KJ Hannah Greenberg,
Eternal not Ephemeral
excerpt
Eternal Not Ephemeral Publisher: Seashell Books Date: July 17, 2023 ISBN: 979-8852494016 |
Archetype Shift
She held the framed photo in her hands and turned it from one side to another. The toddler in the photograph was now supposed to be graduating from high school. It had been nearly eighteen years since he was born.
Putting the picture back on the shelf, the woman sighed. She reflected on his third baseman role in Little League, on his loathing of middle school dances, on his abandoned, expensive equestrian training, on his first lost tooth, on his participation as the captain of the debate team, on his potty training, on his initial solo bus ride, and more. Those memories tumbled into her mind in no apparent chronological or thematic order.
Another of her remembrances was of the day, during his infancy, when they were riding in a public building’s elevator, en route to her dentist. He had been asleep in his pushchair but had been woken up by the sound of the elevator door shutting and had been kept up by the sound of the lift rising.
His waking at the sudden noises was not what had made that scene remarkable. At the time, he even woke if she sneezed or if their garbage cans were being emptied at their curb. Rather, it had been his interactions with another stroller-bound baby that had been extraordinary.
That other baby had ridden the elevator in the company of that baby’s mother. Both the other baby and the other mother had been dressed in the garb of the opposition. In the face of that, her baby boy had smiled at that other baby boy, who, in turn, had smiled back at him.
In that elevator, all the same, the other mother had glared. While their babies had reached chubby hands toward each other, both mothers had thinned their lips and had gritted their teeth. In place of using their children to overcome learned hatred, the women had glowered.
The boy’s mother shook her head to clear her mind to focus on alternate images. She conjured up his first job at a burger shop, his joy at being tall enough for the small wading pool that she had long ago bought and filled for him, his profound sadness over his turtle’s death, and his curiosity about why he nearly always lost his sunglasses after owning them for mere days.
Furthermore, she exhaled noisily over memories of his many girlfriends, his single perfect score on a spelling test, his SAT achievements, and his unspoken words about being an only child. She mulled over the “I Love You” that he had crayoned on a faded paper cup, which she kept in their china cabinet, his gift of a magnet made from puzzle pieces, which still adorned their refrigerator door, and the pom-pom object d’art, the “kitten,” which he had given her after they had had a horrible fight. That cat baby still guarded her desk while his voiced “I hate you. You are the worst mother, ever,” still scarred her heart.
Yet, no matter where she reached into her memory, the elevator scene returned, unbidden. Perhaps, his illness was her punishment for her lifelong prejudice. Suspiring audibly, she fingered the line of pill bottles perched on their kitchen counter. Perhaps, great loss was not a lack of health, but by a lack of accepting other people. Perhaps, it was both.
No matter, her world had crumbled nearly two decades after she had misperceived, in that elevator, her need for broadmindedness. If she had perceived her and the other woman’s friendly babies in their prams as a metaphor for accord rather than as one for animosity, maybe, her son would not be sick, today. After all, she and the other mother were more similar than not.
She shrugged at that idea, acknowledging that she was helpless to alter the ministrations of the universe no matter how admirable her character traits were or not. The woman let her breath out. She wiped tears from the side of her nose.
Her son’s most reliable oncologist and his most beloved phlebotomist were both from that other mother’s tribe. If only she had taught herself to see beyond disparate dress, language, and names. If only she refused to believe that her people’s perpetuation needed her suasory discourse, or to emphasize those differences. For years, she had written diatribes, which had been published in both mass and convergent media, about those other mothers.
Shaking her head, again, she regarded the clock. In five minutes, her child’s alarm would ring. She recalled snuggling with hm when he was a toddler, cleaning the tub after him when he was a preteen, and now, praying gratitude for him for every morning that he rose from his bed. She would never know him as an adult. At this point in their lives, every week was an unexpected bonus.
After quieting his alarm’s pealing, her dear one would patter overhead, make use of the bathroom, and then, if he had sufficient strength, drag himself downstairs, to join her in their kitchen. If he was too weary, that is, if he failed to try the stairs, she would bring his first round of meds up to him.
Hopefully her bald-headed beloved would feel well enough to attempt the trip, to sit with her in their kitchen, to take each needed pill and every necessary potion, and to refuse breakfast. Their morning had a rhythm.
At least, they could watch the birds in the tree near their kitchen window. At most, he’d also sip his protein drink. “Please don’t push me farther,” he’d implore with those lovely eyes of his, those eyes devoid of brows and lashes.
If it were an especially good morning, he’d smile at his mother, too, opening his chapped lips enough to show her those teeth of his that were permanently stained from drugs. She never commented on that relatively minor change.
On an especially good morning, he might even try to serenade her. More exactly, if he succeed in engaging his throat, he’d hum a few bars of Albinoni’s “Oboe Concerto in D Minor.” Her son had become aware, from their long talks about seemingly neutral topics meant to comfort him, that his mother had been fond of the double reed’s sublime tones.
