My Mother's Legacy

No. She's not dead.

She's in a nursing home for a few weeks of rehab. Apparently she's doing much better. She's eating. She's making friends. She has more energy.

YAY. seriously. sigh of relief.

I didn't call her when she had her new pacemaker placed.
I didn't call her on Mother's Day.

I did go to her apartment today to start packing up her stuff. Since I couldn't bring myself to visit or call her, it's the least I could do. Sister Melanie Sister Adrienne and Sister Halona visit and call. I offered to throw her shit out.

I'm good at that.

*****

Monday at work, one of the medical assistants was talking about her grandmother. How her grandmother was so poor as a kid that she ate saltines with milk and sugar as a treat.

A lot of the ladies were like what???... crackers with milk and sugar???... I've never heard of that.

I remember my mom telling us stories about growing up dirt poor during the Depression. They would pour milk over stale bread and sprinkle a little sugar on it and that was the meal. She said for a special dessert, they would sprinkle sugar on lettuce leaves and roll them up like cigars.

So I shared, and then the ladies started remembering stories or habits, mostly of their grandmothers. Most of the stories revolved around food, or the lack thereof, and paper products. One of the students remembered her grandmother unfolding paper napkins and tearing them up into quarters and getting stressed out if they used more that one napkin.

I repeated one of my mother's mantras don't use a tissue, use toilet paper... don't use a napkin, use a paper towel... don't use a paper towel, use a sponge.

Dr. Arlene looked at me and said but you didn't grow up poor.

No, but my mom grew up poor. So our habits growing up were part Depression Child and part Flower Child.

We were taught not to waste. Especially food.

She would cut off the green moldy part on the edge of the bread or cheese and we didn't think twice about eating the rest. It's fine. Just eat it.

She would stick her nose in all the containers of really old leftovers and make garbage soup.

We never got sick.

Bruce to this day is astounded by what I'll eat.

What?!? It's perfectly fine. I scraped the fuzzy part off.

He's also astounded that I never get sick from eating old food. And I tell my kids it's fine. Just eat it.

So Mother's Day, after Ty's cello concert, we hit McD's drive through. I was tired and not at all willing to cook dinner.

And I needed to hear mom you're the best mom in the whole world we love you mom one more time.

I, however, had my taste buds set on Saturday night's leftover pizza.

I get a bizarre satisfaction from eating leftovers.

No money wasted, no food wasted.

We got home, I turned on the oven, and Bruce walked in right behind us. Home much earlier from the restaurant than expected. Nice.

He asked me if I had eaten and I said no I turned the oven on like half an hour ago. I'm gonna heat up leftover pizza.

shit

Oh. Right. Left the pizza in the oven over night on plastic plates. Forgot that part.

Pre-prozac, this would have left me in tears. Sunday, I was able to look at it and laugh. I was not, however, able to throw it out. I cut away the melted plastic and ate the rest. It was delicious. Bruce kept offering to go out and get me something else. He thinks I'm crazy.

I am.

*****

So. Cleaning out and packing up my mom's place today.

I got aggravated at the ancient, outdated bottles of medicine.

The sixteen open packages of panty liners.

The pieces of once used aluminum foil carefully folded up to be reused.

Then I thought about my own kitchen cabinets.

expired vitamins

like 2005 expired

seriously

I also have several once used pieces of aluminum foil carefully folded for reuse.

*****

I packed her clothes. The top dresser drawer was filled with jewelry boxes. At first I just packed them up too, carefully nestling them between socks and panties and scarves. At some point I realized some of the boxes were empty save for a square of cotton bedding. OK fine. So I started checking each box. Jewelry. Old coins. A stack of 20s.

a necklace

peach colored sealing wax dripped on black thread

*****

I called her

it was good