Does This Beach Make Me Look Fat?: True Stories and Confessions Read online

You will open the refrigerator and it will contain potato salad and morphine. Only one of these is organic.

  You will find yourself granting every wish of your mother’s as if it were her last, because, well, it could be. We have all been running hither and yon getting mango sorbet, Bud Light, Entenmann’s plain donuts, and mashed potatoes with gravy. I had a fight in Whole Foods over the last jar of puréed pears baby food, which was for my Mother Mary.

  You haven’t lived until you’ve bought baby food for your mother, depriving a nine-month-old.

  Take that, baby. Try the carrots, you selfish little thing.

  We are alternately happy and sad, getting along wonderfully or bickering. I don’t worry about this. In fact, I think it’s par for the course. If you’re not irritable at a time like this, you lack perspective.

  I never sweat the small stuff, but this is clearly not the small stuff. I’ve spent my life dismissing minor annoyances because they aren’t a matter of life and death, but this is a matter of life and death.

  Trust me, we’re sweating it.

  Yet we persevere, because we have no other choice and we’re lucky to have this one. We ask the hospice nurses how long we will have Mother Mary with us, and one nurse says something truly profound—that people die the way they lived.

  That’s good news with Mother Mary.

  She’s a fighter and she’s fighting. When the priest arrived to give her last rites, she sent him away.

  Actually what she said was, “Never!”

  So she is not going gentle.

  She cannot spell gentle.

  She even insists that I go on book tour, since I have a book out this week, and though I am torn, I will obey her. She doesn’t want me to act like the end is near, or it makes her feel as if it is, and I understand that, too. So in another irony, because she comes first, I’m going to listen to her and do my job.

  By the way, I showed her an advance copy of the new book that Daughter Francesca and I wrote, which is dedicated to her. She was thrilled to see it, and the book will be out in summer. I’m betting on her being with us then too.

  Because here’s the one thing I truly believe:

  Mother Mary will be with us forever.

  Fear of Flying

  By Lisa

  Lately, I’m grabbing men on airplanes.

  This could be the new match.com, for frequent flyers.

  Let me explain. I have a medical excuse.

  I seem to be developing a fear of flying.

  And I blame Liam Neeson.

  Because after seeing the movie Nonstop, as well as lots of other airplane crash movies, I can visualize all too well what happens when planes become lawn darts. It might be too much information, or too much imagination. Either way, all of a sudden, I’m nervous when I fly.

  I found this out this week, when I took a business trip to Florida from Philly, down one day and up the next, which describes the turbulence both ways.

  There had been bad rainstorms all over the country, and the plane ride south started off rocky and never got better. I popped flop sweat. I gripped the armrests. I gritted my teeth.

  But when I looked around at the other passengers, they were reading their books, ebooks, and newspapers and answering email. Oddly, they seemed not to realize that the world was about to end.

  The captain got on the speaker and said things like “random air pockets,” “being rerouted,” “keep your seat belts fastened,” but I was too stressed out to hear any of it, and all I can tell you is that it was the first flight I wouldn’t get up to go to the bathroom.

  I almost went in my seat.

  Then the plane dropped suddenly, and I instinctively reached over and clutched the arm of the man next to me.

  I say instinctively, but God knows if it’s instinctive.

  Maybe it’s instinctive for single women.

  Either way, he looked over and smiled, and I apologized.

  Then he said, “Don’t worry. We’re at thirty-five thousand feet.”

  Oy.

  I said, “That’s exactly what worries me.”

  He shook his head, patiently. “It shouldn’t. If anything goes wrong now, the pilot has thirty thousand feet to fix it. The only times to worry are at takeoff and landing.”

  Yikes.

  So I gutted it out, and I helped land the plane through the sheer power of will, hope, karma, prayer, or all of the above.

  It took the next three hours for my stomach to settle, and I dreaded the flight home the next day, which was even worse. The sky was sunny and clear, but wind buffeted the plane, up and down, right and left, and again, when we made a sudden drop, I grabbed the guy next to me.

