Dead Mom Walking

by Rachel Matlow

  As Canada was welcoming Shad across its radio waves, I was busy customizing Mom’s farewell tour. The weather was breaking. Springtime in Toronto always brings with it a palpable sense of relief and optimism. Not this year. Instead of beginnings, it ushered in a series of lasts. We went to see the cherry blossoms in High Park for the last time. We went for “goodbye lobster” at Wah Sing (I ate the fried lobster with ginger and scallions; Mom puked up wonton soup in the bathroom). And we made one last trip to the rooftop of the Park Hyatt.

  It was a sunny day at the end of April. We happened to be seated at the same table where, nearly five years earlier, Mom had first told me she might have cancer. I thought back to that time when I still thought she was too full of life to ever die. It’s funny how you can trick yourself into believing that certain people are exempt. I remember being dumbfounded by the deaths of Christopher Hitchens, Nora Ephron, and David Rakoff—writers Mom and I had both liked. They were so much a part of the cultural furniture that it was hard to imagine a world without them. When I produced an interview with Nora Ephron more than a year before she died (for what would be her final book, I Remember Nothing), I mentioned to her how my mom still made her vinaigrette from the back pages of Heartburn (the only salad dressing Mom ever made). Nora laughed. “That’s not a bad legacy to have!” She was never publicly out about her illness, but in hindsight, I can see that she already had death on her mind. And if even Nora Ephron couldn’t outsmart it, what hope was there?

  We ordered fancy cocktails. Mom looked like a skeleton, albeit a very elegant skeleton in her wide-brimmed sun hat and multicoloured knit sweater that hung off her emaciated frame so well. We did our best to enjoy the bittersweet moment. Mom had always loved this rooftop bar, and I don’t think just because of the spectacular view and drinks. She sometimes brought up how, back in university, a friend of hers named Helen had jumped from a ledge just below the bar and fallen to her death. It obviously still saddened her. As Mom took a few tiny sips of her wild hibiscus flower champagne, it hit me how her conscious choice to savour the small pleasures in life—as she was doing right now—to live la bonne vie, had always been a giant fuck-you to death.

  * * *

  —

  ALMOST SIX WEEKS after learning of her liver mets, Mom agreed to see an oncologist at Princess Margaret. Chemotherapy was the last thing left on the menu, but as Dr. Brunt informed us, it could be used only to manage symptoms and give Mom a better quality of life (for what was left of it). Mom was open to hearing what the oncologist had to say. “Maybe something will appeal to me,” she said.

  Just the energy it took for Mom to go out exhausted her, so once we were shown into the doctor’s office, she opted to recline on the examination table while I sat down on a chair next to her. A radiologist entered the room, introduced himself, and asked Mom about her recent medical history. Mom explained how she’d first gone to see Dr. Brunt because she’d been experiencing “all these horrible symptoms”—extreme fatigue, nausea, low appetite—and her liver was jutting out. “I thought, maybe it is rectal cancer!”

  You think? I braced myself. Here we go again.

  “Are you taking any medications right now?” the radiologist asked.

  “I take very high doses of turmeric,” Mom replied.

  “Of what?”

  “Turmeric.”

  “Sorry?”

  “The spice!” I burst out, looking directly at him. “She’s taking a SPICE.”

  He smiled and nodded politely. I appreciated that, since I could tell he knew something was up. In some way, these doctors’ visits were cathartic for me: they were among the few times I had a witness to how totally bonkers Mom could be.

  He asked if she was allergic to any medications. She said she might be allergic to latex—that although she’d never had a reaction herself, two of her friends had developed latex allergies later in life. “It doesn’t mean you’ll have a reaction,” I said. I was growing more impatient. Here she was, a terminally ill person, worrying about a hypothetical allergy to condoms and medical gloves.

  Mom’s avoidance was frustrating and painful to watch. She was always worried about everything except the cancer that had been slowly but determinedly killing her for the last five years. She worried about catching a cold. She worried about the mercury in her fillings. She worried about toxins in her fish. On one level, I knew this obsession with the small stuff was her attempt to regain some control, to distract her from dealing with the real terror. But it still really pissed me off. Her choosing death over life was painfully impossible to compute. She was choosing death over me.

  The radiologist asked Mom if she was interested in chemotherapy. “Probably not,” she said. “I don’t find chemo sensible.” From the arbiter of reason herself! Mom explained that she’d read “all of these books” and learned that a “big percentage” of oncologists would never do chemo themselves or advise it for their family members. Mom added that she was maybe willing to do chemo at a clinic in Germany where they give it to you with sugar in a way that “tricks” the cancer. The irony…a Jewish woman trusting only the Germans to administer her poison.

  He asked her point-blank if she understood how serious her situation was. “I get that I’m dying right now—faster than most people,” she clarified with a sly grin. “But I haven’t given up. I’m trying a whole bunch of stuff.”

  At this point the radiologist politely excused himself. A couple of minutes later he returned with the oncologist, who’d obviously been brought up to speed. “I understand that you’re a bit shy when it comes to regular treatment,” he said. Then he paused. “I don’t know if that’s the correct—?”

