by Susan Morse
So, of course, in Ma’s study there are a lot of compartments just for icon stuff: file after file of bizarre unpronounceable Russian and Greek names (Deesis. Hesychia. Kazanskaya. Vladislav Andrejev). I’ll bet Ma hasn’t even a clue what’s in there.
I skip the icon cabinet and try one last drawer that looks promising. There’s a file for each of us children, one for Daddy, and an intriguing section devoted exclusively to MANNERS, which contains some of the lists of dos and don’ts she has inflicted on me and the kids when she’s feeling a particular urge to boss us around: Do not brush your hair at the table. Do not put your knife in your mouth. But I see no sign of a file for BIRTH CERTIFICATES or anything remotely like it, and while the SOCIAL SECURITY file gets my hopes up for a second, there is actually nothing in it at all.
So the options for identification are as follows:
Driver’s License: Confiscated.
Passport: Expired.
Birth Certificate: Misplaced.
Social Security card? Nope.
Medicare card?!? Sorry.
—Ma, you don’t seem to exist.
—I don’t seem to what?
—Exist. We have no proof of your existence.
—Really, Susie. You’re being very negative.
Okay, here’s the bright side: Without that passport, she won’t be skipping off to Greece for a while.
11.
Preparation
September 10, 2007
IT’S TONSURE TIME.
I’m peering down Ma’s hall, past her gallery dominated by all the inscrutable patrician ancestors, watching her closed confessional bedroom door.
I wait.
Suddenly, the door opens and out bursts Ma with the Bishop. She’s smiling.
The Bishop is based in Carlisle, but he travels constantly to perform jobs like this. I’ve actually been curious to get a look at him because I’ve heard he cuts a dashing figure. He’s a lot younger than I expected, thirty-five at the most: tall and lean and very serious. His long beard is black, and he has a thin, equally black braid hanging down his back that reaches all the way past his waist. On the table by the icons and beeswax votive candles, he places a black hat that has some folded pieces of paper in it.
—Those are all the names, says Ma.
She and the Bishop have agreed on an assortment of saints’ names that might be appropriate for Ma’s new nun title. At the end of the ceremony (and I am not making this up), he’s going to pick a name out of this hat, because apparently it’s up to the Holy Spirit to decide.
There are also some scissors on the table. The tonsure ceremony is basically a haircut. You abandon your everyday life and are reborn to one of prayer and service. At the climax of the ceremony, the Bishop will cut off a lock or two of Ma’s hair—something about symbolically shearing away all her worldly passions. From then on, she’ll eschew haircuts for good, just like Father Basil and the rest of the clergy.
Oh my gosh, hair scissors. Names out of a hat. Why aren’t my siblings here. National Geographic should cover this. Where is my camera?
My mother’s friend Photini says it’s okay to take pictures, and it feels a little awkward, but that’s what I definitely have to do. The Bishop, the priest, and the mousy guy in blue jeans Photini introduced me to earlier do all the standard chanting and walking around Ma’s living room with the crucifix I’d seen at Happy Hide-Away. Photini helps with the responses. No attempt is made to get the rest of us to participate. It’s not clear why this is but I’m hoping Ma’s friends Ellie, Olivia, and Babbie are as okay with their infidel status as I am, and can just appreciate what I am beginning to realize is something singularly momentous under way, right under our noses.
I take pictures. The chosen ones chant and chant. Ma seems so small and fragile in her loose cotton nightshirt, and so humble and totally sincere that she catches me off-guard, and by the time they get to the hair business, I’m beginning to blubber all over my camera. It doesn’t matter how big the chip on my shoulder is about the succession of dogmas she’s tried to force on me. It’s almost irrelevant because this is; I don’t know what this is, but it sure is something.
It’s like the spectacle of David beginning his vows at our wedding twenty-five years ago. Determined, intent, face drenched in sweat and tears, David was so focused and serious and overcome that I began to giggle inappropriately. This spread from me to Ma and back again, gaining momentum. We pretty much howled raucously through the rest of the service. People who were there still ask what the joke was. Watching Ma now, I have an image of David’s wedding face, and all my years of loving Ma while she was driving me out of my mind, and all the times I’ve been unutterably furious at her, and the love she’s capable of, and I can barely keep the camera steady.
