Every year at around this time I can sense Andy recoiling from the world a little bit, slipping into the sadness of the season, and no doubt remembering when he lost his Mum. Next week will mark twenty years since she died, and for him it’s still as sad and sorrowful as when it happened, perhaps compounded by being without her for such a long time. Sometimes grief subsides in certain ways, while growing in others.
The holidays are marked by two memories I have of his Mum: the first is a very happy and funny one, taking place on Christmas Eve the first year I was dating Andy. We were stopping by his house en route to mine, and he told me she would offer me a highball, and it was ok to say yes. (He knew I might otherwise have declined in a desperate act to be polite.) It was a bit nerve-wracking, as it was the first time I was meeting her, and in my nervous discombobulation when she offered me the drink I enthusiastically said yes, then mentioned that I’d heard she liked to drink. It didn’t come out right because there’s no way for that comment to come out right. She looked my way, then looked at Andy, and let it slide. We would laugh about it for years. (At least I wasn’t wearing a ‘Get Wicked Tonight’ t-shirt to meet her, as he did when meeting mine.)
The second holiday memory is when she was sick, and we got a call from the hospital on Thanksgiving and had to leave the Ko house early. By then he already felt like part of the family, so losing her was losing one of our own. I wish I’d gotten to spend more time with her.
Twenty years later, it feels freshly painful all over again, so I’m letting Andy lead the way on how he wants to proceed as far as what he wants to do on Thanksgiving. Still, I know she is with us, and Andy knows it too, whenever a cardinal comes to visit or partake of our seven sons flower tree, or flit around the front thuja hedge. She’s there whenever Andy gives me a quick look for something inappropriate I’ve inadvertently said or done, just like on that first night when I met her. And she’s with him whenever he gets down at this time of the year, in ways that I can’t comfort or ameliorate.
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