Death, Fish Food, and a Policy of Joy

My mom died. I remember the moment I realized those three harrowing words were to become a staple piece in my vocabulary. I was lying in bed, thoughts racing as they did nightly in those months following her wave of the white flag against cancer, and those words kept repeating as if they were practicing themselves to seem normal. Trying to parade as if they’d always been. But they hadn’t always been and now life would be divided into parts. Before my mom died. After my mom died. And when life stood still… when my mom died. My breath caught in my chest in that way only grief can provide and I did my best to push those words away, convinced they didn’t belong to me. They were not mine, as my mother was far too magical, far too full of life and exuberance for that word to be her predicate. But there it was, sitting heavy on my sternum, daring me to get comfortable with it. 

And so I did. I had to get comfortable with that sentence the way she got comfortable with dying. With grace and reverence and courage. I resigned myself to those words and made a decision never to tiptoe around them. I will not say “my mom passed away” to make those who did not know her more comfortable. I will not say “when I lost my mom” to make my grief more palatable to others. She did not go away. I did not misplace her. She died. And escorting her to this monumental human event was an honor, as she escorted my siblings and me to and through every human event up until that moment. And she did it with arms and eyes wide open, no matter how painful, uncomfortable, or impossible it may have felt. 

Roughly ten years prior to her death, and little more than a year after her own mother died, she treated my older sister and me to a girls’ weekend on the coast. We didn’t have babies, divorces, or grief in our wheelhouses of experience yet, but we were swiftly approaching the crux of life where things get harder before they get easier and all you can do is white knuckle the ride with a smile on your face. We spent that weekend laughing, crying, shopping, sunbathing, and talking about all the things.

The night before we had to return to real life, we took a stroll along the boardwalk which stretched over the waters of a 300-acre lake. Without hesitation, my mom started pumping quarters into the fish food dispenser, tossing fistfuls to the greedy carp below. With each flick of her wrist the fish went into a frenzy, mouths agape, tails splashing, and peals of laughter and glee coming from my mother’s beautiful face. She’d pop in another quarter, turn the crank, toss the food and jump up and down clapping her hands like a giddy toddler as the fish performed for her. When no more coins revealed themselves in the bottom of her purse she turned to my sister and me, bouncing on her heels, asking if we had any quarters. We ponied up, and I would give a million dollars in quarters to see her so joyful again. She laughed until tears were nearly streaming down her face. My sister and I laughed at her with endearment and appreciation. 

As the ruckus died down and she regained composure she turned to us with her hands clasped together for emphasis. I wish I could quote her words on that night verbatim, but I will always remember the lesson she offered. She told us that life is hard. Life is a series of shitty, painful, difficult events. But in the spaces between those events is where the joy lies. If you let it in. You have to allow yourself to play, to engage in wonderment, to savor the small bits and pieces of life that put light in your eyes and a smile in your soul. They may not come as often as you’d like, but if you reach out for them, nestle them against your heart, and place them in your back pocket, they are enough to sustain you through the mundane, the difficult, and the downright painful. 

In the weeks leading up to my mother’s death, we all gathered by her bedside in the evenings to talk, watch movies, eat, and carry on with as much normalcy as possible. Some nights were harder than others and managing her pain and discomfort in between naps and lucidity was the best we could do. On other nights the medical equipment filling her small bedroom was the only indication that cancer was present. One particular night, my niece and my aunt came to visit and we stayed in that bedroom late into the evening. I gave my mom a pedicure while the four of us chatted. Not the easiest of tasks as she was losing her voice due to a tumor in her throat. I don’t remember what we talked about, but I do remember the joy in that room. And every time my mother would laugh a squeaky, raspy laugh I’d tease and mimic her as I painted her toenails pink and she’d just laugh harder, squeezing her eyes shut and grinning with her whole face. At the end of that night, she turned to her sister and said “Now that was a good day”. 

She wasn’t with us much longer after that night — days maybe. But through it all she just kept laughing. She kept filling the small cracks and crannies with any joy she could find. Up until her very last day. My mother’s upbringing was not an easy one. The odds of thriving in happiness were not in her favor, but she tipped the scales through this one small understanding of her humanity. Through the shit storms, the fearful times, the hopeless times, she looked for something to rejoice in. She wasn’t always successful, but her policy was to never stop looking and because of that she lived the good life. 

This is available to all of us. Some more than others of course. I’m not so oblivious to my privilege to misunderstand that there are many living in extreme circumstances where pain and sorrow prevail, but if you’re reading this blog odds are you are not one of them. Odds are you’re running this race like most of us and you’re dashing right past these small gifts. Or worse, you’re leaving them lying there because you’re too afraid to pick them up. You’re too afraid they’ll be taken from you. Too afraid they won’t last. And they won’t. Nothing does. But it’s in those brief moments of elation that a joyful life is built, one small piece at a time. One crank of the handle. One flick of the wrist. 

- Candi

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