Sing it, George

Dina Moon

Loss is hard. I cringed as I typed those words because it sounds so patronizing. No one needs to be told that loss is hard. What do you say? What are other words that can be used in place of that moronic statement? I just don’t know. Words do no justice. It’s the feelings that count, the words that hurt too much to speak or to type. It’s the way sunny skies look gray and ice cream starts to taste like hot pennies. It’s how tears become a language all on their own, or how you become bilingual in grief. It’s the slew of really good days followed by the survivor’s guilt that comes upon you like a bad flu. It’s how you cry until your bones ache. It’s the knowing that you’ve been chemically altered by a loss so shattering, your DNA has surely shifted. We are all so different. We are all so alike.

Anniversaries are hard. Then again, random Tuesday afternoons are hard when someone you loved with all your heart suddenly isn’t there anymore. I have a big one coming up this week, anniversary, that is. It’s my late mother’s birthday. Mom would be turning 80 in early February. I used to think 80 was ancient. It doesn’t seem like it’s even that old these days. She’s been gone for three years. In the fullness of time, that seems like 10 seconds. Since I’ve committed so much time telling you tales about the things Marsha did in her life, maybe today we can talk about the things left undone. There were adventures left for her. I have lived them all a thousand times in my mind.

In the fall of 2019, two important things happened to mom. We went on a cruise to Jamaica together and she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. If Taylor Swift can redo her life’s catalogue, so can I. In Dina’s version of 2019, there was no Alzheimer’s diagnosis. And that cruise – well, instead of remembering a scared mother who tended to wander out of the dining room, lured by the bright colors and enticing music of the lobby bar, I will mark that memory with the things we should’ve done. We should’ve had our hair braided on the beach, traipsing around that big old ship like a couple of Bo Derek wannabes. We might have dominated at shuffleboard. The opponents that fell to us are still wincing when they sit down, supreme booty whoopin’ that it was. We surely drank sangria without worrying about amyloid plaque collection or dementia risk. We must’ve stayed up late and made fantastic plans for dishes we wanted to perfect, business we could start, other cruises we would surely take. This was the trip I wanted to take with my mother.

In this alternate universe, there have been many other vacations. We went to Lake Louise in Canada so mom could see the real thing, not just the painting she bought at the Soul’s Harbor in Seagoville that hung above the dining room table for my first 18 years. We took annual pilgrimages to Fredericksburg, drinking free wine at Choo Choo’s and listening to Galevis sing rock classics (IYKYK). We would drive the backroads home so we could stop at the blacksmith shop in Llano. Mom always said she was going to commission a life-size iron statue of John Wayne for her living room. In my mind, I finally wrote that book based on the old Llano Red Top Jail. In my mind, it was a best-seller. We spent weeks upon weeks in Galveston, lamenting on how sad we were that The Flagship fell to Hurricane Ike. We would stay at the Grand Manor Mansion. Mom would make friends with the caretaker, who would inevitably try to hire her. She would entertain everyone in Gaido’s with stories of sleeping on the beach with her cousins, back in the 50s when they were young kids. We would walk along the beach with our morning coffee. She would wipe away the tears of a mom who’d lost her daughter. I would hug away the pain from watching a grandchild die. Those are places I take you in my dreams, dear mother.

In my mind, I am prepping for an 80th birthday party for the most dynamic, unpredictable, larger than life woman who ever graced this world. Her favorite color was royal blue. Her favorite word was fantastic. She liked her food with a little bit of crunch. She loved John Wayne. She was intensely patriotic. She clapped so loud ear drums would burst, but her finger snaps were mere swooshes. In her heyday, she was 5’10”. She could dance to any Merle Haggard song, with or without a partner. She was a pool shark who carried her own custom stick in her Ford F-150 cab & a half truck with the standard transmission. She was auburn by genetics and fire engine red by Clairol. She had the temper to match. She lives on in my mind as if nothing happened. She is simply around the corner in a room I just cannot find. Happy birthday, Momma. As you would say while popping the clutch, missing 2nd gear, and smoking a Misty Slim 200 as Amarillo by Morning thumped the speakers in your truck, “Sing it, George.”