what you've all been waiting for

"So, so you think you can tell heaven from hell,
blue skies from pain
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil, Do you think you can tell?"
-- Pink Floyd, "Wish You Were Here"

I've been very focussed on the numbers lately. I've been focussed on the numbers I think because I'm trying desperately not to let it all sink into the fog at the back of my mind. Trying desperately not to forget. I've a terrible memory of the past. It simply sucks. So much of my life is just... gone. Lost, in the recesses of my mind. It drives me really nuts sometimes.

And I feel it all slipping away. And I'm trying so desperately to hold onto it. It was the second, right? Or was it the third? And it was a Tuesday, wasn't it? Yes, it was the second, and it was a Tuesday. It was 6:42 PM when the phone rang. So I've been focussed on the pure statistical mathematics of it, as though that will somehow help me remember, just because I'm usually good with numbers. And I've gotten myself spun in circles, because the fog approaches, hell, the fog is here: I no longer feel certain of any of the details. I'm no longer sure how well I remember. And it's all trivial really. It's not like I'm going to stop being her son just because I can't remember well the words she said. They've already molded me. The same way you never remember every conversation you've had with your best friend but your feelings for them, based largely on those interactions, remain. My feelings for her remain. Perhaps the memory has dulled a little in the sense that I can no longer call visions to my mind, but...

7 years. I'm 28. It was one-quarter of my life ago. A few more years and it'll be one-third of my life ago. Then another decade and it will be one-half of my life ago. And it'll keep getting farther away.

For most people this probably all seems a little morbid. I mean, I'm supposed to "put it all behind me and move on", right? Perhaps I should be at work today, putting it behind me like my sister Nancy is trying to do right now. Martin's probably working too. And Susan. Nah, fuck ya. I have a different theory.

I want to remember. I want to remember every moment of my life with her that I can, and I want to remember it well. And that means remembering her death too.

It doesn't hurt to remember it anymore. It doesn't pain me to think about her. It only pains me sometimes when I think about the emptiness she's left. It only hurts when I focus on the fact that I won't ever see her again, or on the fact that so many people in my future will never have an opporunity to know her. That sometimes troubles me. Since she died I've had... hmmm... 4 girlfriends I think. Well, 4 relationships of any substance anyway. And I didn't care much that Pam, Jane, or Shelley didn't meet her. Not because I wasn't with them very long, but because I never conceived of them having much of a relationship with my mother, and certainly not a particularly interesting one. Shelley and Pam were both probably too shy to develop much of a relationship with her, and Jane would have been regarded by my mother in much the same way she'd regarded Jennifer (a "what the heck does he see in her?" way). It did always hurt a little when I thought about the fact that Bernice could never meet her. I wanted Bernice to meet her. I think they'd both have found one another quite interesting.

And I feel a little jealous of my siblings sometimes. Which is interesting really, when you consider that I'm not normally a jealous person at all, for any reasons. Envy is just very far from me. But I'm the youngest, and even Nancy is 6 years older than me. I was 21 when Mom died, so Nancy would have been 27. They all had an opportunity to know her as adults. I don't know that I was much of an adult at 21. My memories of my mother are as a child remembers its mother. My relationship with her was always of that between a child and an adult, and not one that transpired between two adults. I really think I'd have developed a very interesting relationship with her if we'd had more time together as adults.

I expect I will be going to Mike's farewell tonight. And after that I may be going out somewhere with Nancy just for a little while. Right now I'm going to cut off writing for a bit so I can have a Soul-Cleansing and then maybe walk over to Dad's. I walked over to visit Dad last year. That was when I had that terrible flu and he told me the remedy Mom had always used on him. I wonder what Dad is thinking of it all about now. I know what it's like to lose a parent but I still can't conceive of losing a mate. I'm sure it might be something I'll have to face someday, but I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

You know, in some ways, this isn't even the worst time. Mother's Day. Whenever it's just before Mother's Day I always have to put up with a rash of people asking me what I'm getting my mother for Mother's Day, and I have to politely as possible tell them she's dead without making them feel like total asses for bringing it up. And it always kills the conversation. And I always see their hearts sink as they awkwardly stammer out something and try to change the subject. But it's unavoidable, really. I mean, if you don't know me, how could you know. Last year I actually managed to get all the way to Mother's Day itself without a single person having that conversation with me, and then a waitress asked me why I didn't bring my mother along with me. I shrugged it off and didn't tell her that I'd have loved to.

Well. Shave, bath, dress, Dad's.

"How I wish, how I wish you were here"
-- Pink Floyd, "Wish You Were Here"