Beginners

It's been a milestone sort of time around here the last few weeks, as they marked both Ma's 65th birthday and the resumption of our semi-traditional Movie Mondays.  She hadn't initially wanted to do much in terms of her birthday but a few weeks ago, she decided she wanted a small group of us to go with her to Plainfield's, her favorite (and fanciest) Indian restaurant in town.  It had been a hard few weeks leading up to the dinner, both emotionally and physically, and it was hard to tell if she'd shifted into the next phase of all this, and would have to start further limiting her activities and just the amount of general stimulation in a day.

Worried that dinner might be too much, those of us around her created a back up plan if the day came and she was overwhelmed; a dinner at home, picnic nearby, etc. I told Ma this in passing, not thinking much of it. The next morning, she managed to get out that I had upset her with this plan, which confused me, until she very clearly got out these sentences:

"I am still here." Pause. "I'm not dead yet." There were tears in her eyes as she said this, and I felt horrible of course, and trapped in that no man's land of care taking and caring for someone who is so changed in some ways, and so not in others. I realized I had underestimated her own estimation of herself and what she is capable of -- she went on to relay that because there is so little she can do for everyone else (and in general) it felt like she was being completely dismissed. I apologized, of course, and it shifted my view of her once again - this illness (any illness, I'm guessing) is such a moving target, and it seems once we get comfortable in one place, something changes and we adjust to the next and the next and the next; nothing is static or predictable.  And I guess why should it be, as the same can be said for life, but somehow, with her illness, partially because of how long it's gone on, we've all gotten comfortable enough in this phase of remission (inside of a cancer where remission doesn't exist) to assume certain things and go about our day the same as the day before.  I don't think I will get so comfortable again, or I will try not to, especially in terms of her feelings, as I've been reminded that no matter how much she has changed physically and capability wise, she is still, and always has been, right here. And don't worry, she has fully taken her power back - she announced as such - and has taken to flipping Jim and I off, first with many fingers, then with her index, and finally, triumphantly, with her middle. We did all go to a gorgeous Indian feast, Ma in a beautiful new turquoise sweater and white linen skirt, bought as a surprise by her friend Jan.  She looked radiant, and honestly, death was no where in sight that night.

In our return to the movies, we saw "Beginners" which seemed to speak directly to our experience, especially as of late, and the conundrum that if we are paying attention, everyday sort of starts us at zero in terms of what we know about ourselves, the people we love, and the world. It's one of the most real and intimate movies I've seen in a long time, and essentially the plot is this (don't worry, this is all revealed in the first five minutes): A man who's wife has died after 45 years of marriage reveals that he's gay, he is then diagnosed with lung cancer, dying three years later.  Grim as that sounds, it really isn't in this film, as it so so real and funny, told from the son's point of view with quirky indie features and characters that never cross over to precious an unbelievable. (This goes for the father's Jack Russel, who is afforded pithy subtitles exactly when you would want a dog to give his/her opinion in real life.)  Of course, Ma and I could more than relate to the cancer plotline, as the son moves in and takes care of his father in his final months. Far from morbid, it is so much more about the way grief infiltrates a life, the confusing notion of really knowing anyone, the ways in which our parents hand down their shit to us, and how terrifying it is to really love someone, especially after you've faced or experienced true loss. Yet somehow, loving is the only way to live, the only way to move forward, even if you know you don't have much time left.

Leave it to Ma and me to love a movie about the death of a beloved parent, and it is this weird shared curiosity which perhaps binds us closest together.  I know I got this trait from her, always wanting to understand the thing I'm in the middle of by reading and talking about it, immersing myself in it until I have a glimmer of understanding, stopping only when am just too exhausted to take in any more information on the topic.  (Note: On Ma's nightstand right now is a book called, "Death Is Of Vital Importance" by Kubler-Ross. She was such a Kubler-Ross groupie at one point in time, the early 80s, I think, when hospice and AIDS first entered the national consciousness, that the book's front cover is cut up, Kubler-Ross's picture removed, Ma having taken it and put it in some long lost frame.  She, of course, recommends I read when she's done.) 

And here's the trailer for Beginners. See it.