The other night I sent my father a photo of me, just two and in saddle shoes, feeding swans with my mother at the duckpond. 26 hours later, his response came, and with it went my breath:

I remember it like it was yesterday
G-d rest her soul

I thought of what it means to my father that the girl he married when she was 19, he 20, the mother of three of his four children, has died. He was the second person I called when she died, and he came to our house, and cried as he kissed her goodbye. For the first time, I saw my father as the unseen, the third person in the photo, the one behind the camera. Now, my mother is the unseen, but she is as real and as present as my father is in that photograph taken 30 years ago.

And, I thought what it means, "G-d rest her soul," and how common words reveal themselves as beaming vessels when the soul in question is the one that made yours. If ever a soul is resting, it is my mother's, who, like our Rabbi said (the same Rabbi that married us, 75 days before she died, and oh, what a day can mean when there are only 75 left) climbed the mountain with us to know that on the other side, she would walk on and leave her children in a valley.

Today, 10 years later, I think of my mother's dear friend, Josephine, and how Josephine knew instantly, this morning, 10 years ago, that the love of her life would never return home. He was a firefighter, on disability, but for the reasons she loved him, she lost him: into the towers he went, out he never came. I think of our dear friend, Gabe, who toasted us so beautifully at our wedding, and how he stood on the sidewalk, 10 minutes late to his job, and watched a plane explode into the place he was not. The gift, and weight, of survival was handed to him in a loaded quiver that will be slung across his back for the rest of his life.

I think about my father's words, "G-d rest her soul", and I am grateful for the 8 years we had with our mother as she lived over her illness, and let it be the white noise that played in the background, when most would have let it be the dissonant symphony that clapped a deafening refrain. On Mother's Day, we sat in the living room together and read her Winnie-the-Pooh (we laughed, it is our favorite), and went for a drive by the beach. My brothers learned how to lift her gently, so as not to rattle the cancer that filled her body, they dressed her, cooked for her, fed her, and I knew that inside, deeper than where the cancer dwell, my mom was beaming, for her boys were driven by love, not constrained by fear. I have never thought "G-d rest her soul" because it is so clear to me that never has a soul left as proudly and peacefully (though not joyously, do not think that) as my mother. I think today about those nearly 3,000 souls who did not have the gift of forewarning, who had no time to dance the hora (though there is never enough time). 57 years is not enough, but on this day, I am grateful (again, common words, beaming vessels) for the warning that Death came closer, before Death came to our house.

So they went off together. But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the forest a little boy and his bear will always be playing. - Winnie-the-Pooh, A.A. Milne

Dear Mom,

It has been 2 months since we lost you. Liz got married on Saturday night, and we were there (you rsvp'd yes, and ordered the sirloin), me and Kevin and Petey and Davey. Petey wore his hat, which you wouldn't have been happy with, but it was his fancy hat, which makes it better. When we got home from the wedding, to our house, to our house that you lived in and died in, I had this email waiting for me:

Are you THE Leigh Batnick...
…who was a sweet & lovely 5th grader at Lakeside Elementary in Merrick in 1989-90? I suspect it must be you, as your writing is as deep & graceful & magical now as it was then. I came upon your blog just now, and am so very sorry for your loss.

Of all things, I remember your mom’s signature on your report cards & absence notes. She had happy handwriting!
My deepest condolences to you & your family; my heart goes out to you.

With love,
Christine aka "Ms. Wicks"

Mom, you remember Ms. Wicks! She was my favorite teacher, her, and Dr. Isaacs (he understood me before I did). The thing is, I haven't exchanged a word with her in 21 years and she emailed me precisely at the moment that I was toasting Liz and Liz and I met in her classroom. In my toast, I quoted from the letter Liz wrote you on June 5th, and in that letter she spoke about Ms. Wicks.

