Queen of My Heart

Mom is reading a newspaper article about Prince Charles. She is dewy and innocent, with a good dose of Scarlett O’Hara running through her veins.

“He would be so perfect for you,” she says, her face buried in the pages. “He’s a bachelor, a prince and you’re the same age. You have so much in common.”

No. We don’t. Perhaps art. Other than that, we are oil and water. Besides, he has big ears. At 22, I find these things important.

She busies herself with the crossword puzzle. I hug her and kiss her cheek.

“Isn’t he dating that Camilla person?” I ask. “Really, mom.”

I smile inwardly at my mother’s wish for her oldest daughter to marry a prince. She means well in her naïve and Anglophile sort of way. She is a lover of all things British, Shakespeare and especially the Queen. They are only three years apart in age, and at 42 mom admires her with fervor.

“She drove a Jeep in WWII, you know,” Mom says, looking up at me, “and even knew how to fix the engines. She’s smart. Educated. And funny.”

*******

So is my mother. She has given birth to nine children, patched up Catholic school uniforms and bruised knees, scrambled a mountain of eggs for a starving army, and made more hamburger casserole than any woman on the block.

The feminist movement has opened a crack in the patriarchal door and mom is ready to step through. She decides it’s time for her.

Self-love is a tough one for a woman from the rural mountains of Tennessee. Opportunities for higher education, even work, were limited when she was growing up, even though she once had dreams of being an actress. She was pretty enough to have been the next Doris Day or Ginger Rogers.

Instead, she marries a Mexican-American from South Texas and starts having babies. Now that the youngest is in grade school, mom drops hints to dad she’s going back to school. Dad bristles. Mom needs to be at home, mend worn socks, make the casserole and even the tortillas de harina from scratch that took her years to learn.

Dad gives in. One class at a time, he warns. Mom begins studies at a local community college. She comes home with a satchel of papers, buries herself in books. She loves it.

Queen Elizabeth, she tells me, studied constitutional history and law preparing her for her role as monarch. However, others speculated the Queen wanted a more formal education.

Mom understands this. Witnessing the impact of the lack of education on the poor in Tennessee, she is determined to educate herself. It takes her 10 years, but she earns her Master’s degree in English Literature.

She is 62 when she graduates and all her nine children are there, cheering her on. When people ask what she plans to “do” with her degree, she responds, “Why do I have to do something with it? I just wanted to learn.”

Mom continues to follow the Queen on the news. When Princess Diana dies, mom is concerned at the Queen’s lack of response. But she has faith.

“Don’t worry. She’s the Queen. She’ll say something to her country. She’s in mourning, too. People forget that.” In Elizabeth, mom sees not just the Crown, but a wife, mother, grandmother.

*******

Dad’s left eye starts to droop and doctors can’t seem to find an answer. A doctor finally diagnoses him with myasthenia gravis. The autoimmune disorder impacts muscles in the body and comes under the umbrella of muscular dystrophy.

Treatment consists of monthly plasmapheresis. With stoicism and grace, mom takes dad to the hospital, sits with him for grueling six-hour sessions. She does this for years. Never complaining. Quiet. Queenly.

When dad has a stroke and can no longer swallow, she purees his food. I help her feed him, a tedious task, a spoonful at a time as if to a baby. We clean him when he soils himself, change his diapers. Bedridden, he clasps her hand, whispers a thank you.

*******

Dad dies and mom is now ailing. She uses a walker, has heart issues. But her mind is still strong. She reads her novels, does her crossword puzzles, watches TV. Follows the Queen. Mom’s medical appointments pile up and my sisters and I drive her to specialists.

I visit her almost every day. Sit with her. Listen to her. Help her with meals. Give her showers, which she hates. “Do you remember when I used to bathe you?” she asks as I scrub her back. “You had such tiny feet and hands. We’ve come full circle, haven’t we?”

On one visit, I tell her that she is Queen for a Day and we can do whatever she wants. She beams. “Really?” I pile mom and her walker into the car and we eat at the local pizza shop. We drive through a local park. We come home and play Scrabble, her favorite game. I let her win. Staring into her face, I sense that time is limited with her. Enjoy the now. Love her now.

*******

At the next cardiologist’s appointment, mom is diagnosed with congestive heart failure. My own heart hurts with the possible loss. In the next months, mom slows, doesn’t eat much, isn’t sleeping well. My sisters and I take mom to more doctor’s appointments that give no answers. An unwelcome mantra stomps itself on my soul. She’s dying. She’s dying.

She can’t. She’s my mother. Yes, she’s 93, but like the Queen, she will live forever.

My mother is the only person who encouraged my writing, believed in me, told me never to give up. Someday you’ll be published, she would say. She inspired a love of reading in me, placed the classic Jane Eyre in my hands when I was 13, telling me, “I think you’ll like this.”

She mourned with me when my dear Joe died. Mom loved me.

To the core of my being, this truth sears on my soul: No one will ever love me as my mother did. No one.

*******

Mom sleeps most of that day. I go back to my home, unsettled. The next morning I’m to take her to the ER. But I don’t want her dying in a hospital. Not there.

When I go to the house, the blinds are still drawn. I walk into her room, and she is still in bed. At first, I fear she has overslept. My fingers caress her face to wake her, but her skin is cold. Reality grips me and my body heaves with sobs. I kiss her cheeks and forehead. Rest my head on her chest and whisper, “I love you, mom.”

The Queen follows my mother in death six months later. I am now finally kindred with Charles. I understand his grief in the loss of his mother.

As I watch the pomp surrounding the Queen’s funeral, I know mom would be watching TV non-stop. And I with her. Instead, mom now has something better. My mother, the queen of my heart, finally got to meet the Queen.

My mother welcomed Elizabeth with open arms into eternal life.

And even though my being still hurts to the core, I know mom still wants only good for me, that somewhere in the distance, her stoic and loving admonition spurs me forward: Carry on.