One craaaazy night

I dreamt that I was in Iowa and I couldn't speak the language (possibly because I had just read the funny "Letter from Joni Ernst About Measles" in The New Yorker.) My cell phone was dead and I couldn't call anyone but it wouldn't have helped because I couldn't remember the address of where I was staying.

I bumped into some friendly people who spoke English. I asked if they had ever been to the East Coast and they said no. I entertained them by telling them how the people speak. New Yorkers say New Yawk. Bostonians say Bahston. Long Islanders accentuate the "g" in Long.

Back in South Hadley, I had to leave at 10:30 for a doubles strategy session that Michael was giving (which is indeed happening today). But my father had taken my car and was not back. I knew Joe would not want me driving his car and I didn't know what to do. Turns out the car was actually in the driveway, blocked in by a red Ferrari that belonged to a workman. The workmen were all over the place. Bert was repainting my bedroom, and I nearly tripped over a drop cloth. My mother was hanging curtains.

No, I was actually at 1200 Fifth Ave., and in the condo remodeling they had moved the elevator door. Instead of being right next to 4C, it was one door down. I rang the doorbell of the new apartment and the woman who answered at first seemed annoyed but then said it happens all the time. She said she was a goalie for the Yankees and I said I would tell my son because he's a goalie too.

I rang for the elevator over and over and when it finally came, an annoyed tall man said I didn't have to ring it so many times.

I caught the Fifth Avenue bus and saw the tennis courts in the park. I jumped off but forgot my shoes on the bus. Luckily the bus driver stopped and handed them to me. When I got to the courts I saw that they were made of sand, and it was more like playing on the beach. I couldn't remember if I was supposed to catch the ball with my hands or hit it into a net like soccer. I decided on the latter and it slowly rolled in. But it was an onion that got buried in the sand.

Bill Clinton walked by smiling. (Second time a Clinton has appeared in my dreams; last time it was Hillary playing at the Australian Open.)

I went back home to rest while preparing to go back for our afternoon clinic (which is really happening today.) I was taking the whole week off from work because I had been sick and my mother had told me to. But I was worried that someone from work would see me playing. Luckily the afternoon clinic got canceled because Donna and Deb had decided it would be too much in one day.

I got in my car and when driving down the street I realized that the brakes weren't working. (Subaru has sent a recall notice saying they performed an incomplete repair on a recall notice for faulty brake lines.)  In my dream, the car wouldn't stop, and I didn't want to run anyone over. I pulled into the fire station, rolled down the window and asked for help. Fire chief Billy Selkirk and some others grabbed onto the car and slowed it down. Billy rotated the front tires and fixed the problem.

Then I was running barefoot down a city street, stepping over and crunching down on all sorts of construction debris. Someone said I was going in the wrong direction. I turned around and saw Ed Durkee from high school. And also Katryn from college. I thought I knew where I was when I saw our school Friends Seminary across a park. People in booths were selling strappy shoes. No, it was the Chestnut Hill Reservoir in Boston. No it was really Mount Holyoke College. Basically I just wasn't sure where I was.

At this point Maddie woke me up, yelping in her own dream. I called her name loudly, but she kept crying. I got out of bed and went to wake her up. She gave a little whimper and settled back into sleep.

It was 4:15 a.m.

Remembering. Wondering. Thankful.

My mother, Lynne, arranging flowers from my garden four years ago.

Two years ago today, my mother died after a short battle with lung cancer.

Tomorrow, of course, is Thanksgiving.

On Thanksgiving two years ago, I was consumed by grief and by guilt, while also being buoyed by all of the love around me, from my children, family and friends.

Quintessential New Yorkers, my parents always came to our house for Thanksgiving; they loved the mood of the holiday in New England. My mother, with help from the kids, set the table, turning it into a work of art. Distrustful of Western Massachusetts florists, my mother brought a centerpiece from New York.

My mother loved getting dressed up to go out to dinner with my father, Alfred. She also loved wearing sweaters and slacks for Thanksgiving in the country, always with flair.

