Dead Mom Walking

by Rachel Matlow

  “Can’t I just get a packet of pills?” Mom blurted out. “Or, I’ve heard there’s some kind of mask you put over your head. Are any of those options offered here?”

  Josh’s eyes widened. I clenched my teeth. What was she expecting, a loot bag?

  “So you’re naming two other methods that are considered reliable.” Nino was treading carefully. As he went on to discuss the more legally dubious options Mom had just raised, he spoke in strictly hypothetical terms. It was obvious he didn’t want to say anything that could be construed as encouraging us to break the law.

  Option 3: Swallow pentobarbital.

  The highly lethal barbiturate is the drug of choice for assisted suicide (and capital punishment), though it’s most commonly used for euthanizing pets. “But it’s illegal in Canada,” Nino told Mom. “It literally does not exist here.”

  “It’s okay. I know where to get some,” she replied confidently.

  “Where?” I asked. This was news to me.

  “I’ll ask Kay and Richie. Their son is a vet.”

  Josh and I both snickered. Kay was Mom’s oldest friend from Communist Jewish summer camp. She had become devoutly Orthodox and now lived in the suburbs of New York City. There was no way Kay was going to be Mom’s mule.

  Option 4: Inhale pure helium.

  “Really? You can die from breathing in helium?” Mom asked.

  Nino nodded. “But someone would need to assemble the bag and hose fixture, and that’s considered assisting,” he said, once again warning us. “You could get in trouble.”

  Josh looked at me. “I’m a politician. You do it!”

  I smiled at Mom. “We could say I’m making balloon animals to cheer you up?” Keeping the joke in the air, Mom spoke in a high-pitched Alvin and the Chipmunks voice. “Hi, this is my final goodbye,” she squeaked. We all laughed.

  “When do I have to choose?” Mom asked, as if she had to RSVP her choice of meal for a wedding.

  “You should let your palliative care doctor and support team know your intentions as soon as possible, so everyone will know what to do, if or when the time comes,” Nino said.

  As we stood up to leave, I turned to Mom. “I really don’t think you’re going to experience any prolonged suffering.”

  “Maybe,” Mom said. “But I’d feel better if I had a safety net.”

  My eyebrows shot up. “A safety net?” More like a trap door. Mom clued in to her choice of metaphor, and we all had another good laugh.

  “Thank you, this has been amazingly helpful,” she said to Nino as he walked us back to the reception area. “I’m aware that so many people have the exact same illness, but they’re in refugee camps or they’re homeless or in impossible situations. In the midst of everything, it’s nice to have a lot of support.”

  “It’s a complex journey, but the sooner you can name what you want, the better,” he said.

  I was grateful that we could all talk (and laugh) openly about Mom’s end-of-life wishes. For all the things our family avoided, and for all the ways we used humour to deflect, we were also capable of having brutally honest conversations about terrifying subjects—ones that most people would avoid. I’d do whatever I could to help Mom die the way she wanted to, short of killing her.

  The next morning I was back at Mom’s place. She was sitting in bed, propped up by a triangle meditation cushion, and I was lying at the foot atop her burnt orange duvet cover. It was where we spent most of our time together now, working on crossword puzzles as the spring light shone through the windows. She was telling me about her night. “I woke up and it was the first time I thought, ‘I’m actually going to die. I won’t be here in a little while.’ I looked around and started crying.” She sighed, then added, “I suppose I don’t have to bother getting that root canal now. The silver, uh, mercury lining!”

  Mom was happy she’d gone to Dying with Dignity. “He mapped out everything very well. I’m glad there are four options,” she said, cracking a smile. “None of them seriously attractive.” Mom looked down at her skinny frame. “Boy, has my life ever zoomed downhill,” she declared, exhaling loudly. She told me how weird it was to see her body in such an unrecognizable state. It was getting harder for her to even get dressed in the morning. She’d asked me to pick up a few thick cotton T-shirts to help hide her ribs and some extra-large underwear that would fit over her protruding abdomen. “It’s like my liver has a life of its own. I think I can feel its heartbeat,” she joked.

