| Perhaps the cliche most often heard at the time of a person's death is that the deceased is never really gone as long as their loved ones remember them. While this is meant as a measure of comfort to the bereaved it is so often heard that it seemingly has become one of the many platitudes spoken at a funeral in lieu of anything meaningful to say to those faced with sudden loss. That is how I felt as I stood at the head of the reception line in front of my mother's casket. I knew that everyone paying their respects was trying to offer even some small words of solace but after several hours of this I was biting back sharp retorts to everyone who used the above cliche or said that my mother was "in a better place". I've since come to rethink the first part, the second...well someday I'll know. With vision made more clear by distance, I've come to agree that a loved one is never totally gone as long as they are carried in our hearts and memories. And, perhaps, the more they are remembered, the more of their essence remains on this plane. So I'm going to write a few things about my mom here. Some life details and some impressions of her. Maybe that way she can be carried in the memories of my friends as well. Is this corny? Maybe. Is this heartfelt? Definately. Dad and Mom during our first trip to Ireland, July, 1984 My mother, Edna Marie Clougherty, was born in the all Irish enclave of South Boston in 1939. You've seen this neighborhood if you have seen the movie "Good Will Hunting", and yes, they really do sound like that there. Mom and her three sisters grew up fairly poor, as did most people then. The family lived in a housing project until my mother was a teenager. Edna's life was fairly average until her later teen years when she became involved in the beatnick lifestyle. Around 1957 or so my mom began hanging out with a crowd that frequented the Harvard Square coffehouses and darkened cellar poetry havens. In pics of her from this time she has the whole gear...all black outfits, beret, cat's eye shades, etc. In the painfully bluecollar Southie my mom's new getup and friends caused quite a stir...mom was shunned by many of her lifelong friends. More than once she was denounced as a communist. But she didn't care, she just went ahead and did her thing. Daytime was a city hall desk job and night was poetry readings, jazz and marijuana. In late 1962 my mom was out on the town one Friday evening when she struck up a conversation in a bar with a young fellow. This strapping specimen had just finished up a stint in the Army with the Special Forces (Green Berets) and proceeded to impress Edna with his tales from overseas. They proceeded to date and this trooper would eventually become my father, William. Edna was taken with Billy's wild ways. He was unpredictable and a little crazy. He showed up on her doorstep for one Saturday night date bloody, bruised and with two broken teeth and several cracked ribs. He had taken on five guys in a bar he stopped at on his way over to Southie. The "date" was spent in the hospital emergency room. Eventually Edna consented to marry Billy, and they were in 1967. She had hoped to change him just a little but, unfortunately, the opposite would come to pass. This is me and Mom on the night of my prom. And no, she wasn't my date! Growing up in our household, Dad's word was law. His was the ruling hand that made all decisions. In spite of this it was my mother who had the greatest influence on me. During their marriage Mom learned how to appease Dad, she had to conform to his way of thinking on any and all subjects. Or at least she appeared to. She retained her own opinions, unspoken mostly except to me. This lead to she and I having a co-conspirator sort of realtionship. When Dad laid down what we should think about something Mom would give the other side of the issue to me as soon as he left the room allowing me to make up my own mind. Mom was also the person responsible for my interest in beat literature. She gave me my copy of "On The Road" for my sixteenth birthday, a battered and worn book that has been to 6 foreign countries and several continents. I still carry it to this day. With this book, and her adventurous and independent ways, she imparted the wanderlust and appreciation of the arts that makes up a huge part of my personality. Even though she was a secret lover of all things dad deemed contraband and remained somewhat independent in thought, years of marriage eventually wore her down and she began to oppose my dad less and less. But every once in a while her fighting spirit would flare up, and do so with such suddeness and ferocity that Dad would be taken aback and would concede. It was these sudden flashes of fight that I remember most about the last period of Mom's life; the sixteen months she was bedridden before she died. In April, 1998, Mom had a seizure related to her diabetes. she fell and broke both legs and one arm. She lay unable to move on the kitchen floor for an hour until my father arrived home from some errands. She was hospitalized for a month then sent home where she had home health care. This was the reason I moved back to Boston from New Orleans; to assist in her care, help out around the house and to just be near her. Don't think that's as noble as it sounds or that I'm the "good son", I did my share of complaining about it. But luckily my medical background prepared me for many of the things I soon found myself doing...bedpans, injecions, etc. During these months I spent more time with my Mom than any other since I first left home at age nineteen. We spent a lot of time just talking or watchingTV. Her old spark actually seemed to grow brighter than before the accident. She talked about getting back on her feet as soon as she could and she would surprise her doctors. This optimism fell away a bit as the months dragged on and her body refused to heal. A lifetime of diabetes had ravaged her body and taxed her ability to recuperate. But her stubborness flared yet again,especially when the doctors began to suggest amputating her right leg saying it might never heal. She was determined to fight it out. In August, 1999 Mom went back into the hospital for the fifth time during her recuperation. She had a minor infection that needed treatment. We visited her pretty much every day. She was doing ok, she was sick but not terribly so. Then one night I came home to find a note from Dad saying Mom was in intensive care. I went right to the hospital. The day before Mom had been ill, a priest had even come by to see her, but not critical. Suddenly she had just crashed. The infection had spread out of control overnight. It upset me to see her as she was; tubes going in her throat and nose, unable to speak, semi lucid, and I wanted to leave but felt bound to stay. Dad left me alone with her, he was going to drive me home then go back. The old stubborn streak came through again....Mom became lucid enough to respond to me with nods and hand squeezes. When it was time for me to go I leaned in, kissed her and said "Southie chicks don't ever give up". That received the most vigorous nod. My mother died at 5 am that day, about 3 hours after I left the hospital. Her body just shut down and the doctors couldn't do a thing. To their credit they worked on her for 2 hours. The wake and funeral were tough, but aren't they always? I was the last to leave the side of the casket at the funeral parlor on the day she was buried. Alone in the room I touched her hand and the only thing I could think to say was from some play I'd never read, "goodnight, Mother". Still, after more than two months, it hits me that my mother is dead. It will hit me like a physical blow and stun just a bit. But on the other side, the sense of pained loss is fading. I find myself dwelling on the shared times and not the things that will be no more. For example, if I am just puttering around the house and I catch myself absentmindedly scratching at a place on my body where decent, God fearing fingers dare not tread, I'll just laugh out loud when I think of how my mom would shudder with disgust when I would do something around her she despised, like scratch. I find myself laughing more often now. I know mom would like that. I do now believe that the dead are never gone in whole. Each time I'll appreciate a book, a poem, a painting that will be due to mom. She not only gave me life, she shaped it. How I live that life is a reflection of her. That and the memories. As long as I remember Edna I'll have her with me. Who would've believed that you could peel away at a cliche to find a truth? |
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