Cohabitating: Me & My Shadow

originally published: onlythejodi.com 6/6/2020

This post was started in February 2020. Pre-Pandemic, pre-George Floyd, pre-whatever next phase Mom, the world, and the future of either would be. It published in June 2020.

Background and Update: In 2020 we all still referred to Mom as Big Edie, referencing the Beales of Grey Gardens. Unfamiliar with the film or the Beales, she called herself and signed all her notes to me, Love Big Eddie. But familiar or not, it’s who we were for years. When she finally watched the doc, she did not care for comparison at all, until I pointed out that I definitely came off much worse in this situation.

Two single old ladies and a shit ton of cats. Big Edie Beale (played by Mom in our 2020 version) was a delicate beauty in her youth, she acted and expected to be treated that way until the end. She saw her daughter, Little Edie (played by me in this scenario) clearly as the galumphy, awkward, always going to be slightly off center gal that she was. They were bound together in the most unhealthy way, accompanied by a plethora of cats (played by our five cats at that time: Piglet, Hobbles, Crackbaby, Paisan and Noodnick).

The Edies. The Originals, and a Good Facsimilie

This Was the Sound of two Edies Talking

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What are you going to do now? she says.

After spending twenty years drunk and stoned, during which time I never planned anything more complicated than the next drink—and having spent the last eight hours at work as the Ops Mgr (when there were still offices to go to, and subways to ride, and homes you could leave for eight hours) of a nonprofit where I am responsible for planning a lot, but luckily not everything, about the office and facilities, the last thing I want when I come home is to have to know what I’m doing next. 

I walk in the door, kiss my mother, remove my coat, say good night to the aide rushing out the door. I turn around, and…
– What are you doing now?
     – I just got home.
– Aren’t you going to have something to eat? You have to eat something.
     – I will, I just want to sit for a second.
– What are you doing after that?
     – I don’t know, Ma. What do you want to do?
– Whatever you want.
     -Do you want to watch TV/play cards/help me feed the cats?

We finish playing cards/feeding the cats/watching Family Feud:
– What are you doing now?
     – I don’t know.
– Aren’t you doing to have something to eat? You have to eat something.
     – I ate, Ma.
– I don’t remember that. So, what are you doing now?
     – I don’t know.

We play cards, and when we finish:
– What are you doing now?
     – I don’t know, watch TV and relax?
– In my room?
     – No, Ma, in the living room.

She wobbles off to play on her computer, just slightly miffed that I don’t want to spend more time with her, just outside the french doors to the living room, where I can see her, hear her talking to the various cats, see that she is stuck—unable to remember how to get the online jigsaw puzzle to go full screen, or remember how to make the pieces smaller, or baffled by a pop-up. And she can see me on the couch. That is us, apart.

– What are you watching?
Every week I try—unsuccesfully—to simplify the plot of (in not particular order): Orphan Black, The Messiah, Grace & Frankie, Ray Donovan, Sex Education, BoJack Horseman, Pose, Sabrina, Shameless, Shitt’s Creek, The End of the Fucking World, Ozark, Altered Carbon, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Deuce, Killing Eve

When I stand up for any reason in the evening:
– Are you going to bed?
     – No, Ma.
– You should, you have to get some sleep. Did you have something to eat?

Yes, she is in fact, kicking me in the head, which she used to find hysterical. That and combing my hair with her feet.

I envisioned lots of things that could be problematic when I said come live with me, becoming one half of conjoined twins–attached at the heart–was not one of them. She needs to know what I am doing because she is losing/has lost the ability to think of things she’d like to do without outside prompting.

In a life where nothing is certain, I am an anchor. In any given day she will:

• forget who the aides are

• forget who I am

• struggle to tell the difference between waking life and dreams

• be unable to remember

  • her friends, 

  • her life,

  • that she just had a handful of cookies and that’s why the box is empty.

She recognizes her furniture but not always where her bedroom is. Memories of her mother are gone. Of her husband.

Everything you think of as your life up to this moment? Imagine that, but gone.

She lives in this moment and for the moment I come home from work because even if she forgets I am her daughter, that I am Jodi, that those two things are one and the same, she knows I protect her. She is free to be herself when I am there. I am a safe place she can let go of having to be an elegant lady. She exhales. She also farts and burps and I am the only one she will laugh hysterically with over that.

What if I hadn’t gotten sober in time for this? If I was still drunk. If I had died any of those times I could/should have. I am her whole world in a completely other way than when I was born and her life revolved around taking care of the new baby. She is the new baby in this equation.

Big Edie wonders aloud, on a regular basis, what she would do without me. I’ve heard her say the same thing to and about one of the aides. Hashtag humility

She is my primary intimate emotional relationship. Possibly Probably I’m sure she’s the reason I don’t feel the need for romantic partner. That soul hole that craves love, tenderness and human touch is filled to capacity. It overflows. One would wonder, how I stuff as much food inside me as I do what with that overflowing of the soul hole. You’d think I’d be full already.

I wonder, on a regular basis, what will it be like, what I will be like when she is gone. 

I’m gonna miss you when I’m gone, she says.
     No, you won’t, Ma.
You’ll miss me when I’m gone, she says.

I will. She thinks I’m joking when I tell her I’m having her cremated so I can carry her with me wherever I go. I’ll put her a pretty container - a silver cocktail shaker I’m saving for this express purpose (always well-dressed, why should that end just because life does?), continue to look after her and I’m sure I’ll hear her asking:

What are you going to do now?