celebrate the first day of the first full week of every year with an over the top breakfast. It was her idea of starting the new year right.

She loved doing things like that, finding days or occurrences that seemed trite and making festivities out of them. She had told me about how her family couldn’t afford many things, and that they sometimes couldn’t even afford to get her a cake on her birthday. So, starting at a young age she made the decision that she would find all of the wonderful things worth feeling grateful for each day. When she and my father had me, she wanted to make sure I never had to struggle to search for the fleeting moments of joy that she had.

As I was growing up she would involve me in all sorts of sweet and amusing little festivities. From taking me to the amusement park all day when I officially became tall enough to ride the roller coasters, to throwing a baby shower for her cactus when she found out it was propagating. These moments may have appeared to be dull or vacant to the untrained eye, but to Mom they were “Hidden spectacles just waiting to spring forth!” as she would put it. The purpose behind her practice wasn’t to find excuses for grandiose parties, far from it. It was to bring attention and gratitude to the simple beauty that already exists within everyday life, should we choose to tune in to it.

Her talent for turning the monotonous into the magnificent was unsurprisingly the same reason she’d give when asked why she decided to become a seamstress. She enjoyed finding ways to draw out beauty from the mundane so much she made a career out of it. I had grown up watching her creative process as well as it’s execution. She could find inspiration in the most obscure places. She had this game she would play where she would critique the style of anything that happened to be in her line of sight at the moment. From commenting on the “avant-garde” of the neighborhood cat, to the “ je ne sais quoi” of the ivy growing on the side of our house.

My father on the other hand had never been in tune with his artistic side and would tend to keep his distance from Mom’s flamboyant hobbies and profession. As I got older, I began to distance myself from them as well. It wasn’t a huge deal, I had just been growing up and becoming increasingly aware that most boys weren’t attending baby showers for cacti or making fashion remarks on furniture. Mom was quick to catch on and she was sure to adjust events she planned with me in mind to best reflect the person I was at the time. The person I was at this time was ready to gorge on toaster-waffles and cantaloupe just to the verge of being sick, ungracefully navigating my way to the living room couch, collapsing there, and having Mom call me in from school due to an unforeseeable food comma if necessary. It was never foreseeable, always necessary, and just a few blocks and a night’s rest away from becoming a reality.

We were at the two lane intersection a few blocks from home waiting at the stop light. We had been sitting there for what had easily been five minutes at this point. Normally this light turned green within thirty to forty seconds of a red light, with the lengthiest waits being around two minutes. It was just my luck that it was now subjecting me to a grueling five minute wait and counting. No doubt my toaster waffles were beginning to thaw by now. This could spell disaster for any hope of properly toasting them. So what if I was sixteen? I wanted to have my annual poor life choices and eat them too, properly toasted of course.

The light changes and we finally get the green. As we were making our way across the intersection something goes impossibly, gut wrenchingly, life shatteringly wrong. The kind of wrong that no apology or understanding could ever amend. The kind of wrong that is so deep and so inescapable that nothing will ever feel right again. It was the kind of wrong that just struck the driver side of my mother's car going 60 in a 35. I had been staring off into the windshield the entire time. I didn’t even have a chance to react, let alone warn Mom. I had no idea what had just happened. My body felt like it was on fire. There was a sharp ringing in my ears accompanied by the muffled whistling of what sounded like a car alarm. I felt my body slipping out of consciousness. I stared intently at the traffic light that had annoyed me so much just moments ago. With the fleeting grip I had on my senses I watched the lights unceremoniously flicker cycle through. Yellow...Red…Green again, in a matter of thirty odd seconds. The last thought that entered my mind was simple: Why? as everything faded into dark.

When I finally came to, I found myself staring into a beige colored void which I would soon discover was a ceiling. My head was throbbing and I felt like I had been bucked in the ribs by a horse. I tried to lift myself upright to get a bearing of my surroundings but just moving caused the soreness in my chest to multiply and a burning sensation to radiate throughout my side. Yeah, not worth it. I thought dryly to myself. A trickling sound to my right caught my attention. I went to turn toward the source of the trickling but was again hindered by my injury. I winced, deciding it would be best to try and stick to head movements for the time being. I twist my head gently to my right, as to avoid any more unnecessary pain. I saw a metal pole with a bag of clear liquid attached at the top of it. The bag had a tube connected at the bottom that led down to my forearm. I had watched enough TV shows to assume I was in a hospital.

This allowed me to release a small amount of the tension my body was harboring. I tried to lift myself upright, but seven tries in I realized that any attempt to sit up caused my already burning torso to feel like it may rip in half were I to succeed. I let out what was intended to be a sigh of defeat but was far more analogous to the wheeze of a broken squeaky toy. I figured that since I would probably be there for a while that I might as well see what the other half of my field of view had to offer. Besides, I was in no rush to engage in a drawn out discussion with some nurse asking me an exhaustive list of barely relevant “on a scale of 1-10” questions.

