MY SPIRITED MOTHER, published in Exemplary Short Stories, by Silent Spark Press, 2022

My Spirited Mother

Sitting in Mom’s room in St. Anthony’s Memory Care nursing home watching her chest slowly rising and falling as she floundered in a coma, I leaned back and scanned her side of the room. This was a double-occupancy room, but the other side was currently unoccupied. Everyone in this ward had dementia or Alzheimer’s, and Mom was one of those with Alzheimer’s. She didn’t have long to live, according to the nurse who spoke with me earlier. “It’s probably hours and not days,” she said. As I sat there and looked around the room, my gaze landed on the tall, wide wardrobe just beyond the foot of her twin bed. I had of course seen it before, but not really seen it and understood its significance. Here in the wardrobe were all that remained of a life spanning over 91 years. Just a house robe, pajamas, house slippers, some handkerchiefs, and several boxes of Depends. All other of her possessions—the furniture, the television, the knickknacks on the walls of the rooms in her house, and everything else, including the house itself and her car—had been sold to help fund the $7500 a month it cost to care for her in this sad place, full of people who were now just shells of themselves, devoid of energy, joy, and memory. Especially memory. Although Mom remembered my face, I doubted that she remembered my name these past few months.

Seeing that there was nothing else for me to do but sit and hold her gnarled hand, watching her slow breathing, I decided to leave and go home. It was nearly midnight anyway, and I was getting sleepy. What had kept me from falling asleep in that chair were what I thought were involuntary smiles on her face. I guessed that her facial muscles were preparing for the end, after which they would tug and freeze the corners of her mouth. But what did I know? I wasn’t a doctor.

I rose from the bedside chair and leaned over to her ear and whispered, “I’m going now, Mom. I’ll be back tomorrow to check on you if you’re still with us. But if you don’t feel like hanging on any longer, you can let go. I’ll understand.” I sat there a few more seconds, holding her hand, then leaned forward and kissed her on her forehead, passing my other hand through the riot of her gray hair, all flat on the back of her head from lying on the pillow but splayed out elsewhere. Right down here to the end she had a full head of hair, unlike my Dad, who was nearly bald when he died. I had thanked Mom many a time for my full head of hair here in my late 60’s.

I got up and left.

Forty-five minutes later, after I had arrived home and had just settled down to bed, the phone rang. Who would be calling me at almost 1:00 in the morning? I thought. However, I knew even as I picked up the phone. It was the overnight nurse at the nursing home, who told me that my mother had passed away not long after I had left. “They often do that,” she said, “wanting to spare their loved ones from watching them die. She probably knew you were leaving and just let go. It was a peaceful passing. I found her while doing my rounds.”

I drove back to the nursing home to spend a few minutes with her before the ambulance arrived to take her away. The nurse told me that usually one resident a week dies there, but the staff never really gets used to it.

Several days later the visitation and funeral took place. We followed the hearse in the limo to the cemetery, where we bid goodbye to her as her casket was lowered into the plot next to my father, my sister, and my grandmother. I was now the last survivor of our nuclear family, and as a result a deep sense of loneliness descended upon me.

After we arrived home from the funeral, of course all the extended family gathered there. We had plenty of food to share because the church ladies had taken care of us. While we were eating, the family members all told stories about Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa, until around 9:00 everyone began to leave. It’s interesting how quickly people leave after the first ones announce they’re going. By 9:15 all the cousins and friends had hugged us and left, and it was just my wife and me, plus Lydia, the daughter who lived out of town, who would stay overnight and leave the next day. We chatted for a while, then my wife Marie and Lydia said they were “pooped”—a nod to Mom, who had always used that word when she was tired. I bid them goodnight.

“Aren’t you coming to bed now? You’ve had a long day,” Marie said.

“Yeah, it’s been a long day, but I can’t sleep just yet. I’m too wound up. I’ll come to bed later.”

“Well, all right, but don’t be too long,” she said, then gave me a kiss and a hug before leaving for bed.

“I won’t,” I said, then sat down in Dad’s old recliner and recalled the events of the past week: Mom’s death, the grueling session with the funeral director, the arrival of out-of-town family, the gatherings, the meals, the conversations—especially the questions I couldn’t answer. Just recalling these events was mentally tiring.