  Mom was now approaching death with a sense of inquiry. “Dying is interesting. I’m curious about it as I go along. The main thing I notice is how quickly I seem to adjust to each worse stage, to my surprise. But I do.” In a sense, dying was like a new adventure for her, a new dimension of human existence for her to explore.

  “My days aren’t as horizontal, but they’re more vertical,” she said at one point, describing how, while the timeline of her life may have contracted, the level of meaning had gone up. “I’m so aware of every hour mattering,” she added. “When I’m not lying in bed stoned, that is.”

  * * *

  —

  I WAS STILL going over to her place several times a week, and with each visit Mom had some new perspective or revelation to share with me. She spent a lot of time venting about her sister. Barbara had recently come to Toronto to visit Mom and help her out, but everything she did seemed to piss Mom off. She felt that Barbara didn’t listen to her and was constantly taking over. When Barbara had suggested she get a walker, Mom bristled. “That’s up to me to decide!”

  Barbara hadn’t lived in the city since she went off to university, but she and Mom had remained close. They’d visit each other, go on trips together, and talk on the phone for hours at a time. Barbara was like Mom…on speed. Giddy and excitable, she made Mom look like a vision of calm serenity. Still, as chaotic as her energy could be, Barbara had always been a loving, generous, and supportive aunt to me. Mom’s relationship with her little sister was, of course, much more complex.

  Mom said that her resentment toward Barbara had been brewing for the last few years. She explained to me how, when she was well, she’d been able to handle the parts of her sister’s personality—and their dynamic—that drove her crazy. But now she didn’t have the strength. “Being weaker than her is an impossibility for me.” She was grateful to Barbara for the countless hours she spent listening to her talk about her cancer. And despite her grievances, Mom felt compassion for her. “We were patterned by the same parents,” she said. But in the end, Mom was fed up. When Barbara wanted to make plans to come visit again, Mom told her not to. “I want her to get it that I’m in a different space,” she said.

  Mom was being extra vigilant—if not outright cutthroat—about her boundaries. This was her time. “I have to put myself first. I’ve become less overly caring at my own expense. I can’t do it anymore,” she told me. Mom was dying, but she was no shrinking violet. She had a clear sense of what she did and didn’t want. She wasn’t gonna die lying down (at least not figuratively).

  I made sure to ask about all her preferences, to ensure that everything happened her way. We talked about her wish to be cremated, for her ashes to be spread in the ravine. We talked about the After-Party. Mom didn’t want a traditional funeral, but a celebration in which her friends could enjoy fine wine and fancy canapés. “I could get your favourite lemon tarts from Daniel et Daniel!” I almost squealed, starting to get excited about the party planning and all the things I knew brought her joy. Mom smiled; her slightly wet eyes shone with quiet approval. My adrenalin plummeted just as quickly as it had spiked.

  Mom wanted the party to be held at a community centre in Chinatown, where we used to take Grandma for High Holiday services after Grandpa died (Mom had chosen the congregation because it was led by a woman rabbi). Every year, Mom and I would laugh when Grandma said, with total sincerity, “It’s important not to gorge on
eself on Yom Kippur.” Instead of fasting, we’d just try not to stuff ourselves to the gills during our trips to Lee Garden after the service—that was our version of atonement. But really, putting a synagogue in the middle of Chinatown is just a cruel joke.

  Mom said she wanted there to be lots of performances at her party.

  “Can I tell funny stories about you?”

  “Yes, you can.” Mom laughed. “I expect to be roasted after I’m roasted.”