  Are you getting the idea? Don’t sit near me on a plane.

  But this guy was nice, too. He laughed patiently as I apologized and unhooked my nails from his arm, one at a time like a kitten.

  Then he said, “You don’t have to worry. There’s nothing out there.”

  Oy.

  I told him, “That’s exactly what worries me.”

  “It shouldn’t. It means there’s nothing for us to hit, or to hit us.”

  “But it also means there’s nothing underneath us.”

  “No worries. You’re in more danger on the street, with all those crazy drivers. This is nothing, and the plane’s on autopilot. Do you know they don’t even drive with their hands on the wheel?”

  I almost threw up.

  Then, by some miracle, after we landed safely, I filed weak-kneed down the aisle, where the pilot stood next to a flight attendant. I asked the pilot, “Is it true that you don’t drive with your hands on the wheel?”

  “No,” he answered.

  “Yes,” answered the flight attendant, at the same time.

  And I’m driving to Florida, from now on.

  Love Without Rough Edges

  By Francesca

  During most of grandmother’s time in hospice, I was sitting only a few feet from her. I tried to help however I could and keep her company the rest of the time. But hospice is a game you play to lose, and it was difficult to adjust.

  Often, I felt helpless.

  So when my uncle said that my grandmother had specifically asked for me to do her nails, I was elated—unlike the daunting medical side of hospice, this was something I knew I could handle.

  My grandmother took meticulous care of her fingernails. She always carried an emery board in her handbag, and even when her knuckles knotted with arthritis, she kept each filed to a perfect almond shape.

  Even now, she could feel her nails were long, but she couldn’t feel the advanced cancer in her chest.

  One of many blessings.

  So I was happy to help. I envisioned giving her a salon experience, complete with soaking bowls of warm, sudsy water and a hand massage with scented lotion. I wanted so badly to do something nice for her, something special.

  When you know that anything could be the last something, you want everything to be perfect.

  But the next morning, I could see she was exhausted, more so than the day before.

  It takes a lot for a body to launch a spirit. Especially one like hers.

  I put my hand on her shoulder as she napped on the couch. “Is it all right if I do your nails while you rest?”

  She opened her eyes for a moment and gave a nod.

  I took her hands one by one, my fingers threaded through hers. I filed each nail gently, so as not to disturb her, rounding the tips into half-moons. I ran my fingers over them to make sure they were perfectly clean and smooth, no rough edges.

  I thought of all that those hands had done in ninety years. Before my time, she was a songwriter, her hands played many melodies on piano. I imagined her penciling in the margins of a new song, adding dynamic changes, a ritardando at the end.

  If only there was a ritardando in real life. But you can’t hold on to one minute longer than any other. And the more you try, the faster the minutes seem to go.

  I thought of all that those ha
nds had done for me. How many meals had they prepared? How many other babysitters served homemade ravioli as an afterschool snack? How many times had they stroked my hair? Touched my cheek? How many gestures of love can a lifetime hold?

  In my grandmother’s case, countless.

  So I held on to her hands while she slept. And I whispered to her, told her things, some important and some mundane, some I’d said a thousand times before, some I’d never said ’til then.

  I hoped she could feel in my hands the love returned to her, the lessons learned, the strength she’d instilled in me now trying to be strong for her.

  I always admired my grandmother’s combination of grit and warmth, she could be tough and tender, hard and soft.

  Although she was all soft with me.

  She loved without rough edges.

  After some time she woke up, or maybe she hadn’t been asleep at all, and she ran her thumb over her fingertips. She smiled. “Good,” she told me, and she blew me a kiss.

  I wondered if she had heard me say that I loved her enough to hope she could let go.

  Even though I wanted to hold her hands a while longer.

  Mother Mary and Frank Sinatra

  By Lisa

  I’m sorry to have to write that Mother Mary has passed, and we are all deeply, profoundly shocked and heartbroken.

