The Truth About Butterflies: A Memoir (8 page)

 Within the
hour, we met at a local bistro.  I explained that I’d had a horrible nightmare that
was too gruesome even to recount.  “It’s okay,” she said.  “You talk about
whatever you want for as long as it takes you to feel okay.”  So we sat out on
the patio and talked for hours until the sun began to sink below the treetops.

“How long
will it take for me to get better?”  I asked her.

“You keep
asking me that as if you want me to give you a time frame.”

That’s
exactly
what I wanted, some kind of grief chart that said in three
months, the tears will stop; in eight months, the gut-wrenching pain will
cease; in a year’s time, the sun will shine again.  I needed a diagram
wherewith to measure my progress, something to assure me that I wasn’t going
crazy,
but
Marlo said there is no normal grief.  “It is what it is, and there’s no wrong
way to do it.” 
 

“Can you
give me a time frame?”

“I wish it
were that simple, but it doesn’t work that way.  And what do you mean by
better
?”

“When will I
stop crying?”

“Never, your
child is dead.”

I told Marlo
that I was moving out of the house.  I had been thinking about it and had
mentioned it to her once before, but I’d decided that it was time.  She tried
to discourage me saying that it was unwise to make major life changes while in
a state of grief.  Regardless, the house held nothing but bad memories. 

I had moved
into the small bungalow to save money for Nicole’s transplant.  The gentleman
that rented to me had done so at a mere pittance.  The place was impeccable,
and he handled the maintenance like clockwork.  Once when I arrived home from
work in the dead of winter to find the heat not working, I called him and left
a message.  He returned my call from whatever sandy beach he was vacationing
on, and within two hours a heating and air truck pulled into my driveway.  Each
year when I renewed my lease, my rent stayed the same.  “How’s that little one
gettin’ along?” He’d always ask.

That aside,
Nicole was sick when we moved in, and every room in the house held traces of
illness and misery.

“Will you stay
in the area?”  Marlo asked.

“Yes.”

“Will you
just rent somewhere else?”

“I think
I’ll buy.”

In the meantime,
I had begun packing and thought it was best to get Nicole’s room out of the
way.  After a week or so, nothing in her room was packed.  I’d go in her closet
and slide the clothes from one end of the rack to the other.  The next day, I’d
slide them all back again. 

Nicole had converted three of her six dresser drawers in an effort
to organize her supplies.  The top drawer was full of medications. The middle
drawer contained her “Get Right” supplies. “Get Right” was what she called her
insulin. The bottom drawer held oxygen tubing, blood pressure cuff and
stethoscope, TED hose, gauze and bandages, and whatever odds-and-ends medical
equipment she had accumulated.  It would seem that her medicine would be the
first and easiest thing for me to get rid of, but it was one of the hardest,
and eventually someone else had to do it for me. I decided it would be best to
leave Nicole’s room for last.

The attic was
the next space I decided to tackle.  I pulled down the folding stairs and
climbed just high enough to get a good panoramic view: Nicole’s sewing machine,
several bolts of fabric, a set of bed frames, Christmas decorations, and boxes of
books were closest to the opening.  Although I have no problem climbing up
things, I dread climbing down, so when we moved in I had handed the boxes up to
Nicole and avoided going up there at all.  

I reached
for the box nearest to me and carried it down the stairs.  It was an unusual
box in that, unlike the others, it had a separate lid and was sealed with several
rounds of tape.  It was
not
a box that I had packed.  I sat on the
floor, cut through the tape with a box cutter, and lifted the lid.  Inside were
two smaller boxes and underneath them several folders.  I removed one of the
boxes and pulled up the lid.  My eyes filled with tears as I discovered the
contents.  It was late evening, and I didn’t budge from that spot until early
the next morning.  Spread out before me was one of the greatest gifts Nicole ever
could’ve left me.

1973—2008

Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be
prepared for changes.

~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

After Nicole
died, I received a package in the mail from Aunt Betty.  The enclosed letter
said, “I’ve been holding on to these things, and I probably should’ve given
them to you long before now.”  I opened the thick, yellow envelope and gently
removed the contents: photographs of my mother as a girl, photos of my two
aunts, Betty and Jean, my mother’s black and gold tassel from her Purdue
University mortar board, and the guest registry from her funeral. 

I opened the
registry and read through the list of names.  Aunt Betty’s and her husband Ed’s
names were together on the first line, and Della Kay Elms, RN, a nurse with
whom my mom worked, was on the last.  There were 96 signatures in between. 

As I read
through the names, my eyes fell upon my own writing.  Then, in a flood of
memories, I recalled at the funeral having asked Aunt Betty if I could write my
mom a note.  She’d said, “Yes,” and I’d begun writing the note in the
registry.  Aunt Betty stopped me and gave me a piece of paper to write on
instead, saying that the book was not for notes, but for “people who loved
mama” to sign their names.  At that, I had scribbled over what I’d written and,
in my best cursive, simply signed
Love Nancy. 
My signature is the 14
^th
and nestled between Bobby’s above and Stevey’s below.
 
Now, 35 years
later, as I ran my fingers across that child-like signature, it was as if I’d
signed it yesterday.

Also among
the things in the envelope was a neatly folded letter encased in a clear
plastic sleeve.  I unfolded the six yellowing pages, holding them by the
corners afraid that if I handled them the ink might disappear beneath my
fingers.  It was a letter Aunt Betty had written to my mother when my mother
was in the hospital.  It was addressed “My Sweet Sue.”  Though my mother’s name
was Emma, she was known to everyone by her middle name.

The first
page catches my mother up on what had been going on: School would start earlier
than expected, so she and Ed would take the boys camping that weekend.  She
mentioned how busy she’d been at work, on her feet for hours so that the veins
in her legs were beginning to break.  But as I continued reading, Aunt Betty’s
tone grew desperate. 

