by Goldie Hawn
“We used to make poor Lyla run around after us like a little slave,” Jean recalls.
“She was always so willing to help, so happy to be with us.”
“We could never have done it without her.”
“Do you remember when we found the squirrel that was dying in the garage?”
“Oh my God! We put him into a wheelbarrow under your doll blanket and wheeled him all the way into Silver Spring over the railroad tracks to the animal hospital. But then they said he could have rabies. Rabies! We couldn’t get out of there fast enough!”
There is so much history in this house, in all of our houses. The sleepovers. The Oreo cookies and milk in bed. Watching scary black-and-white movies. And staying up late. Walking into David’s house next door, I can literally smell the chocolate chip cookies David’s mother seemed to make all day long. She was the Betty Crocker of the neighborhood, the stay-at-home mom.
“Are you remembering our games of miniature golf?” David asks, standing at my side as I stare out longingly at his old backyard.
“Yes, but mostly I’m remembering the fence,” I say. He follows my gaze and smiles. There it is, the chain-link fence, just where it always was, dividing his world and mine. It is all I can do to stop myself from running out and climbing it, just as I always did, hooking my toes back into each link.
Our journey into our past now over, that night I go back to Jean Lynn’s house in Silver Spring, not far from where we grew up. Tired, wistful, I take a long, hot shower and slide between the cold, crisp sheets.
There is a gentle tap on the door. It’s Jean Lynn.
“Hi, Poo-poo-face,” she says, using our childhood language. “Can I come in?”
Sitting on the edge of my bed in her nightgown, she pulls the scrunched-up face we practiced for hours as children, “Our Face.”
“Are you giving me ‘Our Face’?” I say, pursing my lips around my teeth similarly, just like Bucky Beaver.
“Don’t go tomorrow,” she says, her lips still puckered up. “Stay, Poo-poo.”
We both laugh.
“Seriously, honey,” she adds, “I can’t thank you enough for coming. I really needed you here today.”
“You know what, Jean? I really needed to be here.”
We hug, each one unwilling to let the other go.
Joey peeks his head round the doorway into the room, his eyes mischievous. “Good night, then, Go-All-Day!”
Pulling apart, we dissolve into laughter, and then Jean Lynn gets up to go to her own room. “I love you so much, Goldie,” she tells me, turning to look back at me from the doorway.
“I know. And I love you too, Jean Lynn.”
She switches off the light and closes the door behind her. So happy to be home, I drift into the blessed sleep of a child.
As we grow up, our lives become so cluttered. We become shackled with responsibility, and bogged down with work and kids and the daily rituals and problems of our everyday lives. We forget how to play.
When we were children, we lived entirely in the moment. We knew no greater pleasure than to jump in a pile of leaves, ride bikes through muddy puddles or make crazy faces at each other with mouths full of ice cream. And tomorrow was only tomorrow.
Somewhere along the way, we grow up and suddenly feel self-conscious doing these things, perhaps because the adults around us start to tell us, “Act your age!” But what does age have to do with play? How can we relate a number to a full-on expression of abandonment and joy?
I remember one day, not so long ago, when I pulled my car up to a stoplight in Los Angeles, on Wilshire and Twenty-sixth Street, right near where I lived. I was by myself and an Elton John song I love, “I’m Still Standing,” came on the radio. I began to move my body to the music, bouncing up and down on my seat, singing at the top of my voice. But this wasn’t enough.
“The hell with it!” I cried, and, opening my car door, I jumped out, stood in the street and really let myself go. I started to really dance with abandon. I didn’t care what I looked like. I was feeling the rhythm, feeling the joy, and I went with it. The man in the car behind me started to laugh. Before I knew it, he jumped out of his car and he started dancing too. The two of us strutted our stuff and shook and wriggled and danced until the stoplight suddenly changed. Then we dashed back into our cars, laughing, and went our separate ways.
All you have to do is unleash the child in you, and watch how it unleashes the child in those around you. As Einstein said, a person starts to live only when he can live outside himself.