  As for speeches, Mom said anyone could say a few words but warned me not to let people go on too long. “You have to cut them off,” she insisted. It was in these moments I could see that, despite her easy-breeziness, Mom was still a raging control freak. She even wanted to stage-manage the situation from beyond the grave. At one point, when we started fussing about some minor detail, she broke into song: “It’s my party and I’ll die if I want to, die if I want to, die if I want to.” And then, waving her finger in the air as if she were hitting each word on an invisible cymbal: “You. Would. Die. Too. If it happened to youuuuu…”

  Through all of this, Mom and I were getting closer—in more ways than one. Sometimes we held hands while we talked. Other than quick hugs, we hadn’t been affectionate in that way since I was a kid. (Mom hadn’t always been good at hugs—Josh had to teach her how to embrace for more than a nanosecond.) I had even started giving her foot massages. It was something I would normally never have done, but it was a simple gesture that gave her a lot of pleasure in her otherwise miserable state. She’d close her eyes and a blissed-out look would spread across her face. “I’m in heaven,” I remember her saying once before opening her eyes wide, like a mummy coming back from the dead. “Not yet!”

  Our poetry readings continued. One day, after a recitation of “Spring and Fall” by Gerard Manley Hopkins, Mom broke down into sobs. “I can’t help thinking, no matter what my issues are with Western medicine, I should have been tested more often. I’m not beating myself up. I’m just saying, if I regret anything, it’s the last year when I started to go off track.” It was the first time I’d heard Mom admit any real remorse.

  “But you did get tested. You just didn’t want what they offered.” I was confused. “What exactly do you regret?”

  “I’ve never once regretted the original choice I made, but I do wish I would’ve gotten tested after I started getting symptoms.”

  “But what would you have done differently?”

  “I would’ve gone to Switzerland. Or gone to Dr. Gonzalez. And I might’ve had much more of a chance.”

  “If you had done that earlier, do you mean?”

  “Oh yeah,” Mom said assuredly, as if it would have made all the difference. I didn’t think so. It pained me that she blamed herself for going off her diet, for not being tested enough, as if that was the problem and not a lack of proper medical intervention. But I understood that it would be too hard for her to allow herself to regret not getting surgery, even if maybe a part of her did. It was easier to funnel her regret into not having made it to the Swiss spa earlier. I certainly didn’t regret her regret over that.

  “I’ve let go of it mostly,” she continued. “But I could’ve had the greatest life as an older woman. I was set to. I really wish I could stick around.” Okay, I regretted her regret over THAT.

  It was easy being with Mom, lounging on her bed, talking about life and death. Sometimes we just hung out in silence. One day I looked up and saw Mom staring at me intently.

  “What?”

  “I’m remembering you,” she said.

  I understood what she meant, even though in the end I’d be the only one left doing any remembering. She was taking a picture with her mind. She was trying to bottle the moment—just as I’d been doing with my recorder. The clock was counting down fast, and we were doing our best to capture time—or at least desperately cling to it.

  I looked down at her hands. I knew them so well. I could still picture the gold wedding band she used to wear, and the silver snake ring that took its place after the divorce. Soon they’ll be burning in a fire. It was a morbid thought. But Mom was all I’d ever known. She was right here, right now, right in front of me. How could she just vanish?

  “It’s just so hard to fathom that you and me will never be together again,” I said, thinking out loud.

  “I know, I think about that too.”

  I kept staring down at her fingers. “It’s just so final.”

  “I was just thinking the opposite!” Mom’s voice perked up. “Like, it’s final, but the dialogue doesn’t stop. I still sometimes talk to my mother.”

  “I know,” I said, recalling her late-night confabs with Grandma’s ghost. “I’m sure I’ll still talk to you—just, like, inside my head.”

  “I mean, the person has been, and is, so much a part of you that you can feel them. I used to feel my dad’s presence around me quite often. And whatever that meant, it felt like being embraced or held or something.”

  “Sure, but it’s not the same as picking up the phone and talking to you, or meeting up for a drink.”

  Mom’s voice became extra quiet. “Well, we have been extremely lucky, even if luck doesn’t seem to be hanging around much lately.”

  I nodded. We had been lucky, and still were, even under the circumstances. I was lucky to have a mom I not only loved but also really liked. It made it that much harder to lose her.

  * * *

  —

  BY MID-MAY, I was distraught. The ship was sinking. I couldn’t keep one foot at work anymore—all hands, all limbs, were needed on deck.