Photini holds a white linen cloth to catch Ma’s hair when it’s cut. They hang a black square thing covered in red embroidery around Ma’s neck. A larger black cloth is draped over her head. She is given a long, thin candle to hold and a hand-carved crucifix, and I’m almost hyperventilating. Maybe it’s the hormones, but it is so overwhelming to see this woman who has been in many ways such a problem for me, decisively leaving herself and all her faults, and being literally reborn. Who knows if she’ll succeed, but that’s almost beside the point. In this suspended moment, she’s not my mother. The big, imposing, Bergdorf-clad fork-wielding creature I’ve been shielding myself from has morphed into someone opposite; gentle, peaceful, ego-less. She’s so old. She’s come such a long way. I am moved beyond words.
Oh my gosh, maybe she’s really done it: Ma’s actually found The Real Answer To Everything.
Ma’s favorite prayer, the Jesus Prayer, is also called the Prayer of the Heart. The version J. D. Salinger gives us in Franny and Zooey is Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me. The longer version Ma uses is Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. The point being that when your ego is in charge, you can’t help sinning. They say if you repeat the prayer without ceasing, rhythmically timed with your breath, if you really get it right, it becomes one with your heartbeat. Your ego is trampled and God will hear the prayer. I’m no expert, but if that’s what Ma’s supposed to be doing right now, I’d say she’s mastered it.
I’ve been so busy with my catharsis all over the camera that I missed the whole Harry Potter Sorting Hat segment of the service. The next thing I know, presto change-o, Ma has a new name.
Introducing: Mother Brigid.
When you become an Orthodox nun, you wear no jewelry except a cross around your neck. You can wear black if you like, and you have to put on a special habit when in the presence of bishops, priests, and other monastics.
I thought black clothes would be out of the question for Ma, who’s always been exactingly creative about her wardrobe and accessories. But she has assured me that simple black is all she wants, and she’s embracing it. In the back of my mind has been a rather catty thought: If this is what it takes to slow down her spending, far be it from me to object.
So . . . Brigid.
I’m pretty sure this was one of the Bishop’s ideas, and not Ma’s. Before the ceremony, she rattled off a slew of impossibly long Greek names she was hoping for, that rivaled the standard set by von Moschzisker in their impossible-to-spell-or-pronounceability. So when the new name is announced, there’s the slightest glimmer of a pause as Ma considers this first joyful step on the road to spiritual obedience and humility. Black clothes, okay. Give away my jewelry, fine. Try to be an angel living on the earth, devoted to a life of prayer instead of terrorizing my children—I’ll do my best. But Brigid? Isn’t that an Irish name?
Sorry, says the Holy Spirit. I know you wanted to be Theotockos Nephpactos Hierotheos of Whatchamacallit Boopty-opolis, but you’re going to make a much better Mother Brigid of Carlisle. Get used to it.
Ma smiles. Believers and infidels alike gather together around Mother Brigid and the Bishop for a picture.
Oh, and one more thing, Mother Brigid, says the Holy
Spirit.
Yes? says Mother Brigid.
You have a colostomy coming up in a couple of weeks.
Ma, Philadelphia, 2007
12.
The Wizard
IT’S FOUR P.M. on a Friday. We’ve been sitting here in the waiting room for an hour and we are both fit to be tied.
—Let’s go home.
—Ma . . .
We borrowed a wheelchair today at the door of Franklin Hospital. Ma’s back is bothering her, so luckily she can’t storm out on her own steam. This appointment was almost impossible to get, and we need it. The new surgeon has agreed to perform his specialty, TATA, and I don’t think he and Ma have spoken candidly enough about what they’re getting her into. TATA will give Ma a reconstructed rectum sans tumor, with no dreaded colostomy bag. This would be fantastic except that the new rectum won’t be as clever at communicating its plans in advance as Ma’s original model. If you’re old and prone to bouts of mobility impairment, there is a real lifestyle concern. If things go as planned, Ma will have to stay within close range of a bathroom at all times.
