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Piccolissima Serenata

It’s so hot on this Roman balcony that my tears evaporate as they hit my cheeks. I’m in Italy. Beautiful, stinking hot Italy.  It’s dusk. It’s golden hour. It’s so perfect that it hurts.   In the last month of her life, as if knowing the end was nigh, my mother handed me a 5x7 white envelope with a handwritten letter and a cheque. Telling me that “although she wishes with all my soul that I could have had another trip with you, life had other plans. Please use this money to spend on memories. Go to Italy, toast to me and I will be with you.”  Cut to 1 year and two months after that letter was placed in my tear stained hands, and here I am - toasting her with prosecco, some fresh figs (which she adored) and listening to Renato Carosone.  It’s a cheerful Italian song from the 50’s. I can hear her singing along off-key, like she did in the hospital those last days, when I played it for her on my phone speaker. We were outside on the cafeteria terrace in the sun and she was in a wheelchair
Recent posts

Three Hours Behind

There’s something about being on the west coast that gives me a reprieve. A little more time to mull things over. To assess what I'm feeling. Time that the east coast might have already fumbled. A chance to catch my breath and see my thoughts accumulate above me like those cartoon bubbles. A chance to be an alter ego. A chance to be bolder. A chance - period.

Attempt at Life ...and loss.

I thought I did it. I didn’t fall apart during Christmas. I got through my mother’s Christmas Eve birthday. I dug deep for the type of joy she brought everywhere and tried to spread it at the various family Christmas gatherings. And I succeeded. We had a nice Christmas. We laughed. Almost magically. We bathed in the suspended relief of laughter. It's a few days later and tonight, after singing along to music, I cooked an excellent risotto. The type I would have sent her a photo of. And when I sat down and took the first bite, out of nowhere, I dissolved into the guttural despair I thought I had tricked myself into bypassing.  First comes the panic. How can she be gone? Like, really? How? And why? Why her?  And then comes the cruel flash of those last days and moments hitting me like bullets. Fast. But the type of bullets that don’t kill, they just leave gaping wounds. Remembering the way I hid in that bright, sunny hospital corridor and begged every angel to take her. To take her.

Apparition

I drove down the old main road where I grew up. Past where the first cinema used to be. Past the Chinese restaurant that is now a healthy breakfast place. Past the vacant lot that was once our Royal Bank, the one where my mom got me my first bank book. Sitting there at the stoplight, I looked at the sidewalks I used to walk on. I squinted and saw myself there. The ghost of little girl me. She was kicking at pebbles in the heat, waiting for mom to come out of Steinberg’s grocery store. I could hear her humming a tune to herself as she drew hearts on the wall with her hand. She turned suddenly, shaded her eyes from the sun, and looked at me in my car. She didn’t seem to recognize me, but waved anyway. The light turned green before I had a chance to wave back.