Mom, I know you already know this. I haven't written back to Ms. Wicks yet, because I'm waiting to understand; I spend my days waiting to understand. Liz, who knows deep loss from the its eddy, wrote to me:

...Although I know you do not feel connected to your sadness, rest assure, you are at a kind of magical stage of subconscious connection. She is speaking through your heart, mind and pen (or rather, your laptop). Sadness will roll in with the tides of mundane memories, with holidays, with realizations about the lack of phone calls. Unfortunately, it will eventually come. But for now, know that the unexpected thing about loss is a strange super-powered infusion of love that you gain from the person that you lost. It is almost like a shield that they give us for our hearts. And that shield is made up of the energy created by the POWER of your connection to them. Some may call it denial or shock, but really, I think it is the protection given from our beloved, the one who knows that our fragile hearts can only take so much at a time... Lest they break in two. And that is the last thing that they would ever want to happen...

I spoke to Ray-Ray tonight, and she told me that Jane asked you before you died, as best friends can, "How will I know you are with us?" and you answered "You will know. There will be no doubt about it." When Jane opened the library the first morning she went back after you died (you loved little ladies and librarians who loved pink wine), 3 computers were on but the main computer, the host, was off. No one was there, the computers are turned off every night, religiously, and she knew. It was you. The mother-ship was dark, but still, she lit her 3 children.

Mom, you light your 3 children. I think about what I did not ask you; I did not know you were afraid of heights. Petey told me when you went on the ski gondolas out West, you hovered over desert and prairie, canyons and brush, and your hands tightly gripped the sides. I am afraid of heights, too, or of precipices, more specifically, and I couldn't breathe as we ascended the Eiffel Tower, so down quickly we went. I never knew you were afraid of anything, except what could hurt your children. You are fearless to me. You feared not death, you feared not life.

Mom, your heart has stopped, I heard your last breath, but your heart made mine, and now Liz tells me, that you cradle my broken heart. Please, come to me. Be with me in dreams. Michael dreamed of you, dead, but re-animated, and I am so jealous. In his dream, you told the three of us that Petey took good care of you, and when he told me about his dream I said, "You're right, he did" and Michael gasped, for I had said exactly the same thing in his dream. My girl, be with me in a dream. Tell me what I know (but the knowing is hard, and it's not the same as your voice telling me, kissing me, nuzzling your head into my neck - you are short!) you would say if you were here. Tell me that you love me, tell me that I am the daughter, the person, you hoped I would be.

Mom, I fear not the night or a great height. You are with me, you are in me, you are all around me. I love you, my girl, and I love my brothers and we talk to our uncles and I will be better about calling your friends (my friends) and seeing Poppy. You have taught me how to live, and I want to be my mother's daughter. There was no one better than you, my mother.

Tuck me in, and slowly tell each part of my body to rest, to exhale from my tiniest toe, to the tip of my head, like you did when I was small.

I love you, I love you, I love you and this is not good night, for maybe I will see you tonight.
Lulu Belle

I cannot explain to you this unbelievable desire for something I will never have again, this deepest need for my mother to return to life. She was smaller than me, but felt so much bigger, feels so much bigger, and every time I held her hand, which was often, I was struck by her smallness, by how very small her hand felt in mine. I felt like a man must feel, holding the hand of a woman.

I was told about a woman who, after her mother died, became a Hospice aide. Before June 17th, I would not have understood this, the return to the scene of a horrible crime, but now I do, but I won't, for I'm not as good as that woman. If I cannot have my mother, alive, well, crying "Girlfriend!!!" loudly and off-key into the video chat, as Teepee's ears stood straight on end, huge and ridiculous, I would have the end again, the feeling of purpose, holding her failing body tight, giving her the last hug I would give her, as Nancy, her hospice aide turned her on her side to check for bed sores. The first time we did this, my mother held me as I held her, and our tears mingled in pools on our cheeks, falling from the same green eyes. The last time, my silent mother's body was a weight in my arms, her breathing was jagged in my ear, and the tears were only mine.

Where does redemption come from? Where is joy, pure and unfettered, without her? My girl, I cannot feel free without you here. I know what you want for me. You told your children when we promised to one day go to the Galapagos, to see the tortoises and the blue-footed boobies, that we could only go if we promised you one thing: we would have fun. Mom, I promised you, and I promise you, but it has not yet been two months, and in my sadness, I honor you. Don't be mad at me, my girl, for not being a goer and a doer quite yet. I want to be still, to be quiet, to be with you, with my thoughts of you.

