Final Goodbyes

It’s sold. My mother’s condo in Florida has finally sold.

Well, almost. Soon. A matter of a few calls back and forth. Some posturing. A numbers game- I’ll give you this, you give me that… whatever. We’re close enough and as one realtor said to me, if you want it and they want to sell it? It’ll get done.

My sister and I talked. There are things that need to be packed. The final few decisions about my mother’s “stuff” have to be made. The condo is the last place that my mother lives on. Everything is as she left it, almost two years later.

It’s a goddamn shrine, Jeanine said.

Can’t argue. It is. When I went down earlier this year to get it ready to put back on the market, my sister had put up some “Pray Today” and Love God junk on the walls. It seemed so out of place in my mother’s home. Not only was she an atheist, the place was decorated to the hilt in her style- modern, abstract art, clean lines and contemporary edges. To see a country-style, flowery admonishment to get on my knees for God was just wrong.

Because it was my mother’s home.

My sister talked about how sad she’s been lately, staying there. I knew it isn’t a fun place to be. Beautiful views and a gorgeous beach to walk on were great but it was so filled with bittersweet memories, I never lasted more than a day before I felt the loss.

Now it’s time to go sign it away.

I have some clothes there and a set of dishes my mother bought after she showed one sample to me and we both agreed they were so unusual and funky, she had to get them. They’re all handmade, hand glazed and the most god-awful color green you’ve ever seen.

I loved them. So did she.

The whole “palette” for her decorating came from those dishes. It evolved and changed some but when she painted one of the bedrooms the same color green, everyone but me moaned in eye pain.

I thought it was kind of cool. Ugly, sure. But different. Bold.

We never fought there. My mother and I never once had harsh words in that condo. Ever. It’s the only place we did not fight in. Sure, we’d get on each other’s nerves, but there was the beach, or the pool or the deck- always somewhere to be distracted by.

I am and she was an ocean person. Our mutual love of the water left us side by side on the deck, sometimes silent for hours watching the waves. Look for dolphins. I would go far away to another place in my mind, but could always hear her breathing, or smell the smoke from her cigarette. The crackle of the ice in her drink.

She would eventually start to talk- my mother did love to talk, a trait I inherited without needing the blood tie- and I would listen. Sometimes, she talked about people in Rochester, or work that she was doing, but mostly, she talked about the past. She talked about family friends from long ago, about her growing up, about John Nash sitting in front of her in math class in Bluefield West Virginia, giving her the answers to the next problem.

His sister, now SHE was strange, she’d laugh.

She talked once about my father. On that deck, she and I talked about what he might have done. It was long before my memories, but I knew, I knew even then something was so very wrong.

She came so close to saying she was sorry. Walked up to the edge, eyed it and pulled back. It wasn’t about protecting him, it was about protecting her. She could not be that kind of mother who would ever let something like that happen.

I don’t think she was that kind of mother.

Years later, when I did remember, she wouldn’t believe me. It wasn’t about me, then, either. It as about her. Keeping her safe.

I’m ready to let it go, to let her go. The last physical piece that’s left of her. It’s sad, but it’s also time. It’s been almost two years.

The final touches on the offer will be done by tomorrow morning. The fax machines will be whirling. The realtor, who has been quiet and helpful throughout, I’m sure, will do a little happy dance.

And I will get ready to go down one last time to say goodbye to the only place I ever had peace with my mother.

Sincere, gentle peace.

Sassy Meets Cell Phones

Oh my.

I was sitting reading the Wall Street Journal yesterday, and pondering the shovel/cash in the ground option, and my cell phone buzzed.

My son, the one in his room in time out? Text messaged me.

"Il text u wen i need 2 talk 2 u cus i am stil mad at u"

Excuse me?

Needless to say, his cell phone was removed. I mean... sassy talk through a cell phone?

I'm a little stunned at the regularity in which such statements come from my 12 year old, text or not.

What is the deal with that?

I never spoke to my mother that way until I was at least 18 years old. And bigger than her so when she tried to slap me across the face I could stop her.

I know if she were alive today she'd be enjoying the payback.

The conversation would go something like this...

Mom. You won't believe what Ben just did...

Mmm hmmm, she say, listening.

Kids today, jeez, I'd say.

Mmm hmmm, she'd say, still listening. Over the phone I would not see her amused face but she would be amused.

After listening to me rant for a while, she'd remind me of my sassy mouth.

(I know, it's hard to imagine I ever had a sassy mouth.)

She'd remind me of how her father said the same thing to her, once, long ago. Some things change, she'd say, and some things don't.

She tell me the story of how her father thought Frank Sinatra was walking sex and she should not be listening to such garbage.

