A Motherless Child

How could so much go so quickly?

My mother has left the building. She continues to sleep and wake and eat and such, but so gone--she is just so very, very gone. I can speak to her on the phone and I hear her words and she hears mine, but her words are fibs and my words are...forgotten. That quickly.

Mom, BRHB made it onto his blah blah blah team. It's a big deal.

pause. pause. PAUSE.

Uh huh.

It's a big deal. We're really proud of him. He wanted me to tell you.

Tell me what?

(repeat big deal news here)

Oh.

pause........pause.....

I'll get your father.

No, Mom. I'm telling you. It's okay. Just tell Dad for us, will you?

Oh. Okay.

pause....pause....pause....

Lah?

Yes Mom?

What did you tell me?

And there you have it, Ladies and Gentlemen.

In another time, I will tell you about the mammogram I had to have yesterday because of the oddish mark on my right breast that didn't seem to be doing much of anything and could be orange peel-y, I don't know, and also could be a rare and aggressive form of breast cancer (unlike those really passive breast cancers we keep reading about) and how I looked on my children's sleeping heads and held onto my husband's hands and how I wanted my mother so terribly in that time that I thought maybe I would finally inch my way over the edge, that edge I'm always bitching about being so close to. I am fine, the mark is nothing more than the thump of a child's head on my chest, or the itch of cheap lace--anywhere else on my body and I wouldn't have even noticed the damned thing, you know how that goes. But this time, and for how many more will I reach for that which is no longer there? I never considered that I would be mother and motherless in so brief a time.

Just a pause.