Dear Mom,

I am writing this on your computer, and I am thinking of how cute you were by the light of the video chat, falling asleep, the laptop bigger than you, tilting in towards your forehead as you fell asleep. And I would say, gently, "Mom, go to sleep," and your eyes would open and you'd say, "How did you know I was sleeping?" and I'd say, "Your eyes were closed!" and sometimes you'd be snoring lightly too.

Mom, I started reading our emails to each other today. Your email account is open (were you the last person left using AOL? Without you they are doomed!). You have 1890 unread emails. I will look through, to make sure there are none that need to be answered. I started answering your emails in June, and I had to tell friends why you yourself could not answer.

Our emails to each other are funny and silly and full of love. I am so proud that I wrote to you: i appreciate your pearls of wisdom. you have the longest, wisest pearl necklace in the world. My last email from you is on May 15th, but on April 7th you wrote:

To the most beautiful bride,

Wow! What beautiful pictures. You and Kevin look amazing! This was the best wedding I have ever been to. I am soooooo proud of all your efforts and your vision and how you remain true to yourself and who you are.

Hope you are having fun and thinking about you all the time.

Love & xxxxxx's.

Mom

Thank you, my girl, for allowing me to be the person you made, even when you did not understand that person. Thank you, my girl, for being honest, always, even when I wished you were not. You knew all of my secrets, because I trusted you to treat them with care, and because we need to be told when we are doing the wrong thing. Without you, who loves me enough to tell me I am wrong?

On the anniversary of Nana Hannah's death, I posted about her here, and you wrote, "Yes you have it right. I certainly do miss her. 17 years is a long time. She was so beautiful." Mom, now I am a daughter whose mother has gone, and I think of the years that stretch before me, without you here. You told me, before you left, "I'll be with you always, except for the private moments." Mom, stay with me always. 32 years with you was not enough.

I love you, and I miss you are words not enough.

Your first born, your daughter,

Leigh Michelle

The is and the were.

Because the world is unknown to me, I wonder, if we go to Joshua Tree, to a place that I do not know, to a landscape that I can only dream up, will I find her there, waiting for me? I live in a world where my mother was and I am. We, none of us know our fates (her favorite joke? Want to make G-d laugh? Tell him your plans.) but it is conceivable that I will live longer without my mother than with her. The tense of her being has changed, she has passed, they say, she was, they say. She is I say! But that will slip away, and every night I fall deep asleep, for every day I say, over and over and over again, she is dead, my mother is dead.

Z. told me tonight "I am so sorry about your mother." And he meant it, I know, with a full heart, but how do I explain that I stand, thirsty, at the bottom of a cavernous cavern, and his words are a drop of water falling from heights that I cannot see. No one should know this feeling, until the knowing is unavoidable, but oh! oh! what I wish I did differently while I still had the chance.

Finest thing.

Our mother taught us the hard lessons of life. When it would have been easier to say yes then to press on through her child's tears, she choose the path thicketed and thorned, for it would lead to a beautiful island where her children could light a fire and make their way in the world, through plenty and drought.

The crickets sang in the grasses. They sang the song of summer's ending, a sad, monotonous song. "Summer is over and gone," they sang. "Over and gone, over and gone. Summer is dying, summer is dying."

The crickets felt it was their duty to warn everybody that summertime cannot last forever. Even on the most beautiful days of the whole year-the days when summer is changing into fall-the crickets spread the rumor of sadness and change. -Charlotte's Web

The crickets sang of no rumors. Like my mother, the crickets sang of truth. There is a glass wall, thick, clear, soundproof, between myself and my sadness. The bed my mother bought me has been taken away, I lie here in the heat in the bed I bought with my husband. Where does my sadness lie? When the yellow light comes through the trees, will it be waiting for me? I read that the deeper their love for the departed, the harder it is for mourners to leave the cave of denial, and I felt not so terribly wrong for eating, for sleeping, for picking which black dress to wear. Summer will go, it will leave us (I cannot say die, batteries do not die, only people, and for me, only one person) yet it will, once again, return. Beyond the glass wall, I know, unlike summer, my mother will never rise again but here, in the stillness of July, 37 days later, 899 hours later the daughter that I am now, the daughter of a dead mother, waits for her great love, her first love to rise again.

