Ten Years
On this day ten years ago, my mother Adrienne Cantor, died. June 26th, 2003.
It happened in the middle of the night, as she lay in the hospice at a healthcare facility on the South Shore of Staten Island, a malignant and inoperable form of cancer eating away at her brain. I got the call from my brother around 3 AM.
“Mother died,” he said, morosely.
“Okay,” I replied. I didn’t really know what else to say.
I wasn’t home when he called. I was tucked away in the basement recording studio that I shared with my partners in Port Richmond, pretending to work, but really thinking to myself that any moment could be the moment. The moment our family had essentially been waiting for since May of 2002, when she was diagnosed with gioblastoma multiforme, the most common and most aggressive form of brain cancer there is.
Her prognosis a year prior was, well, not good. And despite being treated by Dr. Gil Lederman— a semi-celebrity doctor at the time, for having treated Mayor Rudolph Guiliani and The Beatles George Harrison before he died (ed note: Lederman would later have a fall from grace over said treatment of Harrison)— we didn’t have much hope.
Back then, WebMD and the like hadn’t yet become the de facto place you go to for driving yourself crazy when you come down with something, but still, we couldn’t avoid looking on the internet for information. Everything we read said people who got this kind of cancer died within 18 months. Maybe my mother would be the outlier? But these tumors were right in the center of her brain, which made them inoperable. So that didn’t bode well.
When that fateful call came through, I somehow summoned the strength to keep it all together, and politely asked one of my friends at the studio for a ride home. I imagine that particular friend and I talked a bit on the way back to my father’s house, but honestly I can’t even remember. I just recall it being so late that the sky was beginning to brighten. I was breaking day, as I often did back then. As I often do now.
We didn’t wait long to have the funeral. Jews never do. Many people came. So many people. Hundreds. I had and still have no idea who those people were. I was aware that my mother had a lot of ‘friends.’ She was a teacher and liked to talk a lot. That meant she was close with many of her students’ parents. But also, in her 49 years on earth she’d just amassed this amazing rotating cast of characters who she always kept in contact with. Pre-dating smartphones, push email and texting, she was always gabbing on the house phone with someone. Always.
I spoke at the funeral. I wrote a little speech of sorts. I think the popular term for it is a eulogy. I couldn’t really make it through it, started crying about a few sentences in. Then I collected myself and finished it. People commended me on it, because that’s what you’re supposed to do at funerals. I’m pretty sure I have the speech still saved on an old hard drive, and I’d really like to pull it up again some time soon so I can have a look. The original is most likely buried somewhere in my closet. Finding it would probably be difficult. My biggest recollection about that eulogy is how poorly written it was. I was 21-years-old and wasn’t really much of a writer. I think if I had the chance to do it all over, I’d have written something much more thoughtful.
One thing I’ll never forget about the funeral is how hot it was. Man, it was scorching that day. Had to be one of the hottest days I’ve ever experienced. We were just standing there at United Hebrew Cemetery, in our black suits, sweating buckets. I had to shovel dirt on my mother’s grave. I believe I may have been the first one to do it, then others followed. I cried a lot. Everyone did. So much of my memory from this day is vivid, and so much is not. For instance, I can remember the gravedigger’s face so well— the sweat glistening above his tanned brow— yet I can’t remember anyone else’s. Weird.
Ten years is a long time. It’s long enough to forget some things. Long enough to be a different person than you were then. In some ways, and it pains me to say this, I don’t really remember my mother. I’ll never forget her voice, or the way her body felt when she hugged me, or just some of her mannerisms in general. It’s impossible to forget her state of being, her physical presence. But I can’t remember that well what it felt like to have her here. To have someone to talk to about my problems. To go to for guidance. To be that comforting voice of reason, that ever-present sense of security. I’m torn by this. Because I want to remember so badly, but for whatever reason, the feelings just don’t come back to me as quickly and closely as they once did.
I’m not a very religious person and I feel like it’s a cliche to say “but I’m spiritual.” The reality is that I’m neither of the two. But I do believe that there’s something out there in the universe— a divine energy, if you will— that is more influential than any mortal man/woman can be. An energy that rights whatever is wrong and makes sure that shit goes according to plan. I know things don’t really work out that way, but the romance of it all makes me feel better.
When she died, people told me my mother was “watching over me.” They still do. I’m not quite convinced that’s the case, but I’d like to think it is, no matter how juvenile that prospect seems. At the very least, that thought keeps me going. It gives me hope there’s a purpose to all of this. That amidst all my existential confusion, some day I’ll rejoice in knowing that my path was well lit. By my mother, who was forced to say goodbye before it was her time to go.
