Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: CONTROL (02/18/21)
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TITLE: Last Breaths | Previous Challenge Entry
By Corinne Smelker
02/24/21 -
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Feel something, I admonished myself as I examined the map of deep wrinkles that criss-crossed her face. My mother’s face was almost as familiar to me as my own, that should mean something, right? But I was as unmoved by the figure lying on the bed as I was by seeing the remains of King Edward II in Gloucester Cathedral.
I sat back in the inhospitable hospital chair (I wonder whether the designer was told, ‘Remember the Spanish Inquisition skit? Like that, but for real this time!’) and thought about my earliest memories of growing up in ‘that house’.
“Mom, can we please get rid of some of this stuff? I can’t get into my bedroom because you’ve stored all this junk,” I gestured from the doorway but I’m not sure she could see me over the mound of clothes, toys, tools and empty boxes that threatened to swallow me up. Even as I asked I flinched at the vituperative response I knew I’d get.
“What do you mean ‘get rid of?’ This isn’t junk!”
I couldn’t keep my big mouth shut, “Mom. Do we really need 20 baby strollers? And all these Home Shopping boxes? You’ve not even opened them! I can’t get to my bed, and even if I could, it’s smothered in stinky, filthy clothes that aren’t mine, because your cat uses my room as a litter box.”
I didn’t duck fast enough, and the ringing in my ears proved that she had a mean right hook. I blinked hard and looked at this woman who was meant to protect me, but who instead loved her trash, her junk, her garbage, more than me.
“I am going to sell it,” she screeched. “I’m doing this for you, you ungrateful wench.”
“Where have I heard that before?” I muttered, but not softly enough, because blows rained down. I cowered, protecting my head with my arms, but it was too late. I was sure to have a shiner in the morning.
Her breathing brought me back to the present – that night was the last I spent in ‘that house’. The following morning I told a teacher, and before the day was out CPS was involved and I was put in care. I was one of the fortunate ones, I landed up with a great foster family, and after mom lost custody, they adopted me. My foster mom tried to defend my mother, “She’s sick. She can’t control herself.”
I knew that intellectually, but it didn’t diminish the anger and the hurt at first. Later, after therapy and the support of my new parents I was able to move on, thankfully. But part of me could never understand that deep need of my mother’s to hoard e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g to the point that her house was considered unlivable by city authorities. She defied their orders and continued existing in her hovel, with all the ‘treasures’ she dug out of dumpsters.
I looked at that deeply lined face again. Still no emotion. She’d only ever engendered fear, anger, hurt and revilement, never love. As another harsh breath forced its way from her lungs, I could see firsthand the toll her life choices had made on her body. I’d received the call from the hospital after she had been found unresponsive – by the Amazon delivery driver of all people! He’d grown concerned when my mother was not outside smoking and waiting for her newest piece of tat to arrive. The EMTs had to cut the door open and, as they said, mountain climb over her hoard until they found her.
Sudden beeps and flashing lights interrupted my thoughts. A nurse came rushing in, a doctor on her heels. The doctor, after a minute or so, shook her head. “Time of death 21:14 hours.” She turned to me, “I am sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you,” I replied, although there was no sense of loss.
After I took care of the paperwork I walked slowly to my car. I was overcome with an overpowering sense of relief. No longer was my mother driven by her desire for ‘treasures’. Maybe, just maybe, by leaving this world, she could find peace in the next.
Proverbs 25:28: Like a city whose walls are broken through is a person who lacks self-control.
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I, too, can identify. Our mother always came to see me and my sister, since we lived at some distance with our families, so when we went to her house to gather items for her memorial service and could only open the front door to forty-five degrees, we were shocked.