White Like Her

by Gail Lukasik

  Often she asked the same question I’d answered two minutes prior. Sometimes she drifted off, but she never hung up. I’d have to say, “You sound tired, mom. Get some rest.”

  I was losing my mother in increments, slowly but surely.

  But her dementia had an unexpected upside. She suddenly saw the humor in life. I sometimes thought she used it to cover her failing memory. And whatever made her find fault in me fell away. In her demented state, finally I could do no wrong. It was a stunning realization that this was the mother I’d been longing for all my life. And it took her eroding mind to let her emerge.

  About a year and a half before her death, when she was convalescing in a rehab facility after yet another fall, possibly another mini-stroke, I spent an afternoon with her, knitting a scarf and talking. The room was preternaturally dark because she wouldn’t allow me to open the window shade, claiming the gardeners were looking at her through the window and watching her. Paranoia was part of her dementia. After some explaining that I couldn’t see to knit in the dim light over her hospital bed, she allowed me to switch on the overhead light.

  Under the flickering fluorescent light with the faint odor of the bathroom tainting the air, I finally asked a question that I’d wanted to ask for a long time, thinking it might spur her to open up about her family’s racial secret.

  “Do you have any regrets, mom?”

  She paused and considered. “There are some things I’d wished I’d done differently.”

  When I questioned what those things were. She became evasive. “Oh, just things.” She was perched on the side of the bed, eating the institutional food, her frail ankles dangling over the side of her bed. It was the sight of her ankles clad in those pristine white socks that silenced me. And the realization that given her health this might be the last time I saw her. I didn’t want to sully my last memory of her with another confrontation, causing her to shrink in fear and shame.

  How could I hammer at the wall my mother had so artfully constructed around herself to satisfy my need to know who she really was and by default who I was? She’d created a self that hid the deepest part of her.

  In the dim room, with the unpleasant air, I knew at that moment that any chance we had for true intimacy was gone. The nurse had confirmed what I already knew that my mother had mid-stage dementia. As her lucidity continued to fade, there’d be no more chances for revelations. My mother was an ancient woman. I couldn’t breach her wall of silence. My mother would take her secret to her grave. Whether out of concern or cowardice, I let the moment go.

  Before I left, I said, “I’ll miss you, mom.”

  She looked up at me and said, “I know you will.”

  Had I really expected her to say, “I’ll miss you too”? Probably not.

  I gathered the half-finished scarf and knitting needles, stuffed them in my knitting bag, and rose from the hospital chair. This late in life I had no illusions about who my mother was and what she’d done to survive a childhood that I had no doubt contributed to her sister Shirley’s early death in 1980 at the age of fifty-seven. To give way to sentimentality was to risk falling apart. She’d never been an affectionate, nurturing mother. To her, mothering was about keeping a clean house, cooking, and honing your children through criticism. Her criticisms had always held me at a wounded distance I was never able to breach. Today was no different. But still I longed for that motherly response. “I’ll miss you too, Gail.”

  I leaned over her, kissed her papery cheek and embraced her. She let me.

  As I walked toward the door, she called after me, “Gail, please turn off that light.”

  I left her in the dimness of a hospital bed light, the window shade drawn against whatever imagined danger waited for her outside.

  Though I had other opportunities before her death to ask her about her secret, I never had the heart. The memory of that first and only time I did—the look of fear, panic, and shame on her face, the way she’d shrunk into herself—was so wounding I couldn’t do it again. Maybe some secrets should be taken to the grave, I reasoned, knowing the falseness of my logic. Maybe I’m more like my mother than I’m willing to admit, content to live in the convenience and ease of half-truths.

  The last time I saw my mother alive was a cold, snowy March day, robbed of all color as if the world could only be white and stark and frightening, full of ice and foreboding. We timed our visit between ice and snowstorms. Finally getting a window of good weather to drive the 360 miles east to Ohio.

  Though it was late in the day when we arrived, after quickly checking in at the hotel, we went straight to the assisted-living center. On the way there, I studied the hospice brochure that listed the signs of “active” dying as if the signs were a test I must pass. This was the curse of the child living at a distance. Always at the back of my mind was the thought that this could be the last time I saw her.

  When we entered her room, she was sitting in her blue recliner, the television blaring, though she didn’t seem to be watching it. Her voice was strangely altered, her head permanently hung to the right, drool in the corner of her mouth, her face and torso bloated, her dark eyes ringed in red, the eyes of a caged animal. There were no traces left of the beautiful, stunning woman she once was. Even her deep dimples had been swallowed by age and disease.

  In this otherworldly voice, she told me she didn’t like to sleep anymore because she had weird dreams; then she related one that seemed symbolic of a dying wish.

  “I was at work and there was a cup with a straw in it that I wanted pushed away. But I couldn’t do it myself. When I asked the other workers to push it, they said they couldn’t because they’d be fired. Finally one person pushed it away. And he was fired.”

  On a side table beside her rested a cup with a straw in it. Should I be alarmed? Are aides forcing her to drink, when all she wanted was for God to take her?

