Conversation with Mom 

Death. 

It was 54℉ on a rainy Sunday afternoon on the last day of May. I entered the living room and found the aroma of freshly brewed coffee lingering, echoing the sun's memorandum — the day had broken hours ago. But, there was no to-do list for me that day. I rejected the coffee and instead grabbed the thick, luscious hot chocolate. I warmly cuddled up next to my mother on the leather couch, happy that today would be a lazy one, and sipped the scorching cup of hot chocolate. I flipped open the most meaningful chapter of Maud Martha, “Death of grandmother,” and read it over for the 23rd time. This time, though, I read it aloud to my mother. 

Within seconds, a tear trickled a rivulet of mascara down her cheek. Just like Maud Martha in the story, my mother had experienced the death of a close relative, her own grandma, the one who walked her to school, the preparer of her meals, her playmate and encourager — basically, her full-time mother while her biological one was always either away at work or ghost- walking into her bedroom in the dark of night to press her lips to my mother's forehead. 

My mother’s grandma’s face twinkled in her memory as my mother journeyed to the U.S. two decades ago, like a candle that was brightest when it was guttering. Her grandma, standing behind glass, waved my mother off at the airport with a contradictory smile upon her face, a face of exuberant welcome, my mother couldn't help thinking. But to my mother, the smile somehow made perfect sense. Her grandma's own blood was migrating across the globe and extending her family's saga into a new world. Obviously, her grandma, at the end of her life, welcomed such a development, however, she might have missed my mother. But during our conversation, my mother described for me what thoughts went through her mind at that time. “I would come back," she said, "and see her very soon.” It was a prediction that would prove both wrong and right. Visa complications and family economic conditions ensured that it would take more than seven years before my mother could return to China for her first visit. There was no Facetime or Zoom communication at that time, and the long-distance telephone rates of the era prohibited my mother from speaking to her grandma for more than once a month, and usually for an interval of no more than three minutes while the elderly lady reassured that the only message she had to convey was that she was doing "very well, very well."  Nevertheless, my mother, night and day, kept seeing her grandma's joyous smile in her mind's eye, even as her grandma moved into a senior care home where she continued to do "very well, very well." 

While she was at the senior house, it wasn’t very convenient because there was only one telephone in the entire house. One day, my mother was told that her grandma got into fights with others at the senior house. Very soon, the senior house kicked her out, and my mother’s grandma was left on her own. Then, they finally realized that my mother’s grandma had Alzheimer’s, a disease that runs through family genes. Within 20 years, the next one in our family to acquire Alzheimer’s... might be my mother. The “I’m sorry” from me caused my mother to burst into tears. I had never seen her act like this before. My mother eventually caught her breath. She continued to say that she was positive that during the end of her visit, her grandma must have recognized her. Usually, when people have Alzheimer’s, their eyeballs don’t swivel. They stay still and stare in the same direction as no light appears in their eyes. But at one specific moment, when my mother’s grandma saw my mother, her eyes twinkled with happiness. The elder lady couldn’t express it through her words, however, my mother could clearly see it through her grandma’s eyes like she was sending a signal. My mother had to return to the U.S. Less than one month after she came back, my mother received the news that her grandma passed away. 

She had never said goodbye.