Resting in Pieces

Dear Mom,

I had a dream this morning that I was talking to you on the phone. Not about anything important. I think we were discussing something you’d seen at Costco. It’s only the second time I’ve dreamed about you since you died, so we’re not talking mass visitation here. I’ve always told the kids that they can talk to you in their dreams, so maybe I’m just finally believing my own bullshit. But actually, I think the thing is, I just really wish I could talk to you right now.

Someone once told me that when kids have a birthday, they don’t actually start acting that age until a few months before their next birthday. In other words, they don’t start acting like 6-year-olds until they’re almost seven. I’m beginning to believe that may be true for adults, too. I’m going to be 41 in a month, and I’m finally starting to feel like a bona fide 40-year-old. In good ways and bad. The other day, I had what’s going to sound like a completely ridiculous breakthrough — I walked into Chuck E. Cheese with my Starbucks coffee when they told me I wasn’t supposed to, and I didn’t care. May not sound like a big deal, but you know me. I never even go through the 10-items-or-less line with 11 items. Actually, I still wouldn’t do that. But the Chuck E. Cheese rule was just stupid. And I just can’t tolerate doing stupid, meaningless, unreasonable things anymore. I think I remember you telling me about turning 40 and suddenly just not caring what people thought about you. I guess this is similar. I wish we could go have lunch and talk about it.

And I wish I could ask you about how you felt when my brother and I stopped being babies and suddenly became kids. Because all of a sudden, my life is flashing before my eyes: my children have really long legs, Newt is chuckling wryly about how “crazy for trains” he was when he was little, and I’m crossing the aisle from the little girls’ section to the big girls’ section to shop for Elfie’s clothes. I mean, did it make you sad? Or freak you out? I’m starting to wonder if this is why people keep having more and more children — if you have young kids, it proves that you’re still young parents, right? But if you have older kids, well. . .

I absolutely should not have any complaints right now. Tenzin has a job. The most annoying kid issue is the weekly birthday parties. And — this is even hard to say — we’re not in Haiti. So why couldn’t I stop crying in the shower today? I think because I feel so broken into pieces. I tell a piece of my life to this person and a piece of my day to that person. A story about the kids to this friend and some news about someone we know to that friend. But no one person hears it all. Because that one person used to be you.

So I guess that’s why, when I look in the mirror, it feels like I’ve aged six months in one day. Because it’s much harder to carry all of your important stuff in six different purses instead of just one. You can’t hang onto all of them at once, they never match what you’re wearing, and you’ll inevitably leave one of them behind in the car.

I wish you were still here. And I wish I could call you. I just really miss my big, mom purse.

Love you,
Tammy