works its way around my mouth, like marbles I’m trying to keep from my throat with my tongue. If I swallowed one would I shit it out, see a shiny glass eye looking up at me from the toilet? I search for grief support groups, meditation grief groups, books about grief, I sleep most of the day, all night, I dream that my mother isn’t dead, she’s clawed her way through mud that’s been piled on top of her in a makeshift burial; she re-appears, pieces of dirt and grass in her silver hair. “Wow, Wow,” were her last words, said with wonder, then the health aide injected another dose of morphine into her open mouth. In those fleeting moments of consciousness, I changed her diaper, told her my dead father was home waiting for her, convinced her that one day we’d sit together on a bench in Seward Park next to our imaginary apartment in Lower Manhattan after having lunch at our favorite French bistro, picking up cappuccinos at the corner café, watching the Chinese ladies play Mahjong, the kids climb on the metal jungle gym, listening to the dogs bark at each other on the basketball court. And yes, now I remember! I shared this vision as her breath slowed; she said wow, wow because for a few glorious moments we both believed it was true.
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A Memoir by Rebecca Tiger
Rebecca Tiger teaches sociology at a college and in jails in Vermont. She’s written academic books and articles about drug policy, addiction and celebrity. Her stories have appeared in Bending Genres, BULL, Dorothy Parker’s Ashes, Emerge Literary, Peatsmoke, Roi Fainéant and Tiny Molecules, among others.