WritingTheWrong
10-16-2009, 08:20 PM
Author's Note: I am new here and this is just something I wrote while doing nothing in Spanish class today. Hope you like it. I think it's kind of sad...
We've been here for a while now, not moving, just waiting. Day after day, it's the same old thing. I wake up, I feed her, I sit around, I bather her, I feed her, I go to sleep, I wake up...Every day seems the same but over the past few months something has been growing inside the house. It seeped through the edges of the windows and from under the spaces between the doors and the floors; it wafted through the cracks in the hardwood. I can smell it, lurking, but not so sinisterly. Just there waiting. Wating like we are.
My mother used to dance. She could kick her leg high above her head and spin. That's what I used to love the most, the spinning. Her feet would be central but her body seemed to be ready to take off, round and round and her face, so serene like she was somewhere else. I would sit and watch, hoping that one day she would take me with her. No matter how long I would spin, sometimes hours at a time, I never went where she went. All I would get was dizzy.
There were other things, other than the spinning. She would stand on her toes and reach with straightened fingers to the sky or pull into herself real tight like if she could just fold up, everything else would go away. I used to think she danced for me, because she would when I was little. Whenever I was sad or hurt or if I was happy and she wanted to ear me laugh more, but I started to realize when I got older that my mother danced for herself. She danced because, besides loving me, it was all she knew to do.
She hasn't danced for some time now. Once I came home for spring break my senior year of college and she could barely stand. It was her knees she said. So sore, all the time, sometimes swollen. I took her to the doctor and they found fluid and deterioration behind her knee caps. There was surgery and medication and physical therapists and by the time I left for grad school she was back on her feet. When I'd come home on break she would show me she could still dance. She'd spin, more slowly than before and before instead of a serene expression, I would see her wince in pain. She would smile, though, at the end like see I told you I was fine! For a while she was but I knew she'd stopped dancing. Her feet just looked different. After two years of living in denial and getting another degree, I moved home to take care of her.
Things weren't the same but they were good. There was no dancing but there was still music and laughing and jokes and me and mom. SHe took to painting to replace the dancing, and poetry and cooking. The same passion she'd had for dancing she tried to put into these new activities. There was still something missing but we ignored it.
Tara, I met in grad school. She was an advanced musical composition major and a brilliant cellist. We dated for two years and on graduation day she unexpectedly proposed to me. My mother was sitting a few feet away, unaware that Tara was my girlfriend let alone that we were having that conversation. I looked at Tara. She could take me around the world and show me the purest love I'd ever known. But then I saw Mom. My fragile, beautiful mother and I said two words that I wish I could suck back out of the atmosphere. I can't.
Every now and again Tara sends me a letter or we speak on the phone. She always says the same thing. "Come see me...please change your mind...I miss you...I love you..." I tell her I love her too but...Then the line goes dead. She can't stand to hear the part when I say, "My mother needs me Tara." Maybe if she met Mom she'd understand but I can't risk the two of them meeting. My whole life Mom's been the only woman in my life. I can't take that away from her now. Now, when her life is so fragile.
So I wait, not moving as this thing creeps through the cracks like a sweet fog covering a low marsh, while the parasite that took my mother's knees swims through her blood stream and takes her hands so she can't paint and cook and she's so tired she barely talks and she barely smiles. I play her music and she can turn her head in time but this frusterates her and being frustrated exhausts her and she sleeps and sleeps and when she sleeps I am afraid. I am afraid because He's here. I can smell Him lurking about the house, waiting just like we are. It's been years of her pain and I always knew it would lead to this but I want to know if He's close enough that I can smell Him, almost close enough that I can see Him, why won't He come? Why won't he liberate her from her suffering? What is he waiting for? I can feel Him heavy on my back and I wonder if it's me He's waiting on. The thought makes my head hurt and my stomach turn. This whole situation makes my heart ache.
Today when I lay down the phone rings. I know that if it's ringing at this hour the only person who will be calling me is Tara.
"Hello Tara."
"Did I wake you?"
"No."
"How is she?"
"Same."
"How are you?"
"Dealing."
"Listen...I've...I've met someone."
My throat tightens, "Have you?"
"He'll never be you though. I hope you know that."
"I do."
"I will try to forget you but we both know that will be impossible."
"Tara..."
"I love you. You know that I love you."
"I love you too but..." I stop because I know she'll hang up.
She doesn't, "...but I'm not your mother. I understand. She needs you. I understand that as well. What you don't understand is that I need you too. I would like to believe that you need me."
"I do..."
"But that doesn't mean anything does it? Look, this can be our last conversation if you want it to be. I can marry Ted and be done with you. I don't want to do that but if you tell me to I will."
Everything in me is screaming to drop the phone, hop in my car and grab Tara and tell her she can never leave me. The beeping machines in my mother's room are telling me that I could never leave her.
"Just say it and it's over."
"I'm sorry Tara."
"Me too." There is a click and the line goes dead.
Whenever Tara and I talk I have to sit with Mom to remind myself why I keep breaking her heart, that it's worth it. So, I crawl out of the bed and head to her room.
"What are you doing up Mom?" I ask. Her eyes are wide open. When I move closer I can see that her lips are moving. "What's the matter?"
She exhales slowly and a laboring look hits her face. After a deep breath a short noise escapes her mouth.
"Are...Are you trying to say something Mom?"
"...You've...You've...You've done...enough for me." She whispers, "My t...time...is up. Marry her, son."
"But Mom..."
"No...buts....I think it's time...you danced." Her mouth streatches into a familar smile, her eyes closed. She's in that place again, where she used to go when she twirlled, "That's what I'm going to do."
