After the funeral I took a pair of her slippers, the heel separating from the cheap flannel fabric. Gray plaid, probably bought at Kohl's. I stuffed a mauve sweatshirt into my carry-on. A white bra, size 40D, three sizes too big for my ribs. Handfuls of costume jewelry. None of it worth anything, yet I filled plastic sandwich bags with whatever I could.

Long ago we'd already divided up the good jewelry. The Delft, the copper, photos, figurines. I took back a quilt I'd sewn for her. She never used it as a blanket, never let it warm her legs. Instead, she treated it as a tablecloth no one was allowed to eat on. It was pristine, unstained, unlaundered. As if I'd never given it away.

Her memory went long before her body. One night she turned to me, the Wicked Witch on the TV screen. My favorite childhood movie, drawn to those scary monkeys. Playing now, decades later, for the grandkids sitting cross-legged on the floor. Bowls of ice cream in their laps, dirty feet, half of them visiting, two of them mine. A summer family reunion.

"I've never seen this movie before in my life," she said. She looked at the screen once more, studied it. Back to me. "Never."

When I got the call, I cried and then I told myself, I knew this was coming. I went out and watered my flowers. Fuchsias, hostas, two patches of snapdragons that survive every winter. It'd been years since Dorothy, at least 15. Mom was old. It was time. We all said to each other, we are sad but it is good she has passed. The believers among us said, I'm glad she is whole now.

I don't reply to that.

At our last visit she heard a phone ring and picked up a back scratcher. Her paper skin strained taut over her knuckles as she slowly raised it to her ear. The few tiny cracks of neurons flashed and struggled to let the call through, to pass the motion through thick ropes of plastic clogging up her brain. Then she stared at the wall, eyebrows pulled down. She did not say, "Hello."

But she still knew my name.

"Come at breakfast," the nurse's aide said. "She's peppy then. She has a lot to say." I helped her with scrambled eggs, three good bites of pancakes. "Tina," she said, reaching for me. I wheeled her back to her room, the last eight minutes I would have with her alone, no father shouting at her to wake up, asking me about work, men, Jesus.

In the room I held her hand and she said, "Poppie," my nickname. Frisian for "babydoll".
"I love you," I said. "I love you so much," she said, her words a slurred mumble, each syllable struggling for form. "Thank you," I said to her, clutching her hand. "Thank you, Mama," I said, over and over.

When I walked out of the room, I knew this was the last time. It was the best goodbye I could ask for, I told myself. I got everything I wanted. She could go. It was time. She was 89.



It's been six months now.

A friend said to me, "I heard on a podcast that for anxious people, they analyze first and experience later." She paused, then asked, "Do you think that's true for you?"

It's been six months and suddenly, I can't stop crying.

"Yes," I say to her. "Yes, it's true."

I go home and put her slippers on my feet.