I don’t remember the entirety of the conversation or the words that were used, save one. My mother had called me in the late afternoon, almost casually, to tell me she was dying of cancer. Her voice didn’t waiver, her tone one of inconvenience with a hint of “I told you so.” There was a tension, a tension that poorly masked an emotion that betrayed her message. I recognized the approach. It was the approach used by my daughter the moment she was awarded the right to remain home, stay in in bed and watch TV all day due to a mild fever. It was suppressed glee, the masking of that inappropriate glee that bubbles just beneath the surface of getting what you want despite shitty circumstances. The alimony you don’t have to pay because your ex was cheating on you and marries as soon as the divorce papers are signed. The house you buy at a steal because the economy is collapsing. The race you can’t run because you’ve sprained your ankle. Well shit, what a crummy situation. Suppressed smile ensues.

I listened to her confused. Confused is the right word I think. When my father had told us he was dying it had been devastating. We’d been called to the house late in the evening. We all knew something was terribly wrong. He told us as we stood in the kitchen, a shocking prognosis that left him 3 months to live. One by one he held us and waited for us to cry. I tried not to, I thought I should be strong. It didn’t work. At least that’s how I remember it. It felt appropriate, all of it as it should have been. But this? What was this? Why was she telling me this like this, a suppressed smile on her thinning lips?

In the years leading up to her death my mother was obsessed with dying. We were told constantly how she would never see her grandchildren grow up. Each year would likely be the last birthday/Christmas/Easter/[insert holiday]. With a heavy sigh she would tell us she couldn’t wait for Jesus to take her, as her sweet owl-eyed husband sat beside her looking neither amused nor concerned. Before death it was illness. Back issues that crippled her through my childhood. Headaches that disabled her in the afternoons. Fatigue and fogginess eventually labeled fibromyalgia. Each ailment would stay for a few years and eventually be replaced, rather than compounding. In the last few years of her life it was dying, the ultimate ailment. The granddaddy of all ailments. The emperor of all maladies ladies and gentlemen. Death, come on down! You’ve just won a brand new mother of five who’s excited to meet you! You lucky fuck.

The call ended. I didn’t cry. I was angry. She’d gotten what she wanted. Now all of our lives would shift their lenses to focus on her. She’d gotten the part, the starring role. Finally, all of that hard work paying off in the role of a lifetime. Fire up the spotlight. Roll that camera. Action baby!

But those final days in the house were not the stuff of movies. The steep decline that brought immeasurable pain. The slurred speech. The 20 minute struggle to walk to the bathroom that resulted in a few drops, and the 20 minute struggle back to bed. The moaning that accompanied it all. Having your son carry you like a child to bed. The drugs that were never enough. The choking. The gurgling. The gasping. The fear. The want. The want to continue now that it’s the closing scene. That’s a wrap.

It was between these two moments, the call from the sick girl getting to stay home from school and the grandmother gasping her last breath, that I saw my mother. I realized she was just the sick girl who’d grown old but hadn’t grown up. And now, looking back I wish that I had played along more near the end of the movie, given my full attention. I wasn’t convinced it was the final scene. I was waiting for the twist ending, the setup for the sequel, for something that would require more of me and I didn’t know how much I had left. I wish I had allowed her all of it. The lights, the camera, the dressing room, the sequined dress, the feather boa, the fancy hat, the applause, her name in lights, those red velvet curtains. All of it.