  Mom and I both laughed. “No, that’s very sweet,” Mom replied. “I like shy better than pig-headed!” In those moments, when she at least still had a sense of humour about herself, I felt like we were back on the same side.

  The oncologist gently explained that there was a big mass in her liver, and that if they didn’t treat it, there would likely be more symptoms: jaundice, bleeding, or a bowel obstruction that could result in emergency surgery. Hopefully chemo would stabilize the mass and stop it from growing. Best-case scenario: it would shrink the tumour, she would have more energy, and live for another year or two.

  “Why are they doing lower chemo doses in Europe and here it’s higher?” Mom asked. Before the doctor could answer, she offered her take: “I think it’s the drug companies wanting to make more money.”

  The oncologist said he’d be willing to compromise: a lower dose, pill form—whatever she’d accept. He was concerned about how much time she needed to make up her mind.

  Mom told him she’d need another week or two to decide. There was one other person she needed to consult.

  “Can I ask who?”

  “My herbalist.”

  “Would you consider talking to another oncologist?”

  “No.”

  If she wasn’t already going to die, I was going to murder her.

  The oncologist was eager to book CT scans and make another appointment. He reminded Mom that chemo could possibly extend her life by a couple of years, but that if she did nothing, she was looking at a few months. “I’m happy to see you whenever,” he said. “But please keep in mind there’s a time window.”

  We said our thanks, and both doctors left the room.

  I immediately turned to Mom, trying to quash my seething frustration with all the patience and compassion I could muster. “You can try it,” I said, “and if you hate it, you can stop.”

  “I’ll definitely think about it,” she said. “It’s scary. But of course they always try to scare you.”

  “They’re not trying to scare you,” I said, exasperated. “They’re giving you the honest truth—”

  “Their honest truth.”

  “But everything they’ve told you actually comes true.”

  “Ther
e’s another way of looking at it. I could already be dead, or have gone through hell and been depressed.”

  “That’s what you think.”

  “Please, sweetie. Just let me not talk about it. It makes me feel awful, the constant push push push.”

  “I’m not pushing you. Do whatever you want. You always have!” Thirty-five years of pent-up resentment bubbled over.

  “Well, I will,” she huffed back. “But I’m also listening to your points. Isn’t that enough for you?”

  “Sure. Have it your way.” I was at the end of my rope.

  “Why shouldn’t I have the right to do it my way, even if I’ve made mistakes? You may have had four more years of me than you would’ve had.”

  “Fine, we’ll go by that.” My eyes stung with hot tears.

  Mom looked confused. She probably hadn’t seen me cry since I was a kid. “Are you crying because I won’t do what you want?”

  “No!” I paused, irked beyond belief. “I’m crying because you’re going to die.”

  It was the first time either of us had said the words out loud to each other. She was going to die. It was a sure thing. It didn’t really matter anymore which door she picked.

  “I’ve only ever tried to make suggestions for your own good!” I cried harder. I didn’t want to make her feel worse, but I desperately wanted to feel heard.

  “I know that’s what you think,” she said, switching to her wise Yoda self. “But Rachel, you have to respect that the other person has a whole world inside of them, and that they have a right to their decisions. Everybody has a right to be themselves.” I didn’t want to acknowledge this, even if part of me knew she was back to talking sense.

  “It’s understandable why somebody who loves somebody so much wouldn’t want to have to stand there and watch them destroy themselves,” she continued, employing her inimitable logic. “But you have to let them do what they need to do and trust that your point of view isn’t the only one in play.”

  “So I’m supposed to just sit back and watch you make your suicidal decisions?”

  “Everyone has to choose their own path. You can’t save someone. You can support them, you can love them, you can help them. But you actually can’t save anybody from what you see as destruction. Whether they’re addicts or whether they’re not doing Western medicine.”

  Technically, of course, she was right. It was all too apparent that I couldn’t save her. But if I had to do it all over again, I still would have tried.

  Mom took my hand in hers. “Anyway, what you’ve been giving me the past few weeks has been, like, an elixir. It’s part of the reason I’m not depressed. It’s been exactly what I’ve needed.” Now she started to cry. “I’m really scared, Rachel. It’s been me going through this.”

  It was the first time we’d ever cried together. I suppose that, through all my steadfast attempts to rescue her, and her steadfast attempts to pretend everything was just fine, I’d lost sight of the fact that she was simply a person who was terrified. I mean, I’d been experiencing my own worst fears, but Mom was right: it was so much worse for her. It was she who was dying.

  A sense of surrender came over me. I was so sick and tired of fighting her. I preferred that she try chemo—I wanted more time with her, and I didn’t want her to experience any more pain than she had to—but I wasn’t going to push. All I could do now was love and support her, and try to enjoy every last drop of time we had left together.

  15

  GREAT IS BETTER THAN PERFECT

  “They tried to make Mommy go to chemo, I said no, no, no…”

  Mom was singing in all her self-righteous glory to the tune of Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab.” I had to admit it was pretty funny, if not more than a little ironic considering how things had turned out for Amy. I’d been hoping Mom would consider chemo or at the very least get a CT scan. I’d even bought her a piece of crystallized galena (a type of rock that, according to the package it came in, assists in “countering the ill effects of radiation and electromagnetic pollution”). I was trying to meet Mom on her own wavelength. But I wasn’t surprised when her answer was “no, no, no.”

