Cloth hankies

Daddy's Girls - 1961

I have three pair of pants that I can comfortably wear right now, and in a pocket of each is a cloth handkerchief.
The Mark of Jill.
My mother, Jill Burger, was ready when she arrived. Mom's got a DVD player in her car, wears cross-trainers on her feet and has finally shifted from getting her hair done at the 'salon' rather than the 'beauty shop.' I tell you this so that you will understand that my 72-year-old mother is about as progressive as she needs to be. However, some old habits die hard. When it comes to catching tears, Mom still prefers a dainty square of embroidered cotton to a paper tissue.
And she came well prepared, loaded up on hankies. And tears.
We cried together. I find myself in tears several times a day right now. I have never been much of a weepist; maybe that's why it wears me out. I am astonished at how my eyes seem to be able to endlessly re-fill, like a hole dug at the edge of the shore that the water will always seep into. I cry from fear, from confusion, from feeling unfamiliar in my body. From mourning my old life and old body that I failed to adequately appreciate. Surely some of the medication that I've been taking contributes to my emotional upheaval as well.
Watching my parents watch me struggle also makes me cry. As a parent, I can understand how heartbreaking it must be for them to watch their daughter in pain. I try not to feel guilty about being the source of their sorrow. Midway into a conversation, my father's voice goes all hoarse and he can't look at me. We stare at our feet and silently gulp and swallow, both trying to be brave for the other.
Mom and Dad left yesterday. They, along with my sister and her son, have been here from out-of-state. They all arrived the day after I got home from the hospital following surgery.
This family visit was planned long before I had even scheduled The Mammogram That Changed Everything. They arrived to watch my lovely and talented daughter (the five footer) graduate from high school.
The graduation and cancer surgery coming in tandem reinforces my long held belief that Life Is A Bowl Of Succotash. Tastes and textures always come in mixed up quantities. I've experienced so many raw emotions in the past few weeks, but have also had the soaring pride as I thought of my daughter's graduation. She marched for her diploma two days after I got out of the hospital. As she took this step into her future, I was there in spirit, cheering her on. I was happy that she had so many other proud family members preesent to applaud her accomplishment.
Prepapring for this event, we have been putting together the requisite Picture Boards, with a photograph of every signficant event of her life. How fast it goes, I kept thinking, as I thumbed through baby faces and school portraits and help her select the snap shots that are the freeze frames of her life.
Going through the albums, I stumbled into pictures of my own high school graduation. I was 17 in 1974; my parents, Al and Jill Burger, were 38 and 39. Got the mandatory snap with the grandparents. And, No, those aren't extensions.They won't be invented for years!



Jackson, Ohio. 1974.


I was particularly pleased that my sister Mollie was in the audience for the graduation. Mollie lives in Florida and I was particularly pleased that she was her for part of my recovery. A few days after returning home, I felt so miserable--tender, stiff, and itchy/sticky, with my hair hanging in snarled hanks. I longed to feel clean and refreshed. My doctor had prohibited bathing, so Mollie suggested that she could help me shower. Although reluctant to accept her offer, I agreed.
She stripped down and stepped right into the stall with me to ease my shakiness. Mollie is the only person in the world whom I would have allowed to take such intimiate care of me, the only person to whom I could reveal my bandaged and stitched-together shell.
I could only lean against the tile. Mollie's movements were both gentle and brisk. While she washed me, we talked about the shower that had been in our hotel room in Cancun: it had a shower head the size of a dinner plate, multiple jets shooting out of the wall and a window that looked out on the aquamarine sea. Our mother would have called it "real snazzy."
Just a little over a month ago, in mid April, I had been lucky enough to accompany some FM107.1 listeners on a girlfriend getaway to Mexico. I had been able to take Mollie as my guest. We had shared five days of frivolous fun--swimming, dining, walking on the beach, taking turns reading in the hammock on our private terrace, sharing a massage. We spent hours in relaxed conversation, reminiscing about our childhood and sharing plans and dreams for our children and the future. We spent most of our time at the resort and with others in our party, but the two of us left the property together one morning for a scuba trip. In masks and flippers, we had floated, face down and holding hands, admiring the silent world of darting, bright colored fish and coral shaped like brains and trees and fans.
Those five days of togetherness seemed so distant from this visit. I'm so glad we took that trip, we told each other, over and over. Right now, it seems like a lovely dream, the kind you want to hold onto after you wake up.




Cancun, Mexico. April 2007.