Slicing Life

I watched a friend react to bad news yesterday.

It was a few moments after the actual moment, so what I saw, really, was not the reaction, but the beginning of the "after." It was imperceptible, the sign that life had suddenly changed in some significant way for someone in our midst, except maybe he seemed a tiny bit less enthralled with the pizza we had all been sharing. No matter; more for the rest of us.

I have to leave, he said. I was confused. I thought he had loved the pizza. I could swear he just ordered another one -- same toppings, same doneness. He must be joking. I pinched another section of charred cheese and sausage between my thumb and forefinger and shoveled it in. Most people eat pizza from the tip to the crust. I eat mine from top to bottom. Topping to bottom. I can't really think of anything that would make me stop, right in the middle.

I just got some horrible news, he said. His face was a mask of nothingness, his tone deadpan. Suddenly, the pizza, with the perfect toppings and the perfect doneness, seemed unappealing.

We all have our "befores" and "afters" -- the moments in our lives when a shock carves an indelible crack deep within our psyche, a permanent reminder of the moment when one thing changed everything. The bigger the shock, the deeper the gash, the nastier the scar.

It was a cousin. An adult cousin. A victim of a senseless car crash on a beautiful Thursday in May, at a time in his life when everything seemed right with the world. A single moment, and then the "after." I had met him once, briefly. He had given me a Dr. Brown's diet black cherry soda, my favorite. That's all I remember about him, really. Other than he played the drums, and he and his wife seemed very happy.

I have experienced my own devastating moments, shocking instants that have cut so deep that nothing has ever seemed quite the same. Mercifully, they happen with a relative infrequency, at least relative to garden variety tidbits of sad news. But it's the kind of thing we all dread, that text or that phone call that lets us know life has done a one-eighty. An inexplicable and unimaginable seismic shift.

This morning there is a lot of leftover pizza, perfect toppings, perfectly done. And there is that reminder, even for those of us whose lives remain largely unaffected by this particular tragedy, how important it is to savor every bite.

Feng Shui, Mom Style

I could swear the doors used to be blue. The apartment doors in the building where I grew up were, indeed, blue, many years ago. They've been beige for a long time, but it's still jarring.

It's been a while since I spent any time in the apartment of my childhood, where my mother still lives. Little has changed -- my mother likes it that way, insists upon it actually. Like the strands in her fluffy helmet of white hair, everything has its place, in that pushed-against-the-wall-lined-up-like-soldiers kind of way.

I am here only for a few days, helping out while she recovers from an ill-timed broken hip. My mom and I, and Effie, from the home nursing service -- we tap dance around each other, trying to figure out our roles. The three of us emerged from our bedrooms at the same time this morning, on an awkward collision course in an apartment where a family of four once coexisted comfortably. It has long been a home for just one.

My mom, fiercely independent, hates this. She has summoned me already this morning to reiterate her position -- that this home nurse thing, no matter how lovely Effie is, will be ending soon. Theoretically, mom is makes a good point. With her walker, she navigates her way through the narrow hallways of the 1950's era apartment like a champ. Without assistance, she gets dressed, showers, does everything, really, that a person needs to do to get by. She doesn't need any help, she says.

Why, then, do I feel as if I have been doing squats, the way I used to do them in the gym when I cared enough to have a personal trainer, dipping down just far enough to brush against a teasing seat before being called upon to lift up again. One more thing, she calls out, to either me or Effie. We take turns.

She doesn't need help, she says, and I suppose that's true, if we're talking about needing help in the usual way. But my mom -- who does very little in anybody else's definition of "the usual way" --  needs everything to be in its place. In that pushed-against-the-wall-lined-up-like-soldiers kind of way. Bring me this, she says, reciting the exact location of whatever small item she needs with GPS like precision. Minutes later, "this" needs to be put away, in the same exact spot. She will check, if not today, as soon as she is able, and she will straighten and tidy up the invisible misalignments. Each item must be whisked away as soon as it is no longer useful; efficiency be damned -- it's all about order.

When I find myself getting frustrated, I remind myself of my mother's independence. I have been spared the kind of daily running around others my age do, and not only because I live a plane ride away. My friends keep checking in. How's mom? I text back: Bat shit crazy. And, oh yes, her hip is healing nicely. 

Everything is still, I suppose, as it should be. When I say "bat shit crazy," I don't necessarily mean it in a bad way. It's a good thing, actually, in a pushed-against-the-wall-lined-up-like-soldiers kind of way.