More Mom, please

Started this on Feb 24, left it alone for awhile, came back to it, fell asleep instead of continuing it, and then... finished it today

In 1997 I was 20 and eager to move out, keep making my own money, date whomever I wanted, go to parties and hang out with friends. I was working in the Queens Center mall near my house, but had my eye on something more. One night in a diner with Liz, a friend I considered becoming roommates with, I looked through the want-ad section of a Voice newspaper. I spotted the NY Restoration Project’s call to clean and landscape parks in Washington Heights and the South Bronx. It paid more than my job at the mall, and offered some scholarship money. Plus it was noble work in neighborhoods I cared about. But unlike the mall, this was two hours away and started everyday at 8:00am. Nevertheless, I set up an interview and got the job.

Liz called me a hard-working and nice person, at one point labeled me “socially pleasant”; someone she’d like as one of her roommates. We were the first people we met in high school, thanks to her older sister Julia, who was scouting someone ‘nice’ for her to talk to on that first day. Liz in turn was also nice and somewhat hard-working. I only say “somewhat” because as she herself agreed, had natural talent that often got in the way of a “nose to the grindstone” way of doing things. An interviewer once said this and she found that she couldn't refute it. She's creative, artistic, and back in the 90's (and a bit beyond), would throw the best parties.

Liz’s niece Polena is more like her sister in age and dynamic, and she was part of the roommate plan as well. She knew of a place we could try to be squatters in, something Joe, my new boyfriend at the time, was wary about. I being too thirsty for adventure, interpreted that as him being over protective even though it was a sound concern.

It was a beautiful, spacious, white, Riverdale (Bronx) apartment with huge windows, right near a bus that could take me to work in about 20 minutes. It was perfect in my mind, minus the whole unstable squatting status. A Puerto Rican family lived next door or downstairs and Liz felt it was crucial we get on their good side in order to allow us to stay there unofficially. Her plan was that we'd bake them a cake and that I, token Latina(?) would further bond with them by speaking in Spanish. Me and my gringa, busted Spanish! What I should've already known though, was that a Puerto Rican family in NY is most likely gonna speak English just fine. In what must have been my second sentence to them, offering them our cake, did I realize that my El Spanish Broken was unnecessary. They had a son, maybe about 12 or 13, who kept inserting the word “obviously” when he spoke, sounding like he was trying to impress us.

One of the Russian neighbors Liz was friends with was pleased to see us, but like very pleased, which was another thing Joe did not like. He said Pulp’s Mile End made him think of our situation, a song we’d heard from the film “Trainspotting”- but the lyrics had nothing to do with that apartment.

“It smelt as if someone had died,

the living-room was full of flies,

the kitchen sink was blocked,

the bathroom sink not there at all…

it's a mess alright…

the lift is always full of piss,

the fifth floor landing smells of fish”?

Not this place! I was thirsty, but not enough to deal with somewhere like that. Then again, maybe I was.

For whatever reason, our Riverdale plans fell through so I was looking forward to our other option in Jackson Heights, where Polena was already living. But it seemed more likely that Karen, another potential roommate, was going to move in with them instead. My mother, sensing my desire to move and a closer commute to work,  suggested I stay with our cousin Rocio and her two kids in Manhattan’s Upper West Side (109th Street/Amsterdam Avenue), for awhile. It wasn’t a glamorous Sex-And-the-City life, but I was thrilled just the same, to be back in my city again. And I always liked Rocio, so this was a plus. She would warn me to not ‘give it up to men so easily’ and to be aware of the many things, a.k.a. products, women need on a weekly and monthly basis in order to survive. I remember thinking that so much of what she listed was excessive and materialistic; I just wanted to bum around in life more, not stack up on a bunch of “useless crap”.

This living arrangement didn't last long either because my mother was diagnosed with colon cancer. Venturing out and attempting life on my own was not gonna fly now that my mom’s health was deteriorating and my little sister needed care. I eventually lost the job at the end of the year because I misunderstood the days we did and did not have off after Christmas and didn't communicate this to them until it was too late. I moved back in with my family in Queens. Maybe that was a subconscious, deliberate self sabotage act on my part.

