Spring 2024

Gomo told me on the phone the other day that Halmeoni feels that she is dying. Halmeoni has always said that, but after her stroke she is so different. She seems angrier, more afraid, and less prepared to die than she used to seem. She’s probably told me a dozen times that she’s “ready” but not once since the stroke.

I think my dad will have a mountain of grief when she goes. Anyone would when their mother dies, but I think his will be unique in the sense that she is unique and that their relationship is just sort of bad on its face. But then again, he’s managed to live with her and care for her these past few years. I think Dad will have a mountain-shrouded-in-darkness of grief, in the sense that none of us really know what kind of terrible things they’ve said to each other. I know they’ve both quietly licked a million woulds that resentment and love have made. It will be hard for him to become the only one who has to live with that. [Redacted] has talked before about how hard it is to be the sole carrier of memories and relationship (good + bad) after a death.

That’s the kind of grief I used to fear inheriting from my dad, too. We have also said terrible things to each other, but we don’t anymore. In a sense, that generational wound is healed, and I will not be carrying it down or forward. It makes me sad that the things we heal don’t heal Halmeoni.

Mom has [redacted] it turns out. None of us were surprised but I think we were all still hopeful for something else. It’s been hard to grieve her changing life without conflating disability and tragedy. It’s not my place to do that. I don’t know if it feels tragic to her. She’s grateful for so much too, but I don’t want to infuse a toxic positivity into this that erases her need to grieve, either.

The assholes at the hotel/cottage in [redacted] won’t give her any of her money back, for a trip she cannot physically take, for a 60th birthday she will now spend at home, which is a house with no doors on the bathrooms, so that her mobility aids can fit inside.

I am so proud of my mom. I hope she walks again or rides a bike or drives a car. This all happened way too fast for us to understand. Her disease gave birth to new disease, and it’s unfair. She has inherited her own mother’s wheelchair and stair-lift chair and shower seat. Her mother also left her a collection of beautiful mid-century furniture and the brunt of my Grandad’s grumpy genius. And the name “Nana” which is now my mother’s.

Life changes so suddenly – le doy. But like, in one instant the things that always were just aren’t anymore. It would not make sense to me if the truth becomes that mom has taken her last steps.

Halmeoni has lived so long and endured so much that I would say she’s defied death already. Her ending will change the color of the sky.

Everyone is thinking of their mothers all at once now. She is the thing you look for in the people around you, the fuse that explodes you. And now, when all the mothers of my family are facing age and mortality, it is scary to consider being just a pile of dead ammunition. It has been very cool to grow up in families where, still steeped in patriarchy, women are the gravitational centers of it all.

My mom isn’t dying but she is changing and succumbing in a very brave way.