Wedding shoes

I often wonder how my brother and sister-in-law feel on their anniversary. Their wedding was beautiful and elegant. The bride was stunning. The food was amazing. The venue was classic. But there was a black cloud over the whole day. Because one month after their wedding, our mom would die of lung cancer.

Our mom was diagnosed with lung cancer in November 1997. Over the next 2.5 years, she would lose a lung and also fight brain cancer before succumbing to it. I was childless at the time, so was able to go spend weeks with her in Alabama, driving her to appointments and making her meals. One of those trips was in January 2000, a couple of months before the wedding. She had found her dress for the wedding but still needed to find shoes. When I flew home that January, I was surprised to see how much weight she had gained. She would tell you it was because of the steroids she was on to help with the swelling on her brain, but Haagen Daaz might tell you a different story. “If eating these bars makes me feel better,” she said between bites, “then I’m going to eat as many as I want.” Another side effect of steroids was being mean as a snake (I’m not sure if that’s in the Mayo Clinic’s book on steroids, but I witnessed it firsthand) 

The morning came for us to shoe shop and I could already tell it was going to be a rough day. Mom was irritable and snappy. And I was exhausted. We left for the mall at 10. I had to get her an extra wide wheelchair at the mall because she couldn’t walk long distances anymore. The first thing she wanted to do was have lunch. “Mom, it’s 10:30!” I said. “I don’t care” she shot back, “I want tacos right now!” There we sat in the food court, the only 2 in there except for a couple of seniors having coffee. Me watching my mom scarf down 3 tacos. Her being mad at me for not eating one.

We went to Sears to look at shoes. Maneuvering a double-wide wheelchair through shoe racks was harder than you might imagine. Every time I bumped my mom’s foot into a shelf, she would yelp as if she had just been shot. She would point out shoes, I’d ask the salesperson to grab them in her size, she would argue about what her size was, and so on. This lasted for 2 hours before she announced she had had enough because I wasn’t trying hard enough and we headed home. 

We did not speak in the car. We did not speak the rest of the afternoon as I cleaned the house and she rested and watched TV. We didn’t speak over dinner. We didn’t even speak when I went to bed that night.

At 2 am I heard my bedroom door creak open: “Want to play cribbage?” She often couldn’t sleep at night and we’d play cards, but given the crap show of the day we had, I was surprised. I threw on some sweats and met her at the table. She was already dealing. “I’m glad to see you aren’t as cranky as you were all day (her actual words were “I’m glad to see you got the corncob out of your butt and finally lightened up” but I’m not sure people can handle how crass she could be). I laughed. “Please woman, if I had the corncob, you had the whole cornfield!”

We stayed up for hours, playing cards, eating Hagen daaz, talking and laughing.

Today is the 24th anniversary of her passing. As time goes on, I’m starting to remember more of the funny stuff she said and did. Like how she presented as shy in public but was really feisty with people she knew well. Or how when she was laughing hard, her mouth would open wide and her head would fall back. So many little things. And I hope when memories of their wedding day cross my brother and sister-in-law’s minds, they will remember how beautiful and magical the day actually was. And how truly happy our mom was to be there.