Finally, I know where she used to travel to in her mind. It's Heaven. Heaven she found on Earth. I think now, now that He's come, it's my turn.
We've been here for a while now, not moving, just waiting. Day after day, it's the same old thing. I wake up, I feed her, I sit around, I bather her, I feed her, I go to sleep, I wake up...Every day seems the same but over the past few months something has been growing inside the house. It seeped through the edges of the windows and from under the spaces between the doors and the floors; it wafted through the cracks in the hardwood. I can smell it, lurking, but not so sinisterly. Just there waiting. Wating like we are.
My mother used to dance. She could kick her leg high above her head and spin. That's what I used to love the most, the spinning. Her feet would be central but her body seemed to be ready to take off, round and round and her face, so serene like she was somewhere else. I would sit and watch, hoping that one day she would take me with her. No matter how long I would spin, sometimes hours at a time, I never went where she went. All I would get was dizzy.
There were other things, other than the spinning. She would stand on her toes and reach with straightened fingers to the sky or pull into herself real tight like if she could just fold up, everything else would go away. I used to think she danced for me, because she would when I was little. Whenever I was sad or hurt or if I was happy and she wanted to ear me laugh more, but I started to realize when I got older that my mother danced for herself. She danced because, besides loving me, it was all she knew to do.
She hasn't danced for some time now. Once I came home for spring break my senior year of college and she could barely stand. It was her knees she said. So sore, all the time, sometimes swollen. I took her to the doctor and they found fluid and deterioration behind her knee caps. There was surgery and medication and physical therapists and by the time I left for grad school she was back on her feet. When I'd come home on break she would show me she could still dance. She'd spin, more slowly than before and before instead of a serene expression, I would see her wince in pain. She would smile, though, at the end like see I told you I was fine! For a while she was but I knew she'd stopped dancing. Her feet just looked different. After two years of living in denial and getting another degree, I moved home to take care of her.
Things weren't the same but they were good. There was no dancing but there was still music and laughing and jokes and me and mom. SHe took to painting to replace the dancing, and poetry and cooking. The same passion she'd had for dancing she tried to put into these new activities. There was still something missing but we ignored it.
Tara, I met in grad school. She was an advanced musical composition major and a brilliant cellist. We dated for two years and on graduation day she unexpectedly proposed to me. My mother was sitting a few feet away, unaware that Tara was my girlfriend let alone that we were having that conversation. I looked at Tara. She could take me around the world and show me the purest love I'd ever known. But then I saw Mom. My fragile, beautiful mother and I said two words that I wish I could suck back out of the atmosphere. I can't.
Every now and again Tara sends me a letter or we speak on the phone. She always says the same thing. "Come see me...please change your mind...I miss you...I love you..." I tell her I love her too but...Then the line goes dead. She can't stand to hear the part when I say, "My mother needs me Tara." Maybe if she met Mom she'd understand but I can't risk the two of them meeting. My whole life Mom's been the only woman in my life. I can't take that away from her now. Now, when her life is so fragile.
So I wait, not moving as this thing creeps through the cracks like a sweet fog covering a low marsh, while the parasite that took my mother's knees swims through her blood stream and takes her hands so she can't paint and cook and she's so tired she barely talks and she barely smiles. I play her music and she can turn her head in time but this frusterates her and being frustrated exhausts her and she sleeps and sleeps and when she sleeps I am afraid. I am afraid because He's here. I can smell Him lurking about the house, waiting just like we are. It's been years of her pain and I always knew it would lead to this but I want to know if He's close enough that I can smell Him, almost close enough that I can see Him, why won't He come? Why won't he liberate her from her suffering? What is he waiting for? I can feel Him heavy on my back and I wonder if it's me He's waiting on. The thought makes my head hurt and my stomach turn. This whole situation makes my heart ache.
Today when I lay down the phone rings. I know that if it's ringing at this hour the only person who will be calling me is Tara.
"Hello Tara."
"Did I wake you?"
"No."
"How is she?"
"Same."
"How are you?"
"Dealing."
"Listen...I've...I've met someone."
My throat tightens, "Have you?"
"He'll never be you though. I hope you know that."
"I do."
"I will try to forget you but we both know that will be impossible."
"Tara..."
"I love you. You know that I love you."
"I love you too but..." I stop because I know she'll hang up.
She doesn't, "...but I'm not your mother. I understand. She needs you. I understand that as well. What you don't understand is that I need you too. I would like to believe that you need me."
"I do..."
"But that doesn't mean anything does it? Look, this can be our last conversation if you want it to be. I can marry Ted and be done with you. I don't want to do that but if you tell me to I will."
Everything in me is screaming to drop the phone, hop in my car and grab Tara and tell her she can never leave me. The beeping machines in my mother's room are telling me that I could never leave her.
"Just say it and it's over."
"I'm sorry Tara."
"Me too." There is a click and the line goes dead.
Whenever Tara and I talk I have to sit with Mom to remind myself why I keep breaking her heart, that it's worth it. So, I crawl out of the bed and head to her room.
"What are you doing up Mom?" I ask. Her eyes are wide open. When I move closer I can see that her lips are moving. "What's the matter?"
She exhales slowly and a laboring look hits her face. After a deep breath a short noise escapes her mouth.
"Are...Are you trying to say something Mom?"
"...You've...You've...You've done...enough for me." She whispers, "My t...time...is up. Marry her, son."
"But Mom..."
"No...buts....I think it's time...you danced." Her mouth streatches into a familar smile, her eyes closed. She's in that place again, where she used to go when she twirlled, "That's what I'm going to do."
Finally, I know where she used to travel to in her mind. It's Heaven. Heaven she found on Earth. I think now, now that He's come, it's my turn.