The Dead Moms Club Read online

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2017 by Kate Spencer

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  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Seal Press

  Hachette Book Group

  1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104

  www.SealPress.com

  @SealPress

  First Edition: November 2017

  Published by Seal Press, an imprint of Perseus Books, LLC, a subsidiary of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  “Motherf**kin’ Mother’s Day” was originally published on Modern Loss as “How I’m Making Mother’s Day My Bitch.”

  “When the Grief Goes Away” was originally published on BuzzFeed as “How I Finally Let Go of Grief for My Dead Mom.”

  Yamada, Mitsuye. “What Your Mother Tells You.” In Camp Notes and Other Writings, 1. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1998. Copyright © 1998 by Mitsuye Yamada. Reprinted by permission of Rutgers University Press.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Spencer, Kate, 1979- author.

  Title: The dead moms club : a memoir about death, grief, and surviving the mother of all losses / Kate Spencer.

  Description: First Edition. | Boston : Seal Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017037090| ISBN 9781580056878 (paperback) | ISBN 9781580056885 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Children and death. | Mothers and daughters--Psychology. | Grief. | Loss (Psychology) | BISAC: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs.

  Classification: LCC BF723.D3 .S645 2017 | DDC 155.9/37083--dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017037090

  ISBNs: 978-1-58005-687-8 (paperback), 978-1-58005-688-5 (ebook)

  E3-20171009-JV-NF

  The Dead Moms Club

  Meeting Agenda

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  1. Welcome

  2. She’s Dead. So Now What?

  3. Breaking the News

  4. Death: The World’s Most Awkward Hot Topic

  5. The Weight of It All

  6. Family

  7. The Holidays

  8. Motherf**kin’ Mother’s Day

  9. Your Newly Single Parent

  10. Being Motherless

  11. Seeing Them Everywhere

  12. Hello from the Other Side

  13. The One Who Never Calls

  14. DeadMom.com

  15. I Learned It from Watching You

  16. When Your Kids Ask

  17. Saying Goodbye to Grief

  18. What to Do When It’s Not You

  19. Everything Happens

  20. You Go Girl

  21. The Essence of My Mother

  I Will Miss the Essence of My Mother

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  For Andrew

  Hello!

  You’re about to read a bunch of stories about the most difficult time in my life, told how I remember them. Some of the names and identifying specifics have been changed to maintain privacy, or because I’m a wuss and don’t want to hurt people’s feelings.

  Also, there will be swearing. Sorry, Mom.

  1

  Welcome

  Hi there. If you are reading this, it most likely means you are a member of one of the crappiest clubs in the world. I would love nothing more than to revoke my own membership to the Dead Moms Club and to turn you away at the door. To rip up our Dead Moms Club ID cards and throw them in an incinerator. But alas, once you’re a member of this club, there’s no way out. Also, I have no idea how to even find an incinerator, so we’re definitely stuck.

  (And if you’re not a member of the Dead Moms Club yet, don’t worry! Chances are you will be someday. And regardless, I’ve bet you’ve experienced deep loss and grief in your life, whether it be death, divorce, a pet passing away, or the end of Six Feet Under. The Babysitters Club had junior officers, members who were welcome but not quite at the level of Kristy, Claudia, Dawn, Stacey, and Mary Anne. That’s what we’ll call you.)

  Remember how awful your stupid high school literary magazine club was? How insufferable every meeting felt? That’s a walk in the park on a glorious spring day compared to this. I would sit through a lifetime of teenagers discussing their poems about the Beatles if it meant getting my mom back. But as we both know—because, you know, our moms are dead—life isn’t fair sometimes. Also, poetry about the Beatles is almost certainly going to be awful. These are two things I know to be true.

  No one asks to be enrolled in the Dead Moms Club, but since you’re now a member, you deserve some support from someone who’s been there. Someone who knows just how god-awful it is. Someone who’s made it through.

  That someone is me.

  See, I’m not just the president of the Dead Moms Club. I’m also a client. Wait, no. That dated ’90s joke doesn’t quite work. But you get what I’m trying to say, right? I have a dead mom. I have been there and done that. I know just how bad it really is. I’ve been in the Club for a while.

  My mom died when I was twenty-seven years old.* It was pancreatic cancer; it was fast; it was a nightmare. Just months before her diagnosis, she visited me at my tiny studio apartment in New York City. She slept on my couch, and we went shopping and split bottles of wine. Everything felt right. We were exactly where we needed to be in our relationship: true friends. When the weekend was over, I sent her off up Eighth Avenue, watching her walk toward Penn Station with her tiny suitcase rolling at her side. The next time I saw her, she was in a hospital bed in Boston, cocooned in faded white sheets, a tumor hijacking her pancreas.

  After her diagnosis I quit my production assistant job and moved home, back into my childhood bedroom. My younger brother, Andrew, did the same, and together with our father we served as my mother’s caregivers until she died in the middle of an icy March night. We were huddled at her feet, sleeping around the hospital bed we had installed in my parents’ bedroom. She took a few last sips of air, and then she left us.

  Her illness and death transformed my life in extraordinary ways. It changed everything. For one hot second there I even entertained the idea of becoming a social worker, because my life felt so completely meaningless. But then I realized I would make a terrible social worker, and I snapped out of it, sticking to the stable, lucrative career of writer and comedian instead. It’s what my mom would have wanted.

  Knowing my mom, she’d probably also have wanted me to turn my grief into something more than just a pyramid of snot-soaked tissues.* Because let me tell you, when it comes to gut-stabbing, endless sadness—the kind that feels like a Chuck E. Cheese’s ball pit that you can’t seem to climb out of—I have been there. I’ve logged my ten thousand hours of weeping, making me a Malcolm Gladwell–approved genius at sobbing into an Ikea couch pillow. I have fallen into the deepest of lows—horrible, dark places from which I thought I’d never escape. And yet here I am, typing these words right now to you. I am even wearing actual pants, so you know I’m doing all right. (Okay fine, they’re leggings. But still.)

