The Last Days

We were sitting at a long table in the pizza place next to Mark & Julie's, where Mom and I would go for freshly made coffee ice cream, hers with hot fudge. We'd come from the second day of the Shiva at the clubhouse of my townhouse complex. They were all going home the next day. As we waited for our food, everyone was chit-chatting and bantering as they usually do when they get together.

I sat amid them and said nothing. Should I pipe up about how the weather was better today than the rain the day before that had turned the loose dirt at the cemetery to mud as we shoveled bits into her grave? I didn't. Instead, I panned around the table, looking at their jovial faces, wondering how they could act so happy and carefree while I was grieving and in so much pain. No one said anything directly to me. Maybe they were afraid I would fall apart if I opened my mouth, as if the tight line of my lips was mooring me from drifting out to sea. Or maybe they just didn't care. I knew it was the latter. They had shown zero compassion over the last two months while Mom was in the hospital and I stayed by her bedside for 49 days like a sentinel as she lay dying. I watched them eating, talking, laughing, and my only thought was this is all I have left, and I don't have any real connection with these people; I really have no one.

I slid the closet doors open and looked at all of her clothes neatly hanging side by side: colorful sweaters grouped together in a bright rainbow array; expensive, dressy knit jacket and skirt suits she wore to bar mitzvahs and weddings; her favorite black cashmere sweater with a white collar she wore everywhere. I pulled a few things I wanted to keep, so when I looked at them or touched them, I'd remember Mom in those clothes, her Chloe perfume still lingering in the fabric.

It had only been five weeks, but I had a deadline, and I had to start somewhere, however painful.

I didn't even remove the clothes from the hangers. I made piles on the bed, and filled large clear trash bags with her belongings – no longer hers. I tamped down the emotions wallowing up from my stomach, and blinked back the tears, so I could focus on the task I'd assigned myself this day. I worked faster and faster, no longer pausing at each item to recall a moment in her life like a photoplay. If I stopped, I’d lose my momentum, and break down into a sobbing mess on the floor.

We'd chosen the townhouse for its spacious closets in every room, a luxury we never had in our house. I was alone now, and operating on pure adrenaline, distracting myself from the emptiness inside, and only focusing on the gaps in the closet, not the hole in my heart. I was calculating some fuzzy math in my head as I emptied out the first closet in her bedroom. It was the middle of the night, and I'd been at it for hours. Even if I worked 24 hours a day for the next 60 days, I wouldn't finish packing up everything in the 3 bedroom townhouse before the moving van arrived.

I brushed aside the notion and dismissed the ticking clock. I’d get it done somehow. For the weeks ahead, my days were consumed with trips to Home Depot for packing supplies, wrapping dishes and Mom’s antiques, and sorting through items to sell, give away, or trash.

I filled my car with the plastic bags with her clothes, her shoes, handbags she’d never carry again, and made daily voyages to Goodwill, carefully documenting my donations, as if by writing it all down, I’d have a record of the volume of my loss. How heavy is the burden of loss? 100 pounds of clothes? 1,000? An ounce or a million ounces – it’s the same.

I already knew no one would buy the fine china or antique furniture Mom and Grandma collected over the years. They both had a passion for it, but I’d gone through that futile exercise in New Jersey when we were selling the house. We held yard sales and sold things through social media, and had pared down the contents, but I still wound up donating whatever I couldn’t sell. So, now the prospects were even worse.

I put ads on Craig’s List to try to sell Mom’s lovely pair of bedroom dressers, even though my past experience with the site left me skeptical. I had seen the exact set listed on 1st Dibs, an online antique marketplace, so I knew they were valuable. I was surprised when I got a bite from my ads. I suppose I should have gone with my initial gut instinct and realized it was a scam right away, but I needed to remain hopeful that I could sell the pieces. The fake cashier’s check was a dead giveaway, and in the midst of my packing chaos, I let myself believe for a moment that there was a real buyer interested. There wasn’t.

I couldn’t justify lugging those heavy dressers onto my moving van, and pay for the footprint they’d take up, plus I’d have nowhere to put them, so I hired a junk removal service and paid them to take away a truckload of perfectly good, beautiful furniture. They were headed for landfill. I watched in dismay as the junk haulers dragged Mom’s dressers down the three flights of stairs, and threw them carelessly onto the truck. They did the same for the five-piece mahogany Pottery Barn entertainment center from the living room. No one wants furniture like that anymore.

One by one, I assembled moving boxes, wrestled with packing tape, crumpled up blank newsprint cushioning, and buried each household item, before sealing the boxes. I meticulously labeled each box and color-coded it with duct tape, so I’d be able to recognize the contents on the other end of their journey.

I gave myself an hour or so in the morning to go out for a run, so I wouldn’t lose my sanity. But the rest of my day was consumed with feverish packing. I wasn’t eating or sleeping or stopping, except to feed the cats, who watched me inquisitively and suspiciously. Why are we doing this again?

I had no help. There wasn’t even anyone to ask.

I was working off a rough check list I’d jotted down as new ideas popped into my head, and I was making decisions with no time to ponder if they were sound. Moving company. Check. Ship the car. Check. Rent a local car. Check. Book the flight. Check. Pay extra for the cats. Check.

With two weeks left before the move, I still did not have an apartment in California, nor an address for the moving company to deliver my belongings. They would sit in a warehouse in New Jersey until I had a place to go. At the last possible minute, I got a text from my sister-in-law with an apartment listing (from Craig’s list no less, so my cynical red flags were up instantly) and a message that if I was interested, I’d need to act quickly. The apartment seemed to meet the criteria I’d laid out, and since I couldn’t exactly check it out for myself in advance, I decided to rent it, sight-unseen, except for the photos in the listing.

What was I thinking?

I watched the truck pull away from the house, make its way up the slight hill, and turn right out of my view. I stood there for a minute, silent, not really sure I wanted to go back inside. I shut the door, and it echoed in the empty hallway. Only a few items remained in the kitchen and in the bathroom, and upstairs in the bedroom were four open suitcases, full of clothes, toiletries, valuables, and cat supplies, that I’d check in as baggage on the plane.

I drove over to my neighbor’s house and retrieved my two cats, Whisper and Maggie, who were spending the day locked in their bathroom, safe from the movers. Back at the house with them, I let them out to roam around the townhouse for what would be the last days of chez nous – redux.

There was no turning back, no backing out, no other step to take but forward. Even if my inner voice had spoken louder, I wasn’t in the mindset to listen. I’d made the decision on my own. I knew it wasn’t the right one, but the circumstances called for a timely choice, and this was it.

Close, long-time family friends, who were the nearest I had to caring family members, tried to reason with me. Maybe they don’t want you to come, they counseled. I brushed off the warnings. It was not what I wanted to hear. I hoped I could cultivate a better relationship once I lived in the same place as they did. Wouldn’t that make all the difference? 

Five years later, the answer is no. Proximity isn’t a substitute for closeness; it doesn’t foster a relationship where there isn’t one.

I can’t go back, but I know I can’t stay. It’s an inner battle and neither side is winning.