The Empty Jar(69)

Love and forgiveness.

Drawing from the love I have for my own child, the infinite capacity she gives me to pardon the sins of others, I move slowly across the room to kneel in front of my mother.

“Momma, I’m not trying to hurt you. I just wanted you to know that...that…” I force a swallow past the bloated lump in my throat and then begin again, tears coming out of nowhere to stream from the corners of my eyes. It’s like a purging, a purging of all the dark and ugly wounds I’ve let fester, become gangrenous. “Momma, I just wanted you to know that I’m dying. I have a daughter that will never know me, and you’re the only part of me in the whole world that she will have left. I w-w-wanted you to keep me alive for her. Tell her stories about me. Tell her how much she was loved, and how I took that love with me, to the grave and far beyond. Don’t let her feel for one second the way I felt when I was young—alone and unwanted. Deserted. Be a part of her life. If not for me, then for you. She will be all that you have left, too.”

I hold my mother’s eyes for ten long, painful heartbeats before I give up, letting my chin drop to my chest and giving in to the urge to cry in earnest. Between muffled sobs, I faintly confess another reason for wanting my mother here. “I’m dying, Momma, and I just wanted to see you one more time. Just one more time. Is that so wrong?”

In the hush, I hear my husband’s choked voice. “Oh Jesus!”

I imagine him running angry hands through his hair like he does, spinning away from the sight of his dying wife on her knees, begging for love. It hurts me that he has to see this, but it’s something I must do.

But for the wet patter of tears on the back of my clasped hands, the room is absolutely silent.

Seconds tick by.

No one speaks.

I can feel the sadness, the hopelessness. It saturates the air like a physical dampness, a moist cloud that hangs over furniture and skin and hair.

Minutes, hours, days later, the first sign of movement is heard. It’s the sound of Momma sliding off the couch and onto the floor, where she gathers me into her arms. I let her. I want nothing more than to let her. I fold into her softness, into her warmth and, together, we weep.

“I’m so sorry, my heart,” she says, the words themselves a soothing balm to my aching soul. My mother hasn’t called me that since right after Janet died. “I’m so, so sorry. Please forgive me. Please, Lena, please. Please don’t go thinking that I didn’t love you. I loved you more than anything. That’s why I let you go. I was afraid to love you that much. I was afraid of what losing you would do to me.” Her voice drifts off into the same whisper, like a mantra she repeats over and over again. “I was afraid. I was afraid. I was afraid.”

I raise my leaden arms and wind them around my mother’s slight shoulders, holding her close. “It’s okay, Momma. We’re all afraid.”

“Say you forgive me. Please say you can forgive me.”

I don’t hesitate. I don’t have the luxury of waiting or holding a grudge. It’s now or never. “I forgive you, Momma. I loved you anyway. I always have.”

Finally, after all this time, I recognize that it was more than mere obligation that took me to see my mother once a month for the last twenty-two years. It was hope, hope that maybe my mom would love me again. I thought my hope had died when I was a young girl, but maybe it was just buried under a lifetime of hurt and loss.

A bone-deep peace settles over me. It begins at the crown of my head as a soft tickle that sweeps away the pounding behind my temples. It eases onto my shoulders, brushing away the tension I hold there, and then it makes its way down.

Gossamer wings flutter through the rest of my body, washing away hurt and bitterness, anger and resentment, malice and ill-will. I’m left with nothing but love.

In my heart, I know I have only one last confession left to make. It’s to Nate. Already I know that once the words are spoken, my soul will be at ease.

I’ll be free.

I also know that I need to make that confession soon.





Twenty-four

Wanted Dead or Alive

Lena



My mother stayed all day. She was there when I drifted off to sleep in the chair, and she is still here when I wake in the bedroom, hours later, as the sun is setting.

Hers is the face I see right after I see my husband’s, leaning over me with a purposefully blank expression in place.

“I’ve got a delicious steak dinner blended up for you,” Nate says, his lips curling up at the corners. “Broccoli, some bread, baked potato with extra butter—it’s all in here.” He holds up the canister I hadn’t noticed him cradling. It looks like it contains vomit. It’s food that will be administered directly into my stomach via the nasogastric tube.

“Why don’t I actually eat with you?”

Nate’s features widen in surprise, his eyes rounding, his mouth forming a silent O. “C-can you do that?”

“Of course, I can do that. I’ll just have to chew really well.” I know in the deepest part of my being that this will be my last meal with my family, and I want it to be as normal as possible. I know enough about last days and golden days to know the importance of making today special and memorable, even though it already has been.

“What about the…?” He doesn’t finish his sentence, but rather sort of flips the tube that still dangles from my right nostril where it’s taped.