Sitting on the toilet this morning, waiting for Godot - I wouldn't give my ass to my worst enemy - wondering if my mother were still alive somewhere. Or not. I most likely will never know. I mean at some point, if I live long enough, I can sort of assume. Minus proof, it will always be an assumption. My people live long. Too long for my taste or plans. My grandfather was in his mid 90's, my father near 90. My mother will be 90 next birthday, it's not impossible she continues.
My younger brother and I were friends once, when kids. He's a Republican now, proudly. I mean I'd still hang out with you were you a Reagan Republican. I wouldn't talk to you too much. Proud Trump Republican, no.
I otherwise admire him, though. Minus any parenting or help or guidance he's managed to put what appears to be, anyway, a secure life for himself. He found his way to his way and I can't be too hostile to the moments necessary for him to cling onto towards it. I knew when my father died I'd never hear from him again. Oh, right, OUR father, I forget, he was so removed from any relationship with him the last many years. The writing was on the wall, his disappearance into the ether.
He remained in his mother's life, was (is?) her primary caretaker, most likely harbors a whole slew of opinions and emotions towards us for abandoning the mother ship, a place from which diving into the savage sea seemed a more likely survival tactic than remaining dry on board.
So as patiently as I wait for my shit to exist, I wait for my mother to cease. There are two relationships we have with our parents, maybe?, the one while they're alive and the one after they die. A while back a friends husband died and she was not at all shy about her dislike for him and the legacy of his memory. It was my first glimpse that the narrative of the dead might not be what we're fed, that we're eternally broken over the loss, filled with inconsolable sorrow and grief. (Hollywood, again gone awry.) No, it's more complicated, it will include the final years, the final hours, the final service, the meal after. It will include the time it takes for it all to land, this thing that was your entire life-in-two-parts, before and after.
Someone I know is losing his first parent right now. I wait for it to realize itself, the expanse of process. It's a curious and rarified space to occupy. It has opportunities and freedoms and sorrows we'll never be able to fix, the cumulative legacy.
I myself look forward to it. Will it ever be over, this-story-this-relationship that has metastasized my life my identity my sense my idea of self-as-self? I will most likely never have the satisfaction of the death knell, that sigh of relief, closure. More, it is most likely a fantasy mistaken, the one where I think I will hear of this person's death and breathe free air for the first time in my life, unencumbered. It's been almost 40 years since I've interacted with her, what noose will magically cease that hasn't in the 40? Still, I wait and I believe. I who does not believe in god or hope, I believe in one free breath before I die. If I live long enough.
