Love and Regrets

January 2005 - Best Friends

If you’re following this blog, and you know me, you know my mother and I were best friends. We even looked alike, and sounded alike. 

In pictures together, our features looked so similar but our coloring could have been fodder for a Benetton advertisement. She was dark, a Sabra, with long straight black hair, olive skin, dark eyes and freckles. I am beyond fair, with pale skin, blue eyes, freckles, and what has been referred to as Pre-Raphaelite red hair. I relish the moments when someone tells me I look just like her. She was ridiculously beautiful, so it’s a hell of a compliment.

Not only did we look alike. We thought alike. 

You know that one friend? The one you can have an entire conversation with just by exchanging glances? Where you pretty much have your own language and one look says it all? That one person that just gets you, even when you don’t get yourself? That was who my mother was to me. She was that friend.  My Mother was the one who sang my song back to me when I forgot the words. The one who called me on my shit and made me want to be a better and stronger person. The one who made me who I am today, quirks and all.

We were two peas in a pod. No one will ever know me better than my Mom did (although my Dad is getting there). She would start a sentence and I would finish it. Jokes were funnier when we told them, because we instinctively knew who would run with the punch-line. We would call each other multiple times a day, just to share “Oh my GOD, the funniest/craziest thing just happened!” We loved old movies, we loved shopping, we loved road trips, and we loved each other. She was the Amos to my Andy, the Bonnie to my Clyde, the Will to my Grace.

I’ve been thinking about our friendship a lot. I really miss her, and I won’t pretend tears haven’t been shed in the last couple of weeks, just because I wanted to talk to her and couldn’t. The biggest hurt comes when I want to pick up the phone and call my Mom. For one second, I anticipate how funny she’ll think my story is. And then I remember she’s gone. In that one nanosecond I am filled with hope. And then it dissipates as quickly as it came.

If you’re a woman reading this, you know that the Mother/Daughter relationship can be especially fragile and volatile. Our friendship, although mostly perfect, had many ups and downs. Some of those downs were brutal. When you love someone so very much, the hate stemming from an argument can be equally as strong. Sometimes I wasn’t easy to love, and sometimes, neither was she. In our most intense fights, we said things to each other no one should ever say. We would scream that we hated each other. We wouldn’t speak for weeks on end, even living under the same roof. We made each other miserable. And then we would make up, and forgive each other, promising never to fight again.

In a previous post, I mentioned that I have a few regrets in life. Everyone does, although we all run around waving the “Live With No Regrets” banner like we’re all free as birds. Right. It has taken me 10 tries to write this next bit without sounding like an asshole, but the truth of the matter is that those 10 tries forced me to accept that I WAS an asshole. 

When I found out my Mother was sick, I was angry. Anyone with a heartbeat would be. But I directed that anger at her. Just typing that out makes me nauseous. My mother was diagnosed with Cancer, and I wasn’t very nice to her. 

I can’t really explain why I did this, because frankly I’m still trying to figure it out. I caused her nothing but grief for over 6 months. I was demanding. I made her sickness about me. I didn’t want things to change. I fought her on everything. I made her cry. I am so ashamed, and I don’t know that I will ever be able to forgive myself for how horrible I was to her. She didn’t deserve it. I was in denial, I was terrified of what life would be like without her, and I fought my best friend instead of the illness itself. 

When someone emails you a long letter calling you out on how unpleasant you've been, you can delete it and rid yourself of any traces of your bad behavior. You can pretend that person is full of it, and deny any wrongdoing. You can rid yourself of any proof that someone knows how terrible you were. 

Now try getting that same letter from your Mother, who is dying of Cancer. 

She’s telling you how horrible you’ve been to her. How much you’ve hurt her. How she expected more from her daughter and best friend. It’s the last real letter you’ll ever get from her. You hate that she’s right. You’re embarrassed at what an asshole you’ve been. 

Now try and delete that letter. 

I have this inner turmoil every year: I re-read the letter, and I want so badly to delete it to make the regret and embarrassment go away, and I can’t. I can’t because if I do, I’m deleting a piece of her from my life.  Of the regrets I have in life, this is the one that I will battle for the rest of time. I hurt my best friend in ways unimaginable during what was the most terrifying ordeal for her.  And I can’t pretend it never happened, because I am the proof in the pudding.

Her letter was a wake-up call for me, and during the next year and some of her battle with Cancer, I stepped up to the plate and was the daughter and friend she needed me to be. I left my job and spent her last months with her, in the hospital, working to make her laugh every single day. I brushed her teeth, I changed her bedpan, I gave her a pedicure. I held her hand. I lay with her on her narrow hospital bed, and watched her as she slept. I loved her with my whole heart every single second. I left ME at the door, the way I should have when she was first diagnosed. 

About 6 days before she died, she had a friend and my Aunt take some dictation. She wanted to leave final letters for me, my Dad, and my Brother. I want to share these letters because they reassure me that I have been forgiven by the most wonderful woman I ever knew, and because they are precious to me. I can sleep because of these letters.

This was what was written to me, in two separate letters, one day apart:

May 5, 2006: “For my outstanding daughter, more beloved than she’ll ever know. You have surpassed my dreams of how wonderful you would ever be. You have been there for me in good times, the funny times, and the dark times. I’m luckier than I could ever expect to be. You are charming. You are thoughtful. And you love me so much and I love you and I hold you next to my heart forever, for always. I probably should have told you this more often but sometimes we get so busy with our daily lives, but never doubt my love for you.”