The unexpected.

It is almost the full moon. The hospice lady told me that my mother might die on the full moon, that people usually do, and I believed it, but my mother, not usual, did not. On Friday morning, June 17th, my uncle, the third of three brothers, six years older than my mother, who loved her with a love often reserved for one's child (he did promise their mother, on her deathbed, that he would care for my mother, and he did, Uncle B, you did) kissed her head, and told her that he would see her later. I pulled him aside, and whispered, if he could, please tell her that it was okay if she did not see him later. He did, as he cried, and she didn't wait, but she would have, had he not asked, and he was brave for saying what he did not mean.

I cried on Saturday night, in a church, as I listened to my husband play. It was the first time, almost, that I had cried since her funeral. I always thought that when she died I would instantly get sick. Nothing that I thought would happen has happened. I am rigid, I wait, still. Turns out, almost a month is not enough.

And if you wonder if you ought to, if it is right, say something. The bereaved (provenance: bereafian "to deprive of, take away, seize, rob") are more frightened than you. There is fear in mourning, there is anxiety. Moments when you forget that you are a mourner, are terrible for the remembering. If I could wear it on my sleeve that I am different, no longer the same, I would. Part of me lies with her. It is all I care about, my mother, and it is all I want to talk about. I want to tell you about her, and I will.

Your mailbox is full.

I wore the white dress today that I wore the night before I was a bride, on a night while my mother was still alive. Today, the dress was dusted with the pollen from white lilies, a mark, I'm told, that is hard to remove. I can smell the sharp sting of the tiger lilies my mother's Tante Muriel Iris brought to the house when I was small. I can smell the perfume I sprayed on my mother's pillow as she lay dying (Near, it is called). As we are made, we are marked. The kriah ribbon lies in a silver shell next to my bed. It is torn, I am torn, and I wept to remove it on the last day of shiva. I do not yet miss what I will not have. I miss what I had two weeks ago. I miss caring for her, I miss the bittersweet house full of love and sadness, I miss her brothers, I miss my brothers. I miss the moment I heard her take her last breath, for though she was leaving, and left she has, it was her breath.

I basked in you;
I love you, helplessly, with a boundless, tongue-tied
love.
And death doesn't prevent me from loving you.
Besides,
in my opinion you aren't dead.
(I know dead people, and you are not dead.)
-Franz Wright via The Long Goodbye by Meghan O'Rourke

I have no secrets.

The end of a pickle floats in this morning's coffee. The bath grows cold. I have no secrets. I only wear clothes heaped in the basket next to my closet; a bent hanger has jammed the door shut. A woman named Gloria will come in the morning to clean around my discarded dresses, my piles of denial and I will not give her keys. Weeks ago, I dreamed of H., who stole my precious thing. I thought I'd want to write to her to tell her that my mother is dead, and what of my mother's mother's engagement ring she plucked from my white bathroom? but I cannot write to her. I cannot decide which shoes to keep, hunger is easier than deciding. I cannot cry.

I saw my mother again, on the shores on Sunday. The sea carried us past her, in a cove, on the sand, but there in the distance, I saw her again.

I read, so I can see life, for I do not feel my own.

The safety deposit box is opened. There are savings bonds, a diamond ring, a deed for the house. The letters come. I wear a thin gold bangle shot through a perfect pearl. Even when you cannot/ see the moon, it is ok/ She is always there.

I am waiting for my mother.

The phenomenal return home.

My mother died 7 days ago. It has been one week since I kissed the hollow in the nape of her neck, since I ran my lips against the downy hair on the back of her head. I have lived 165 hours without my mother, and I have not, for one minute, understood that she will not appear in our driveway in her big white car, that I will never again hear her voice talking on the phone in the laundry room.

The day after she died, my brother and I stood on the back of our family boat, as it rolled past green backyards with sprinklers and swimming pools. We passed swans along the way, and families of ducks. Herons stood on the wet, grassy patches that sprout from the bay. I saw my mother, sitting in her chair, laughing with glee as the salt water sprayed our faces. I saw my mother standing in the marshes, on the lawns, at the edge of the park she took us to as children, smiling, squinting and shading her eyes with one hand, waving at us with the other, happy that we were together.