Then I started reflecting over the past five years, the progress of the stealthy disease, Mom’s growing forgetfulness and confusion, the change in her personality, her anger at me for being a deadbeat son (I wasn’t, but that didn’t matter), then after the full flowering of Alzheimer’s her gentle spirit and acceptance of me, even as she forgot everything about me but my face. I forced myself to stop these maudlin thoughts, reminding myself that this chapter of life was finished. After a period of mourning I would have to move on.

As I pondered these thoughts with my eyes closed, suddenly I heard from across the room, “Did I tell you that I met the most wonderful boy last week?” This question snapped me out of my reverie, and I opened my eyes to see a young woman sitting on the sofa. She was wearing a white blouse with shoulder pads and a pink pleated skirt that just reached her knees. She leaned back on the couch and grabbed her knees with both arms, looking dreamily at the ceiling. Her dark brown hair fell to her shoulders, topped by a pink tam jauntily tipped to the side. Her red lips were full, slightly parted by an overbite. She looked familiar to me, and I was so enamored of the sight of her that it never crossed my mind that for one thing she shouldn’t be here in my living room and for another she didn’t look like a solid person, since I could almost see through her.

I was shocked at first. “Who are you? And how did you get in here?”

She looked at me; she seemed to look through me as well. Then she said, “Me? I’m Helen. So glad to meet you!”

As I studied her features, a memory of earlier photographs came to mind. “Are you my mother? You can’t be. We just buried you earlier today. And you didn’t look like this.”

“Your mother?” she said, “maybe, maybe.” Her dreamy look returned, and she looked once again at the ceiling. “Did I tell you I just met the most wonderful boy last week?” Her face widened into a large beautiful smile as she recalled the memory of her meeting with this wonderful boy. “I just have to tell someone. Can I tell you about him?”

What was going on here? “But Mom—if you are my mother—this is crazy. You’re dead. You shouldn’t be here. Why is this happening? Are you a ghost come to haunt me for treating you bad, or something?”

“Never mind that,” she answered. “Let me tell you about the most wonderful young man that I just met. His name is James, and he’s tall, thin, and handsome, and he has this cute dimple in his chin.” She lowered her legs and looked straight at me. “I was out with a group of friends from work for dinner, and a couple of young men joined us. We sat at tables pushed together down at the soda fountain on Broadway. I was struck by this young man, so as we chose our seats, I patted the chair next to mine and said to him, ‘You can sit next to me,’ and winked. He did, and you know what? He pushed his hip right next to mine and smiled at me. I could have melted! I put my hand under the table to scratch my thigh as we all chattered like birds about nonsense, and he reached under the table and grabbed my hand on the sly, not even looking at me. My heart just flipped!”

I couldn’t help but be captivated by her tale, but I had no idea how this applied to me, why I was hearing this in the first place. “Wait a minute!” I said, “Why are you telling me this? Why are you here?”

Just then Marie came shuffling down the hallway into the living room, yawning. “Are you talking to yourself again, dear?” she said, rubbing her eyes. The woman on the couch went silent, apparently out of common courtesy. She sat primly, hands folded in her lap, and waited.

Marie looked only at me. She couldn’t see the woman on the couch. “Now this is weird,” I said.

“What?” Marie replied. “What’s weird?”

“You should tell her,” Helen said.

“I don’t think so,” I said to Helen.

“You don’t think so? Don’t think what?” Marie asked, confused.

“I’m sorry,” I responded, “I guess I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

“Then come to bed. It’s been a long day, and a long week. You should rest up on your Family Leave time.”

I had to agree with her. “All right,” I said, getting up out of the chair and taking Marie’s hand.

“But I never finished my story!” protested Helen, the woman on the couch, as we walked down the hall to the bedroom. I was glad to be rescued from this strange visitation. I hoped that was the end of it.

. . . . . . .

The next day our daughter Lydia left to go back home to Chicago. I drove her to the airport early that morning. “I hope you’re going to be OK, Dad,” she soothed. “I miss Grandma, and I know you do, too.”

“Yeah, thanks,” I said. “I’ll be fine. She lived a long life and got to see her grandchildren. And you’ve always been special to her.”

“Yeah,” she said, as I pulled in to the Departures lane. We got out of the car and said goodbye with a hug. “I love you,” she said, teary-eyed.

“I love you too,” I replied. And then I watched her drag her wheeled carry-on through the entry and disappear among the throng inside.

