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Dad didn’t join her on the trip because someone had to stay back and take care of the house, Rascal, and me, so she went on her own.
While she was away, she called and I overheard Dad on the phone with her.
“Are you okay?” he asked her, sounding panicked.
I ran up to him. “What happened?”
“Your mother was mugged,” he said.
“Is she hurt?” I asked.
“I don’t think so.”
But when Mom returned to Los Angeles, the entire left side of her body was black and blue. She said the guy who stole her purse was on a bike and had crashed into her.
“That’s so scary,” I said. “Did you have to go to the hospital?”
“Yes, but I’m fine now,” she said, trying to reassure me.
“Are you sure?” I asked her.
She nodded and picked up her cup of coffee; her hand was shaking. “You can go to college anywhere, Beans,” she told me. “Just stay away from New York.”
Every news channel is covering the Cristina Cadell fugitive story.Heiress on the lam! Billion-dollar runaway!are just a couple of the chyrons scrolling on the bottom of the screen. The public can’t seem to get enough of this sensational schadenfreude story—a wealthy heiress to a billion-dollar fortune accused of murdering her mother Maria Cadell, William Cadell Jr.’s ex-wife, while they were out sailing. There’s still no known motive, even though Cristina is now a wanted fugitive in Europe. For the life of me, I still can’t comprehend what she has to do with my Mom.
I’m standing in front of my hall closet, staring at the boxes on the top shelf. Mom’s boxes, filled with all of her remaining possessions.
After she died, I draped myself in her clothes, smelling her perfume, putting on her jewelry each day, desperately trying to cling onto any piece of her. All I wanted was to have her waiting for me in the kitchen after school, for her to hug me, and to feel her presence in our house again.
But after I returned home from Better Horizons, I packed up all of her belongings that Dad had left untouched, and Inever went through them again. They reminded me that I’d lost the person who loved me more than anyone else, and I couldn’t bear to look at them.
Although I haven’t opened these boxes in decades, they have moved with me everywhere, from college dorm rooms to various apartments to my first house with my ex-husband to my new home in the aftermath of my divorce. They have been my constant, silent life companion, a mirror to her absence.
I pick up a box labeledLettersand open it. Inside are dozens of cards that people wrote Mom through the years, including ones that Dad and I gave her and a bunch of letters she wrote me.
On top of the pile is a copy of the eulogy our family’s rabbi gave after she passed. I was in a daze at her funeral, too heartbroken to hear his words. To this day, I have no recollection of what he said.
I pick it up and start reading:
This is a day of many feelings. Irene has died, and we have come to bury her. Death is always too soon. We yearn for one more moment, one more smile, one more confiding conversation to bear our hearts, one more bit of wisdom, reassurance, one more moment of intimacy. Although it is all too soon, Irene is now in eternal peace.
Irene was a mother, wife, beloved friend, and colleague of so many. And she was someone who so loved the world, and people, that she would want your memories of her to be filled with fun, humor, good times, and love. She was a woman of basic pleasures. The profound simplicity of this was that though she had an appreciation for all the luxuries life can bring, she knew at their core they didn’t matter if you didn’t have good relationships. Her relationships are what defined her, and although she enjoyed hiking, reading a goodbook, taking a walk, or a good joke, it was in her family and her friends that she saw God and felt blessed.
As an only child who had lost both of her parents in high school, her pillars were her pride in Beans and her love for Carl. She gained in their enjoyment her own contentment. Once on a plane flight with them, there were two first-class tickets and one in coach. Irene insisted that Beans and Carl sit together in first class. And in her excitement to know what they had to eat and how they were being pampered, she was both the adoring mother and wife.
No matter your station in life, she cared about you, and in her concern, you always felt better for having been around her. She dedicated her life to working with those grappling with alcohol and drug addiction, some of whom are here with us today and with whom I’ve had a chance to speak. In their words, a clear portrait emerged of a psychologist who never judged them and instead helped them become the best versions of themselves so they could lead meaningful lives.
Today and in the future, as we recall Irene, speak about her, tell stories, laugh, and cry, she achieves immortality. For as long as she is alive in the hearts, minds, and souls she loved, she has eternal life. May her life be a blessing.
I grab a box of tissues and weep in a way I haven’t in years, maybe since my miscarriage. Then I do the unthinkable, something I know will cause me immeasurable pain—I begin reading the letters she wrote me.
Happy birthday, my darling Beans.
It is hard for me to believe that you are already nine years old. But it is so exciting, Beans, because as you getolder, life gets even more interesting. I am so grateful you are my child—I am so proud of the wonderful girl you are. I love you and can’t wait to share 4th grade with you.
Millions of hugs and kisses,
Mommy
