survival

So I am writing this in the aftermath of one of the worst calamities to hit our country in years. And for the first time, I actually know of people who suffered the horrible fate of losing everything because of this tragedy. Well, everything material, I suppose. In that sense they (my friends who lost their homes) are more lucky because while they lost everything they are all safe.

It got me to think about whether or not I had it in me to survive a tragedy. Not just this one, but any one in particular. I'm not sure I do. I just finished reading this poignant book by Anna Quindlen, and one of the entries which struck me the most is the entry she wrote about her mother. She wrote:

"We're different, those of us whose mothers have gone and left us to fend for ourselves. For that is what we wind up doing, no matter how good our fathers, or family, or friends: On some deep emotional level, we fend for ourselves. The simplest way to say it is also the most true - we are the world's grownups. 'No girl becomes a woman until her mother dies' goes an old proverb. No matter what others may see, or she herself thinks, we believe down to our bones that our mother's greatest calling was us; with that fulcrum to our lives gone, we become adults overnight.

x x x

Sometimes, missing my mother, I lose track of whether I am missing a human being or a way of life. Our mothers only slowly become people to us, as we grow older and they do, too. But for years and years they are both more and less than that. First they are warmth and food and an inchoate sense of security, then cheerleader and overseer, then finally listener, perhaps even friend. Our family was a wheel; she was the hub. Without her we fell apart, a collection of sticks. We've knit back together, some of us, as adults, but it has never really been the same.

There is something primitive about this love and this loss. What does it mean, to sleep beneath the heart of another person, safe and warm, for almost a year? No scientist can truly say. but it must have some visceral power that we cannot really understand, only intuit. She was the only person who ever loved me unconditionally. That was her great gift, too. It has been the bulwark of my life, has made everything else possible. When I can see myself refracted through the rosy lens of my mother's love, it melts the self-doubt and brings to life the tiny sanctuary lamp of confidence.

x x x

It's been twenty-five years, and I can even joke about it now, in a macabre way. I refuse to go and see what I call "dead mother movies"; I can watch Terms of Endearment when it comes on television until Debra Winger goes to the hospital, and then I'm out of there. I only go to my mother's grave when I attend family funerals. I don't see the point; she's not in there. She's in me, the way I was once in her, only not as tangible. Inspirational books would have us believe that that is sufficient. That is such utter nonsense that my lip curls just writing the words. Because here is the final thing about having your mother die: You never, ever get used to it. You want her back. Or at least I do."

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I am lucky that I still have my mother, though I never really felt like I had her in the way some of my friends do - to brush their hair and share secrets to and go shopping with and talk about boys with - but she is my mother. And she has been a mother to me. Despite my pessimism, she somehow manages to pray for me and tell me to eat my vegetables and see potential even when I am being the laziest oaf in the world. I don't know how I would survive without her. I don't know how I would live without her. At the moment, I suppose, I feel as if I can survive any tragedy apart from losing my parents. Anything but that.