So dance that dance. Sing that song. Go to the park and ride the merry-go-round. Remember back and try to rediscover that place deep within you that is pure play. It is still there. And when you find it and open up to it, you’ll discover that others around you will do the same. It will give them the permission they seek to be a child again too. Life is too short. Go for it!
postcard
The whistle blasts from the kettle just as the doorbell chimes. Celia and I are in my kitchen, all atwitter. We are expecting a very important guest. Master Lu, a renowned Chinese healer, is coming to help my ailing mother.
“Oh, they’re early!” I say, putting down my red teapot on the kitchen table.
“Go! Go!” Celia says. “I’ll bring the tea.” Laughing, she raises an eyebrow. “Are you sure your mother’s up for this?”
“Yes. She’s up for it. Anyway, she knows I’m crazy,” I add over my shoulder as I run for the door.
Standing in the doorway is Master Lu and his beautiful Chinese wife, Alice. I have used him many times before and have always benefited from his energy healing. We hug before I lead them into the living room, tiptoeing past the library, where my mother is napping.
“How is your mother feeling today?” Alice asks.
“Not very well. Her heart’s getting weaker and weaker.”
Celia arrives with the tray. Master Lu, a sturdy man with a large face as round as the moon, smiles broadly at me all the time. He speaks to me in Chinese, and I listen as if I understand every word. Alice interprets. “Master Lu is going to bring your mother energy.”
“Good, thank you. Follow me.”
I lead them into the library, where my mother is lying fast asleep on her side, her mouth wide open. She must have heard them come in. Something tells me she’s faking it.
As Master Lu and his wife stand like Eastern monoliths in the doorway, I bend down close to her face. “Mom, Mom? Master Lu is here to see you. Mom?”
My mother stirs a little under her bedclothes, but she doesn’t open her eyes. Instead, she slides even deeper. Oh, this is great, I think.
Master Lu stands patiently in the doorway, while I sit on the edge of my mother’s bed and shake her gently. “Mom? It’s Master Lu. Remember? I told you he was coming?”
My mother’s eyes pop open. The bedclothes flip down, and she stares up at me. The look is undeniable. It says, Oh no, Goldie, not now. Spare me from all your crazy stuff!
“Come on, Mom, let me help you up.”
Reaching around behind my mother, I lift her into a sitting position. Her hair is disheveled, her face screwed tight. Alice comes and sits down next to her, and, smilingly, takes her hand.
“Master Lu is going to make you feel better,” she tells Mom. “Now please to stick out your tongue.”
“Stick out my what?” Mom growls.
“Your tongue, Mom, stick out your tongue.”
My mother sticks out her tongue in such a way that I hope Master Lu doesn’t consider rude. Taking no notice, he bends down and examines it carefully, checking its color and coating. He mutters some words to Alice in Chinese, which, of course, is all Chinese to us.
“Now, Mrs. Hawn,” Alice says, “lift your arms, please.”
“What the hell for?”
“Mom, shhh, please. Just do it!”
I can see this isn’t going to be easy. Mom eventually does what she’s told, glaring at me all the while. Master Lu runs his hands along the s
ides of her arms, over and over, never once touching her.
“What’s he doing to me?” She scowls.
“I don’t know. I guess he’s getting rid of negative energy.”
Master Lu takes my mother gently by the hand as Alice says, “Now please, Mrs. Hawn, let’s get up.”
Kicking out her legs with energy I didn’t think she still had, Mom stands up, her big toe pointing straight to heaven. As Master Lu begins to lead my mother across the room, Alice instructs, “Please come over to this chair and sit down.” Turning to me, she says, “Would you please fetch a bowl of water?”
“Oh yes!” I cry happily. “Right away.” Running out of the library, I call, “Celia! Celia! We need a bowl of warm water.”
Celia comes running. This is a big event. She pulls out a plastic bowl from under the sink, and I fill it with water, checking the temperature. I hurry back as quickly as I can without spilling a drop.
