Calling card to the afterlife

a Mother’s Day tribute. May 2020.

My mom and I, we had this rhythm. She’d call me, once a week, always.

It was this natural thing that began when I moved off to college and has lasted ever since: She called me on the phone, once a week, always. It didn’t matter if I lived in the same state, a different state, a different country.

I rarely was the one to call her, and if I was, it was usually because I was worried, bored, or wanted to call her on my terms, when I had the wherewithal to handle her craziness, knowing that that would delay the next time she’d call me. One stress-free week without dealing with her? I’ll take two.

This was our natural rhythm, which ended only when I moved back into her house, when she could actually start bothering me every day instead.

And then, for a while, it all just died. She stopped bothering me. She stopped talking to me. She stopped calling me.

So what changed?

Well, everything.

First, she moved out.

Like a lot of the seismic shocks in life that take time to figure out how to find your footing or what your feet even look like anymore, we lost that rhythm, that frequency of communication. We just couldn’t navigate it. I couldn’t.

Second, the world changed. Like, a ton.

I have this Zoom call with my dad, which in the year 2020 seems to be the new currency of the world. It goes as poorly as I expect it to, since he has the brain of a two- or three-year-old child. He just stares into the screen, occasionally nodding, occasionally lifting a hand. He doesn’t speak back. My guess is he has no idea what he’s looking at, if it’s a photo, a video, and he probably doesn’t know what either is anymore.

I think of the place he’s in, dedicated to people with brains like his. I tried taking care of him, but I couldn’t do it, day in, day out. I don’t know if that’s a weakness, but if it is, it’s one I admit every day.

I did visit him, often, and it’s something I miss now, dropping by once or twice a week for twenty minutes of joy and happiness, visits that have disappeared, also because of how the world has changed.

I wonder when I’ll get to see him next. I’d go today if I could, but I’m not allowed, and I don’t know that I would even if they let me. I don’t want to risk passing any viruses to him, or anyone he lives with.

That’s how the world spins now, on the axis of one virus (and potentially some of its cousins).

Shelter-at-home has left me at my mom’s home, a home I originally came home to, to take care of her, and to take care of my dad. But now that she’s moved out, I’m here to rid the place of furniture, sort through the items I should keep, and spruce the place up for whoever next will call the house, home.

The thing is that I am left sheltering alone.

There is no sound of life within the same four walls. There is no movement of objects, because no one is there to move them. There is almost no furniture, or sign that anyone even lives there.

It is practically a ghost house. Ironically, this was the point. I was supposed to make the house a ghost hose, so that someone else could fill it. But now that covid-19 has hit, that someone else has to be—for a while longer—me, by myself, alone.

To feel like I am still a part of the world, I wave at people on the streets. I talk to my older brother and his family. I talk to my friends.

But when the calls end, I am alone, in her home, without her.

I see ghosts of her, for sure. When I do the laundry, I imagine the way she hung clothes to dry. When I tend to the yard, I imagine the way she picked the ripened oranges from the tree. When I head to my room to sleep, I imagine her saying ‘Good night!’ to me, right before I shut the door.

The truth is I miss her. I really miss her. Sometimes, I don’t want to tell her that, but why? It’s the same with my friends and family who I also miss, but somehow it’s like some show of strength to not tell others that we love them and how they mean so much to us.

It’s weird. It’s uncomfortable. What if they don’t love us back or miss us the same amount?

I wonder how often I turn down love—in all its forms—because it makes me feel weird and uncomfortable.

But being alone—even as used to it as I got—also leaves me feeling weird and uncomfortable.

It was fine the first week. It was fine the second. Maybe.

But around the third, and definitely the fourth, I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t stand being so alone, confined to such a space with only my emotions to accompany me.

So I did something I hadn’t done in a long time. I called her. I actually called her.

“Where have you been!?” she demands, playfully, and just to make sure I know she’s not mad, she tells me: “It’s good to hear you again.”

I smile sheepishly, try to drum up an excuse, but I know that I don’t have one, and know that she doesn’t really care for one anyway.

“Hey,” I tell her, “there’s this crazy virus going on right now.”

“Oh yeah?” she says, listening as I explain the story of SARS-CoV-2. “That sounds like a hassle. Good thing God took me home then.”

“I don’t know, you’re missing out.”

I tell her that her church is now streamed on YouTube (“What is YouTube?”). I tell her that her Bible study classes are now held over Zoom (“Schjooom…?”). I tell that everyone wears masks when they go outside.

“But what about when it gets hot?” she asks. “So complicated…”

I laugh with her.

“How’s your father then?”

“The same,” I lie. It’s been so long since I talked with him. I don’t really know how he’s doing, but I assume no news is good news, and technically, it sort of is the truth. His world is constantly the same. Every day is the same. His brain cannot tell the difference.

“He probably doesn’t miss me…” she mutters.

“No, I know he does.”

This, I know is true. I have heard him say it in ways she has not, and never will. And I think I sense surprise, and hope, in her voice when I say it.

“I miss you, Mom,” I tell her. I actually tell her. And I ask her how long it’s been because time does weird things and it feels like it’s been years even though it hasn’t even been one.

“Aw…” I can hear her sigh, but then she jokes, as she always does. “But I don’t miss you!”

This, this makes me laugh.

“Thank you for calling, Daniel.”

And that’s how our old rhythm returned to us.

I call her every week now. I actually look forward to talking with her. Even after moving and finding a new shelter to shelter-in-place at, I still look forward to talking with her.

Because although the whole world looks a little nuts, talking to her requires me to go to a special place in order to call her—a physical place, a place that usually looks entirely unnatural, but right now, with its blocks of stone evenly spaced from each other, random bouquets of flowers that don’t belong together, and the bees that float from flower to flower doing their thing because it’s spring and the Earth still spins the way it’s supposed to, it’s a place I feel the most at peace.

The truth is, I don’t know if she’s even listening. I don’t know if she’s actually picking up the phone when I call. But I don’t know that it matters. I hope for it anyway.

So I visit her, close my eyes, and call this week. I will call next week. I will call the week after that.

I hope she answers. She can’t possibly have anything better to do during these times, right?