I am going back there tonight. I will be with my brothers, I will drive her big white car and I will have lunch at our favorite place. My stepfather will hug me. I will fold her clothing, and wear her pajamas. I will look at the ants tumbling through the mountains of grass and not understand how they are allowed to be here, but she is not.

My mother and I shared 280,320 hours of life. It will take more than 165 hours to understand that she is gone, forever. She lived from April 9, 1954 until June 17, 2011 - 57 years, 2 months, 1 week, and 1 day and not a minute longer - but I am still waiting for her to come home. I will rub my eyes and hug her, she will tell me that she loves me and she is proud of me, and we will hold hands and know, together, that these 165 hours were all a bad dream.

Eulogy for my mother.

The Strawberry Moon reached its peak at 4:16 on Wednesday June 15. On Thursday June 16th, I could not see the moon in the sky. As my mother lay dying in our den, a tree was felled from our neighbor's yard, to make way for a swimming pool. A man cradled by a rope scaled the tree, and cut it limb by limb, as a crew of others in green shirts stood in our yard to guide the falling parts away from harm, away from my mother who lay, one foot here, one foot there, her shallow breaths and pulsing neck monitored by my hungry eyes. A glass door and five men shielded her from the tree, but nothing can shield the masses who love my mother from what has fallen on us.

On Thursday night, I stretched myself on a deck chair and listened to my brother talk to his new friend with the beautiful name. I looked at the tree in our yard that now stands silhouetted by a ghost. It stands still, and will continue to, without the caress of another's leaves against its own. The tree that is gone remains with us in its absence. Its living form is no more, but what remains is the roots, reaching down, like fingers holding tight. Under the shadow of the tree remaining and the shadow of tree that once was, I whispered in my mother’s ear “Be a butterfly, fly like the butterflies we grew as children, from chrysalis to beings of the sky.” I told her to be free to go, so she can land on our shoulders.

My mother died on Friday, June 17th at around 1:02 pm. Our “giver of Nachas” as my brother Michael called her, as he covered her cheeks and nose and forehead in kisses, left the temporal world while my brothers waited together on the deck. Petey laid on the couch beside her bed, and I, I curled on the landing listening to her last breath.

My brothers and I will mourn our mother for the rest of our days. We mourn the loss of the old woman she would be. We mourn all that she will not be here to share with us. I was lucky enough to have the clouds part on April 3rd for my wedding; she had been so sick in the months leading up to it, and yet on that day she glowed with love. I was resolute that our wedding would be big and full, a festival of love, peopled by friends and family, the community that we have built. I wanted her to see the people who would care for us when she was gone. It is not luck that my mother was surrounded with love from all over the country in her last months. She lived to give love, and everyone who knew her felt themselves to be the center of her universe, for she gave of herself completely, and with the utmost honesty.

I stand here, my mother’s first born, the only daughter of an only daughter. The words I say are for her and for my brothers, her boys, my best friends. My mother gave me the greatest gifts I have been given – the gift of her love, her moral guidance through the world, the love of books and animals and family and friends. My mother gave me my brothers and nurtured us three as individuals, as unique beings. What went for one, did not go for all, with one exception: her love. Beyond that, I am her mad, bad bibliophile, Adam her gentle soul and Michael her chef and her warm and loving boy. My mother will never know her our children, as her namesake, my maternal great-grandmother Blanche never knew her. But our children will know our mother, for we would not be Leigh Michelle, Adam Ross and Michael Henry without her. I will tell them to be goers and doers, I will teach them to do unto others, I will teach them that relationships require hard work that pays in piles richer than gold and pearls, diamonds and rubies. We will tell them stories of my mother the boxer, of her ‘fro she named Moishe, her love of flying low, particularly on the back of Petey’s jet ski, of her Sternberging little Paul Sternberg in the third grade, bloodying his nose for a forgotten wrong. We will tell them how she gave freely to those who were good, and sought to understand with compassion and forgiveness those who were not. Our children will know my mother, for she will be a butterfly on all of our shoulders, for the rest of our days.