The scene that greets me is like something from a pantomime. Mom is sitting in the chair in her nightgown staring at me, an eyebrow arched, as Master Lu conducts an elaborate ritual before her, working the energy fields. Waving his arms around dramatically, he is pulling the energy one way and then the other and drawing the energy from the top of her head. He looks as if he is conducting the 1812 Overture.
Mom is now enjoying the attention, I can tell. Her spirit seems lighter, and there is a playful expression in her eyes.
Alice places my mother’s feet in the bowl of water. “Mrs. Hawn, Master Lu will bring you energy now.”
My mother sparks up and looks at me with those big brown eyes.
“Mom, are you feeling good yet?” I ask.
She forms a perfect circle with her mouth and says, “Oooooh!”
I eye her suspiciously. I can’t tell if she’s serious, or if she’s just having fun with us.
Alice, all excited, rushes out. “I get washcloth!”
She runs to the guest bathroom and fetches one. Master Lu takes it from her and plunges it into the bowl of water with my mother’s pointy little feet. Lifting it out, wringing it almost dry, he places it, with great ceremony, right on top of my mother’s head.
She looks up again and chortles another “Oooooh!”
I stare at her agog. She looks like Ishkabibble.
“Mom?” I ask, trying to hold it together. “Are you feeling the energy?”
“Oooooh,” she repeats. “Hmm.” She lifts the edge of the washcloth and peers up at me. I half expect her to give me the fist.
Master Lu and Alice exchange some more words in Chinese, and Alice takes Mom’s elbow. “Please now, Mrs. Hawn, get up. Get up! You have energy!”
My mother stands, her feet still planted firmly in the bowl of water. I hover close by, afraid she might topple over, but she stays steady.
“Wow, Mom! Look at you!”
“Now step out of the water,” Alice instructs.
Still nervous, I watch as Mom does as she’s told, stepping out of the bowl without so much as a wobble. “I swear to God, this is a miracle!” I cry.
My mother stands ramrod straight, her wet feet flat on the rug, that crazy washrag still on her head. A single eye peers out at me, and I can tell she’s in her own world now. She is having a ball.
“Master Lu says to please walk around the room,” Alice says, taking Mom’s hand. “In a circle.”
Mom stares at me from under the wet facecloth, her hair flattened to her head, and smiles sweetly. Uh-oh. Now what does she have up her sleeve? But she walks the most perfect circle around the room in her nightgown, arms out, hands turned to the ceiling, looking like Loretta Young. I feel sure that some miraculous healing has happened.
“Mom, Mom, how do you feel now?”
She rolls her eyes, makes one more perfect circle and gives us another “Oooooh!” Her skinny little ankles peeking out beneath her nightgown, she stops, puts her hands together and stares at us. I’m laughing, Master Lu is laughing and Alice is laughing. I feel like I’ve gotten a little piece of my mother back.
“Mrs. Hawn!” Alice cries. “You got the energy!”
“Hmm.” Mom nods and smiles. “Very nice.”
“Mom, this is great, this is so great.” I run over to Master Lu and give him a big hug. “Thank you so much.”
Master Lu gives me a ceremonial bow, to tell me that his work here is done.
“Mom, stay right there!” I tell her. “I’m just going to see Master Lu and Alice out. I’ll be right back.”
As I show them from the room, I turn and see Mom standing there in the middle of the rug, looking like a princess.
Celia meets me in the hallway on my way back. “How did it go?” she asks.
“Great! Oh, Celia, really great! Mom’s walking around the room. It’s amazing! Let’s go see her.”
We rush back to the library. But Mom is back in bed, on her side, the covers right up to her neck again, her mouth open, sound asleep.
“I can’t believe it!” I tell Celia. “She was up! She was standing right in the middle of the room! There was life back in her!”
A rumbling snore from under the bedclothes interrupts me. Stooping down, my face next to hers, I shake her shoulder gently.
“Mom? Mom?”
Her left eye opens and glares up at me.
“Mom, what about the energy?”
In her deep gravelly voice, she replies, “He took it with him.”
death
Death is not the end.
It is merely a transformation.
I run my hand over my mother’s lifeless feet. She did it. She did the impossible. She died.
