Retail Therapy

With a small, wordless shift in our gaits, my mother and I turned and stopped to read the little hand-printed card in the bookstore window. Mom and I are about the same height now so it's easy for us to convey these little detours to one another, especially when our arms are linked. We're also both single now, living independently for the first time in a while and re-fashioning brand new lives for ourselves from the dregs of our recent marital losses; groping our way towards new balance and rhythms. I think that makes us simpatico in a way, more synchronistic than most, but I don't think she thinks about that. I thinks she's too full of missing Dad to think of much else.

Christmas was pressing down hard; not in a welcoming, warm, panini way; but more like your taxes are due the day after tomorrow. We were trying to make the best of it by pumping some Santa dollars into my quaint village's local economy, but I recognized our ladies lunch by it's true name: retail therapy. One of the stores we walked into sold porcelain kitchen spoon rests that said, "Rest in Grease," in script across the top. I picked one up and Mom and I looked at each other, deadpanned. I knew we were both wondering silently if it would be too inappropriate, so soon after Dad died, to buy them to give out at our first Christmas without him. Then her mouth curled up and I knew she agreed. We bought three, one for each of us daughters, in honor of Dad.

Mom and I had just spent lunch discussing holiday season strategies for safeguarding ourselves against any public displays of hysteria or private spirals of despair. We'd even cried briefly-- between our soup and sandwich course-- and brought the stiff, white, polyester napkins up to our eyes to sop up the tears, but the cheap, restaurant-grade fabric was useless. Instead it was some joke that one of us made that got us smiling and nodding and managed to stop the flow. Probably about how there would be no more mylar balloons at birthdays now, thank God. She'd always hated the shiny, stupid balloons and secretly pricked holes in them so they would die faster. She repeatedly told Dad how much she hated them but he brought them home anyway; each time with a smirk. When I suggested it might be funny to buy mylar balloons for-- she cut me off. "No," she said with all seriousness, "no mylar balloons."

Outside now the sun was warming the afternoon and we enjoyed our constitutional with a reprieve of absolute contentment; that kind that even the most pathetically maudlin can usually waive after a lovely meal and full belly. There was plenty to look at as we peered in the charming shoppe windows. Our town had enjoyed a recent boom of artist types and creatives who'd set up residence and opened up new stores and their window displays had a certain sophisticated composition, whimsey and panache.

But the bookstore was different. The dolls in the window weren't much to look at. They were awkward and unappealing and wore ill-fitting clothes made from lame, cheesy print fabrics; the kind with sketches of beige watering cans and brown wheelbarrows. They looked incongruous among the books so we moved closer to investigate. The hand-printed index card sat in the lap of the center doll surrounded by others. It read something to the effect of:

"Hand-crafted by the artistic members of our mentally challenged community."

Mom and I both stood quietly for a moment, looking back over the dolls. Then I said, "Clearly."



Mom started to laugh and then I started to laugh and then there we were; two adults doubled over on a public sidewalk, in essence, making fun of retarded people, a week before Christmas. We laughed at how wrong it was and how I'm probably going to hell and how inappropriate that line of thinking is much less saying out loud and Mom said, "That's just what your father would have said." And we laughed some more as we imagined Dad there with us, giggling over the sad, handicapped dolls (they, too, looked mentally challenged), and how funny he was. And how Mom always got his jokes and was just as funny right back.

Mom said, "I really miss that about your Dad. I could say anything to him. Or he could just look at me and I would break up because I knew what he was thinking."
"Yeah," was all I could say. For all the speeches about healing and moving on, keeping busy and embracing the future, you don't ever get that back. This is no approximation for a constant companion who fully knows his or her audience. Every comedian's dream-audience of one; who gets every joke, every time.

So I've been thinking about life's gloriously inappropriate moments and how different they are, now, for Mom. All the embarrassments unscathed; cringes left to hang in the air. All those thoughts precipitated by, "I could never say this to anyone but you..." and then you say them, because you can, because you know the listener will get it and love it, but keep it safe and hidden like found change in a warm pocket. All those moments begging for comment; like when a minister pronounces the deceased's name wrong, or when a rehearsal dinner speech gets too personal. When the waitress with the lisp walks away with your order or the docent on the museum tour gets it wrong. Those are life's new lonely moments; the ones that beg for a pal. Anyone can spend the afternoon watching TV, reading or answering email in pleasant solitude, but who do you turn to when someone farts while you're stuck in line at the airport? Those are life's new hurdles. They're the ones that hurt now.

Later I called and left a message on her answering machine as she drove the 30 minutes back to her quiet home-- my childhood home-- and her evening without Dad.
"Thanks for a great day, Mom, lunch was delish," I said and then paused, "retail therapy really does work, doesn't it? Every time. It's astounding. Anyway, thanks for everything. Love you, bye."

I hung up the phone and then remembered why mom cried at lunch. She and dad used to go to the mall all the time. They would have nothing to do and so, to get out of the house, they'd put on their coats and go to the mall.
"I would shop and shop and never find anything for myself," Mom said, "and your father would buy sixteen CDs." We laughed. "Then we'd go sit in the food court with our lunch trays and look out at all the people and just sort of talk and laugh." That's when she started to cry. "I went the other day by myself and when I got to the food court with my tray, I started crying and couldn't stop. I had to leave."
"Aw, Mom," I said, tearing up, "I'll go with you to the mall any time." Now I was crying.
"I know dear, thanks," she said, "It's just not the same without your father."
And she's right. It's not.
"I know," I said, "but it can be sort of close," I brightened. "I'm almost as funny as Dad, and I'll buy seventeen CDs."
She laughed. We both did.

Rest in grease.