Ma thinks Doctor Lawson is a genius, because he’s very sympathetic to her aversion to permanent colostomy. He quickly slotted her as one of those patients who’d rather die than have a bag, and he’s right. This is why she moved on from Pete, who was recommending a simpler procedure, the one I still think she should have. Ma kept looking around for more opinions—she would not have agreed to do anything at all if this Lawson fellow hadn’t promised a new (albeit temperamental) rectum, and she thinks it’s very negative of me to assume the worst about this plan. I just want her to be able to have a life: overnight trips to the church in Carlisle, lunch dates with friends.
Ma’s been too discreet to get into the details with Doctor Lawson. When we scheduled the operation, I was overjoyed she had finally agreed to do something, and I figured we’d sort out the specifics later. But at this point, I can’t decide whether I want to hug Lawson or kick him. The man’s office is like Fort Knox. He won’t correspond with me by email the way Pete did, and he hasn’t responded to my phone calls and messages. Surgery is on Monday, and if it weren’t for today’s appointment, I’d be plotting to throw myself across his operating table, demanding an audience.
The more we sit here, the crankier we get. There’s a flat screen in the corner of the waiting room. It plays nothing but irritating ads on a loop: soft gauzy lighting showing how happy everyone is frolicking through the leafy meadows, all hopped up on their breakthrough medicines. Around the corner near the door leading to the exam rooms, there is a small, hopeful cluster of professionals dressed for success with their briefcases full of drug samples: pharmaceutical salespeople, waiting to pounce on any doctors that appear.
We haven’t had time to shop for black nun clothes yet. Ma’s been determinedly wearing the darkest nightshirt she has every day since the tonsure, along with that cloth thing with the red embroidered Greek lettering. She is harrumphing through the one piece of reading material in the room, a pamphlet with dull hospital news. I’m playing Spider Solitaire on my phone and beginning to worry about the battery reserve.
A noise is coming from the lower rib-cage area of a woman sitting at my other side. There is a crackly, ventriloquistic tone to it, like she’s hidden a walkie-talkie up her shirt and someone on the other end is passing gas into it. The woman pokes herself and it stops. I have been hearing about issues with gas in colostomy bags. The sound does seem more disturbing than your average run-of-the-mill fart: unnatural, as Ma would say. It’s a good thing Ma’s hearing aid doesn’t work well, or she’d really want to make a dash for it. It has now been an hour and a half since we got here.
Ma shifts in her wheelchair.
—This is ridiculous.
—What?
—There’s no point.
—What are you talking about, Ma, this appointment or the surgery?
—Both. I feel fine. Let’s go home.
Aargh. I go up to nice little Cindy behind the desk, the one who took all my messages, the messages Lawson never answered.
—Excuse me, my mother is so tired of waiting that she has decided to go home now and not have her surgery after all.
—Just a minute, says Cindy, as if this happens nine or ten times a day. She calls back to see if we are next. We are, and it should only be a few more minutes.
Twenty minutes later, I’m down to one bar on my phone, and Ma says get me out of here, this is ridiculous, why can’t I go home. I get ready to say what I have said a thousand times before because she keeps forgetting that shrunken rectal tumors grow back and cause bowel obstructions, which lead to everything backing up. What can’t go down must come up, remember, and you’ll be begging anyone available to remove that tumor. What’s more, by then it will have spread to your lungs, liver, and bones. Lungs are okay because it’s like drowning, which is manageable with morphine. Cancer in your liver is bearable, but bones, forget it. Cancer in your bones feels like rats chewing on you, and they say the painkillers can’t do a thing. Four out of five doctors have told you that it’s all very well to say avoiding surgery is a reasonable course to take when you’re old and frail. It’s not when you have a rectal tumor.
But this lady with the walkie-talkie rib cage is right next to us, and because of the bad hearing aid, I’d have to shout. So I go back to the desk and tell little Cindy that I have to wheel my mother out of range and talk her off a ledge again.