Last night was the Strawberry Moon. Tonight, I cannot see the moon in the sky. Tonight, as my mother lay dying in our den, a tree was felled from our neighbor's yard, to make way for a swimming pool. A man cradled by a rope scaled the tree, and cut it limb by limb, as a crew of others in green shirts stood in our yard to guide the falling parts away from harm, away from my mother who lies, one foot here, one foot there, her shallow breaths and pulsing neck monitored by my hungry eyes. A glass door and five men shielded her from the tree, but there is no one to shield the masses who love my mother from what is falling on us.

I stretched myself on a deck chair tonight and listened to my brother who spoke to his new friend with the beautiful name. I looked at the spot where the tree was, and the tree in our yard that stands silhouetted by a ghost. It stands still, and will continue to, without the caress of another's leaves against its own. My mother will not know our new friends, she will not know the children who will be named for her. My mother will never read this. I whisper in her ear to be a butterfly, to fly into the sky like the butterflies we grew as children, from chrysalis to beings of the sky. I tell her to be free to go, so she can land on our shoulders.

For Lisa, because she asked.

We gathered together again, grown tall like the cat tails on the marsh at the end of our block, once over taken by fire, the trucks sounding, smoke billowing when the school bus dropped us home. We have already lost one of our mothers and now we sat on the steps, drinking beers and laughing, with husbands and wives, waiting, as we lose another mother, this time mine.

She is asleep now, on the hospital bed that waited for her as we rode home in the ambulance on Friday, mother and daughter. We looked backwards out of the windows with our green eyes and we couldn't tell, on roads so familiar, where we were, on the roads that led her to visit her children in Washington, in Philadelphia, in Indiana in the days after the monuments fell and her son was too scared to fly home, so home flew to him, and our New York license plates elicited cries of love from here to the farmlands that stretched out before our open eyes.

The children are grown, Elliott Street is for new families, other families and these days, love flies here to say their goodbyes.

Where I have been.

I went to the Stationery Show today. The first time I went, 8 years ago, I had a different name, a different job, I lived in a different city. 8 years ago, my mother had just had a double mastectomy to rid her of invasive lobular breast cancer. Today, I have a new name and my mother has stage IV metastasized breast cancer that thrives in her bones, her stomach, her lymph nodes, her blood.

Every night on my way home from work, I used to speak to my mother on the telephone. Now, she sleeps before I leave work. I walk home and I talk to friends about my mother, or I talk to her in my head, or I write to her, and tell her things I am afraid to say. When death is far away, it is easier to speak of it freely. Now that death creeps closer, we are in a delicate waltz.

My mother has always taught her children what her mother taught her: live each day as if is your last. Now that we know what will end her days, my mother and I think differently. Do not live each day as if it is your last. It is a terrible burden, terrible, terrible knowledge that no one should lay down to sleep with. Live each day full of love. Live each day with grace, with dignity. Be the best you, the person your parents dreamed they would make, the person you have always wanted to be.

Cancer has fractured my mother's shoulder, it has put her in the hospital too many times, it has kept her from her granddaughter's birthday party for fear of infection. Cancer causes my teetotaler mother to live on cocktails of painkillers. But, cancer has not made my mother anyone other than the joyous, sage, impish, speed-loving mother who will remain my North Star for the rest of my days.

7 stars to treat with care and concern. Do not forget tenderness.

We slept, early, angry and deep, at the hour the North Star went out. The fountain flows for a day, the lights twinkle, the leader praised and then a new monument rises, with a new face. Stubborn ram, angry archer, make right in your home what you cannot make right in the world.

The Loss of diamonds.

a return to Giverny, Erik Madigan Heck

The Giverny we saw was less clotted with nympheas; they've bloomed every summer since 1893, or so. I trust they will bloom again.

Technivorm Plessner

Welcome home, beautiful baby.

Imaginary doings

Foujita cat

A good muse does not fall asleep in an unmade bed. A good muse does not leave her dresses in a tangle on the floor.

"Eyelids of the morning"

wisteria from AnOther

Rise, Mother, rise! We are under April skies and I need our nighttimes back. It is lonely walking home without you.

Flick, flick of the multi-tailed whip

Iris Schwarz

Mess. Once, twice, three times. Over again. Hiding places are running out.