Today, on the first day of her last month, my mother cries in the face of everyone.
It begins with her oncologist, Dr. Zhou. He calls her by her Mandarin name 凉秋, which translates to Cool Autumn. “凉秋” he says, “the cancer has spread into your bone marrow and blood.” Which means, the cancer is now circulating through every part of her body. It is in more parts of her than it is not.
“The average patient in your condition has a month to live,” Dr. Zhou says.
At this, Cool Autumn loses her cool. Her face crumbles in the predictable way I have watched for thirty years now, starting with the time she pulled me into the living room when I was 8 years old, slammed the door behind me, and tried to tell me something, but the moment she opened her mouth, her face crumbled and emitted a long wail. It was my first introduction in what would become frequent episodes. Back in those days, my mother did not feel like my mother; she felt more like a maddening housemate who would throw away my things. Or most of the time, she felt like the child while I was the mother. For years, she has accidentally called me 媽 ma which means “mom,” when she means to say 妹 mei, which means “young girl.”
Now, my mother-child scrunches her eyes tightly. The skin between her eyebrows bunch in thick folds, like the surface membrane of soymilk contracting in fear of being consumed into a vast void. My mother is quiet, silently streaming tears, a cacophony of inner noise protesting the end of her life. She fumbles for her phone and taps weakly at the black screen, willing it to come back to life.
I know that my mother, at the end of her life, will of course be childlike. More than ever, she will wail. She will alternate between reticent and rageful at her short-circuiting life. She will need to be held as she loses control, emotionally and physically.
Next I take her to yoga class. My father asks if she really wants to go. “It’s doctor’s orders!” She barks. This is a lie. All three of us — my mother, father and me — know the doctors have said no such thing. But my entire life my mother has been a liar. To this day I don’t know how much of what she tells me is true. Is it 95% true, 50% or a measly 10% true?
My mother lies because it is the easiest way out. Suddenly I realize this is what children do. A certain part of her never matured beyond the age when, like all children, lying was the quickest and easiest path to getting what she wants. It is also the most destructive. But I have learned in this relationship that there is nothing that cannot be repaired in the long arc of time and forgiveness.
So I stay by her side, loop her arm through mine, grip her hand, and guide her into the yoga studio. Master Sujit rounds the corner just as I ease her butt onto the waiting bench. I am kneeling, removing her left shoe then the right, when Master Sujit asks her with a bright smile, “How are you today?”
Cool Autumn's face melts again. A decomposing slump of features.
“She just received difficult news,” I tell him somberly as my mother cries and sniffles.
Master Sujit has us lie down on yoga mats as he leads us into yoga nidra meditation. Immediately, Cool Autumn calls out, “I can’t understand!” and I translate from English to Mandarin just like I did when I was 8 years old, 12, 23, 38, and on. But this time the words I translate are soft ocean waves lapping at my consciousness. Master Sujit says to listen to the vibration of his words. “It does not matter if you do not understand,” he says, “simply receive the vibrations.”
And I do. The gentle sway of his voice is a pillar of support. What a relief to let others wrap my mother in their care; they are our angels.
The mother is primordial. She is the life that created mine, the first person I ever met, and one of the more difficult people in my life. But the truth is, despite her childlike tantrums, my mother is easy to love. She is generous, she is kind, she is strong, which also means she is not afraid to be the fool. The road to falling in love with her has been arduous, unexpected, and a gift. There is a tenderness that blooms in my chest each time I slide a sweater over her thin arms, lift her body up from bed, and tug underwear over her butt.
In loving her, I have been in love. What I mean is, I have been held inside the field of love. Long after she is gone, this gift will keep gifting me by opening me to so many other loves, some of whom I’ve yet to even meet. Like my own children someday, if I am lucky.
In this, there is no separation between loving and being loved. In this, she will be with me long after her body is gone. In this, my children will have a living grandmother.
The meditation comes to a close. Master Sujit says to feel the light of the Sun and the Stars shining in our bodies. But what I hear in the vibration of his word is the vibration of the world. I feel my pulse humming against the subtle vibrations of the floor underneath. I can feel it without the usual distraction of my chattering mind in the background. All I feel is sensation. The clarity of breath.
And suddenly, it is clear — dazzling and luminously clear — that this body is not the beginning or end of me. It is home. It is a magnificently sensing instrument. But it is not my life. It is the cup which allows Life itself to pour in and out of me. Like when my mother birthed me. Like now as I give her my life, as I walk her down the final corridor of her body. This body allows the sun to stream into me; vegetables to nourish and root me to place. It lets in the sounds of the city — the cars honking, vendors hawking, trucks thundering. The sounds of so many souls, with their humming crying wondering learning living dying awakening, nestled right against me. The vibration of so many of us, cycling into each other endlessly. Whether or not we try to, we can’t help but give each other Life. This is our nature.
I raise myself up from the floor. I scoot over to my mother whose arms and legs are flailing with the effort to sit up. She can no longer do it herself, so I scoop one hand under her armpit while another braces her shoulder. I upright my mother-child. She gushes, “Thank you Master Sujit!" and suddenly Cool Autumn is crying all over again.
My mother is a cry baby, and so am I. We are quick to feel, and we are quick to heal.
I still have one hand gripping her shoulder when Master Sujit pulls my mother into his arms. They embrace for a long minute and when Master Sujit pulls back, I see he is crying too. With alarming clarity, I see that the mother-child I felt burdened by since childhood, is a gift to this world. She makes Master Sujit feel. She makes Dr. Zhou feel. In a short period of time, they have been moved to tears by her tears. She has the child-like ability to coax love out of even the tightest hands.
I will hurt desperately when my mother’s body stops pulsing, and so I take my mother-child into my arms now.
I hold this gift from the earth,
and I will return her to the earth
when she dies.
She will return her breath to the wind
her blood to the waters
her bones to the soil.
And long, long after
she will still be here
woven as she is through me
and through every thing and every one I touch
and every thing and every one they touch
and on and on.
And so
she is, we are,
woven inextricably and unendingly
together
into every fiber of this whorling planet
and solar system
and galaxy
and on
and on
and
o
n
.
