The View from a Drawbridge

My mother would have been 87 years old today. When she passed away 23 years ago I thought I’d simply drift off into space. She had always been the one thing that kept me tethered to solid ground, figuratively speaking. Without her I felt as though I had been cast adrift, like a ship without an anchor. Who knows on what shore I would wash up? That’s a scary feeling.

For months after her death, I kept thinking I saw her everywhere. She was the woman standing in line in front of me at the grocery store, the lady walking down the street as I drove past, the person in the crowd at a baseball game. This seeking behavior during the grieving process is normal and quite common.

We had plenty of warning that she was going to die. In fact, she stuck around a whole lot longer than anyone anticipated. The doctors kept saying they couldn’t believe she was still here. We actually used to talk about it quite a bit, until the pain medication made her incapable of recognizing anyone.

She knew I occasionally liked to visit the Cassadega Spiritualist Camp for their free Sunday message service, where people who have crossed over can, in theory, communicate with the living through mediums. Toward the end my mother said to me, “Once I’m gone, don’t go back to Cassadega. I’m not going to want to be bothered.” She was joking. Sort of. But so far I’ve respected her wishes.

About a year after her death, I took a trip to New York City for the first time in my adult life. I was standing in line at the dock, waiting for the ferry to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island where all my grandparents had entered the country. I was listening to a street performer as he walked up and down the line entertaining the crowd. My mother would have loved this experience. I looked skyward and thought to myself, “Ma, you are with me. I love you.”

Right at that moment, the street performer came to a dead stop in front of me, and started singing, “You are my Sunshine”, which is a song my mother always used to sing to us. I do love those moments when one sheds happy tears, don’t you?

And then the other night I was working on the bridge at around 4 in the morning and feeling kind of lonely and sorry for myself. I looked out the window at the city skyline, and I said, “Ma, I miss you so much.” A minute later, a pen that was sitting on the window sill on the other side of the room, in a ridge that was there to specifically prevent such occurrences, fell onto the floor.

I thought about it for a few seconds, then said, “Okay, Ma, if that’s you, I need some kind of sign that this year is going to be better than last year, because frankly I can’t take another year like 2013.” Two minutes later, my backpack, which had been sitting in a chair on the other side of the room all night long, fell to the floor.

Was my mother trying to communicate with me, or were these just freaky coincidences? I don’t know. But in retrospect, does it really matter? The love is there either way, and it always will be.

My mother, with her whole life ahead of her.