Your Mother's House

It’s Friday morning and I’m in class. My seniors are doing their weekly forty-five minute writing exercise. Each time we do it, I give them a prompt to start from. Today, two days before Mother’s Day, I’ve given them this: Write about your mom. What do you appreciate about her? What do you miss when you’re not with her? Describe the times when you call her, or find her in the house to talk. 

As an afterthought, I’ve allowed for this possibility: Maybe you and your mother are not close...why do you think that is the case?

I sit here wondering what they are writing about their moms, and I wonder too how Quinn might respond to this question ten or twelve years from now. I hope she won’t choose the afterthought.

Inevitably, I’m sitting here thinking too about the conceptual intersection between my daughter and my mother. As I always am.

Soon after we returned from our April roadtrip, with stops at her grandparents’ house on our way to and from the beach, Quinn asked me, “What is your mom’s name?” I reminded her. “Claire. Remember? You have her name in your name.” I showed Quinn her picture again. In the past when the subject of my mother has come up, Quinn’s questions have been limited to what she can see: why is she holding that puppy? what color is her hair? This time was different. “When can we go to your mom’s house?”

It was funny, in the absurd way, to think about the possibility that I simply hadn’t chosen to bring Quinn to visit my mom--as if I had never gotten around to it, or for some reason didn’t want to go. But her question was sincere, and she waited for my answer. I didn’t really have one prepared.

“She doesn’t have a house anymore.”

“Why not?”

“She doesn’t live anywhere anymore…”

Obviously, Quinn didn’t understand. I offered up heaven, but that didn’t really work; perhaps she could tell even I didn’t know what I was talking about.

In another conversation recently, Quinn said, “Remember that time we went to the movie with your mom?” I was surprised by that question too. “Yeah! Mom! Remember? It was the movie about the planes.” Sam and I looked at each other across the counter. The movie about the planes was the first movie we took her to see. I loved the idea of my mom being there with us, looking on, smiling as she always is when I dream about her. The dreamer in me allowed for the possibility that my mother had been there with Quinn and Quinn knew it--that the two of them had found a way to meet in some sphere beyond what the skeptics could perceive. 

Wanting proof, I asked more questions. I was hopeful. But eventually I realized what Quinn was probably remembering.  “Was it the movie we saw with Mary?” I asked, “And her daughter Claire?” 

“Oh! Yeah,” she smiled, “that was it.”

This time, as I tried to explain where heaven was, things started to fall apart. My eyes watered against my will. Quinn studied my face, concerned. I said, “heaven is kind of everywhere,” but even I could hear my statement sounding like more of a question than an answer. She didn’t understand, of course, and I didn’t really expect her to. How do you explain to someone who is just starting to appreciate what it means to be alive that everyone who is alive must also die? How do you explain to your child that her mother won’t always be there? 

Maybe you don’t. 

“I don’t know how to say good bye,” I told my mom in the hospital. “You don’t,” she told me. “When you love someone this much, you don’t say goodbye.”