4. A Partial List of Things I’ve Written About My Dead Mother
1. A song, at age 12, called “I Never See You Anymore.”
I never see you anymore
You’re always halfway out the door
On the way to your brand-new life
You’re not there anymore
Don’t you care anymore
Mommy…I never see you anymore.
“I Never See You Anymore” was one of the songs in the musical I was writing in middle school. The musical was called Kids!
Kids! wasn’t going to be a story musical like Annie, or whatever. It was more in the vein of A Chorus Line, where separate characters presented their own storylines through song. So one character in Kids! sang a song about being overprotected (“The ‘Still Being Babysat’ Blues”); another sang about losing hope in childish dreams (“Miracle Worker”).
My mother had me sing some of Kids! to this couple who came over to the apartment one time for dinner. My mother never entertained dinner guests, unless they were her boyfriends, but she’d recently met this couple at the Homowack Lodge in the Catskills, where we’d spent five heavenly days—me playing pinball and bowling and ice skating and mini-golfing; her playing tennis and sitting by the pool and being adopted by this couple.
I have a picture of the three of them together, that’s how I know I’m remembering it right, but I wouldn’t have forgotten him: lanky, long hair, toothy smile. The way he and his blonde girlfriend enthused, they’d love to hear a song!, and settled with serious expressions to watch me perform my original ballad, “I Never See You Anymore.” And how his face changed as I sang the refrain.
2. A story, at age 13, called “Room to Grow,” narrated by the mother of a 13-year-old. The mother sends her daughter off to her first school dance, then feels bereft and anxious in the daughter’s absence, so she spends the evening binging on junk food, making prank calls, and flushing things down the toilet to cheer herself up.
3. Various journal entries, interpersonal correspondences, and extemporaneous spoken word pieces, from age 13 through…present.
4. Various pieces of short fiction depicting an absent, deficient, or monstrous mother figure, from age 18 through 43.
5. A personal essay, at age 32, called “My Mother’s Boyfriends,” from a rejected essay collection called How I Became the Girlbomb.
An excerpt from this essay:
“My mother was extremely practical, and extremely pretty, both things I wanted for myself, and I hung on her every word like a suicide from a chandelier.”
6. A published book, at age 36, called Girlbomb: A Halfway Homeless Memoir.
An excerpt from this book:
“I had, I guess, sort of a crush on my mom, in that I thought about her a lot, I wanted to spend time with her, and I wanted her to like me. Anytime she was paying attention to me, I was elated.”
7. A rejected manuscript, at age 40, called My Mother Is Crazy.
An excerpt from this manuscript:
“God, I hated her. It was like a delayed reaction – I couldn’t hate her back in my teens and early twenties, when I was still relying on her for help. But now that I was independent, I could afford to get angry at her. I just couldn’t explain why.
I have drafts of letters to her in my notebooks from that year, in which I was trying tell her why I couldn’t see her anymore, or not for a while, at least. Mom, I love you and I care about you, but you are driving me crazy. Mom, you have to let me live my own life. Mom, I know it seems like I should be over it by now, but I’m still hurt and upset by some of the things that happened in the past. Mom, fuck off and leave me alone.”
8. A rejected, incoherent personal essay, at age 42, called “Act British, Think Yiddish,” for an anthology about Jewish mothers.
The title came from my mother’s business motto, and I was trying to write about her professional success, I think? I don’t know; the thing was so garbled. The editor asked if I could revise the piece for clarity so they could include it, and I had to say, I’m sorry, I don’t think I can.
9. A eulogy, at age 43.
10. A rejected personal essay, at age 43, called “My Life Got Better When My Mom Died”
11. A personal essay that was accepted but never ran because the website went under, at age 43, called, “My Dearest Friend Dumped Me When My Mom Died.”
12. A partial manuscript, age 45, called How I Let Her Live Like That.
An excerpt from this manuscript:
I’ve called my mother twice in the past week, and left her two messages on her cell phone, but I haven’t heard back from her. I start going through the same logic tree I always go through when I leave messages and don’t hear from her.
She didn’t call me back because:
She didn’t get the messages…
- Because she misplaced her phone.
- Because her phone has been shut off in the last three days for lack of payment.
- Because she doesn’t know how to use her phone anyway.
- Because her current husband, Ray, operates her phone for her, and he deleted the messages.
- Because she is ill or incapacitated.
Or:
She did get the messages, but…
- She forgot about them.
- She plans to return them and hasn’t gotten around to it yet.
- She’s decided not to return my messages unless I’m going to give her money.
Or:
She’s dead.”
13. A partial manuscript, age 56. Maybe.