I drove back home during the end of the morning rush hour. When I arrived home, I saw that Marie had already left for work. I dropped my keys on the counter, poured the last of the coffee into a mug, and went into the living room to sit and ponder the events of the previous few days. I was lost in thought when I heard a voice in the room. “So, as I was saying….”

Startled out of my reverie, I looked in the direction of the voice, and there she was, on the couch again, the young woman who had appeared last night. “What!?” I croaked.

“As I was saying,” she said, with a sly smile, “he held my hand and stroked it for a while, still looking ahead and speaking to Ben across the table: Ben, my partner at the box factory, you know, but he was not my boyfriend. He was just a friend, that’s all. If he only knew what James’ hand was doing under the table—”

“Wait a minute! Slow down! What are you doing here again?”

“Doing here?” she replied. “I don’t rightly know, but here I am. Maybe something will come to me later. Anyway, as I was saying—”

“Stop! Stop! This is just too weird! Are you going to morph into some kind of demon and tear me to pieces?” I must admit that I had watched too many horror movies in my life.

Perturbed, she said, “Of course not! I’ve just come to tell you about the most wonderful young man. Now, where was I? Oh yes. He was stroking my hand, but then his hand left mine and began to inch up my thigh, like a curious spider. He looked askance at me and winked, then looked forward, pretending to listen and respond to the chatter going on. I could see then that he had a dimple in the cheek that was facing me, so I thought he must have one on the other cheek. And his burning blue eyes! My, what a handsome man! He was getting fresh. I gently pushed his hand back down my thigh, but then it began to creep up again. I let it go further before pushing it back down, but it began to inch back up again until I gently slapped it when it was getting up a little too high. ‘Shame on you, boy!’ I whispered in his ear, but my heart was fluttering. He laughed, and I laughed in response. I added, ‘Naughty, naughty boy!’ and he said, ‘Yes I am!’ and winked again.”

I lost all interest in shutting her down, as if I could anyway; I was more interested in finding out more about this forward guy. So I asked, “Who was this handsome, fresh boy?”

She didn’t hesitate to answer. “Why, he was James Simmons, the cutest young man in all of the South Side!” She got that dreamy look in her eyes again.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “James Simmons is the name of my father, and Helen Simmons is my mother’s name. Or was….”

“If you say so,” Helen replied. “I wouldn’t know about that.”

Just then the telephone rang. I got up out of the chair and went to the kitchen to answer the phone. It was Marie. “Hi dear,” she said, “just calling to see how you’re doing.”

I looked back toward the living room. The couch was empty. “I’m doing fine, sweetheart. Just fine. Thanks for asking.” I didn’t feel like telling her I was seeing hallucinations.

“Well, you just relax and chill out the rest of the day. You deserve a rest after all you’ve been through.”

“OK, I will,” I said, then thanked her again and hung up. When I went back to the living room, the couch was still empty. My spectral guest was gone, hopefully for the last time.

. . . . . . .

Intrigued by this woman’s story and her appearance, I thought that she might be my mother after all, but my mother from another era in her life. What she was wearing looked from another era, too. I remembered the old photo albums she had given to me just two years before when she was still somewhat in possession of her faculties and was getting rid of a lot of her possessions. Two of those albums seemed to be from about the 1920s to the 1940s, plus later albums with color pictures taken after my sister and I came along and grew up. I was interested in those old albums. They were stored in a closet in the basement. I went downstairs and opened the closet door. After moving several storage bins, I found the boxes with the old photo albums in them. The stiff cardboard front and back cover of one of them were hanging on by a thin leaf of ripped cover paper. I opened it to see old photos taken of my mother, my aunt, and my grandmother, and all of their friends. I was intent on finding pictures of my mom, and when I did, I was astounded to see confirmation that the woman who sat on my couch was indeed the woman in these pictures. I turned past the pages of grade school graduation pictures and turned to a page of pictures of Dad and Mom at about the age of 19 or 20. All smiles both of them, arms around each other’s waists, happy and obviously in love.

A voice behind me said, “Yes, those pictures!” I turned around and nearly screamed, when I saw the spectral woman, now dressed in a short-sleeved knee-length blue dress, cinched at the waist by a blue belt. Just like the woman in the black and white picture on the page. I wondered where she had gone to change clothes. “Yes, yes, that’s the day my James and I went to the show! We saw The Philadelphia Story, I think. I think because we spent most of the time necking in the balcony. What a hot time! I could have melted when he slipped his hand up—”

“Stop!” I screamed. “I don’t want to hear any more!”