He had discovered that his parent had played in an orchestra but had been forced to surrender her horn when her instrument’s high-resistance embouchure had caused her to suffer eye damage. From his hospital bed, he had heard of how his mother’s ophthalmologist had warned against his mother becoming blind and had cautioned that she needed to immediately cease playing her hautboy.
Although he, himself, was as musical as a rock, that child loved when his mother’s face lit up and her eyes widened. The best linctus for him had long been when she, his chief care provider, smiled. So, whereas she had tried to talk to him about the Russian forests she had hiked, the Japanese sun baths in which she had engaged, the Swiss wildflowers that she had photographed, and the American mountain goats that had frightened her, he almost always tried to sway their conversations to her oboe playing.
As long as he had a voice with which to speak, he entreated her to tell him tales of her music making. Usually, she accommodated him. She shared that after her consultation with her eye doctor, she had ceased playing her woodwind-she had been resolute about keeping her eyesight.
Meanwhile, having saved her orbs, she had been able to gaze upon a handsome clerk at the local vinyls store. As the mother related that narrative, she had gone into that shop to seek Harry Shulman’s Music for Oboe and Orchestra; she still liked listening to her adored device. Plus, she found vinyls more soothing than electronic recordings.
Soon after that initial encounter, that toothsome man had become her lover and fathered her son. Shortly thereafter, in spite of everything, that clerk moved across country to wed his existent girlfriend. That girlfriend was a woman about whom he had neglected to tell the former oboist who had unwittingly become his stand-in paramour.
Even so, the former performer never articulated any regrets, when asked by her boy, about those few fiery weeks. Instead, she had explained to her son that all manner of duets are found in music. What’s more, because of the movement of the spheres, she had been granted the best sort of offspring, a child of passion.
At present, just the same, her child emulated neither fire nor ice. His delicate breaths were on loan to him from the relative “kindness” of medical interventions. His being able to shout “I hate you” would have sounded melodious.
She sat down heavily and rested her chin in her hand. His chemo had been horrific. His surgeries had been worse. His current and final skirmish, which involved multiple doses of new kinds of poisons was more than unmanageable.
The alarm clock sounded. Heavy feet pit-a-patted to the bathroom, and then, minutes later, down the stairs.
“Morning, Honey!”
“Morning. Mom.”
“You sleep okay?” She tried to use mundane talk when engaging him, no matter that she could anticipate the majority of his responses to her prompts.
Her boy shrugged. “I think I was dreaming about one of your stories.”
She inhaled. Was he processing the history of his dad? Was he musing over her years in the orchestra? Was he just saying he was reflecting on their heart-to-hearts, but really worrying that she had come across his stash of “forbidden” magazines? He ought not to worry-she had thought it cute that he used print, not Internet, to explore “mature” topics. After all, he was getting older.
She wished that he could live long enough to do more than read about such issues, weighed his teenage relationships, then shushed herself that he had attended socials and that he had nearly finished twelfth grade. She really had no idea where his experimenting had begun or ended.
The mother turned away from her child and stared at nothing. It was better to embrace what would be rather than what wouldn’t.
“Mom?” He coughed and then coughed some more. He tried silencing his coughs by using some of the breathing techniques that one of his therapists had taught him. Eventually, he inhaled more normally.
“Sweetie?”
“Why can’t we get beyond a prescribed sense of ’enemies?’ Can’t babies smile at each other without repercussions? Aren’t infants just infants? I wish you had made friends with that other mom. My favorite doctor’s like her. You know that, right?”
“Honey, here are your first pills.”
“Why does someone’s way of life matter? It ought to be enough just to live. The guy who’s best at taking my blood is also like that other mom. Why couldn’t you have embraced my innocence and the innocence of the other baby? Don’t you regret your actions?”
She reached to hug her son. She was both surprised and not at his particular dream. Teenagers, too, were innocents, especially boys laden with germ cell growths. “Dearest, sit. Rest.” Of all that they had spoken about for so many years, in so many hospitals, or in their kitchen, or their car, he had absorbed that story.
Her son sat down. He began coughing some more.
She filled a glass halfway with water.
He sipped a little and then stopped coughing. “Mom, the unity of babies and their mommies is forever, no matter who the babies and mommies are. We have more in common with other people than not.”
The mother murmured. Terminal illness often grants sagacity.
She put her arms around her son’s shoulders and kissed the top of his head. He was battling invasive malignancies at the same time as his friends were being called up to enroll in battling the other mother’s population.
She wished that he had dreamt about his long dead turtle and, consequently, had wanted to talk over his loss of that pet, or that he had dreamt about his SAT scores and, consequently, had wanted to talk about how he would never attend college despite his handful of free tuition offers. Peace needed completeness. Did death?
She reached into their refrigerator for a carton of protein shake, made a hole in the top of that box, and then stuck a straw inside of the hole. The straw was green, the color of life. Green was also her child’s favorite color.
He swallowed a mouthful of the shake but made no pretense of trying to hum. That morning, even sipping seemed to exhaust him. He again coughed and coughed.
She send him to their sofa. Soon, he was asleep.
