Mom

CHRIS: I can’t believe mom is gone.

CHORUS OF THERAPISTS: What do you mean? Do you think something else happened to her, that she’s not dead?

CHRIS: No no, I’m not saying that… but, actually, I hadn’t thought of that. Great. More content for my already richly and imaginatively anxious dream life. I guess I’m saying that I don’t really have words for what I’m feeling. Of course I know that mom is dead, her ashes rest in an urn on my desk. Disbelief is perhaps something easier to relate to. I can’t relate to her not being here, to hearing her giggle in my head, to seeing her smile so clearly, to feeling my head in her lap. There’s a disconnect between what’s happening in my head and… well, what’s happening in my head. How can she seem so alive and present and not be here? And dad, too… and Sue. A third of my inner family, just gone.

CHORUS OF THERAPISTS: This is life. Death’s an inevitable part of it.

CHRIS (rolls eyes): I remember when my grandfather died. I didn’t really know him, my grandparents lived in Chicago and I grew up in Alabama, and we had visited only a few times that I could remember. Aunt Joan called to say that he had died. I was maybe 10 or 11. I hadn’t experienced death before, and I just burst into tears. He wasn’t even a part of my life, but the idea of him suddenly not being around to even get to know wasn’t something that I had even thought about. He was always just, there. But dead? It was the first time I’d experienced real loss. When Manny died, I was only 27. I spent a year in deep mourning, but my goal was to get on with my life, and I knew I’d be okay, that I’d learn to live with his absence, that it would get easier. My grief was my job. But I had my whole life ahead of me, so many possibilities, maybe even another great or even greater love. Now, with mom’s death, it feels like the slow slide to the grave. I’m six of seven kids. Will I have to go through this again? And again and again and again and again and again?

CHORUS OF THERAPISTS: Well, yes… but…

CHRIS: But what? I’ll get used to it? I’ll live and enjoy every day as if it’s my last? And my sister’s last? And my brother’s last? And my other sisters’? And my other brother’s? And Big Chrissy’s? d’Auggie’s? Zoobie’s? I’m really not sure I can handle it.

CHORUS OF THERAPISTS: Chris, you have handled it. You did learn to live with Manny’s death. Remember at the time you really didn’t know if you’d ever feel even happy again, if you’d ever love again? And yet you did.

CHRIS (interrupts): Oh no… and Bob? I hadn’t even thought of that, Bob will die, too, the other great love of my life, my mentor, my guide… how could I live without him there… here?

CHORUS OF THERAPISTS: Bob is married to someone else, he’s happy, he’s a published author, accomplished, content, he’s had a good life, you’ll always have the memories of your time together…

CHRIS (interrupts again): Okay, don’t even go there. Mom told me many times in her final months that she’d never forget what I did for her, moving her in with me for her last year, taking care of her. I remember responding, jokingly, “Mom, you’ll be dead, how will you remember? When is this future time that we’ll be sipping a glass of wine together, reminiscing about these days that you’ll never forget? I appreciate what you’re saying, and this has been the greatest experience of my life, to spend these final days with you. I feel your gratitude now, and I am very grateful, too, for this time together.”

PAUSE

CHORUS OF THERAPISTS (lowering their heads and raising their eyes and bushy eyebrows above their glasses)

CHRIS: Oh. Right.

CHORUS OF THERAPISTS: Yes. You’re absolutely right. You’re still alive. Your siblings, dogs, Chrissy, Bob and all you friends…

CHRIS (interrupts again, shrieking): And my friends! I forgot about them, too, they’re all going to die!!

CHORUS OF THERAPISTS: Chris, focus… Your mom is gone. But those final days were among the finest you spent with her—you just said so—a really special time made all the more special and urgent by their impermanence. You’re at an age where death is going to be more prevalent…

CHRIS (interrupts again): But I lived through the AIDS crisis, when so many of my friends, boyfriends, my partner, fellow artists, all those gray faced men in my neighborhood carting around their oxygen tanks, they all died, so quickly. And Augustine, my sweet beautiful Augustine. If I hadn’t seen an acquaintance in 3 weeks, I’d be afraid to ask how he was, afraid that he, too, would be dead. I actually haven’t asked John West if his former lover, Chris, whom I last saw in 1993, smiling, still young, so vibrant and alive, but with that telltale gray skin… is he, is he dead, too?

CHORUS OF THERAPISTS (collectively, but quietly, and somewhat sympathetically, sighing): That was an insanely painful time, and you made it through. Just as now, just as what you were saying. You learned to live with death at a very early age and experienced more death than anyone should at that age.

CHORUS ABRUPTLY STARTS TO CRY

CHRIS: Sheesh, guys, brace up. I’m the one who’s supposed to be crying.

CHORUS OF THERAPISTS (sniffling, then sobbing loudly, cathartically): But we are you, we’re in your head, and we were there, we remember. How did you do it? How did we do it?? Don’t you remember Jesse Helms, the Moral Majority, all those people who didn’t care if you or your friends died, who called you names, who wouldn’t let your friend go to his own lover’s funeral???

CHRIS: Okay, guys, really, get it together. Listen… to the sound… of my soothing voice. And I’m paying for this session, remember? But see what I’m saying? It’s not as easy as just accepting that we’re strong, that death is inevitable, that we should live every day like it’s our last, carpe diem and all that shit.

CHORUS OF THERAPISTS (finally pulling it together): Helen Reddy said all that needs to be said here:

Oh yes I am wise
But it’s wisdom born of pain
Yes, I’ve paid the price
But look how much I gained
If I have to, I can do anything
I am strong (strong!)
I am invincible (invincible!)…

SCENE FADES TO BLACK AS MUSIC SWELLS AND IS ABRUPTLY CUT OFF BEFORE HELEN CAN EXCLAIM LOUDLY AND PROUDLY “I AM WOMAN,” WHICH WOULD LEND AN AIR OF GENDER DYSPHORIA—NOT ENTIRELY WITHOUT ITS PLACE, BUT HERE, MAYBE IT WOULD GET A LITTLE CONFUSING

END SCENE