  The next day she could no longer talk. I sat by her side touching her arm, caressing her shoulder, not wanting to lose her warmth. How trapped and tired and sad she looked with her head listing to the right, all speech gone, the snow filling her window, her shiny black shoes poking out from under the crocheted, multicolored throw, her hands idle, each holding a tissue as if she could raise them and wipe the drool away. I tried to get her to talk but she kept falling back into a labored sleep, her breath raspy and troubled. Was she dreaming me there as she’d done in the past?

  I told her she’d led a good life and it was time for her to rest. I told her I’d miss her and that I loved her. I thought, but couldn’t be sure there were tears in her eyes. I searched for some sign from her, some word, something. It was too late for that.

  Then I reminisced about the time she thought she was 6'5" not 5'6" and jumped into the deep end of a swimming pool on one of our family vacations—one of her favorite stories. I reminded her of the time we saw Swan Lake together, one of my fondest memories. I was thirteen and when the curtains parted on the beautiful wintry, glistening scene, I glanced over at her and she was crying. That day I understood something I didn’t know about my mother—the depth of her feelings about beauty and how well she hid those feelings.

  When I left her I knew that it was the last time I’d see my mother in this life. My sadness was crushing. This woman who had been such a force in my life, I would never fully know her as a person. I would never know why and how she made a life-altering decision that changed the course of her life and my life as well.

  That night in the motel, I wrote in my journal: “What will I do without my mom?”

  After that visit, she lived another twenty-five days. Agonizing days for all of us. When death is imminent you walk a razor’s edge, both wishing for death and wishing it will never come. Nothing can be that final. And yet it is.

  In one of my last conversations with my mother, the nurse had to hold the phone to her ear. My mother sounded frail, incoherent, struggling to talk. When the nurse took the phone back she advised me. “She’s going down fast. She won’t f
eed herself. We have to feed her. She’s going down.”

  After I hung up, I went over the last phase of “active” dying: deep sleep or sleeping most of the time, hallucinations, talking to dead people, stops eating and drinking, changes in blood pressure, pulse, coloration.

  In my journal I tried to understand what was happening to my mother as she actively died.

  You prepare to die—

  the words go first,

  the body follows,

  there are signs

  and none reliable—

  an ebbing reminiscent of a harvest moon,

  slung low and orange

  over spent fields—

  just out of reach

  food loses purpose,

  sleep sustains,

  people visit

  none of them alive.

  On April 5, ten days after I wrote that poem, my mother died and took her secret with her. I’d kept my vow to her, and now I was free.

  8

  Serendipity

  Summer 2014

  THE THREE-MONTH ANNIVERSARY of my mom’s death fell on a long Fourth of July weekend and grief had taken a hold of me. The numbing period that gave some measure of protection was gone, the loss now too real.

  To console myself, I read The Art of Losing, a collection of poems about grief, poets expressing emotions I could find no adequate words for.

  W. S. Merwin’s poem “Rain Light” sounded like my mother speaking to me: “My mother said I am going now / when you are alone you will be alright / whether or not you know you will know.”

  Will I be all right? I wondered. And what kind of all right will I be? The space grief occupied in me seemed immense with room for nothing else.

  One line from a poem by Hal Sirowitz rang too true, again another message from my mother. This time about the secret she took to her grave: “Remember me by the tricks I have taught you.”

  Wasn’t that what I’d been doing? Remembering her by deciphering the tricks she taught me.

  On Saturday July 5, in what could only be described as serendipity, my husband spotted an announcement in the genealogical section of our library’s newsletter. “Genealogy Roadshow is looking for family stories. Do you live in St. Louis, New Orleans, or Philadelphia? Do you have a family mystery?”

  “You might want to tell them about your grandfather, Azemar Frederic,” he said, testing my interest. He seemed to clock my grief as if it had a time limit. He was all about diversion. I tried to hide my grief from him because he felt helpless against it. One sad person in a household was enough; two would be unbearable.

  “Why would they be interested in him?” I was playing devil’s advocate because I’d already decided to check out the PBS Genealogy Roadshow site as soon as he mentioned New Orleans.

  “You can find out once and for all about your mother’s race. And wasn’t there some Civil War guy who was part of that black unit?”

  My mother’s race and racial heritage had remained a mystery. Had she been a victim of the one-drop rule? She hadn’t look African American so why did her birth certificate designate her as “colored”? Azemar Frederic’s race changed from black to mulatto and then in the 1930 census he was listed as white. So what were the Frederics—black, mulatto, or white?

  Recently I discovered on Ancestry.com a Leon Frederic, Sr. who may or may not be my great-great-grandfather. He was a private in the Louisiana Native Guards, a black troop who served during the Civil War on the Union side.

  “There is that,” I said, enjoying the fantasy of an online application to a national TV show, telling myself it would be fun just to apply and there was little chance that they’d choose my story. It’s always been my strategy when doing something that frightens me to convince myself it’ll never happen. Once it happens then I have to face my fear.