After that became cumbersome, we ordered the centerpiece from the local florist. When it arrived, my mother sighed, shook her head, took it apart and redid it with her usual flair. She cleaned the silver and ironed the tablecloth, despite my protestations that she needn’t bother. Cleaning up loose stems and leftover silver polish, I got a little annoyed, and then guilty about feeling annoyed. I was glad that she was there, and I had no idea how I'd do it without her.

I could be annoying too. I insisted on going for my traditional Thanksgiving Day run before putting the turkey in. We ate late, so when I got back from my run I felt that I had all the time in the world to stretch and lollygag. Inevitably, my mother would say, “We better put that bird in.”
Yes, Mom, if you say so.

The last-minute preparations were usually chaotic, but eventually we sat down to the feast. My father gave a short speech about being thankful to be in America, the best country in the world despite its problems.

My mother came alone for four years after my father died in 2002. But two years ago, she couldn’t get out of her bed. For most of that fall, Diane and I had taken turns going to New York to be with mom, first in the hospital and then at home under hospice care and with full-time aides. The once-lovely apartment building where we grew up was in shambles, having been caught in the wave of classy co-op developments in New York.


In top photo, Diane, left, and I stand in front of the apartment building where we grew up.
In bottom photo, me, Mom and Diane leave the building for some sort of ladies' outing in 1964.

Working around the mostly elderly rent-controlled and rent-stabilized tenants who could not be made to leave, the developers tore out walls and replaced old pipes, making a big mess and not cleaning up after themselves. Big fat rats scurried up and down the back staircase. There was debris everywhere. And did I say there was no heat? It was illegal, but they chose to pay the fine rather than to spend the time and money to work faster to get the heat going. They did give the tenants space heaters, certainly not enough to heat a whole apartment. My mother spent much of a month curled up under heavy quilts; the one time she did try to get up, it was so cold she just wanted to go back to bed.

I last saw my mother two days before Thanksgiving. I told her I would bring the kids down for the holiday, and we could eat on stack tables in her room. She begged me not to. She wanted to picture me in my own house, not hanging around her bed. I stayed home, planning to turn around and go back down on Monday. She died on Sunday. I cried my heart out, wishing I had gone. But my cousin Joanne and others told me I had given her the gift of letting her be the parent. She had asked me to stay home, and I did what she asked.

I was so attached to both of my parents that I often wondered if I could survive without them. I thought that somehow, when they died, the earth would open up and swallow me. They both lived into their 80s, lived good lives and were sick only for a short time. What more could you ask? No matter how old they are, you want more.

Before my father died, I remember asking a childhood friend how she coped with her father’s death. “You don’t get over it,” she said. “But you get used to it.”

I got used to it. My sister and I leaned on our mother, on each other, on our children and on a whole lot of loved ones. I ran a half marathon. I played good tennis. I did yoga. I drank a lot of water, took care of myself, got plenty of rest. I spent extra time with my mother.

I didn’t get swallowed up by the earth.

I did get cancer. After each parent’s death.

My initial leukemia diagnosis came just about a year after my father’s death.
I relapsed less than a year after my mother died.

With the relapse, was it something I had breathed in from the construction? I doubt you could make a direct connection.

Was it grief, which, both times, created a vulnerability causing cancer to pounce?

The straight scientific answer is that, no, loss of a parent cannot cause cancer.

Still. I am left wondering if there was a relationship. But what happened happened, and now I must focus on the present.

Tomorrow, Joe will put the extra board in the table and help put the tablecloth on evenly. Katie will set the table the way my mother taught her. We’ll take out the turkey that Katie made years ago out of a tiny upside down flowerpot for the body, construction-paper feathers and pipe-cleaner legs. I’ll clean the silver (sigh) and try my best to make a decent flower arrangement, hoping my mother’s hands will guide me. We’ll prepare a small feast. A few friends will come. Ben will deliver what his annual “Al Gordon speech,” in my father’s place.

We will be thankful. We will try to think of my parents’ presence, not of their absence.