As she pulled a cover over him, she touched one of his cheeks with the tips of her fingers. If only she, not he, were filled with those sticky tumors. If only she, not he, had had to undergo intravenous chemicals, surgeries, and now, the imbibing of additional, harmful drugs. If only she could take the disease away from him so that he could read his forbidden magazines, swim in the municipal pool, try on his cap and gown, and bear the highs and lows of growing up.
Nonetheless, she had no magic. She could not manipulate reality in any way or in any form. Simply, she could not take away his sickness.
Mumbling, she considered that she could, at least, live for him. She could be his witness to the details of the days and nights that he was sleeping through. They could talk of more than oboe music or ethnic cousins.
That evening, after he had finished his fifth round of meds and had retreated to his bedroom, she stayed downstairs, by their kitchen window. There, she listened to the firecrackers that had been set off by the other mother’s community on the occasion of a wedding. The woman, moreover, kept her mind on the many rounds of gunshot that, too, had been fired in celebration. At least someone, somewhere, was happy.
Perhaps, she could encourage the crumbling of cognitive, affective, and other forms of cultural odium. She was a proven two-way artist, a woman who could write as well as she could play oboe. She knew newspaper editors by their first names and had access to many social media channels. There were many platforms that she could use to impact her people’s view. Narrow-mindedness was too costly.
The woman frowned. Her boy had been right; it wasn’t harmful to smile at a mother of a baby from “the other side.” Such a smile wasn’t a sign of disloyalty to her own kind, but an extension of humanity from one woman to another.
Eventually, the gunshots and fireworks ended. Another hour or so passed before the festive lights, which, too, had been viewable from her window, similarly dimmed. She had participated her “enemies’” joy and neither her people nor theirs had gotten hurt.
After that stillness had been sustained for a while, night birds began to chorus. The mockingbirds were especially strident. Whenever she had tried to teach her child about birds’ evening courtships, he had almost always tired he turn their talks to exchanges about concertos and sonatas.
When her astute darling was stymied by tubes and lines, though, she had prattled to him about thrushes, swifts, and bee-eaters. She had wanted his mind to be chock-a-block with birdcall and with feathers of varied hues.
The mother continued to look at and listen to the darkness. A few times during the night, she heard footfall from the floor above. Mostly, her child’s medications made him sleepy. Sometimes, they caused hm to need the bathroom. Any lost sleep was tragic.
In the morning, she found herself slumped against the wall beneath their kitchen window. She had been unable to keep her eyes open. She had had vivid dreams.
In one, she and her child were much younger. They were again in the elevator and were again facing that other young family. In that dream, however, she had smiled at the other mother’s baby and then at the other mother. When that other mother had sneezed, the woman had extended a tissue.
That other mother had nodded her thanks and had pointed, with a smile, at the woman’s own baby and his gummy grin. She did not pull her carriage closer to her body but turned it slightly so that the two babies could better see each other. In pidgin language, she conveyed that her neighbor was a pediatrician, but said nothing about the detail that he was a pediatric oncologist. Because it was a dream, however, the woman intuitively understood the other mother’s neighbor’s specialty.
Next, the former musician had blown kisses and had made raspberries in the direction of the other mother’s baby. It was safe, even okay, to embrace the achievability of peace. Concord might not be glamorous but concord is utilitarian. Additionally, it feels good.
Accordingly, the woman’s dream-self left the elevator with a phone number for the doctor, notwithstanding the fact that she had mentioned to the other mother that she’s never need that datum. In real-life, in contrast, she had had to actually make a great effort to get her son accepted as a patient of that esteemed professional.
The woman had had a second dream, too. In that second vision, she had succeeded in staying awake for many weeks. During her alert watch at her window, she had seen flowers bud and blossom. She had seen rain fall, clouds mask the sun, and many different kinds of four-legged critters pass by. Also, whenever she had turned from her window, she had seen disgusting bugs crawl across her kitchen counter and she had been able to pay attention to the dust motes dancing beneath her ceiling light. Those wonders notwithstanding, in her second dream, her extreme sleep deprivation had not only stuffed her with multiple, astonishing observations with which to share with her son but had also caused her to become deathly ill.
Essentially, she had woken up because of the terror she experienced from her second dream. More exactly, in that dream, she had imagined that given her impending death, her child, who was anyway suffering from an abbreviated life expectancy, was going have to die in foster care. He would not be allowed to remain in their home after her passing.
She splashed water on her face and then lined up her son’s pill bottles on the kitchen counter. She checked the fridge for a chilled box of his protein drink and then boiled some water to make coffee. She also hummed a few bars from “Oboe Concerto in D Minor.” Maybe, if she had to tae his medicines upstairs to him, she’d keep on humming.
Cancer kills regardless of the tribe into which a person is born. Oboe playing can cause one’s eyeballs to literally loosen in one’s head. A simply meeting in an elevator, in a hospital ward or in an ophthalmologist’s office, can cause a paradigm shift.
Copyright © 2023 by KJ Hannah Greenberg