“Sue, please
pray for help.  I know you think,
well
,
if God knows how I suffer
then why doesn’t he help me?
   And you know when you first got sick you
questioned that there even was a God.  Honey, you can’t do that.  Sometimes
when I’m driving by myself, I say, ‘Thank you God for what we have,’ or ‘Please
help me to do what’s right.’  Try it, Sue.  Just say, ‘Please give me the
strength to face each day and each treatment as it comes.’  When you’re crying
your heart out, God listens as no one else can.”  Reading this, I thought about
the times I’d actually seen my mother cry.  I vividly remember two occasions. 

My mother
had been engaged to marry a man named Blair.  My memories of him are vague, but
I do have several faded black & white Polaroids of us together.  In one, I
am sitting on his lap at Aunt Katie’s gray Formica dining table blowing out the
candles on Becca’s birthday cake.  It was tradition that after the birthday
person blew out his or her candles, the adults would relight them so that I
could make wishes as well.  In the photo, I was four; there were 10 candles on
the cake.

Blair had
been away working on a construction site but was traveling to the area to visit
my mother and me.  My mother had grown anxious because long after he was due to
arrive, he still hadn’t shown.  She received the news that Blair had been
killed in a crane accident.  I thought she’d never get out of bed again.  Of
course, Aunt Betty was at her side.  “Honey, please don’t cry; it’ll be okay,”
she promised.  Among my possessions, I still have Blair’s personalized Figaro
bracelet that my mother had given him as a gift, the back of which is inscribed
“From the Best to the Greatest.”

On the
second occasion, my mother and I had gone to the local hamburger stand.  It was
a place close to the house, and we had gone there many times before.  But the memory
of this particular night overshadows any good memories I might’ve had of that
place. 

I looked
forward to the hamburger drive-in.  It was a thrill having our food brought out
on a tray and hooked over the window.  That evening, as before, the hop came
out to take our order.  After my mother ordered, I leaned over and told the
hop, “Make sure you put cheese on it,” as I had once gotten a cheeseburger and
they’d forgotten the cheese.  But when the hop saw me, she stopped writing, went
inside, and never brought us our food.

There were
customers inside and once or twice, everyone would look out at us at the same
time as if they were waiting for something.  We could see them clearly as the
brightly lit building stood out in the darkness.  I knew something was wrong
because my mother had become visibly upset.  Finally, she leaned out of the car
window and yelled, “Kiss my ass!”

She put the
car in reverse and punched the gas.  In her attempt to make a scene as she
pulled out of the lot, she accidentally bumped a motorcycle that was parked in
the space behind us.  As a man with a long beard stood up inside the
restaurant, my mother tore out of the parking lot.  By the time we made it to
the main road, we could hear the motorcycle. 

The
hamburger stand was a short distance from our house, and when we arrived at our
street, which was a dead end, my mother passed our house, turned off the
headlights, and coasted to the end of the road.  After skidding to a stop, she
grabbed me tightly by the wrist, and we ran to the neighbor’s backyard.  By
then we could hear the motorcycle coming down the road. 

We ran
through each yard until we reached ours.  From the backyards, I didn’t
recognize any of the houses.  It wasn’t until we reached our back porch that I
realized where I was.  My mother fumbled in the dark for the key.  At one
point, I thought she would break the door down as she threw her full weight
against it several times. 

When she
finally found the key, we ran into the front room and lay on the floor under
the big picture window.  I was on my right side with my back against the wall,
and my mother was on her side facing me so that I was tightly sandwiched
between her and the wall.  The glare from the single headlight crawled across
the ceiling as the man cruised up and down the road.  Finally, he stopped, and
after sitting idle for a while, turned off the motor.  Even though I was quiet,
my mother instinctively clasped her hand over my mouth.  I don’t know how long
we lay there, but eventually the man started his bike and slowly rode away. 

As the roar
of the motorcycle faded in the distance, I could feel the tension in my
mother’s body release; she began sobbing.  She immediately took me and put me
in her bed, and we curled up there together, never undressing.  Hungry, and not
fully understanding the situation, I asked if we could go back and get our food
now that the man was gone.  Every time I awoke through the night, my mother was
crying.

 This is
what I thought about as I read the words, “When you’re crying your heart out,
God listens.”  Aunt Betty told my mother, “It isn’t necessary to be in church. 
When you awake and are afraid, just start talking as if someone was right
there.”  She encouraged my mother to get well soon, “so you can come home to
Nancy.”  My mother
did
come home to me but only for a short time.  She
would die within months of this letter. 

Though
major, it would be misleading to say that her death alone set off the chain of
events that would shape my life.  There were other events, and people, and
words spoken in hush-hush tones.  I have no memory of my father, who left when
I was two.  The only thing I know for certain is that in the mid-60s, my
mother, a White, all-American girl, and my father, a Black jazz musician, found
their way into each other’s arms.  Beyond this, I have only disjointed stories
told to me by this one and that one, and the well-intentioned advice of my
aunt, “Honey, it was so long ago, leave it be and get on with your life.” 
Within weeks of my mother’s death, my journey would take its first hairpin
turn, and everything I
thought
I knew about me and my life would quickly
come undone.

September
18, 1973, is the day my mother died.  October 9, I arrived at my new foster
home.  That morning as I’d sat watching television, a woman knocked on the
door.  Aunt Betty, neatly dressed as always, her blond hair pinned up in a
giant bun, came from the back of the house and opened the door.  Her eyes were
wet and red.  There wasn’t much said before me and my things were loaded into
the caseworker’s car.  Aunt Betty told the caseworker that she’d bring my
bedroom furniture to the foster home later, and then she stood like a helpless
kitten as we pulled out of the driveway.