Tag: words of love

Ma has an active social life, in her sleep. The line between sleep and waking is porous; she can spend a day waiting on someone that can never show up, like an eight-year-old waiting up for Santa.

Dementia steals your memory and your life, the progression slowly peeling away who you were. It is not, however, contagious. Nothing is contagious via the telephone. Uncomfortable making that phone call? Try shuffling through life in her slippers for a while.

There are words that make me sad: Ma looks me in the eye, “You’re really so good to me.” Sometimes followed by an “I love you.” Does she, or are those words part of her survival plan?

There is no aide today, only Big E & me. Tomorrow is our anniversary, Ma and me living together for the last two years. Both still alive, older and tireder than when we started. Outside, there’s a raging pandemic & it’s 90-hell-degrees. Inside, we have each other.

Big Edie Benjamin Buttons along, forgetting all the every-day things I’d learned from her, the things that make up a life, she  tries to re-learn living, from me. What’s lost will never come back. I can’t fix it or slow it down. Instead, I honor our lessons, reminding her who taught me to read a recipe & cook; clean a house properly; put on lipstick and that it’s okay to enjoy sex.

After Big Edie dies, there’s nothing to stop me from running away. I use “running” rather loosely. Financially speaking, I’ll live pretty comfortably once my mother has passed. Not lavishly, but when she leaves the planet, I can leave New York. Comfortable turns into slightly lavish outside the confines of the five boroughs.

I’d lived alone—and happy—for forty years. Then,in July 2018, my mother moved in. We knew there’d be an adjustment period, but figured any friction would come from 60 years of mother/daughter emotional baggage having to share a single bathroom. That was the easy stuff.

Crazy was on my morning commute. This is New York, so that’s not unusual. Doesn’t…

I spent a good part of dinner talking about a person who irritated me, who…

Every day I see the rights and lives and safety of women and people of color disregarded and crushed by white men in uniforms and white men of influence and white men with academic *futures*

what’s the sound of two edies talking? Big Edie: It wasn’t such a good day….

Ma, just find me and leave me a fucking message.

A friend of mine died this week. The older I get, the more often I’m…

That age where your internal editor has quit, and truth just falls out of your mouth.

Early. It can be later than you think.

Big Edie, Bruce Springsteen, and Killer Joe.

Big Edie, milk chocolate, and white lies

What is the sound of two Edie’s talking?

Back when Big Edie was still Lainie from the Bronx.

Big Edie: Can I tell you something?
Me: Can I stop you? Seriously, is there anyway to stop you?

Big Edie: I feel sorry for the men in your life. You take the nice ones and twist their minds, and you take the crazy ones and push them right over the edge.

Big Edie, Lyle Lovett, Bruce Springsteen and the battle between Valium and Ativan

what’s the sound of two edies talking? Scene: Big Edie’s 91-year-old beau’s birthday dinner. With…

what’s the sound of two edies talking? Scene: The park near her house, getting some…