The wheelchair was rolling slowly down the cosmetic aisle as
the pretty older lady looked at a vast array of colorful lipsticks, blushes,
and eyeliners. Touching each item gently and carefully, reading ingredients and
creative color names, her lips moved as her eyes darted between Maybelline and L’Oréal.
I may not have noticed her as I made my quick dash into
Walmart to pick up a couple of items, but I could not help but notice the woman,
a younger version of the women in the chair, standing with arms crossed in
frustration at the end of the aisle.
Obviously, mother and daughter. Both with blue eyes and soft
blond hair – one tall with deep blue eyes the color of ocean water and
perfectly styled blond waves. Mother sat straight backed in her wheelchair,
pale eyes avoiding the stare of her daughter while her fingers brushed though
her blond/gray permed curls.
“What are you doing now?” asked the younger version of the
wheelchair bound lady. “I hate it when you roll away from me and I cannot find
you.”
“I’m just looking,” the elder lady said without glancing up
from the tube of red lipstick. “Just looking.”
The hurried daughter shrugged, grabbed hold of the wheelchair,
and steered her mother away from the beauty department. Just as she passed, she
looked at me and rolled her eyes.
Mothers! Her eyes clearly conveyed. What do ya do?
Yes, indeed, what are tired overwhelmed daughters supposed
to do?
There was so much I wanted to tell her. So much she needed
to know.
I wanted to tell her to let her mother “just look” as long
as her heart desired. There will come a time when you would give anything to
take your mama to Walmart – just to look around and stop to chat with old friends
and neighbors along the way. That’s the real purpose of coming to Walmart on a
Saturday morning in a small town.
I wanted to tell her to listen to her mama when she is
talking about things that seem silly or inappropriate or things that she
doesn’t think really matter. Wander down
all the aisles and comment on how high prices are today. Smell every candle. Open every tube of
lipstick. Pick up every shirt and comment
on how styles have changed. Look at her. Hear her.
Every. Single. Word. Matters.
I would have told her that those Saturday mornings shopping
with her mama would become some of the best memories she will ever have.
I want her to know that someday her heart will break into a
million shards – and it will feel like she is walking around with all the extraordinarily
heavy pieces piled onto her thin shoulders. The grief will be too heavy to bear.
There will be days she will feel like a ghost of herself,
not quite present but visible. Half of a whole.
The part left behind.
She will someday pull into that Walmart parking lot and
remember the days she didn’t have the time or energy to spend just being with her
mom. When one look at a tube of Revlon
Red lipstick will break her heart and the smell of the candle aisle will take
her breath away.
She needs to know that the big memories – holidays,
celebrations, family events - these are not the ones that will crush your chest
and stop your breath. It’s the small memories of everyday life with your mama
that will sneak up on you and punch holes in your soul. The belly aching laughter.
The shared secrets. The friendship that survives long after the mother/daughter
emotional dynamics of our youth subside.
She will look at pictures of herself BEFORE and see a
different person. One that she will never be again. The one without her mama.
Nothing will ever be as funny, exciting, sad, or right.
Everything will be BEFORE and AFTER.
Your mama, I wanted to tell her, is the only person that you
have spent your whole life plus 9 months with. She is the only person who knows
you better than you know yourself – and loves you anyway.
Loving your mama is both breathtaking and devastating. A
mother-daughter relationship is beautiful and complicated; difficult and
seamless; frustrating and confirming. The hardest best love of your life.
Losing her changes you. Profoundly.
Even though she is gone, your heart will continue to search
for her. In crowds, in old pictures, in her thousands of keepsakes, cards and
letters. Eventually you will find her mama again, in the laughter of your
children, in family traditions, in your own reflection. In your words, your
mannerisms. In your soul.
This lady really needs to know that losing your mama will
change her life in so many gut-wrenching ways; yet, in this deep well of grief
and sorrow she will find who she was always meant to be.
Her mama’s daughter.
If I could go back, I would grab the young lady’s arm, pull
her close and whisper to her, “You don’t know yet, but someday you will
understand that you will never have a relationship with anyone in this world
like the one you have with your mama. Cherish
every single second.”
I wish I had known.
Instead, I go back to my car forgetting what I came for and
I cry. Cry for her and for me.
Big hot heavy tears fall from sorrowful brown eyes on yet
another Saturday morning and then I go home.
I am my mother’s daughter.