  I don’t want this to veer into the maudlin, so I won’t elaborate on our emotions. You know them if you’ve been there, or if you have a heart.

  But permit me to say one last thing on the subject.

  It’s my last word.

  On her last words.

  Let me begin by saying that all of us, including my mother, were surprised when we found out she had late-stage lung cancer and that her death was imminent. Her kind pulmonologist explained it all to her carefully, so she knew the end was near. But another doctor happened to mention the term “end-of-life” care, which went over like a lead balloon, one of Mother Mary’s favorite expressions. When we got home, her throat hurt too much to talk, so we got her a Sharpie and dry-erase board, and the first thing she wrote, in large letters, was: DON’T SAY ANYTHING ABOUT END OF LIFE AROUND HERE.

  So we didn’t.

  And when a visitor asked her how she was feeling, she wrote, OUTSIDE OF ALL THIS CRAP, I’M DOING FINE.

  And to one of her friends, Nino, she wrote, SEE YOU IN THE SUMMER.

  Secretly, I kept wondering if she was in denial about her own death. I’m a bookish sort, so I read the pamphlet they gave us from hospice, which advised that the terminally ill often want to talk with loved ones about the important events of their lives, offer them parting gifts or mementos, or say goodbye in a variety of other ways.

  Mother Mary did none of these things.

  She hadn’t read the pamphlet.

  And even so, she wasn’t the type of woman to do anything by the book.

  During her last few days, I used to lie awake at night, worrying that she wasn’t going to have the typical, or normal, death, whatever that is. We weren’t going to say goodbye, like in the pamphlets or the movies. I was fine with that, but I worried that if she didn’t accept her own death, would she be fearful when it came?

  Thankfully, no, she wasn’t.

  She was dozing, under a dose of morphine that eased her pain but not her senses. She squeezed my brother’s hand one last time, three squeezes that were her signal for I Love You.

  Those were her last words.

  In retrospect, I realize that Mother Mary knew she was ill, but she wasn’t ready to accept death, offer us mementos, or say goodbye.

  Why?

  Because she had hope.

  And she kept that alive.

  Mother Mary did it her way and always kept us laughing.

  And in return, hope kept her alive, for much longer than the doctors expected.

  She didn’t provide us the storybook final scene as she passed from this earth, but it wasn’t supposed to be about our comfort. It wasn’t about us at all, or the pamphlets or the movies.

  It was about her, and she faced death the way she confronted life—on her terms.

  It won’t surprise you to know that her favorite singer was Frank Sinatra and her favorite song, “My Way.”

  In all things, she did it her way.

  She wouldn’t concede to cancer. The only way it would win was to beat her, and in the end, she still won.

  Disease took her body, but not her soul.

  Her spirit was full of hope and life.

  Her last words were about love.

  This will be my last word on the sadness and grief on the subject of her passing. From now on, I choose to write about her the way we all knew her—funny, strong, sassy, and full of life. Francesca and I have received an incredible outpouring of sympathy cards, emails, Facebook posts, and donations, and it’s a comfort to see that many of our readers loved Mother Mary and saw their own mothers in her, through the stories that Francesca and I wrote about her. We are overwhelmed with gratitude by them, as Mother Mary would be. It’s testament to the kindness of our readers, as well as to the power of books.

  And I promise there will be more Mother Mary stories, because she was full of surprises. After all, it was only recently that I discovered her real name was Maria, not Mary.

  So stay tuned and see what’s in store.

  In the end, Mother Mary will get the last laugh.

  Who Needs It?

  By Francesca

  Sometimes life throws you too much to process at once. After I broke up with my boyfriend of two years, I barely had enough time to tell my friends when, just five days later, my mom called me to say that my grandmother, Mother Mary, was being hospitalized in Pennsylvania. I left my apartment and went home that day.

  At first I didn’t know how bad things were; none of us did. In the waiting room at the ER, my uncle and I caught up casually, and I mentioned the breakup.