We find a quiet corner and start with what can’t go down and so forth.
—It’s all right, Ma says. That’s what happened to Grandsir and he was fine, he just went ahead and died.
(It has been bothering me, this business about my grandfather’s mysterious but horrible death and its similarity to what we’re dealing with. Mental note: Schedule my own colonoscopy when the surgery crisis is over.)
We switch to chewing rats.
—Nonsense, I have a very high pain threshold, and besides, my cancer tea may be working. Let’s go home.
Sigh.
—Ms. von Munch-spritzer?
It’s Doctor Lawson’s assistant Gina, not a moment too soon. She leads us past the hovering salespeople toward the inner sanctum. Ma tries to ditch the wheelchair on the way, probably so she can hide her current feeble state, which might cause Lawson to reconsider his new rectum offer and suggest the permanent bag instead.
We pass several office staff members in the hall, and it may be my imagination, but they all seem to be trying to keep very busy and not notice us. These people are most likely victims of my recent increasingly tetchy phone and email assault. Ignoring us is not an easy feat, what with the wheelchair and the two gigantic Memory Foam seat cushions that we keep forgetting about and leaving all over the place, Ma’s weird nun thing around her neck, my huge red file folder not to mention our mutual state of seething agitation. We are like an enormous pulsating Rose Bowl float trying to maneuver around the corners jammed tight with workstations that seem to have mushroomed haphazardly in tiny pockets here and there outside the exam rooms. The rectal reconstruction business must be positively booming.
Lawson’s personal office is surprisingly homey. Here we wait again, this time on comfy leather chairs. Ma has abandoned the wheelchair after all because there’s no room for it here, but I’ve managed to park it conspicuously outside the door. There are many personal touches surrounding Lawson’s enormous desk and his computer with emails on the screen (wish I could get close enough to make a note of his direct address).
—Look at the drawings by his children, aren’t they lovely? says Ma. He obviously has his values in order, Susie, don’t you think?
Ma knows I’m still hung up on the last surgeon Pete’s superior communication skills, and she’s trying to bring me around. Lawson’s children appear to somehow sense their father’s patients’ need for reassurance while they wait, because the wall by his computer is lined with their drawings and notes:
Mostly nice?
Back on the wall in a corner by me, where Ma can’t see it, there is something that looks like a stone tablet carved with unreadable words. Hebrew? I’m interested to know if Lawson is Jewish and if so, how this will figure with Ma. I can’t decide whether it will help or hurt to call her attention to it.
Ma is cooing over the children’s drawings. There’s a handout on the desk describing the procedure. Instead of wasting more battery life on Spider Solitaire, I decide to check this out.
TATA (pronounced the way it looks, like ta-ta!) was a big breakthrough back in the day. Also known as transanal abdominal transanal radical prosigmoidectomy with descending coloanal anastamosis, the surgery involves two stages. First you get your cancer removed, a new rectum is built using a healthy piece of your colon, and you receive a temporary colostomy to give it all a chance to heal. Second stage, some months later, they take away the temporary bag, reconnect your plumbing, and teach you how to work your new rectum. Pretty wonderful in theory but I’m convinced it’s not for Ma.
The wait drags on, and I check Colette’s list of questions: “How many eighty-five-year-old people have you done this to who didn’t end up incontinent?” I’m beginning to work myself up with some pretty mean thoughts like, Who does he think he is? He’s younger than me. Okay, he’s got a nice office and he’s all busy and everything, but this could easily be a smokescreen. I’m not about to let some whippersnapper use my mother as a guinea pig.
I look around the room again, and that’s when I see it. How could I have missed this before: a rather large wooden sign, displayed prominently on a bookshelf—a gift from a former patient? It takes up quite a bit of space, so Lawson must really like it:
Nobody gets in to see the wizard!
Not nobody!
Not nohow!
All of a sudden, everything becomes extremely clear.
I was Glinda the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz in high school. I’ve watched it thousands of times with the kids. I could jump out of my chair and perform the exact choreography of the Lollipop Guild dance for you right this second if you needed me to.