A thousand

Thomas knew his eulogy was terrible. He said he loved his mother…that she meant everything to him. But he didn’t mention how his father had abandoned him, leaving his mom – a scared sixteen-year-old, to raise him by herself…he didn’t mention any hard truths, and as he recited the empty eulogy, his mind didn’t hear a word he said – he kept thinking about the hopes she must have had for her life before she got the bad news he was on the way. Dreams a pregnant sixteen-year-old girl is not allowed to keep in her heart – because they’d probably kill her. Maybe she had wanted to be an actress – or a writer like him. Maybe she wanted to own a business…or get married. But then she made a mistake, and that took all those things away from her. She never got a chance to look out at life and get to an age when her dreams could have come true. She never got a chance to love anyone but him – one misstep and her life became only the hard, thankless work she had to do to make sure he survived. He’d always felt she resented him for how tired living made her. Now he couldn’t see any way she wouldn’t. As he said what a great person she was, he thought about the great person she deserved to be – could have been, had he not been born…and then he looked out at the crowd and realized how much she would have hated all these useless gawkers – she never wanted a formal funeral, and this was a mistake he wished he hadn’t said yes to. She didn’t belong here and he didn’t belong here – if he had felt her loss before now, he’d have seen this – but it took this awful place to wake him up…and now he couldn’t fake not feeling, couldn’t fake this stupid eulogy, so he picked up his mother’s urn and walked out, not bothering to see any of the faces or hear any of the whispers. His last words were to himself: “Now it starts….”

__

As Thomas drove to his mother’s house, he thought about the things he should have done. One after the other his mistakes, his lies, his denial – all of’em hurt.

    Everything hurt…like not saying goodbye to his mother when he moved out at eighteen; he should have never left angry. And he should have written her a beautiful story that understood her…but he didn’t do any of these things. He failed. He failed at these and countless other emotions – and every one of them now hurt.

    It really hurt that he didn’t call her more to alleviate her loneliness. He should have tried to make her feel vital. That was his biggest sin, he thought – he let her feel alone…and that aloneness – it was in him now – and he knew how limited it had made her life seem, how useless and silent…she had needed him to just care…and he had closed his eyes and looked away because of misplaced anger and fear and now....

    Now he had no mother – just ashes sitting in a grey urn… and he was heading home because he owed it to her to remember her as much as he could…no matter how much it was going to hurt – she deserved that. And she deserved all those directions her life could have gone had he not come along – at least a thousand directions were possible for her life had she not given birth to him at sixteen. But she didn’t have an abortion, and she stayed by his side – young and defeated, but she stayed…and life was hard – hard and tired and there was never enough time to talk…it all put a dead distance between them – a distance that made it easy for him not to think about her dying. To not call. To live in forget.

     But then she did die – and all that distance crumbled, and when it fell away he saw it had robbed him of time to say good things to her – to tell her he knew why she was bitter sometimes; her life had been just him and responsibility – that was too lonely for anyone to stand without some resentment. God, how he wanted to tell her he understood that – but this was death…and death wouldn’t let him forget that he didn’t tell her….

    As Thomas entered his old home, he saw a bright picture of him and his mother. She was young, and so was he. She could have been anything, he thought, but she chose to be my mother. That was the kindest thing anyone could ever do for him. Maybe if he’d said that…maybe if he’d said anything…but he kept his distance…he didn’t call…he pretended not to feel anything…and now – he felt everything – and lies were just lies….

     You get, he thought, only so many moments to say thank you…to apologize…to wonder about those you love…to say it meant everything that your mother stuck around to be your mother...and he had missed every chance to make her feel better…every chance to be honest. Every chance to make a memory that death couldn’t hurt.

     And Thomas walked around his mother’s home for hours, looking at pictures, sitting in rooms and remembering only the good things. Tomorrow, he would scatter her ashes in the ocean near where she grew up. As her remains floated away, he’d tell her he was sorry about all those missed chances…all those life-directions he’d cost her by being born…he’d tell her she could have been anything, and he’d thank her for being his mother. And then he’d walk away into a fading sunset, hoping she had heard him. That’s the best he could do with her death – hope…keep hoping she heard him, keep telling her he missed her…keep hoping that she knew, no matter how far away he had been from her, that he always loved her.