Dead Mom Walking

by Rachel Matlow

  The shock soon turned to rage. I was angry at Jian for what he’d done to those women, for the way he’d treated me and my colleagues, for everything I hadn’t been allowed to be angry about before. After he was fired we could finally say all the things we’d been trained not to say. I could admit to other people—and myself—that he was horrible. It was liberating to be able to speak the truth, to have my reality validated. In the days and weeks that followed I spent a lot of time with my work friends. We helped one another make sense of Jian’s distorted reality. And as we shared our individual stories, the fuller picture came into focus. We could see how he’d played us off each other. I learned the term “gaslighting”—how an abuser can sneakily get their victim to fundamentally doubt their reality. It dawned on me that we’d been psychologically abused. I’d been a victim too. I’d convinced myself that I was the puppetmaster (Jian read my words), but it had always been him. He ran the show, and I’d been forced to join his play.

  I felt betrayed that he’d used Q—this thing we’d all built together—in the service of his dark private life. It was mortifying: I’d inadvertently helped Jian create a progressive feminist persona that he used to deceive and abuse women. I questioned what value my work now had. Had those six and a half years been for nothing?

  I’d always believed that I possessed a strong sense of self. But then how had I allowed myself to stay in a toxic work environment—in an abusive work relationship—for so long? How had I let myself compromise my own values and beliefs? How had I become so disconnected from myself?

  I remember how my colleague Debbie was furious and fuming one day. She looked at me: “When did it all become normal?” she asked. I paused to think about it. Yeah, when did it? I couldn’t think of an exact moment or event. That’s when it hit me: we were frogs who’d gotten boiled alive, one degree at a time. Over the years we’d slowly gotten used to the insidious warping of our reality, to the point where we no longer recognized our reality, or even ourselves.

  I was having recurring nightmares about Jian, along three basic storylines. In the first, I’d be giving him hell. “How could you?” I’d scream, full of rage. In the second, he’d been given his job back and I had to work with him again. I was terrified and betrayed. Those dreams felt so scarily real that the next day I’d have to keep reassuring myself he wasn’t coming back. The third storyline was the most disturbing. Jian would look at me with sad eyes and ask me why I had abandoned him. “Lil Bro, I didn’t do it. You have to believe me. We’re brothers.” “I’m sorry, I can’t,” I’d say, anguished and crying.

  The public could dismiss him as a one-dimensional monster, but my feelings were more complicated. This was a person who’d called me his brother for more than six years. (“You’ll always be my true Lil Bro,” he’d written to me on my thirtieth birthday.) As much as I’d hated him, there was part of me that still felt attached. Still cared. I’d wanted his approval until the very end, which made me feel guilty and confused. Had he ever really cared about me? Or were all the sweet moments just tactical ways of keeping me hooked so that he could use me?

  I was walking through life like a zombie. For someone who always had their finger on the pulse, I barely had one. I was afraid of attending cultural events and of socializing in general. The whole country was talking about Jian. It was all anyone wanted to discuss with me. People were curious. “Did you know? Do you think he’ll go to jail? Will he be able to revive his career?” They didn’t understand that the situation was traumatizing for me. It was my life. Even people close to me didn’t get it. And why would they? I’d always minimized the emotional toll of working with Jian. Friends knew I didn’t like him, but I’d only ever really talked about the good parts of my job.

  In the midst of this media circus, Josh invited me out for brunch. Although Mom and Teddy weren’t tuned in to how devastating the fallout was for me, Josh at least had some idea of what I was going through. For the past year and a half he’d been embroiled in the Rob Ford crack-smoking scandal at City Hall after a video circulated on the internet showing the mayor puffing away on a glass crack pipe while spewing obscenities. The incident became comedic fodder for the likes of Jimmy Kimmel and SNL, but it caused Josh a lot of emotional turmoil. So he knew what it was like to have people constantly ask questions about a traumatic experience as though it were the plot of a TV show. We noted how “interesting” it was that we’d both found ourselves in the midst of two of the country’s biggest scandals. “Yeah,” I said, snickering, “I wonder what it is about our family…”

  Molly felt like I was shutting her out. We’d been so close for the past four months, and now my anger and depression had come between us. She wanted to be there for me, to help me in ways I might accept. She sent me my union’s harassment policies and grievance timelines. She wanted to get closer—to be on the inside of my grief and pain.

  But my colleagues were the only ones I could really talk to—the only ones who truly understood what I was going through. We’d been work friends, but now we were war buddies. In between prepping our revolving door of guest hosts, we spent a lot of our days processing together, trying to help one another make sense of the past as we were being barrelled into the future. It’s what kept me going back to work every day—along with the hope that we could finally have the show we’d always wanted. We’d made Q. We’d poured ourselves into it. I didn’t want to leave it; I wanted to fight for it. I wanted to take it back.

  Sometimes I wondered whether people thought we were overreacting—I even questioned it myself—because it was so difficult to articulate or pinpoint what exactly Jian had done to us. How do you explain the feeling of being on edge for years? Always trying not to rock the boat, assessing his energy and moods, anticipating his next blow-up or revenge plot, fearing what was coming next. The logic of language could not capture the experience.

