Lost Last Words

Allow me to save you the suspense.

I lost my mother's last words.

One forgetful moment and they were gone.

...

She had been battling cancer for several months. In the end, she was heavily medicated and then sedated in hospice. This left her unable to communicate verbally with me and my two sisters for the last few weeks of her life.

"Here girls."

Ms. Houston, my Mom's closest friend, handed us all a thick envelope. Each one with our names scrawled in the very handwriting we had learned to write them in.

"Your Momma wrote these for you over the last year. Whenever she had the energy." Ms. Houston teared up, "She loved you girls more than you will ever know."

Only, we knew. We were lucky. She told us every day.

...

We three girls; 18, 22, and 23 all went our separate ways. Back to our lives. Agreeing that each other's letters would remain private. Just between us and our mother.

You see, I believe each child has a different parent. Of course, it is the same person raising us but because we exist as individuals no two relationships can be the same. My mother is not the same as my sisters'.

Being the oldest and she being the eldest of five, we shared that bond and combusted over it during my teen years. Add to that her being a single mother, my role was more that of confidante, co-parent, and friend.

I was anxious to read what she had to share. My Mom was a beautiful writer and a well-spoken woman. Never lost for words, I knew that envelope was thick with years of advice for every potential crossroad in my future.

...

I got home to my shared three-bedroom apartment. Laying in my bed, still in funeral clothes, which is the worst costume any of us will ever have to wear. I opened the letter and exhausted from the day, passed out halfway through the first page. Three hours later I woke up startled by the noise of my roommates coming home.

We all worked as bartenders together downtown so we usually came home with a few friends and would stay up playing cards and drinking until daylight. I went out to join them to take my mind off the day and the entirety of what my reality now was. I recall putting the letter back in its envelope, not ready to consume its contents, and in a book on my bedside table.

At 5:00 a.m. I crawled back into bed smelling of gold tequila and stale cigarettes.

...

Over the next several months I was either working or drinking. Or working while drinking. Or drinking while working. However, you'd like to put it. My life was total chaos. I had in no way prepared myself to cope with a loss like this. While Mom was sick, all I can remember is going into autopilot. Every day was a checkmark on my to-do list. Taking care of Mom, going to work, checking in with my sisters. ON and ON!

But now, everyone was gone. There was silence and ALONE time.

So, I filled it.

I filled my hours with bars and parties, and bringing home any other desperate souls that would stay up with me all night.

Until one night, she found me.

...

She found me blacked out and passed out in the bathroom of my favorite late-night spot. She found out where I lived from some other regulars who were usually the ones either fighting me to leave or lifting me up three flights of stairs to my apartment door. She drove me home. Stayed the night on my couch and the next day I woke up to her making me breakfast.

"Who are you?", I murmured still drunk from the night before.

"I made you breakfast. Go take a shower. We'll chat once you no longer smell like sour beer." She had long curly hair and big bright eyes. In her early twenties, we were probably the same age. I recognized her, but vaguely.

She told me how she had found me the night before. How she saw me out frequently and would always keep an eye out just in case. I started to cry, to really cry.. to weep. About all of it.

Was this a joke? How much closer can you get to the cliche of a guardian angel? But, she was real. I believe she saved my life. More than once. With this newfound friendship and the love found inside it, I began to repair the damage. Slowly cleaning up my life.

...

The Letter!!!

Where was it???

I had put it away and not allowed myself to think about it or my mother for almost a year. During that time, I moved apartments twice and put some items in storage. I had no idea where it could be.

I remembered the book.

I tore through every book and drawer in my current apartment. Even an old trunk where I kept scrapbooks and some of Mom's journals. Nothing!

It has to be in the storage unit. I had ten boxes of my Mom's old books and photos in there. It had to be in one of those.

I drove to the storage unit. Went up to the door and there was a padlock that did not belong to me on the hinge. I ran into the front office and asked the clerk why that was.

I couldn't believe it. I had forgotten to pay the bill months ago. They had cleaned out all of my Mom's boxes and along with them, my letter.

...

So, you see. The letter held what I believed to be, for many years, the answers to all my doubts and life's questions. Something to advise when encountering that, "Big Fork in the Road", of which, I've learned, there are many.

What I can say is, while I mourn the loss of having my mother's words to bring me comfort. I have embraced the strength of forging an autonomous path. I know for certain her words would have influenced my decisions in life. Most likely, in major ways.

Who knows which road would have been better?

Isn't that the point?