The Unsinkables

My mother and I had our very first real and honest conversation when Daddy was in the ICU at Methodist Hospital in Memphis. She refused to leave the hospital from the time he was admitted until he died, several days later. I spent my time there, too.

There’s something about stark mortality staring you in the face that makes everything else insignificant. It’s one of those highly-focused moments that obliterates everything else.

Focusing on the hallways and elevators between the waiting room and Daddy’s room. Remembering each turn, because getting lost might mean a few less minutes. Forcing myself and her to eat.

Not because we had an appetite, but because we knew that we wouldn’t be much good for him if we didn’t.

Since Daddy died, Mama and I have talked several times about how some things just don’t matter that much. About how life is too short for not loving the people around you.

Daddy’s death was a slap in the face to the both of us.

She’s opening up to me, and I’m opening up to her.

When she calls now, she usually spends a while talking to Shannon before she talks to me. He says he can tell a difference in her attitude toward him since before.

When me and her talk, one of us always ends up crying. Usually me.

But we talk about things that are important in and around the trivial (it rained one building over but not on us, and, by the way, every time I look at Daddy’s picture, I start to cry—that kind of stuff).

Such twisted conversations that only a mother could put up with.

She keeps comforting me as I comfort her. She says “It’ll take time.” 5 minutes later I tell her the same thing.

We’re messes, me and Mama. But finally, after 42 years, we’re in the same boat.

And neither of us intends to sink.