  At the time, #WhyIStayed was starting to trend in response to questions about why a woman would remain with an abusive man. Women were speaking out, sharing their stories. My situation wasn’t the same, but I identified with the complexity of the relationships they described. I thought about why I’d stayed: I stayed because I thought the bigger picture of doing so many feminist, trans, and anti-racist stories was worth it. I stayed because I loved the work and many of the people I worked with. I stayed because it was my first big job in my field and people told me it was normal. I stayed because I mistakenly believed that it was a badge of honour to be able to “handle” Jian.

  As I was opening my eyes to what had happened to me, it seemed as if the whole country was waking up from a sort of cultural denial. It was a watershed moment. The beginning of the #MeToo movement. Women were coming forward with their own wrenching stories of sexual assault and harassment and their own allegations against major public figures. There was a dramatic shift in the national conversation about sexual assault and consent. We were getting a better understanding of the nuances of sexual assault and the challenges facing women wanting to report it. It was a painful time for many, but it was also inspiring.

  In November, Jian surrendered to police and was formally charged with four counts of sexual assault and one count of overcoming resistance by choking. We all stood around the TV in the office, as we’d done for milestone events like Oprah’s last episode and Obama’s inauguration, and took in the surreal sight: Jian arriving at a downtown courthouse in the back of a police car. My thoughts were with the women who’d come forward. The highest stakes in the aftermath of Jian’s termination were about justice for them. I was tremendously grateful—they saved us.

  * * *

  —

  THROUGHOUT THE ORDEAL, Mom’s cancer took a back seat. As far as she was concerned, her elbow was her only health issue. After she got her cast off, she blamed the surgeon for the fact that she hadn’t regained full mobility. She felt disfigured. Whereas I was hoping her elbow operation might inspire her to get the more pressing surgery,
her self-proclaimed “botch job” only confirmed to her how evil Western medicine was.

  Her cancer came up only when she talked about her writing. Mom was proud of being a medical system renegade, and was even considering a sequel to her dating book: Silver Fox Says No to Chemo. I think she was hoping to add her story to the miracle-cure-memoir genre. For now, though, she was working on a play about her cancer journey. She’d asked for my help editing it, but I’d been putting it off.

  One day when I was at her place, Mom asked if she could read it to me. I figured I’d get it over with. So I took a seat at the dining room table as Mom stood at the head with her script.

  “It’s called My Way,” she announced.

  I smiled and took a deep breath. Nothing veiled about that title.

  Mom began, “I want you to know that I did not start out as a medical rebel and I’m not in denial.”

  Oh dear. If you have to say it…

  “I want you to know that I have always questioned authority. I have been complimented on my bravery in choosing to ‘drive my own car,’ to leave the freeway of conventional Western medicine and map an off-road course of treatment. I was able to resist the fear-mongering of the doctors, friends, and relatives.”

  I gave her a two-finger salute. Mom laughed and then quickly got back into character. She read out each scene with dramatic flair, playing various characters with different voices.

  SURGEON: I’m offering you one more chance to do what you ought to do.

  MOM: I know you believe that your way is the only way, but I’m going to continue to direct my own healing.

  SURGEON: What are you talking about? No one takes charge of their own cancer treatment.

  MOM: I really am grateful for all you’ve done for me. But given my particular situation, I’ve made my particular choice.

  SURGEON: Do you have any idea what kind of death awaits you? I hope you’re making arrangements for assisted suicide. I’m firing you.

  It was obvious who the hero was going to be in this story. At one point, Mom got into a heated conversation with her cancer:

  MOM: I don’t want to fight you.

  CANCER: Good call, babe. You wouldn’t win.

  MOM: But I don’t want you anymore. I want you to leave.

  CANCER: You want to dump me? Not so easy. We have a contract.

  MOM: I know I married you. But you’re a thug and you scare me. You’re such a control freak, always needing to have your own way.

  CANCER: Look who’s talking. Yeah, I’m a thug, but you wanted protection and I rescued you from a heart attack or a stroke. Baby, you made your body into a toxic swamp, all that pastry, that marbled animal fat, those many many glasses of Chardonnay. Not to mention your clogged spirit, judgmental mind, overreactive emotions. Where do you think you’re holding your resentments? Yup, right where the sun don’t shine.

  MOM: Okay, I once needed you and you came through for me. But now you want to devour me—just like my mother, just like my lovers, adore me and devour me.

  CANCER: I do adore you. We’re mated. We’re like one person.

  MOM: Listen, I’ll make a deal with you. Join the community of the other cells—you’ll be more fulfilled. Or recycle—die to be reborn as a cell with status. You could be a brain cell!

  I didn’t know whether it was the funniest thing I’d ever seen or the most disturbing. Was her cancer Teddy? David? Grandma? Mom was clearly working out some serious relationship issues.

  The play ended with Mom turning to the audience (in this instance, me) and announcing, “I gotta dance. Will anyone join me?” I forced a smile. I was not into audience participation. Mom walked over to her CD player and pressed play. As Gloria Gaynor belted out the opening lines of “I Will Survive,” Mom raised her hands in the air and began twirling around the living room.

