Six Years

Who knew Selfridges sold Yahrzeit candles? There I was having a quick peek at the American delicacies (such as they are) in the food hall – killing time while waiting for a carol concert, if you must know, and trying to keep myself away from the Temperley sample sale – and there they were.

***

My mother died six years ago today, and I struggle with how to observe the actual date – never mind with the fact that she's gone. Sometimes it is all fine – someone asks me, say, where my parents live, and I respond that my father lives in Connecticut. Or somehow the subject will come up, and I will say – in a voice so preternaturally calm it seems to belong to someone else – "My mother died a few years ago."

And then there are other times when you would think she died yesterday. Or at least, recently enough to explain the state of unglued I become over the smallest things: the soaring voices of a choir, for example. It is the randomness and complete inexplicable-ness of what sets me off that makes it all so difficult. It's like limping to avoid a pain, yet occasionally getting this breathtaking shock of it anyway.

When I was last in my grandmother's kitchen I caught sight of a photo of my sister, my mother and my grandmother on a Mothers Day that had to have been at least 15 years ago, maybe more. (Was I taking the photo? I don't know.) My mother and grandmother were both heavy in a way that I can barely remember either one of them being – my mother refusing all food in her last days, and my grandmother these days mostly uninterested in it.

I was struck by how happy they looked, how solid – as if you could burrow into them and they would make everything OK.

Another memory bubbles up to the surface now – one I haven't thought about in years. I'm not sure when this is from – I think my freshman year of college.

My sister had a horrible time adjusting to school – my mother would say that she knew it was my sister on the phone only because there would be no sound on the other end of the phone but sobbing. My sister wanted to come home, she wanted to transfer, she wanted my mother to fix it. And my mother – who really only ever wanted to be happily married with kids (she got half of that, I guess) – couldn't fix it.

We were having one of those rare conversations where I felt especially close to my mother – like I was getting a piece of her nobody else saw. She was telling me how horrible it was to have your child so upset and to be so powerless.

"But you, I never worry about you," she said to me, explaining why she rarely questioned decisions I made. "You think about things. You could tell me you were going to do just about anything and I know you'll be OK."