Another Year
Dear Beatrice,
We just received notice of your approaching yahrzeit. As in past years I will most likely be the one to buy the candle, set it up, and light it. Your son, my husband, might be there because I will have called him to participate in this gesture but then again he might still be working when the time comes to light this candle... so, who knows? Perhaps you do.
I must admit diminishing anger. You no longer occupy my every waking moment. Your boxes of stuff never got dealt with to a natural conclusion. I kept seeing things that had no connection to the version of you that you bestowed upon me. I saw a wonderful, vivacious, and confident woman. But that is not who I knew. I stopped going through your worldly possessions the day I found your perfume.
The kids were off to gym or swim class and I was home alone with the boxes of your stuff. The first one I opened after lunch contained the stuff from your dresser top. There were little china bowls holding jewelry and buttons and dragonfly pins. There were three or four empty perfume bottles but there was one that was almost full. I sorted everything out for the granddaughters. And then, I don't know why, I opened the perfume bottle most recently used by you. That is how I finished the dresser box.
Why was I cleaning up your mess when my mess never gets attention? I stopped working on your stuff. I closed the bottle of perfume and left it there on the book shelves where it still sits today... how many years later? Every one in our family likes to eat. I moved myself to the kitchen and began to prepare dinner. When the kids returned home I think I was bringing up laundry. Rachel entered the house. She stopped in her tracks so her brother had to push her aside to get himself inside. When she moved, she moved with purpose. First to the front room, then to the back room, then she checked the bathroom, came into the kitchen, swung around and through the dining room, and final checked the back porch before she returned to the kitchen and asked, "so, where is she?"
I was trembling with tears. It was not my intention to give my daughter this experience. It was a good question... so, where is she? I could barely speak but when I did the most I said was, "who is she?" Now, my daughter was disgusted with me. "Mommy, where did you put Grandma?"
Do you know where I put you? I put you on the list of difficult people who needed to be in our lives. I put you on the list of special needs souls so I could treat you with the respect and honor you deserved as matriarch of the family in spite of the fact that you were difficult. I put you on the list of a reminder for me that please G-d, one day I might be a mother-in-law too. ... and I wanted to have no regrets.
Do you remember the day when the kids and I were visiting you and Papa, your husband, my father-in-law? Rachel was just a little baby who was sitting in my arms as you and I sat next to each other on the sofa. You looked at her and called her a little "Shiksele". I froze. This was not, is not, and will never be a nice word even with the endearing suffix that you added to it. Finally, when I spoke I told you how my paternal grandmother had referred to my mother as the "Shikseh" -- what is it about blue eyes and blond hair? You paused and replied that she must have been very hurt. "Yes, she was. Whenever the family got together my mother always ended up in tears. She was very hurt but, when my grandmother experienced her only and final illness my mother was able to take care of her like a loving daughter. She had made peace with the way things were."
Beatrice, you looked down at our Rachel and caressed her tiny hand saying, "I have one regret, that I did not treat my mother-in-law more kindly. I now know that she only meant well."
How do you remedy that?
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