May 6, 2006: “I want to tell you, Amy, that you are my light. You are precious to me in every way. I adore you and the energy you put forth. Your kindness and love…all that means the world to me. I’m at a loss for words. We’ve had such good times together and I’ll always be with you. I have difficulty putting the right words down, but I know you’ll understand. If I have forgotten to mention certain things, you’ll hear me in the wind, the sounds of the fountains, and all that bring peace and beauty. I love you forever, Mom.”

I also share these letters with you because they are full of the things we should say NOW.

Tell the people you love that you LOVE them. Tell them they are special. Tell them you’re sorry. Be real and be honest. There are so few opportunities in life to tell the people you love how much they mean to you. 

Love your family. 

Hug your Mom.

Shoes, Glorious Shoes!

 

I wrote this in 2009. Given that Spring shoe-shopping is right around the corner, I thought this would be a proper post to welcome NEW SHOES:

Every time I go home to Montreal, it’s the same thing: Rushing to fit my friends and family into a tiny time frame. There aren’t enough hours in the day, and I always end up feeling guiltier about how short my visit was rather than how often I actually do visit. But hey, I’m Jewish. The guilt is genetic.

It’s always nice to go home and see that everything is the same as it was when I moved away five years ago. The same kitchen floor with the rub marks where our chairs have been for over 33 years, pushed away from the table as my brother and I rushed to play outside, talk on the phone, or get away from further parental questioning. IE. “Amy, are these YOUR rolling papers?” The same brick fireplace I ran into face first as a toddler, because I was dancing for the guests. The same sink where my father washes the dishes every night because he "does it better than anyone else”.

My old bedroom is now an office/guest room of sorts, with all of my mother’s art supplies, pictures she cut out, and selected quotes taped to her desk. I still take a look around and try to picture the way it was when I was a kid. I actually remember every single flower in the wallpaper my mother chose for my room, with matching linens and curtains. It was like living in a shrub: A large, all encompassing, dusty rose-colored shrub. Bless my mother, Laura Ashley, and the 1970s.

The house is big and warm. The rooms are the same, save for new furniture and appliances here and there. Of all of the rooms and all three floors, the place I like best in the house is where time stands still: My mother’s shoe closet.

When I was a little girl, I used to sit on the floor in her shoe closet surrounded by all of her shoes. I took great joy in trying them all on. Repeatedly. I organized them by color, by heel height, by season, and even sometimes by occasion. Surprisingly, I’m not actually OCD. My friends reading this may disagree. *ahem*

Each time I sat in her closet was different, and each time I would learn something new about my mother. I would ask her about the beautiful red satin Mary-Jane pumps (they made her feel like Dorothy), or I would tell her that her hand-made gladiator sandals were my favourite. There was always a story of a great sale, an impulse buy, or wedding she didn’t want to go to but really wanted to dance in her new shoes. She was a great dancer, and I always boogied with my Mom at family weddings.

On this particular visit home, I open my mother’s shoe closet, and look down at all of the shoes. Over a hundred pairs, easy. There are some in boxes, some strewn on the floor, some on a shoe rack. None of them have left the closet in a very long time. It has been over three years since she died, and when I go home, I still sit in my mother’s shoe closet. It’s where I feel closest to her, and where I remember her best. I don’t fit in there as well, and I have to shove some things aside to make room to sit. It’s in those few moments that I can still hear her voice, telling me about the sandals she wore on her honeymoon, the shoes she bought to feel like a movie star, or the boots my father bought her in Europe that she only wore once because they were “too nice”.

I can still see her face, smiling at me as I organized things and tried every single pair on, modeling them in her full-length mirror as though it was my job. Mostly, I feel like she is in the closet with me. In those moments, I feel like she’s still alive and my heart hurts just a little less.

My mother wore a size 5.5 shoe. I used to be able to wear them when I was a kid, but soon they were a half size too small.  Sometimes she would buy her shoes a size bigger so that we could share them. I learned from this extraordinary woman that love isn’t giving someone your last Rolo or French-fry: Love is buying the wrong shoe size so you can share them with your daughter.

After her funeral, her best friend pulled me aside and asked me for a pair of my mother’s shoes. I went through her closet, and found the pair my Mom liked best. They were far from stylish, but she wore them all the time. I mentioned this to the friend, saying they were probably really comfortable. 

Her response was that she wasn’t planning on wearing them. She just wanted to keep them at her front door, so that it would always feel like her best friend was visiting her.  Maybe I will do the same. There are so many to choose from, but the choice is clear: Dorothy, there’s no place like home.

In 2008, I wore my Mom's running shoes to do the 60km Weekend to End Breast Cancer.  They were a little too small, and I may have done permanent damage to my left big toe (shout out to my Podiatrist), but it meant she was with me. I walked in her shoes, and it was like she was by my side holding my hand the entire time.

I think about my own shoe collection sometimes, as a woman is wont to do, wondering what I was thinking when I bought 4 inch heels, or why I own 4 pairs of Chuck Taylor's. The truth is they all have a story and a life, just like my mother did.

Maybe the reason I am so obsessed with shoes, is simply because I LOVE them. Maybe it is because I just can’t resist a sale. I am a woman, after all. It’s how I’m programmed. 

Then again, perhaps it goes deeper than that, and it’s because I imagine what their story could be and want to be part of their adventure.

Or maybe they just remind me of the woman who taught me that the best way to determine if the shoe fits is to dance in them.