I was on the treadmill (Covid purchase) around happy hour (5p for Bruce, 8p for me) and he was yucking it up, having caught "Terms of Endearment" halfway through. Aurora and the Astronaut were out on a date, and the astronaut said something about Aurora having a stick up her ass and Bruce was cracking up. Bruce has a REALLY loud laugh--we can all hear it from afar. He loves to laugh, loves to make people laugh and approaches many situations with a joke. It's a wonderful trait but also really taxing at times if you want, to you know, talk about something serious.
Anyway, "Terms" is one of my favorite movies to watch when I need to cry. I haven't watched it since my mom died (I don't think) because I couldn't bear it.
My sisters and mom also loved this movie for the same reason--a good make you cry movie. An enema for your tears.
So, I hop off the treadmill, a little emotional spy, and serve up some tissues to my dad. He says "I'm not crying" (Tough guy routine) and he wasn't. But then, Emma gets cancer.
And then we watched the scene where Aurora wants the shot for Emma's pain.
My sister Kitty came over and said "Why the fuck are we watching this?" I replied "I didn't tell him, I'm just letting it play out."
He proclaims "I didn't know this movie was this good!"
Kitty pretends to not be watching, and irons a shirt and pants for Simon, who has a big day tomorrow.
And then, the scene, with those two 80's looking little boys saying goodbye to their mom. I'm tearing up right now, because they remind me so much of my brothers, hair in their eyes, one sensitive, the other tough, looking on their mom with blue eyes and dark curly hair. It was the saddest thing I've ever seen when I was little, and now that it's happened, we've lost our mom, I'm MAD that we didn't get that goodbye. She was whisked off to be intubated and we thought we'd talk to her again. Sometimes, when I'm calm and rational, I think--the manner of her death doesn't matter...grief is grief.
But this feels like a really shitty breakup---where it came out of the blue, your boyfriend seems to have decided to end it and not filled you in and you are caught by surprise. How was I such a fool? And with mom, how did I not know she was going to die? Did we miss something? Make a mistake? What would I have done or said or wanted to hear if we had known?
I think she knew. That last day, before ICU, she said to me "It doesn't look good". And then when she was about to intubated, she said to my dad "I think he's taking me up". But for 10 days, we lingered, dance parties to the Rolling Stones and Barry Manilow, traced the up and down of her blood counts, chest scans, oxygenation, and hoped hoped we could talk to her again.
We never did, not on this mortal plane.
So, back to Terms, those sweet boys, that wonderful mom and I'm crying, Dad's sobbing and Kitty's spilling tears on the ironing board.
Anyway, it ends with Kitty and Dad in a fight ("I'd never leave my children" "I didn't say you would") and as these two fight, I know (Because I've been to therapy) that they are sad, incredibly sad and we all miss mom. So, I get up, exit the fight, fix my dad a plate, pour some sweet white wine and we all settle down to talk.