  “Don’t tell Mom, okay?” my uncle requested. “I don’t want her to hear anything to upset her.”

  I frowned. I didn’t agree the news would disappoint my grandmother; she had liked my boyfriend, but she wasn’t so traditional as to fret over my marriage prospects. As a two-time divorcée herself, she had excellent perspective on romantic woes.

  But at that moment the doctor called us in with the results of her CAT scan and radiographs, and then I remember him saying those words that blot out other thought:

  Lung cancer. Metastasized. Advanced.

  And those that still echo the loudest: “a matter of weeks.”

  The rest of her life measured in weeks. It seemed absurd.

  It was impossible to process.

  My grandmother, however, was just happy the doctors said she could go home.

  While the three of us cared for her at my mother’s house, my grandmother handled everything with grace and her characteristic humor, but little sentimentality. We were given a pamphlet that encouraged hospice caregivers to reminisce with their loved ones and ask for stories of the past. But my grandmother would have none of it.

  She didn’t want to look at old photo albums, and she didn’t want to say anything approaching a goodbye. She refused to lie in a bed, so instead we set up camp on the couch.

  But our family is Italian, so trying to get our relatives to tone down their emotions was a different story. For them, overcooking the eggplant is reason enough for tears. Learning our matriarch was in hospice called for opera.

  So our family members visiting from South Philly were crying before we opened the door. But then, so were we.

  Seeing relatives file in made it real; they were coming to say goodbye.

  I busied myself with the trays of food—of course, we had food—so that they’d have some time alone with my grandmother.

  Imagine my surprise when a few minutes later, I heard laughter. I brought in the tray of snacks.

  “Look what she wrote!” Aunt Nana said when I came in. She held up my grandmother’s whiteboard:

  “D
id you bring the Dago red?”—slang for homemade Italian wine. Then my grandmother snatched it back, and added, “I’ll give you $100 for two quarts.”

  Her messages were so charming and funny, my family started taking pictures of them. That set off my grandmother’s maudlin-meter, so her messages got increasingly profane.

  I now have Kodak moments of my relatives holding signs with messages of hope, such as: “Eat Shit.”

  Suitable for framing.

  My grandmother entertained our extended family for several hours, holding court the way she always did. As they were leaving, one relative jokingly scolded us for “scaring” them by saying she was close to the end, when she “clearly” had plenty more time.

  She didn’t.

  Her decline happened whether we were ready for it or not. My grandmother soon became too tired for many visitors. Her waking hours became fewer. Her handwriting on the whiteboard became more slanting and wiggly. Her speech became very difficult.

  Though I could usually understand.

  One day, my mom convinced my uncle to get out of the house with her, and I took care of my grandmother by myself. She wanted to nap on the couch with the television on and her feet in my lap, and I was more than happy to oblige. I was thrilled to know what exactly she wanted and to be able to do it, for a change. So, I sat still as a statue, as she slept to the lullaby of her favorite shows—Judge Alex, Judge Judy, Divorce Court.

  I must say, Divorce Court is an excellent program.

  When she woke, I prepared a balanced lunch of her specific request: lukewarm coffee, Sprite, light beer, Milano cookies, and a variety of sorbets.

  We were rocking hospice.

  After lunch, she wanted to sit up for a while. I wanted to give her a conversational break from answering the same questions about her health: Are you okay? Are you hungry? Are you thirsty? Do you have to go to the bathroom? She was ailing, I knew, but she was still in there.

  And knowing her as I do, I thought she might be bored.

  But the only thing non-hospice related that I could come up with was my breakup. Not because I wanted to unburden myself—any part of my life a few weeks ago seemed miles and miles away—but I wanted to talk to her without taxing her.

  So I commenced a monologue. I didn’t know if she was listening, but occasionally she would nod, so I barreled on. I explained the lead-up to the breakup, the first signs of trouble, the ways I tried to fix it, the ways it couldn’t be fixed, the things I’ll miss most, the things I did wrong, and what I’ll try to do better next time.