I caress her little turned-up toes, still pointing up to heaven. I can’t believe it. I never thought she could die.
“Mom,” I wail, “I tried to get here. I didn’t make it. I’m so sorry, I wanted to be with you.”
I look down at her face; the lines on her face that showed struggle and pain and sadness had all but disappeared. She looked so young, so peaceful.
“Where are you, Mom? Where did you go? Can you still hear me?” Looking up at the ceiling of her hospital room, I ask, “Are you still here somewhere? Can you see me?”
It’s November 27, 1993, Laura Hawn’s eightieth birthday, and, as destiny would have it, also her death day. Mom and I always shared our birthdays. They were just one week apart. Her presents are still sitting on the floor of my living room, waiting for her to come home again, but she never will.
“She went very peacefully,” the nurse tells me. “When we were washing her this morning, we said, ‘Happy birthday, Laura.’ Her eyes looked up at us and twinkled. But then, Goldie, she closed her eyes softly and her body shut down. I think she was waiting for her birthday to finally let go.”
I sit on the edge of the bed and touch her body. I whisper, “Mom, you did it! You died.” A strange sensation fills me. Up until now, I’ve been afraid of death and dying. When I was younger, I would have nightmares that my mom would die and I would get into bed with her. I decide to lie next to my mother for the last time. I stroke her hair, and tell her, “Mom, if you can do this, if you can die, then so can I.”
Patti comes running in breathlessly, looking more like a child than I have ever seen her. She probably ran as many red lights getting to the hospital as I did. There we stand, two little girls at the foot of our mother’s bed, clinging to all that we have left: each other.
At Mom’s funeral, the rabbi tells us that when a person dies on their birthday it’s very auspicious because a cycle has been completed. This brings me calm and makes me happy, knowing that Moses died on his birthday, so there we are. So did Laura Hawn.
It has been said that it takes a year to fully recover from the death of a loved one. I know this will be the longest year of my life and I am right. For a full year, I can feel only intense sadness. Whatever I do, I’m unable to fix it. Even my children sense that I’m not the same. I question what I’m doing. I ask myself who I’m now performing for. Pleasing my mother
was my dance in this life, and, with Mom gone, I have to reevaluate everything that I am. I know that no one will ever love me the way my mother did.
I spend hours in my meditation room, reading books about death, about the mysteries of life. It brings me solace, because I’m having difficulty understanding where the vibrant spirit that was my mother has gone. I read about Buddhism; I read about the Kabala. I read essays by great mystics, as well as pop culture books about talking to heaven. I even dabble in quantum physics, trying to understand the true nature of life. This is the real beginning of my mystical journey. Feeling my wanderlust rising, I need some time to travel to the most mystical land I know. And to the one city that brings me the most peace.
Now I’m in the back of a wobbly old rickshaw on the streets of one of the oldest cities in the world, Varanasi, the “City of Light”—also known as the “City of Death.” An orphan for the first time, I’ve come to this place to heal.
I’m headed for the holy ghats, the great riverbank steps where pilgrims come to purify themselves in the sacred water of the Ganges. It is also where they come to burn their dead on funeral pyres. The nearer I get, the more the air around me is filled with the scents of sandalwood and incense, hot ash and candle wax. Fire and water play such an important part in the life of the Hindu.
Trundling through labyrinthine alleys where I can hardly tell night from day, I pass scores of old people sitting in doorways, happily waiting to die. Devout Hindus, they believe that if they die in Varanasi they will attain instant moksha, or enlightenment; they will be free of the continuous cycle of life and death. And so they come, in their hundreds, to live out their final days.
A little farther on, I come across two families carrying their dead wrapped in shrouds, singing mournfully all the while. Their loved ones will be burned on the ghats, and their ashes scattered on the river by a Brahmin priest.
Still farther, I’m suddenly caught up in the middle of a wedding ceremony spilling out onto the street. The laughing bride and groom wear candles on their heads and garlands of flowers around their necks. Musicians play as they parade through the streets. Those around them skip and reel, dance and cry out their joy.