I didn’t get around to calling mine on Christmas, adding insult to injury, as I also didn’t go visit her this Christmas like I have for the last seven years she has lived in that nursing home in North Carolina. I also visited her during summers and sundry holidays while I was in grad school so she was used to me visiting and calling often. Nothing particularly anything was different this year except I now work a day job with only a week of vacation so I can no longer visit as often as I did in previous years. The only thing I can think of is that I was depressed because I couldn’t go and visit her this year (for personal reasons I won’t go into here which basically means I had no money)-my sister also lives in North Carolina with her family-and that inspired general listlessness which lead to dramatically not caring about much of anything including calling the very people I was depressed over not getting to visit.

Sounds stupid? It is because I did call my my sister and nephews on Christmas day and spoke with them for an hour. Then they were to call me when they went to the home to give our mother her presents so it would at least feel like we were all together. Of course, I missed that call. When I called my sister back an hour or so after the fact she didn’t answer, but her cellphone is a piece of shit when it comes to dropping and receiving calls, so I wasn’t surprised. I didn’t call the home that evening because they rarely answer anyway, those fuckers. In fact I tried calling once when it wasn’t a holiday thin king I’d get through easier but the line rang twenty times with no answer at all or voice mail. I called back over and over to no avail. So history had left me bored with the idea of hearing the line ring. I had the next few days off after Christmas so I thought I’d call then. One uneventful thing after another prevented me from calling her. Then at 12:18am on December 29th my eldest nephew called me. I figured he was just calling to shoot the shit so I was inclined to not answer as I had to go to work the next day, but something told me to answer, you know, just in case.

It was the case. He mumbled what sounded like, “My mother died.” I was stunned because I thought he was telling me my sister was dead which would have been really shitty too as I love my sister something fierce, but he articulated himself more clearly the second time around. Though I could hear my sister shrieking in the background all I could ask was, “Are you guys sure?”
He adamantly declared yes. Still disbelieving, I asked if they were positive. Perhaps the nurse at the home was mistaken. It is a small country town in North Carolina after all, not the quickest of witted folk live there-excepting all the Northerners who have moved into the area-they don’t work in the home. But, no, they were quite certain, she was dead. My sister jumped on the line to yell at me so I would get it through my head, our mother was gone. I was skeptical. So I called the home. I hate that they call that place a “home” but that it was for seven years of my mother’s remaining life. A country-ass nurse unceremoniously told me that yes, in fact, Miss Catherine was dead as she was the one who found her. According to this nurse my mother died at 12:15 a.m. How she knew this little tidbit with such great certainty remains somewhat of a mystery, as is the cause of death, nonetheless, my mother is dead.
Her ashes sit on my dresser yet I still find it hard to believe. Maybe it’s because I kept meaning to call thinking I had time but never did.

photo: m. colon (yes, i did take photos.)

P.S. an ancestry search done out of grief and whatnot netted two things: my mother was not part cherokee as previously thought (thank god!). no she was part choctaw. she was also second cousin to hank williams sr. and sang backup for him on a live radio program along with her two youngest siblings. i guess that makes three things, but whatever.