I do my best to carefully maneuver my neck in such a way that wouldn’t result in any more pain than I was already in. I now found myself facing a window and an empty chair. The window had beige curtains pulled apart on either side of its large rectangular pane. To be honest, the view wasn’t shabby. It was snowing and there was a tree right outside the window. In fact it was sporting a great winter look. I felt mom’s influence get the best of me as I instinctually began making internal remarks on the tree outside. It was wearing glistening icicles of various shapes and sizes which hung from each branch. Snow had packed on to the entire top side of the tree, providing it with a shimmering white coat. Had I not known better I would have said it was adorned with brilliant amber gems running up and down the trunk. I did a double take, it took me a moment to figure out what I was looking at. Sap I confirmed to myself. Those golden nodules were the result of an overflow of the life force that would be responsible for jumpstarting the tree’s budding growth come spring time. It had so much to spare it was literally overflowing with the stuff. The tree may be bare of leaves but is far from barren. On a scale of 1-10, I give you a 9. I thought amusedly to myself.

My attention turned to the window itself. I looked over it’s frost-covered edges at the intricate ice crystals which had taken form. My stomach dropped. My heart started beating faster. A feeling of urgency suddenly washed over me. My mind began racing. Why was I struggling so much to remember what happened? Why was I in the hospital? What did I get myself into to be in this much pain? Most importantly, where was my mom? I start to piece the events together. I remember we were in the car, we were driving from the store, we were almost home, we were waiting for the light.

“Mom!” I cried out loud, snapping out of my train of thought. My body immediately shot upright. Just leaning forward should have put me through excruciating pain but the adrenaline that my body was now releasing had begun muting it to a numb heat. I had to find out where my mom was. I started shouting for help, for a doctor, a nurse, anyone passing by that could tell me where my mom was. It wasn’t long before my dad came into the room. I was so relieved to see him. We didn’t share a strong relationship, God knows it was nothing like what my mom and I had, but seeing a familiar face was such a relief. I tried to explain to him everything I could remember through heavy breathing. I told him that I was okay but that I had no idea where mom was. He didn’t say anything, he just wore that stoic expression he always had. I shot him a glare. I didn’t understand, how could he choose to be so impassive at a time like this? For the first time in my life I shouted at my father

“Dad, where is she?” It wasn’t much of a shout. My voice was hoarse and it was immediately followed by wincing, but I needed him to give a damn. I couldn't deal with his stone-cold, loner wolf, bullshit right now. The glare I had been giving him broke, when I looked him in the eyes and I saw something I had never seen from him before. He was crying. Tears began streaming down his face but he still held his stern expressionless face together.

The only thing that stumbled out of his mouth was “I’m so sorry Matthew.” I didn’t know it was possible for my stomach to sink as low as it could in that moment. This isn’t happening, it couldn’t possibly be true. We were going to celebrate the first full week of the year tomorrow. She was planning a baby shower for one of her succulents. Her birthday was next month.

I sat in silence with my dad for what felt like days but was probably only a few hours. I heard footsteps coming down the hall but I couldn’t be bothered. A woman came through the door, she said name was Dr. Moore and that she was the doctor who tried to resuscitate my mother. She spoke with a cold calculated tone, and her eyes looked tired and bleak. She stared me in the eyes and said "There was nothing we could do. You can find comfort in knowing that her death was immediate and that she didn't suffer" and with that she walked away without another word. I was seething inside. ‘You can find comfort in knowing.’ As if having this information about my now dead mother might somehow influence my well-being in any meaningful capacity. Why thank you Dr. Moore. Thank you for letting us know that we have your go ahead to 'find comfort' that my mother's death, while being horrifically unexpected and violent, was at least quick. Thank you for informing us that we can find comfort in the same monotonous tone a math teacher would insist to a student that they can find x. Most importantly, thank you for making it clear just how numb you've become to delivering this kind of devastating news to who knows how many families, thereby disillusioning me from any notion that this world contained any semblance of logic or sacredness to reliably hold on to. So, thank you Dr. Moore, thanks a lot, you're a real lifesaver.

It’s been four months since she passed. We postponed having a funeral in favor of having it in spring. May was her favorite month, you know what they say about April showers. I had been tasked with giving the eulogy. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to go up and say. I had a connection with my mom that no one else had and I guess that meant I would be the best person to write it. It’s weird, being the proverbial nail in the coffin to your own mother’s life. I could talk about all the ways she shaped me as a person, but I mean everyone’s parents do that. I mean that’s just a part of living. You can’t help but rub off on the people you live with.

I decided I would keep it to who every one remembered her as, because who she was remembered as was who she genuinely was. Who my mom was, was someone who would never have tolerated this being a mourning. She would demand it be a celebration of everything she brought to this life. A part of me is nervous to go up on that podium and look insane as I try to convince my extended family and her close friends that my mom would want this to be a celebration. But another part of me knows that anyone here who truly knew her, knew her like i knew her, understands that she wouldn’t have it any other way. Because that’s who she was, she was someone who could look at the barest, most simple things in life and know there was so much to be found there.

These last four months have been bare for me, so god damn bare. But not barren. In many ways these have been the most fruitful months of my life. I’m more aware of how precious life is than I’ve ever been. In a weird way I feel closer to my mom than I ever have. Now in every single thing I find worth feeling grateful for, everything I find worth feeling good about, I find her. And what’s worth celebrating more than that?