Tag Archives: self-help

Any Last Words?

Posted on by Jessica Ann

“I want to see her! I can handle it! I’m not a kid!”

Oh, how wrong was I?

In life, there are moments wherein someone tries to step into your autocratic regime of self-governance and offers their two cents, justifying their invasion by saying, ” ________ (mommy, uncle, school master, tribal leader) knows best.” In all honesty,they usually are right. But I was angry, bitter, confused, and sad. I was lost. I should have listened to my Nana, but I was blinded by my own ignorance and guilt, as well as the part of me that was desperately yearning to be considered as an adult, an equal of sorts. Tired of being treated as a kid, I wanted to sit at, to be welcomed at the revered “adult table” for once in my life.

“She’s not how you remember her. Death has changed her,” Nana pleaded with me to no avail.

But I was determined. I would see my mother. My mother.

I furiously shoved open the mahogany doors at the funeral home and marched down the aisle. As I approached the casket, I lost some of my initial resolve, and my cadence faltered as the cogs in my mind started reeling with latent processing. I had not seen her for several months. I took a deep gulp of precious air and peered into the cruel coffin that held my deceased mother in its wooden, mericless embrace.

The woman in there was and was not my mother. Her pale, alabaster cheeks were uncharacteristically puffy, the laugh lines that had once danced at the corners of her mouth were exaggeratedly chiseled, more defined. But underneath this deathly mask, I saw her. I saw my mother.

And all at once I had so many things that I wanted to say to this familiar stranger. I wanted to say that I loved her. That I missed her. That I was angry at her for leaving us. That I was sorry. Salty tears started to stream down my face forming an aqueous, gaping tapestry as I recalled the last time I had spoken to her…

My mother had recently been released from the hospital. I remember waking up to get ready before my grandfather was to arrive to take us to school. When I padded down the stairs to grab a quick breakfast, I found my mother walking around the house naked, muttering incoherently to herself. When I asked her where he clothes were and what she was doing, she just stared at me with glassy eyes. Her alcoholism had, at this point, ravaged her liver, making it difficult for her body to process proteins. She was hardly lucid. And I (fully aware of the nightcap that she had consumed several hours ago) was frustrated.

“You should get dressed. Pap will be here any minute.”

That was the last thing I would ever say to her. And I cannot tell you how much I regret it.

Maybe that’s why I habitually make a point of reminding those near and dear to my heart that I love them (sometimes, perhaps annoyingly, more than once) before I drive off in my car or hang up the phone. “I love you” are three words in this life that should not be left unsaid, and I will never make that mistake again. I hope that, before she passed, she knew that she meant the world to me. That I loved her.

Cheddar or Provolone?

Posted on by Jessica Ann

Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson. This is the book that my father purchased for me upon arriving in Texas. If you are not familiar with it, all you need to know is that it is basically a motivational parable with mice casted as the main characters that, in theory, helps people to not only cope with but embrace change. A week after my mother’s funeral, my father drove a U-Haul truck determinedly up to Maryland (from Texas) in the middle of a snow storm, hell-bent on retrieving my brothers and me. I suppose my father had not realized it at the time, but my brothers and I were not the same children, in any respect, that he had spent time with during his last weekend visit some months prior to this whole ordeal.

To say that I was upset would be a gross understatement. But to be completely honest, after having your mother die unexpectedly in the hospital, after finding out that you have to change schools in the middle of the semester while subsequently leaving behind family and friends, and after discovering that you have to move to a completely different state to live with a man whom your mother deemed a “monster” on more than one occasion, who wouldn’t be slinging an attitude the size of Texas?

I fear hate change. I have no idea if there is a self-help, 12-step guide to dealing with this particular disease, but I do know that if such a thing exists, then I’ve at least advanced past the initial coming-to-terms-with-your-problem stage. Hoorah for me. But I can’t help but wonder, “What’s next?”. Or even, “Am I always going to feel this way?”.

Yes, I have heard it. I have heard the sermons praising change and its ability to bring about better things. I have heard people preach that change is not necessarily an omen nor a bearer of evil tidings. But there is just something about that feeling that I get, the sensation that my life is about to be irrevocably and uncontrollably jolted from its homeostasis, that more often than not brings me to tears.

At any rate, I have come to terms with the fact that change is (unfortunately) inevitable. You just have to cry about it and move on with your life because no one is going to wait for you to embrace, or at the very least become somewhat comfortable with, reality.* Mice included.

* A therapist might be willing to do that, but, then again, you are paying them to perform that service so I don’t really think they count.