The next year, thanks to my friend Andy who went to Hunter College, directed me to their want ads, seven years before I went there as a student myself. I found work as a receptionist for Dr. Wang, an acupuncturist from Shanghai on the Upper East Side. It was only Dr. Wang and me in the office (aside from the clients) and then his wife who usually stopped by on Saturdays. With this job I was able to get my mom free acupuncture sessions, supplies of Royal Jelly and other herbs. One of her sisters who attended School of Visual Arts at the time, scored her some weed- I guess some hipster, artsy, SVA type of weed. We were all trying to help her out however we could.

Snapshot memories come to mind concerning her bout with the illness:

-”Chemo” becoming a household name

-being happy to see me over at one of her uncles' houses one time, looking so weak but happy- me feeling less than enthused

-The concerned, doomed look on one of the health provider’s faces when mom gave her “socially pleasant” smile and inquired about her progress.

-All that homemade carrot juice every day

-exclusively raw, then exclusively cooked vegetables (or vice versa?),

-teaching her the American Sign Language alphabet when she was unable to speak for awhile, her mouth too full of sores, too weak to keep writing notes

-her own short hair, shaved head and later on, short, feathered wigs.

-Her turning thin enough again to fit into my clothes and how she kind of delighted in that.

June 4 was three days after my 21st birthday and the last day of her life; she was 44. She was staying in a hospital; or cancer center in Flushing (Sloan-Kettering?) at this point and I visited her after work. I'd take the train from Manhattan and switch to a Queens bus. I remember being alone on that bus ride but then being with Joe later on so I must have eventually met up with him in the hospital. Together in the gift shop, we bought her a little “Happy Birthday” teddy bear instead of a ‘Get Well Soon’ thing just for the weird humor of it, totally his idea. We also showed her a picture of what our daughter would look like because of a place in Times Square that did that sort of thing. So she got to see a simulated version of what our hypothetical daughter would kind of look like. The girl looked sweet, tan with light brown, almost blonde hair in a ponytail, looking around 11- our real daughter has hair a couple shades darker, skin a few tones lighter, and turned 7 this year.

My mom got a kick out of all of that but at one point in the evening she grew too tired, her tired green eyes bulging out from her oxygen or dust mask. She waved us away, gesturing us to leave, shooing us. She needed us to get out, she needed that space, that Solace.

I left with a kind of a huffy, “Fine, mom!” and an, “Okay whatever, I'll see you tomorrow!” attitude and kissed her cheek good night. As I was saying my goodbyes to other relatives a few feet away someone told me, “there’s no one like a mother!”, tears in her eyes. It struck me as eerie and I didn't fully understand the urgency behind her statement. Now I realize it was because she knew it was basically mom’s last night whereas I did not.

Joe and I took the train back to my house. As we were approaching my block, I could see my father, his sister, and my sister, getting into the car on their way to see mom. I thought to myself here's my chance to hop in with them! Joe suggested this aloud but after a few quick mental back and forths, unseen by my family, I decided against it.

“No, no” I finally said; “… Let them go. She didn't want to see us anymore anyway!” I figured I'd just visit her tomorrow and go through the whole thing all over again.

It was around 5:00 in the morning when Dad woke Joe and me up. We fell asleep in all our clothes, our sneakers still on. His voice was very soft when he told us she had died and I could not believe it. My sadness, regret, anger, and horror came crashing down inside me. But I half asleep, held my composure and simply said,

“...okay.”

As in,

okay I'm going to take this on,

okay I'm accepting this,

okay this is now the new reality.

My anger inside sounded more like: “Really Mom you're just going to leave us like this? What are we supposed to do now?” I felt abandoned and took it personally knowing that I wasn't supposed to.

