Ellen, remembered

It's easy to remember the last of your days. Days filled with sterile gauze, endless drawers of morphine and vicoden. Days filled with short cropped hair that fell freely, like a bird molting its feathers. Days filled with pail, ashen skin, yellow fingernails, and gray pyjama outfits. Days of me caring for you, as if the roles had turned and now I was your mother. Those days, the most painful, are for some reason the easiest to remember. But there were so many other days. So many better days.

Days of long, slender fingers gently sweeping over ivory keys as you played Bridge Over Troubled Water for the umpteenth time. Days of hair-dye stained Ojai peach tee-shirts and ratty jungle beach towels. There were days where you did jumping jacks up and down the black and white tiled hallway floor singing every single verse to What Do You Do With A Drunken Sailor.

There were weekends of crossword puzzles. Of whole-grain wheat bread grilled cheese sandwiches. Of coffee ring stains on the kitchen table.

There were summers of hopeful gardening, though never successful enough to look like our neighbors' gardens. There were the warm nights where we would catch you jumping on the trampoline. The hot days of tunafish sandwich car-picnics to Wrenthem for the always agonizing shopping trips.

There were years of secretly buying Auntie Ethel's Hanukkah presents for us in the hopes that the prefect gift might somehow unite us, even for just once a year. There were years worth of beige, eggplant, brown, black, and gray clothing from Chicos... because it was just oh so fashionable. There were years of Chicken Pad Thai from 4 Seasons. Of having 9834578923 billion pads of post-it notes in your desk drawer. Years of skiddamarinkydinkydinks and Grungetta imitations. Of cold winter nights warmed up by the seemingly random dinner of baked potatoes and broccoli with cheddar cheese sauce.
Years of alternating sleeping flat on your face with Cleo the cat perched just on the nape of your neck/shoulders, or falling asleep on the downstairs couch with the TV on.

There were years of Special Time. Of secrets told. Of distant memories enlightened. Of walking on the ceiling. Years of peanut M&Ms and porcelain dolls. Years of "being allergic" to nail polish even though you totally weren't. Years of snuggling, and nest making.

And holidays. Passover 10 plague reinactments, complete with ping-pong ball "hail" and beanie-baby cows. Thanksgivings when porch-frozen soda bottles exploded to the heavens, when marshmallows flowed freely across Bernice's spotless oven. Years of building the Sukkah, of creating our own Menorahs. Birthdays.. I turned 14 and you were in the hospital going through chemo. That sucked. But, there was also the birthday when you had to run to Stop and Shop and buy a new cake because the dog ate the one left out on the counter. Or the birthday that we did arts and crafts dolls. Or my rollerskating birthday when you got me an amazing Winne the Pooh cake from BJs and I thought it was THE coolest thing ever.

We had adventures. Our 1800 mile New Mexico exploration. Bicker bicker bicker. The days when you brought us into Boston with you and let us play with the cute deaf babies in the nursery. Remember how sometimes while talking to us you would also start signing too? Summers in Virginia at Colonial Williamsburg with Amanda and Ms Malone. That fateful summer when the Saab's clutch broke (again) and we ended up for the first time at Wayside with the gang.

Remember that time you reamed Diane Newman because she complained that Hannah was too tall and was blocking her from being seeing by the congregation? Remember having tea parties with our teapot/mug combos that we bought from Christmas Tree Shop?

You sometimes called Mema "Ma" and I always thought it was funny. You always stayed up with me and helped me finished my school projects even though I started them the night before they were due... every time. You would always tell me I was beautiful even though we both knew I was beyond fat. And I believed you.

You were the only person I ever met to wear hard contact lenses. Your glasses were always crooked because you fell asleep with them on. Once in a while you would show me your original Barbie from when you were little. It was such a treat for me.

When the Shores came to visit, your usual carefree persona turned nearly Nazi like, and we were all forced to partake in a multi-hour house cleaning session, which by the end of one could theoretically eat off of the floor.

 

We watched Wizard of Oz and Peter Pan starring Mary Martin. You would sing The Hills Are Alive from the Sound of Music and do this creepy little kid voice when appropriate. You and I would waltz, quite literally, up and down the hallway screaming SHALL WE DANCE BADUM BUM BUMP from the King and I.

There were 6 months of dispair, of illness, of darkness. But, there was 14 years we shared of hilarity, happiness, some fights, and always.. always.. always love.