Friday, Aug. 18, 2006
7:33 p.m.
<< [ People Dying Pretty Much Sucks ] >>
We're fighting again.
Mom gives me a look like, I Know Something You Don't. Like, What Are You Doing That You Shouldn't Be Doing.
I turn around. "What does that look mean?"
"Nothing."
"No, come on, what does that mean? What's wrong with Borders?"
This continues for a while before she stops.
"I wasn't going to tell you," she says. "Doris died."
Her eyes are wet and this is my cue to freak out. My mother hasn't cried in years and the last time she did, it was because of me. I hug her and ask what happened.
"They did surgery on her digestive track," she says, "she died a couple of days later."
I can't listen anymore, I think about being a little kid and visiting them in Sacramento. Running around their huge backyard and playing hide-and-go-seek with my little brother, because back then there was only one. I remember making paper butterflies out of magazine pages, and being told to "pick the ones with the pretty colors". I still have the one Auntie made me.
I remember my uncle Benny, perpetually fat and bald and joyful, telling us, "How do you blow up a computer mouse?"
Us crowding around, asking, "How? How?"
"You buy it at K-Mart."
I remember uncle Benny showing me how to open walnuts, to get the part inside. Hiding inside of the trailer, the one that hadn't been used in years because they were too old to travel anymore.
After uncle Benny died, my cousins took Doris to live in Portland, closer to them. We saw her when we drove up for Christmas, and she was so lifeless. This vibrant lady that used to make teddy bears and fold paper butterflies and who didn't get mad when I stuck my hand in a pat of butter, she stared off into space. She didn't participate in the crafts that were offered. She just was.
"Look at it this way," he said, in an awful attempt at consoling me. "Some day you'll be there too."
"Yeah. Thanks."
I don't ever want to just be.