I miss the parental reality check she always gave me and the long stories. She so enjoyed hearing about her "babies" giving me a hard time.

It was never completely clean, though.

It was one thing we did well together, being grandmother and mother of my boys. It wasn't about the years of disappointment or the pain, it was about loving these kids so much.

The anger and fury are gone. I will never paint a false picture of her but I'm no longer limited to the color red. She was as complicated as I am.

Ben gets his phone back today. I'm sure it will not be the last time he texts me something that makes me crazy.

And I miss my mother today.

Who to Haunt?

My friend Suzy, whom I’ve known for about a million years, wrote me yesterday to tell me my mother has been haunting her dreams.

Funny, she’s been out of mine for a while. The last dream I had with her in it, we were very civil to each other, she helped me find something I needed and then we talked about a new cat she had.

In real life, I can say that I think about her every day. She was the sun, the moon and the stars to me for 43 years. That doesn’t go away overnight. Maybe it never will.

I haven’t written about her in a long time. I’m working on a longer piece. Our relationship could not possibly be squeezed into a few paragraphs on a blog.

I’ve been criticized about my decision to write about her. My mother was very private which is like saying the sun is a little warm. I, however, am not. I hope my story helps others in similar struggles. If not? Then it helps me to say it out loud.

We dealt with our narcissism in very different ways.

Someday my children will read what I have written. It is important to me to be as honest as possible and not fabricate an image of perfection in either my mother or myself. I am very much like my mother, pieces of which I am deeply proud of, pieces I am horrified by.

I’m sorry my mother is haunting your dreams, Suz. Try to remember that beneath all that judgmental bluster was a deeply insecure woman trying to make sense of her own decisions.

You know, just your friend you’ve known for a million years

Fried Chicken Flop

The other day, I was going through my cooking magazines- I get Bon Appetit, Cook’s Illustrated, and Gourmet- and I came across a piece in Gourmet about Scott Peacock, the great chef from Atlanta. I see grits, and biscuits and - fried chicken. True southern food.

I've been trying to cook fried chicken since I was maybe about 10 years old. My mother showed me, over and over again and damn if I could ever do it. She'd always take over, at some point, because I was about to burn it or I didn't have enough flour on it or or or... I never could do it. Not even with her right there.

If I could learn how to cook one thing? It would be fried chicken. And not with some damn fry-o-lator, but the way they make it down south. People guard their fried chicken recipes like they guard their BBQ recipes. You inherit them. Everything is passed on by word of mouth because god forbid there is anything to steal.

I know how my mom made her chicken. Every step. I just can't do it. To be honest, I haven't tried for years. Over Thanksgiving, though, Walter asked me to try again. I think I had written about it or maybe I was just reminiscing- because it was perfect. The golden brown coating, thick, full of pepper and paprika and salt, never one spot more brown than the other, never clumped; the chicken was always steaming hot and juicy, cooked to the bone, no red streaks to gross you out, perfect through and through. And it had a hint of smoky bacon flavor. She cooked it in bacon grease, few tablespoons, whatever a pound of bacon would give her- that’s it.

I'd sit on the stool in the kitchen, munching on the bacon, waiting for the chicken. Or at least waiting to pick off a few pieces of the coating. If it was a hot and humid summer day, she would make egg and potato salad, too. If we were having company? She'd hard boil a bunch of eggs and make deviled eggs.

I would sprinkle the paprika on top after they were filled.

The fried chicken, for those Yankees coming to the house? Was something they had never experienced before and you could see it on their faces when they took a bite. Didn’t matter if it was served hot or cold, it was an experience. While my mother always hid the fact she was from the south, for the most part, she smiled knowingly when people would ooo and ahh.

That chicken was her southern pride, beaming from every pore.

I read the recipe and decided to give it a try. It's different than my mom's- far more time consuming, far more fancy- but after Walter asked, I've been thinking about it.

Why not?

I finished it a little while ago. It tastes like cardboard on very juicy, completely bland chicken. The coating pathetically thin and flavorless. The house stinks like grease (thank god it's warm today).

Jeanine, even though she is currently mad at me (don't ask) and generally in no humor to be nice, ate a piece and said Well… uh... it's okay.

She knows of my fried chicken quest.

More paprika, more salt, a lot less oil, more bacon grease, more pepper, overnight buttermilk soak good but need to get more flour stuck on the chicken for coating.

It's a failure- today.

But the image of that fabulous fried chicken, in a picnic basket, on one of the islands in Down East? Or of perfecting a recipe to whisper into my own boys ears someday?

It’s going to keep me trying.