“Why not?” she said. “It was such a glorious time. I whispered in his ear, ‘You naughty boy!’” But then he grabbed my—”

“That’s enough! No more, please!” I covered my ears, shocked at the words coming out of her mouth. “You’re my mother! I don’t want to hear about what you and Dad did in the balcony, or at any other time!”

“Dear boy,” she said, “you are such a prude. I bet you did the same when you were young.”

“If I did I would never tell you! And you shouldn’t be telling me this.”

. . . . . . .

You might ask, did I tell Marie about these visitations? Well, no, I didn’t. How do you explain to someone that you’ve  been visited by a ghost? By the ghost of your mother? A mother with a potty-mouth? My mother was never like that in life. I never saw my mom and dad even hug. I never saw them interact much while growing up. Could they have behaved like this when they were young? It sure sounded to me like Dad was the aggressor, but she certainly seemed to surrender with glee to his advances. So no, I didn’t tell my wife. Besides, she would probably say that I was projecting my own sex obsession onto my parents while grieving. Nope, she wouldn’t believe me.

I didn’t return to the photo album for two days, fearful that as soon as I picked it up Mom would revisit me. She never showed at all during that time, actually. So I thought that I had seen the last of her. I thought that she went back to wherever she came from.

I had another think coming.

After two days, I was curious and once again picked up the photo album when I was alone at home. I opened to the pages of several photos taken on a trip with some of their friends. It had to have been on a summer’s day because the three young women in the pictures were wearing blouses tucked into high-waisted, thigh-length loose shorts. Surprisingly, the three men weren’t wearing shorts. They had on pleated trousers with cuffs and long-sleeved white shirts, but their sleeves were rolled up to their elbows.

“Oh, I remember that day…and that night!” There she was again, looking over my shoulder. I nearly jumped out of my seat.

“Stop showing up like that!” I complained. Then I noticed that she was wearing the same outfit as in the picture.

“Settle down, boy,” she soothed. “Sorry about spooking you.”

Spooking you: did she know she made a funny?

She said, “I’ll try to be better. But I’ve got to tell you about that day….” Before I knew it she was off to the races again, and I knew where the race was going even before it got there.

“There were three couples, Bill and Sue Ann, Wally and Trixie, and us. James had a car, so we all piled in and went down to the river and walked around for a while. Just holding hands with James thrilled me! Then we went down to the soda shop on Broadway again and had sundaes (which she pronounced sun-duhs) and malts. I split a big chocolate malt with James. It had two straws, and every once in a while our foreheads would meet as we leaned in to suck on our straws. Oh what a thrill it was just to touch any part of James’ body, even a hard forehead!”

I wanted to head her off before she got to where I feared she was going, but she wasn’t having any of it. She went on. “After that we drove to the park, where we all walked around the lake, then subtly broke off into pairs. James found a shady spot under a tall elm tree, then sat down and patted the ground next to him. I sat down, and immediately he put his arm around me and drew me in for a kiss. It was a nice, long kiss, accompanied by his other hand slipping under my loose shorts. Oh my, when he reached my—”

“No!” I shouted. (I was glad no one else was home.) “No more! That’s enough of this, this nasty talk!” I was thoroughly shocked and embarrassed. My parents didn’t do things like this! “You know you’re embarrassing me, don’t you, Mom? This is shocking. I never saw anything like that out of you two when I was growing up.”

“Now, honey, that’s before you came along, if you say you’re my son…our son. I don’t know who you are and why I am here, but maybe in time I will. You have to know that we had urges then, strong urges that were hard to stop. Surely you’ve had them too. Haven’t you?”

When did my mother ever talk like this when I was growing up? I knew nothing of their dating life, certainly not the sexy side of it. I kind of wished now that she had talked like this back in the day. However, the focus wasn’t on me now. I said, “Let’s not talk about me for the time being.” Something she said begged a question. “One thing bothers me, Mom. How come you don’t know me, who I am? I know you.”

I could see through the wavy iridescence that she was puzzled by my question. “I don’t rightly know. You look familiar to me, or you look like you will be familiar, maybe some time. Right now you are just a man who lives in this house that I appear in, I don’t know why. Except that you have my photo albums.”

Hmm, I wondered. Maybe she doesn’t know me because at this point in her spirit life she hasn’t given birth to me. Considering that she had my sister six years before she had me, I feared that she intended to describe the events of the nights on which we both were conceived. I closed the photo album, which whumped shut, and at the same time she disappeared.