That day was a blur. I stayed home but went to work the next day, a Saturday. I didn't know what to do with myself after a while and I’m not even a workaholic. I admit I can be “in the zone” at times but I’m too lazy and love time off too much to be classified as such. At the end of the day Dr. Wang’s wife told me to “rest” and let me lie down on one of the tables the clients use. She said it very sweetly and gently, like she knew I wasn't giving that to myself enough.

“Okay, you know you’re not allowed to die!” my sister half jokes years later as we watch the end of Beaches, likening me to Hillary and herself to C.C. Bloom.

“I’ll try not to!” I joke back.

My daughter more earnestly tells me the same thing because she knows about her grandmother. I tell her that “I’ll try not to” too and feel the pressure of surviving; not just health-wise, but from random accidents as well. My daughter says she misses her and they’ve never even met- and this aches my soul.

In a writing class in 2003 I wrote an essay called “Ticket to Ride” in honor of Mom and her love of driving. “Evelyn’s Drive” was my attempt to put it into script form, inspired by the Times Square Playwrights group I went to on Tuesdays as an actor/reader, not a playwright- I am so not a playwright. Another ‘mom’ piece I tried writing had something to do with comparing heroines and saints. Mom refers to my sister and me as “heroines” in her farewell letter (that I’m posting below) and mainly because of that, my sister got the word “heroine” tattooed on her wrist. “Saint” has been a word I’ve heard people throw around to describe my mom numerous times. Like when Ms. Nuccio, my 3rd grade teacher exclaimed it because she had hand-written an entire, elaborate recipe along with the food she made for food/culture day; the other moms just brought in their food. Titi Janis called her a saint at one point and then took it back or modified it by saying, “Well I don’t mean a saint, but she was a very good, kind, and loving person.” Some would joke (or maybe not so much joke) that she had to be a saint in order to put up with my father. I tried writing “Saints and Heroines” with the intention of suggesting that there might have been a part of her that wished she were more feisty and outspoken, and less saintly.

I hate that that was my last day with her, and that I didn’t even know it.  I have another memory of one of our final interactions and if I had to choose a last mother-daughter day, I would have preferred this one: the one where I visited her in another hospital, or was it another room(?) both of us in a much better mood, me being full of positive, strong, loving energy, a ballet documentary playing in the background on TV, her looking over my revised resume at the time and saying, “Hey wow! You're a pretty cool girl!”

I replay our last night in my head from time to time and recreate “what would I have done differently?” scenarios. I imagine a better exit, better last words, picking the other choice in my mental back and forth that night and deciding to get in that car to see her again. In the same way couples are advised to never go to bed angry at each other, I would further advise us all to leave the ones we love more graciously, to try not to leave in anger or pettiness. That’s what this regretful incident has taught me in an achingly tough way.

***********************

I wish to heartfully thank each caring friend, each family member; the special and loving Diaz’s, the beautiful and wonderful Astor’s and Del Valle’s for your support and acceptance which is the magical strength of love.

I am grateful for living in the midst of our conglomeration.

To my husband, Link, who has been my mast through this voyage, I have enjoyed being loved by you.

To my young woman, beautiful Tennille, I hope I have convinced you that you are irreplaceable to me.

To my own heart, Christine, I am so in love with you.

My daughters are my heroines.

To my Dad who has always loved me so well and my Mom who is the strongest person I know, I am blessed to be your daughter.

To Maria, Johnny and Ydalia, you know me better than anybody, that’s why I feel most connected to you. We are parts of each other.

To Luly, John Michael, Jonathan and Joanne, you are an integral part of that whole.

To Apolinar, you are my special brother.

To Elmo, Lillian, Jeff and family, Janis, Tita and Provi, you have loved me as your own.

I love you all!

I have willed my body to hopefully be a second chance for a person(s) who might, in turn, learn the greatest lesson and truth which I have been taught: Loving one another is the sustaining life force.

You would do me great honor if you would love your own self by diligently guarding your health. It is truly a most precious gift.

Yvette Astor