  And so I arranged to go on an indefinite leave. Everyone at work understood and sympathized, yet for me it wasn’t so simple. At that point my Stockholm syndrome was only beginning to lift. I knew the show would be fine without me, but I wasn’t sure how fine I’d be without the show. For better or worse, I’d been devoted to it for so long. I loved my work, but the situation had an unhealthy grip on me. It was as if I’d been conditioned into a cult for the past six and a half years. And I was a very loyal member. Even when I broke my leg I’d hopped back to work right away. I was afraid to take sick days, never mind take off for an extended period of time.

  Looking back, it saddens me to think that it took my mom dying for me to take a step away. I wish I could have found a way out a lot earlier, or that my need to be valued and respected would have been enough of a reason to leave. But I can also now see just how intense my attachment was. I needed something as strong, if not stronger, to pull me out of it. I couldn’t sacrifice any more of the precious time I had left with Mom.

  So, I produced the one last interview I had on my slate. And then, at the end of the day, I tidied up my desk and left the building, not knowing when I’d be back. I knew I was walking into a far worse hell than the one I’d left behind, but I felt so free.

  * * *

  —

  IN A COUPLE of days Mom would be moving to death row, a.k.a. her new apartment. Yet she still hadn’t told most of her friends about her terminal diagnosis. Perhaps she was afraid of appearing vulnerable or of admitting defeat, or maybe she was just protecting herself by avoiding their grief and staying in denial a little longer.

  I’d offered to write a note to her Top 100 on her behalf, and she finally gave me the go-ahead. I lay in bed that evening with my laptop propped up on my knees, wondering how to begin.

  Hello Elaine’s dearest friends,

  We’re sorry to be writing under such sad circumstances, but we wanted to give you a heads-up that our mom now has fourth-stage cancer and most likely only has a few months to live…

  My fingers froze and my chest tightened. Seeing the words on the screen made the situation all the more real.

  I went on to tell Mom’s friends that Josh and I were making sure she was as comfortable as possible for whatever time she had left. And following her instructions, I let them kn
ow that she preferred notes to visits. With her energy waning, she didn’t want to feel obligated to see people, or worse, take care of their feelings.

  As I pressed send I winced, painfully aware that I was about to break so many hearts with just one fell click.

  I lay back on my pillow seized with dread. Suddenly a succession of loud pops and cracks went off outside. Wonderful. I rolled my eyes, remembering it was Victoria Day. Every pop pop pop felt like an assault on my senses.

  Within minutes, the saddest replies began blowing up my inbox, each one punctuated by a chorus of stupid fireworks. Thanks, Universe. ’Cause I needed this to be an ironic cinematic moment. Mom’s friends expressed their heartbreak and sorrow, but what really threw me was the raw intensity of their shock:

  “Rachel, I did not know that your mother was ill. This is devastating news.”

  “Last I saw her she felt she was ‘beating’ the cancer through her holistic methods, so this news comes as a real surprise.”

  “Is this related to her other cancer scare, or is it new?”

  “I’m really sad and shocked to hear this news.”

  “This is devastating news. I truly thought your Mum was doing okay.”

  I was taken aback by the depth of Mom’s deception. What on earth had she been telling everyone? That she’d cured herself? That her cancer had come back? HER CANCER NEVER LEFT! I wanted to yell into the screen.

  As the soundtrack outside continued, the replies kept landing like missiles. One by one I read her friends’ notes of anguish and despair. I felt under siege. I hadn’t been prepared for the emotional toll of being The Messenger. It was excruciating. For so long I’d been dealing with this on my own, and now I was being hit by the grief of a whole community of mourners.

  Tears flooded my eyes. As well as conveying their love for Mom, her friends also expressed how sorry they were for me and Josh. And for the first time, I let myself feel sorry for me too. I could no longer pretend that my pain wasn’t there. This wasn’t just about Mom—it was happening to me too. Sitting there in my bed, I went from producer to child. I wanted it all to just go away. I wanted to disappear. But even hiding out under the covers that evening couldn’t muffle the mocking pop pop pop of my world exploding.