Three days later I returned to work. I was glad to get back into the routine. I would go to the office two days a week and communicate via Skype with my team members the other three days: I was fortunate to have a job that allowed and even encouraged working from home. I had avoided the photo album on the first day of working from home, but like a drug the urge to open the photo album returned and grew over the passing two days until I realized it was an addiction. I actually missed those visits from my mother’s spirit, and I realized that the photo album was the key that unlocked the door through which she came from wherever she was when not here. So on the Wednesday night of my first week back at work from Family Leave, I bid Marie good night, saying I wasn’t sleepy yet.

“Well all right,” she said, “but maybe you should take a melatonin now so you’ll be sleepy soon.”

“OK,” I replied. “That makes sense.” I went to the bathroom and took the pill, bid her good night with a hug and a kiss, then went into the living room. I reached for the photo album, which was lying on the book shelf, then settled in to browse through it. I opened it and turned the pages until I settled on Mom and Dad’s wedding picture. I knew what would happen next.

And it did.

From behind me I heard that familiar voice. “Oh, our wedding picture! What a lovely day that was!”

I turned around to see my mother wearing the same dress as in the photo. It wasn’t a white wedding dress; it was a simply stated pink dress, the hem at her knees, with a buttoned-up white collar. Her shoulders were augmented by shoulder pads, as in the picture. In the picture Dad was in a suit and tie. Both of them smiled big at the camera, which enshrined this moment of bliss forever. Seeing it brought tears to my eyes. I asked her about the events of that day.

“Never mind the day,” she said. “We were both nervous to be on display during the ceremony and after. We couldn’t wait for it to end. James took me back to his room at the rooming house, where we couldn’t wait to throw off our clothes and….”

This time I let her tell the story of their first night, at least the first part of it. I was shocked that it wasn’t the first time that they lay naked together, but it was the first time that they had sex. It was such a sweet story of intimacy that I couldn’t stop her until she started to tell me what she did to and for Dad. “OK, that’s enough,” I said. “I get the picture!” I closed the photo album, she disappeared, and I took my excitement to bed and Marie.

. . . . . . .

The next day I worked from home via Skype on my laptop. And that was all right, since after Marie left at quarter past eight I planned to open the photo album. With a lingering kiss and hug—left over from the night before—I bid Marie goodbye. Then I went into the living room and pulled the photo album off the shelf and began to browse from where I had left off. After turning a few pages, I found a sweet studio picture of baby me in my mother’s arms. Surely this would bring her back.

And it did. I heard that voice from behind me say, “Oh, what a sweet, sweet picture! That’s my son Billy. And I recognize you now. You are my son Billy! You were so cute then.” I turned around to see that she was wearing the same dress as in the photograph. “But you know what I remember even better? The night you were conceived! We had been married seven years by then, and we had explored every inch of our bodies. We were pros! I knew what excited him the most, and he knew what excited me most. When he kissed and nibbled down my stomach until he arrived at my—”

“Whoa, Mom, you don’t need to go any further! I know where you’re going with this. Please spare me the details.”

She gave me a quizzical look, a deep stare, as if looking through me just like I literally looked through her.

“Yes, my dear, my dear Billy. It’s really you, all grown up. Now I know why I came here. It was to see you again, to tell you that your Dad and I had a vibrant and vigorous love life, which you knew nothing about. That’s an unwritten chapter in your own life. Your Dad and I fell out of love a couple of years after you were born, and we didn’t get it back until after he retired and you were long gone, married yourself. I hope your love life was as alive as ours was from the very start back in those days.” She paused. “Yes, I needed to tell you about our romantic joy before I passed on for good. I see that now.”

Those words touched me. My eyes began to tear up. “I’m so glad you came back, Mom. Thanks for telling me your love story, and even though I cut you off several times, I knew what you were about to say. I will never forget these visits, and I will never forget you.”

A sad look spread across her face. “Billy, I feel a pull now to leave. I don’t rightly remember where I was before, but I know I’m going back. Goodbye, my dear, dear son, and may you and Marie love each other as much as your Dad and I loved each other.”

I thought I saw a sparkle in her ghostly eyes that looked like spirit tears, and then my mother slowly faded until she was gone, for good.

I never saw my spirit mother again. But I looked with renewed eyes at Marie and our relationship. She never saw my mother, but she reaped the benefits of her visits.