LIVING WHERE MY MOTHER DIED

What It's Been Like Being Back In Her Home

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I returned to my parents house earlier this month initially to help my sister and then to flee the LA fires. I hadn’t flown back since August when I ended up staying for nine weeks to first care for my mother as she unexpectedly died and then care for my father as he recalibrated to a life without her. Until this time of horror, their house in Westchester, NY had been a source of comfort to me since they moved in 2017. My parents oversaw the entire build and each room is intricately designed with my mother’s industrial taste and artist’s eye. Its appeal immediately overtook any nostalgia for the house I grew up in and I found solace here during the winter of 2020 after my broken engagement as my parents and sister nursed me back to sanity. I used to love being here. But, like so many parts of my life in the last six months, that’s changed.

My parents’ home or–as I now say with a pinch of pain each time–my father’s home, holds the memory of our loss in a visceral way. While I think of my mom constantly, no matter my location, I am mostly thinking about her as my adoring mother and closest friend. Here, though, I think of her as sick and dying. The fancy sectional is where I had to figure out how to roll the chaise part up to the couch part so she wouldn’t fall off because she’d lost control of her limbs. Her bathroom is where she experienced a horrifying tremor that broke the toilet. Where I sit writing this is the room where she came to do occupational therapy exercises on the piano bench before we knew the exercises weren’t going to help. The kitchen table is where we told her she was going to die and there was nothing we could do about it. I feel like I am in a mausoleum of the worst moments of my life.

There is another element of staying here that I hadn’t considered when I booked my flight: being around her things. Back when she could still talk some, we were going through her office to pull out year books and look at various mementos. We discovered old letters and musings and I could tell she did not want me to read them. You see, despite her many appearances in my content over the years, my mother was a deeply private person. I realized that day that reading her personal writing after she was gone would be a violation of her boundaries–no matter how much my curiosity and desire for connection will make me want to. So I told her I wouldn’t do it. And (so far) I haven’t. But she never told me I couldn’t go through her stuff. And, wow, did my mom have a lot of stuff.

In the weeks following her death, I went through my mother’s massive closet and her jewelry. I shipped myself boxes filled with her purses. I had rings resized to fit my hand and haven’t spent a day since she was gone without wearing at least something that used to belong to her on my body. But being back here now, I have the time and space to consider the less obvious things. Like why in the world did she have so many of the same face creams? I understand having a bunch of different face creams. We all get lured into the possibility that this slightly altered formula will give us the results we’ve been longing for. But, multiple bottles of the exact same Cerave face cream? To what end?

I had a similar feeling of confusion when I riffled through her sock drawer knowing I had seen travel tissue packs in there the last time I was home. I assumed that was where she kept new packets of much needed on-the-go Kleenex. I was wrong. That is where she stored half-used packets of Kleenex for unclear reasons. I wonder at what point a pack got reassigned to the sock drawer. Was it after a trip where it wasn’t used up? Or simply if she didn’t like the look of it anymore but wasn’t willing to, I don’t know, throw it away?

Why were there so many hotel slippers stashed in a drawer? What was she preparing for that none of us know about?

As close as I was to my mother, it has been lovely to get to know her even more through her seemingly trivial things. Her doubles (and triples) of certain items reinforces that she was always prepared. Her best friend, Robin, who has been a source of comfort to me as both a surrogate mother figure and fellow historian of Ruth Raskin lore, recently remarked that my mother had every kind of sock imaginable. Robin said she often found herself without a certain type of sock and thought, oh well, while my mother would make sure that never happened again by going out and procuring every type of sock that exists. As someone who has inherited a variety of those socks, I am once again thankful for my mother’s vigilance for every shoe situation.

Reaping the benefits of my mother’s things has been a loophole in losing her. While she might not be able to take me on our biyearly shopping trips anymore or order me fleeces because I dramatically complain of the cold in my well-insulated house, she has left behind riches that continue her pattern of care. While it initially felt silly (and potentially of bad taste) to take so many of her things, I now find myself scouring her bathroom cabinets for anything that might make my life a little bit easier. Travel q-tip packs? Fantastic! Four different bottles of the same Cerave mineral sunblock? Sign me up! Toothpicks to put in my purse for when food inevitably gets stuck too far in my teeth for my nails to be of any use? Absolutely I will! Each time I use these objects it will be a comfort knowing my mom’s foresight (and potential shopping addition) provided me with what I need to best take care of myself in the way her mind and well-supplied purse always did.

At least for now, I am going to stick to my promise of not reading things that weren’t meant for me. (Future Allison’s self-control is unknown.) But that won’t stop me from trying to figure out why my mom kept a little baby figurine with a sloth helmet and angel wings in her bedside table. Where did she get this? Did she laugh every time she saw it? Why did she keep it in her bedroom instead of in the office with her other tchotchkes? As someone with a bad memory, her things allow me to continue to flesh out the intricacies of her uniqueness without solely relying on my flawed and limited recollections. It makes the sting of being here more manageable because while she might have died here, I am also reminded of all the ways she lived—surrounded by pouches in every size, an obscene amount of lip balm and stacks of the same few books written by me.

xoxo,

Allison Raskin

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