Treasure

Valentine's Day. 2014. Almost a year after Mom's cancer surgery. The doctor had told her that if she was clear for a year, she would be cured and the likelihood of metastatic disease was slim to none. So far. So good. 

She wanted to celebrate.

She called me and said, "How about I get tickets to Rusalka at the Met and we spend Valentines Day in New York?"

And we did. We arranged to meet at Penn Station and head over to our hotel near Central Park. We'd have dinner that night, enjoy the city the next day, go to the opera, and head home the following day. We discovered Pain Quotidian for tea. It's still a favorite of mine. 

Dinner the first night was an event. We went to Rue 57 and had cocktails, shared an appetizer, a beautiful steak, and dessert. We took our time and had so much fun. We must have talked about everything. We walked there and back. The opera was luminous. As we left, snow began to fall. Against a sparkling Manhattan night, it was magical. We stopped for a late dinner on the way back to our hotel. 

When we woke up the next morning and looked out the window, we knew we had been given a gift. We were snowed in. There were no cars on the streets. We arranged an extra night's stay and changed Mom's train reservation. I had taken New Jersey Transit and did not need a reservation. 

That day, we walked through Central Park, arm in arm, on the way to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Mom was so happy. Radiant. The day was clear and beautiful. I told Mom I wanted to take a picture. She turned, with the most beautiful smile. I lifted my phone and snapped the picture. 

It was her favorite picture of herself. When she saw it she told me she wanted me to use it for her obituary. Mom could be like that, matter of fact about the fullness of life and its eventual ending. I think she loved the significance of the photo as much as the picture itself. She was full of hope, had survived a great ordeal and health crisis, and was looking forward to enjoying life fully again. That trip was the beginning of renewed vitality, a rebirth. Six months later she would discover that the radiologist who'd read her films had missed the small tumor that indicated the cancer had metastasized, but those days and the months between were happy and carefree. She lived for eight years after that, defying the 18-month prognosis they'd given her.

Mom left the Pendleton hound's-tooth jacket she wore that day and a few others for me. I finally unwrapped it this evening and tried it on. I put my hands in the pockets and drew something out. It was a wrapped chocolate from Rue 57. She'd kept it in her pocket all this time, a constant reminder of that beautiful time we spent together and the sweetness of it. Mom wore that jacket often. It was her favorite. I love that she held a token of that memory so close. I can imagine her rubbing her thumb over the smooth, shiny paper and remembering.

Every time I come to the house, I find little treasures like this. It's a big part of why I come and what is healing about these visits. It's such a bittersweet time, missing Mom and remembering the beautiful life we shared.

Creating Space: Three Months of Showing Up for What's Showing Up is a daily writing practice. Turns out that a lot of this writing explores the landscape of grief. My mother died shortly before I began this writing, and this is what I'm thinking about most of the time these days.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.