Beautiful little green stones set in silver teardrops. My mom used to wear these a lot. And I lost the post backing today for one of them…
Mom went into memory care in Sonoma, California, miles and miles from where she was living with her boyfriend in Oakland. A bit of a shlep from my brother and his family in Corte Madera, and still… 1,793 miles away from me in Kansas.
She and I, at least when I became an adult, had a sort of frenemy relationship. And with lots of therapy, I learned to let her criticism bounce off me.
But it’s in my bones to hear my mother’s voice whenever I make any mistake, or spill something, or trip over something.
But when dementia took her, there was no longer any need to keep my barriers up.
So, I let the pain come.
She ripped my heart out when she called me by her younger sister’s name, and not mine. But how could I be angry? That’s dementia talking, not my mom.
I knew it was fruitless to long for a tear-jerker of a reunion.
In which we’d each say we were sorry for how we’d hurt each other.
In my fantasy film, she would tell me she loved me, and I would believe her.
I drove her to the memory care place from Oakland to Sonoma, taking a route I’d never taken before, north of all the stuff on I-80. May 2012.
She lasted another seven months in that place. She had a heart attack, fell, broke her pelvis, and died in a hospital. I think it was in San Rafael. I got there just in time.
She was unconscious, and her breaths were frightening and raspy. I held her hand and kissed her cheek, and sat down with my shoes off, my legs stretched out onto another chair. I desperately needed sleep.
I dozed for what might have been a minute or some seconds.
Utter silence woke me.
I called her name, and I went to tell the nurses.
My mother was gone.
Now about that earring post: I got to take most of her jewelry home. I often wear earrings she’d given to me as gifts, but these were some items that I couldn’t believe I got to wear. Mom used to wear these all the time.
This day (Thursday, June 26th, 2025), I attended a co-writing session: The BATWRITE, hosted by Alex Dobrenko, whose Substack, Both Are True, is funny, inspiring, and heartbreaking at times.
Just before it started, I got these earrings out, and dropped the post backing — the thing that keeps the earring in my ear! I heard it roll somewhere under my dresser, which was gross with dust, and I would have to move this heavy dresser… arrrgggh!!! I couldn’t find it in time, so I had to wear either no earrings or different ones.
So the thing I was going to be working on, I didn’t. During the BATWRITE, I wrote about this instead.
Why I love these earrings:
My mom had great taste in jewelry. I loved what she wore.
I told her this pair reminded me of “oobleck.” From a Dr. Seuss book, “Bartholomew And The Oobleck.” King Derwin of Didd is bored by the weather; he orders his magicians to create new weather. And they create Oobleck, sticky, green, gooey blobs that fall from the sky. And havoc ensues, until the wise Bartholomew Cubbins, the king’s page boy, helps the king find the right words to break the spell.
Mom agreed with me.
She was the first one who read the story to me and my brother when we were little.
So losing the post backing to one of the earrings was distracting me. But writing about it calmed me down.
And when cowriting was over, and the other meeting I attended was over, I knew it wouldn’t matter I’d find the post backing or I’d find a substitute.
I just like IZ, his sound, and everything… have a wonderful weekend!
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