"She had existed and now she did not. Not at all, as if not ever." --Alice Munro
Das unumgängliche-- that cannot be tackled. Not by talking about it, not by writing about it in a foreign language, albeit the emotion might be somehow mitigated during mediation.
On the 20th of May, my mother had been officially discharged from the role of a daughter. We had a lengthy conversation, though 80 percent of which were mere repetition and paraphrasing.
"She had reached her time. It was just a natural process. It was a good death."
"Do not dwell too much upon this. Cry if you want to. Write about it if it helps."
I still cannot write about this. Caught up by job interviews a continent away, I could not even have left a rose for her--and I have left roses for people I was way less connected to.
I still refer to her in present tense when I talk about her in front of people.
Amsterdam is only 22 hours ahead and packing could be a fitting metaphor for exhumation. And thus I thought about closure. I thought about death. I thought about how saying goodbye is dying a little. I've exhumed the memory that could not be tackled. And then I thought, it's about time for the feeble attempt.
She was a remarkable woman who had given up her chance of being happy for her family. She was Japanese, and then Taiwanese, but never Chinese-- she did not speak a word of Mandarin. And thus on the day of her cremation I stood by the window and bade goodbye to her in Taiwanese. My waning first language, and I was surprised that I was still able to say what I meant to say.