  I remained seated with my elbows on the table, propping up my face. I was stupefied.

  “I don’t think I can help you,” I told her after the music wound down.

  “Why not?”

  “Because…” I paused to sum up my swirling thoughts. “You are the epitome of the unreliable narrator.”

  * * *

  —

  IN DECEMBER, Mom admitted to feeling some horrible symptoms: roiling stomach, nausea, low energy. She’d lost weight, too—she believed she had parasites from eating “bad sushi” several months earlier.

  She decided to go see her new GP, Dr. Brunt. Mom’s old GP had been bumming her out—“Every time I went in she was sure I was going to die. It was so depressing”—but she liked her new one. “She’s totally not alternative, but she’s totally great.”

  Dr. Brunt convinced Mom to get an MRI just before Christmas; we’d have to wait until after the holidays to get the results. On New Year’s Eve Molly threw a big house party. I avoided everyone, and ended up watching horror movies in the attic. You know you’re in a bad way when the Babadook is a welcome distraction.

  The new year started off with a bang, or rather, a blow. Mom’s MRI didn’t detect any presence of parasites. It did, however, reveal the presence of third-stage rectal cancer—Mom’s cancer had grown into the wall of her rectum.

  The diagnosis had snuck up on me. How had I not seen that Mom’s health was going downhill? It was so obvious in hindsight. She was always picking at her food, always sending it back at restaurants because it tasted off. She looked pale. She was tired all the time. I remembered Teddy saying, “Your mother doesn’t look well. Her complexion is different.” I’d agreed, and yet somehow it didn’t register. Had I been so consumed with my broken leg, my new relationship, the Jian blowout and resulting depression that I’d dropped the ball altogether? Or had I become so complacent, so disconnected from reality, that I wouldn’t have seen it anyway?

  It certainly wasn’t conscious, but maybe on some level I believed that Mom was so powerful, so untouchable, that she would find a way to manifest the reality she wanted. That despite not getting treatment she’d be able to stall her cancer with her sheer will. After all, Mom was magical.

  STAGE 3

  11

  WHACK-A-MOLE

  When we near the end of a match, my chess partner Joel knows he has to hold the metaphorical pillow tightly when trying to snuff me out. I always come back from the brink for one last fight. And in the early days of 2015, I was down. But Mom was right, I never give up easily—I become even more focused. Time was running out, and I had to muster whatever energy I had in order to fight for Mom once more. I begged and pleaded with her to see a surgeon. It was my sole wish.

  I soon regretted not having been more specific. Mom bought a ticket to Brazil to see a “psychic surgeon,” known as John of God, who performed invisible procedures with the help of spirit assistants. Fuck my life. He wasn’t a licensed doctor, yet he claimed to channel the spirits of long-dead physicians and saints. I looked him up. To call him a charlatan would be putting it mildly. There was no credible medical or scientific evidence to support any of his miraculous claims, just several reliable investigative reports exposing him as a con artist. He brought in millions of dollars every year shilling his blessed products: herbs, water, crystals, and magic triangles he’d autograph upon request—two blessings for the price of one.

  Mom was surprised to learn that her cancer had grown. Apparently Michael was, too. But instead of blaming him she blamed herself for straying from her protocols. “I went off my diet,” she lamented. She wanted to refocus on her remedies, to return to her affirmations, to her cottage cheese and flaxseed oil. Back to her five daily drops of scorpion venom. She was off sugar again, and coffee too. Well, drinking it at least—she started going for organic coffee enemas. Mom was still confident that her body would not betray her.

  Around this time I began having my own stomach issues. I felt intense cramping in my abdomen. Yet even as it grew more painful with eac
h passing day, I didn’t give it too much thought—I was too concerned about Mom.

  Of all the surgeons we’d seen, Mom seemed most receptive to Dr. Stotland, so I continued to beg her to see him one more time. I fought with her over and over. She put up a good fight. She cried. She even hung up on me. But this was a battle I was not backing down from. This was my last chance. Her last chance. There was nothing left to lose—except her.

  “If you don’t do this for me I won’t be your friend anymore!” I threatened, giving her a taste of her own poison. I didn’t mean it. But I was beyond desperate.

  In mid-January, Teddy got a stubborn headache that became so severe he took a taxi to the hospital, where a CT scan revealed that he’d suffered a minor stroke. Life was starting to feel like a haywire game of whack-a-mole. It was scary, but Teddy was lucky—there appeared to be no permanent damage. He was in good spirits when Mom and I visited him in the hospital—he loved the attention he got from doctors and nurses.

  I sulked in the corner, angry that Mom still wouldn’t agree to see a surgeon again. I looked at Teddy in his hospital bed and Mom beside him, pale and thin. The fragility of my parents’ existence had never been more apparent. We all thought Teddy would be the first to go. Even he thought so. He’d already picked out and paid for his casket! For years he’d been emailing Josh and me regular updates to his end-of-life plans. Every few months we got a message out of the blue with the subject line “Kicking Off,” detailing where to find his power of attorney (in the liquor cabinet) and often closing with the postscript “I’m not leaving yet.”