  I’d watched the first season of the show and found it entertaining and interesting. My favorite stories weren’t the ones where someone discovered they’re related to someone famous, but the ones where a personal family mystery was solved. The moment when the show’s genealogist revealed the truth was potent with emotion.

  For the next hour, I filled out the online form. Most of the questions were fairly easy to answer, except for one. “What is your story and why is it important to you to find out now?” Then the irony struck me. I’m a mystery author who has never been able to solve a mystery in my own family. I’d had four mystery novels published—spent a chunk of my days plotting murder, seeding clues, and red herrings—yet I couldn’t solve my own family mystery story.

  I wrote: “I’m a mystery author who’s never been able to solve a family mystery about my maternal grandfather, Azemar Frederic from New Orleans.” I related what I knew about his race, expanding on my story to include Leon Frederic who may or may not be my great-great-grandfather. Then I told the story of how my mother swore me to secrecy.

  “I’ve kept that secret for seventeen years.” I finished the application and then pushed it from my mind. The application was a lark, something to do on a Saturday afternoon, something to distract myself from my grief.

  Two days later on July 7, while I was out walking at my local forest preserve, a message was left on my answering machine. A person from Genealogy Roadshow wanted me to call her back to set up a Skype interview. I played the message twice writing down the details, my hand shaking as I wrote.

  Before I called back I told my husband about the message. He looked as stunned as I felt.

  When I called, I reached Rachel who worked for a production company in California. We arranged for a Skype interview two days later. Things were moving fast.

  “What should I wear?” I asked before hanging up. What I was really asking was what are you looking for, what do you need me to be?

  Rachel said, “Don’t wear black, white, or crazy patterns, ask lots of questions, and be enthusiastic.”

  The day before the Skype interview, after several nail-biting days of not being able to get my Skype to work, the show’s East Coast researcher Rich Venezia contacted me.

  “The show wants me to do more research on your story,” he explained. He had a warm, open quality that instantly put me at ease. “Can you send me your mother’s birth certificate and the birth certificates of her two siblings?”

  Before we ended the call, he said, “If it were up to me, I’d chose your story. But it’s not up to me.”

  “Why do they want a Skype interview?” I was anxious to wheedle any info I could from him about how the show decided who was chosen.

  “They want to see how you’ll do on television.”

  “Any advice?”

  “Ask lots of questions. They like that.”

  After I hung up I shared with my husband what Rich said about his enthusiasm about my story. “It’s not a done deal but the show must be serious if they have this researcher working on the story.”

  He smiled a cautionary smile. “Don’t get ahead of yourself.”

  That evening, in what can only be described as another case of serendipity, Isiah Edwards, an amateur military expert from Mississippi, called. A few days earlier I’d sent an online request via a website devoted to the Louisiana Native Guards for information about Leon Frederic.

  As I listened to Isiah’s New Orleans accent I was reminded of my Grandmother Camille’s accent, and for a moment the past rushed around me as if Grandmother Camille and my mom were here in the room with me.

  Isiah confirmed that Leon Frederic did serve with the Louisiana Native Guards. He was stationed at Ship Island and Fort Pike. Isiah didn’t know if he’d fought in any battles or where he was from. But he was a free man of color. I wasn’t familiar with the term free man of color. But I was curious how someone living in a Southern state before emancipation could be free.

  It was difficult not to be self-conscious. When Rachel’s face disappeared and only my face remained, the interview took on a weird quality because I couldn’t get a read on her reactions to my answers and I was too aware of m
y own reactions. It was like talking on the phone while staring at yourself in a mirror, very disconcerting.

  My twenty questions rested on my computer’s keyboard. Though I’d gone over them many times, they were there like a prop in case my mind blanked. But mercifully my mind didn’t blank. All those years of teaching at the university came to my rescue as I spooled out my questions with as much enthusiasm as I could manage without sounding like a game show contestant.

  Near the end of the interview Rachel asked an unexpected question that threw me. “What do you think your mother would feel about you revealing her secret now?”

  It flashed through my mind that my mother was beyond feeling. I struggled to answer, saying that she was in a more enlightened place now. And adding quickly that she was never a bigot and was a product of her time.

  When it was over, Rachel said they’d let me know in about a week if I made the show. I had no inkling if they’d take my story. Part of me wanted to be on the show and part of me didn’t. This lark I embarked on over a Fourth of July weekend suddenly seemed too real.

  For a long moment after Rachel logged off, I sat before the blank computer screen flooded with misgivings. What did I just do?

  “Are you sitting down?” It’d been almost two weeks since I did the Skype interview, and I’d resigned myself to not being on the show.

  I walked the phone into the family room and sat on the sectional already knowing what Rachel was about to say, my heart doing a happy dance.

  “I am now,” I answered.

  “Your story has been selected for the show.” There was laughter in her voice. “The taping is in St. Louis. The weekend of August 23. Our production people will contact you with more details.”

  “So you found something out about my mom’s family?”

  She laughed. “Much will be revealed.”