Tuesday, August 10, 2010

 

I'm thinking, a lot, about my mom, tonight.

    I've had in my possession for about a month the novel Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. Although I was aware of it when it was first published, I purposely avoided it, just as I've avoided it for the last four weeks since I checked it out of the library and renewed it; and for the same reason. My mother and I would have loved reading this book together, me out loud to her, in the evening.
    I hadn't spent much time with historical fiction prior to becoming my mother's companion. If I was interested in reading history, I preferred well-wrought volumes of historical fact with a surprising author slant. My mother, though, was seriously into historical fiction, especially about England, any period, both books and movies. I didn't think it would hurt me to widen my familiarity for her. Turns out, I really enjoyed it, enough to enthusiastically search out books for us to read aloud on my own. Having that interest honed by our companionship was responsible for my interest being piqued when I noticed this book soon after it was published in 2009. I almost immediately bought a copy of it...but the idea of reading it alone and silently, hmmm...well, it was hard to handle. Instead, I read two other Mantel books, neither of them historical fiction. I was delighted with her style and voice, so curiously original, imaginative and absorbing. I put off Wolf Hall, though, until, finally, a friend of mine egged me into reading it because my interest in Mantel had egged her into downloading this book onto her Kindle and she wants to know what I think of it.
    I started it last night. I have to confess, reading it was difficult, at first. I had an irresistible urge to read it aloud and decided, after the first page or two, to try that. That, though, was frustrating, because when my mother and I read aloud we'd often stop and discuss a description or a handy turn of phrase...which is impossible to do, now. Reading it silently was also unsettling, though, increasing my sense of not having my mother here, until, finally, I decided to imagine that she is reading it over my shoulder, so to speak; more, really, through my mind. I'm into the hang of that technique, now, even enjoying it. I can not only appreciate the book on my own terms and imagine that she is privy to this but I can guess, successfully, I imagine, what her enjoyments are and what she might be "thinking" about this description or that handy turn of phrase...
    I feel as though I've climbed over an obstacle, and it's anything but scary on the other side. Weird, though, how one never really gets over the death of someone with whom you fused. I keep having to adjust, and adjust some more, and then, a year and a half later, adjust again. I can understand, now, how easy it would be to decide against death and opt for immortality, as my mother did. I wish she had been right, or, you know, maybe she was, but she thought she was right about life like this never ending. Perhaps, if I live to be old, and, frankly, I doubt that I will, I will experience the pleasure of dementing into immortality as she did. If I die before I make it that far, though, at least, then, I'll be where she is, however and where ever that is, even if it is oblivion. Without meaning to be morose, because it doesn't feel like a morose thought, I look forward to that. I continue to miss her profoundly, although, it seems, not unbearably, which, I guess, is good.
    Later.

All material copyright at time of posting by Gail Rae Hudson

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