  “I’m not going to schlep down to the hospital every two weeks to get an IV,” Mom said. Also, her homeopath had told her that chemo would interfere with the drops she was giving her. Mom certainly didn’t want to mess with those.

  So that was that. There wouldn’t be another year or two. We were looking at months.

  For the most part, Mom was facing the fact that she was dying. She was making financial and legal arrangements, reading books on death, and meeting with her palliative care doctor. She was no longer giving herself affirmations, though she still thought there was a slight chance that something she was still doing—the cannabis oil, the herbs, the homeopathy—might miraculously kick in and save her, or at least extend her life in the way chemo might have. “I’m accepting that I’m going to die, and also kinda like, you never know.”

  Mom decided she wanted a death doula. I’d raised the idea with her after hearing a radio segment about the emerging practitioners who provide end-of-life emotional, spiritual, and practical support. Just as midwives help pregnant people prepare for birth, death doulas help terminally ill people prepare for death. It was definitely Mom’s kind of thing.

  I wrote to the few I could find in the Toronto area. It would just be a matter of who was the best match. Mom was bound to be as picky with death doulas as she was with men. I felt like I was producing some sort of dating-game reality show. The Bachelorette: Death Doula Edition.

  “Who will be good enough to hold my mom’s hand…in death?” I joked in my best Chris Harrison voice.

  Mom played along. “I don’t want my dying to happen with just anybody. It’s a very intimate relationship.”

  For all our morbid jokes, we weren’t actually that far off the mark. In what felt like a version of speed dating, Mom interviewed five death doulas by phone. It came down to two contestants: Shirley, an older hippie type who Mom instantly felt she could be good friends with, and Elizabeth, who she pegged as a right-wing Stephen Harper–style conservative.

  Elizabeth was a corporate consultant by day; a Google image search revealed her perfectly coiffed hair and penchant for sweater sets. Yet Mom said she’d felt a strong connection when they spoke. She told me how Elizabeth had listened to her for a long time and then said, “It sounds like you’ve lived your life the way you’ve always wanted to, and now you want to die the way you want to.” Mom had cried. She’d felt heard. When it came down to it, Mom didn’t care whether they had the same politics—as they say, she wasn’t here to make friends. Mom was seeking someone who could put their needs and ego aside in order to be fully present for her. And so she offered Elizabeth her final rose.

  Mom was getting noticeably weaker and more fatigued with each passing week. She wouldn’t be able to climb the stairs to her apartment much longer; we needed to find her a new place to live (or rather, die), stat. After scouring the rental listings, I eventually found a furnished condo nearby, on the other side of the ravine, only a couple of blocks away from Teddy’s house. It had an elevator, a wheelchair ramp, and a private balcony among the treetops—Mom could still get some fresh air even if she was too tired to go out. It was perfect. It even had an extra bedroom in case I wanted to stay over. Most suitably, it had only a six-month lease. We said we’d take it.

  Even though Mom was still kicking, I was already beginning to mourn her. I thought about all the things we’d never do together again: go on a hike, go to the art gallery, go out for a nice meal. She’d never see me get married or have children, and I’d never see her become a kick-ass old lady. I really wanted to see that.

  One afternoon we were driving past the University of Toronto. Mom was looking out her window at the students walking down the street, talking with friends on their way to class. “I did that,” she announc
ed. She was thinking out loud. She explained that even though there was still so much she wanted to do, she felt she’d experienced everything she’d needed to in life. “I wish I could meet you at the Met for coffee when you’re fifty,” she said, as a random example of what she’d still want to live for. “And there are certainly people I’ll miss, or rather they’ll miss me,” she chuckled. “But I’m seventy-one. And I feel that I’ve had a very full life.”

  These moments were becoming more frequent. Mom would speak softly but declaratively, reflecting on the fullness of her time in this world. She meant it, but it was also as though she was reassuring me—and herself in the process—that life had been good to her. “I’ve had so many wonderful experiences and joys and connections with people. I feel I did valuable work in the world. I’ve had really good friendships. I think my children are amazing. And I love my ex-husband!” She laughed, and then sat silently for a bit. “I haven’t always had an easy life,” she said finally, “but I’ve had a really lucky life.”

  Once we were home, Mom admitted that it was still difficult for her to let go. “I always wanted the vastest life possible,” she told me. “Part of the reason I wrote was to have extra life. I taught myself lucid dreaming so that I could have a night world as well as a day world.” She took a deep breath and exhaled. “Now I’m living in a hugely narrowed world.”

  Somehow, though, in the midst of sober realizations like this, she’d manage to bring it back around and lift both our spirits. I didn’t know if she was doing it for me, if she was giving herself a pep talk, or if it was just the cannabis talking, but I appreciated these moments. “I’m not exactly happy, but I’m oddly content,” she said. “It’s not nearly as bad as it could be. I’m very grateful. And for whatever the reasons, I feel it’s some sort of grace.”