  I made it through. I have lived through the loss of my mom and survived, and you can, too. Do I still have unstoppable bouts of crying after watching Stepmom? Of course, I’m only human. Everyone needs a good Susan-Sarandon-and-Julia-Roberts-inspired sob fest every now and then. But still, I’m functioning. I’m making it. And that’s what I am here to tell you. You got this.

  The Dead Moms Club is my story of dealing with my own grief, as well as all the weird, unexpected things that came along with it. (Disordered eating! Who knew?) I can only venture to speak to my own experience, since I’ve only had and lost my mom, Martha Spencer, amazing listener, occasional grudge-holder, lover of Days of Our Lives and Oprah Winfrey, proud feminist, and caring human who bought birthday cards in bulk so she’d always have one to send. Good Lord, I miss her.

  Still, despite our different moms and experiences, this is also a book of commiseration, support, and the occasional survival tip on how to make it as a member of the Dead Moms Club. Through telling my own story of loss, I hope to help you get through yours, too. Or at least make you feel a little less alone. Because no matter how varied our experiences may be, we can all agree that losing your mom sucks, right? RIGHT?

  Most importantly, this book is a safe space for you to grieve in whatever way you want. Read a page, put it down, and come back to it when you’re ready. Devour the whole thing in one night. Let it sit on a shelf for years, or use it as a coaster until you’re ready to give it a read. Kill a cockroach with it. Whatever you need, I’m here.

  Now, hold these.

  [Hands you a giant glass of your drink of choice, a bowl of the saltiest potato chips imaginable, and a Snickers bar the size of a pillow.]

  See, the first rule of the Dead Moms Club is that you may stuff your face with whatever the hell you want, whenever you want. If you want fruit, it’s in the fridge behind the endless supply
of brie cheese. Gluten-free bagels are in the bread drawer next to the gluten-full loaves. The Nutella is in the bathtub. Yes, that’s what that tub full of brown stuff is. Come on, what did you expect? Grieving takes up a lot of energy. You’re gonna need it. Also, please blow your nose and wipe your tears on whatever you want around here. That’s the second rule of the Dead Moms Club. Because after all, this is a safe space (for cry-snot, especially).

  The third rule: grieving is best when done however you want to do it. It’s up to you—and only you—how you get through this.

  Rule number four: take all the time you need.

  And the fifth and final rule of the Dead Moms Club? You’re totally allowed to side-eye all people who say, “At least she’s in a better place now.” Screw them.

  Welcome. I’m so sorry you’re here.

  * It should be noted that up until this point my life had been a relative cakewalk, marked by the usual traumas that come when you’re a mega-tall, shy extrovert who developed boobs in the fourth grade.

  * Though, come to think of it, that would be very impressive and probably result in instant D-list celebrity status and a lifetime of free Kleenex. Hmmmmm. *Adds tissue pyramid to to-do list.*

  2

  She’s Dead. So Now What?

  My mom died at 2:04 AM on your average March night in Massachusetts: bleak, black, and so cold that the air freezes your snot to the walls of your nose the second you step outside. On her last night on earth, my dad, my brother, Andrew, and I slept at her feet like dogs, loyal and desperate for her love and affection until the very end. We had started hospice at our house a mere two weeks prior, but it felt as if I’d been doing it since birth. We were living on animal instincts alone: eat some lasagna; administer an extremely high dose of morphine; cry hysterically; return to administer an extremely high dose of Haldol; eat more lasagna; chug a bottle of wine; refresh Mom’s water; finish the lasagna. Repeat.

  When we started hospice, we were all naively hopeful it would give us a few more months together. “I just want her to live long enough to hear the birds in spring,” my dad said wistfully as we washed dishes together one night. My mom was asleep upstairs in her new-spangled hospital bed. This is the true sign that someone is nearing death: the closer they get to the end of their life, the more your house fills up with items straight out of a medical catalog.

  First it had been the shower chair. “Just one last thing to worry about!” we’d said with a forced excitement that comes with caregiver territory. But then came the toilet chair (“Less bending over!” we’d cheered), and the walker (“So much safer!”), and the strange, smaller items, like the tiny mouth- swab sticks that we were constantly dipping into cups of water and smudging against my mom’s gums to keep her hydrated when she became a comatose shell of herself.

  Soon our house was chock full of these gray, plastic, sterile contraptions, a wall-to-wall reminder that “Someone Is Dying Here.” But nothing signals that the Grim Reaper is on his way like the arrival of the hospital bed. If a house with a terminal cancer patient is a museum of death-support tools, the hospital bed is the Mona Lisa, the pièce de résistance.

  There had been no miracles for my mom. She had terrible reactions to the first chemo regimen she tried—a strange red rash that made her skin look like the outside of a strawberry—and it did nothing to stop the spots on her liver from spreading. The second chemo kept everything stable for a couple months as summer shifted to fall, willing us to get sucked into the magical feeling that is Hope. But it was short-lived; come November, a sepsis infection caused her gallbladder to collapse, and the whole ordeal sucked the pounds off her body like liposuction gone comically wrong. Her hair went from full and dark to thin and gray. Her transformation into shriveled old lady happened almost overnight, and she returned home from the hospital with tubes draining bile from her stomach, too weak to continue with chemo.

  But hospice. This would be the thing to keep her alive! Hospice. The word even sounds soft and cozy, a promising whisper on your lips. I felt giddy about it. Hey, we may not get to keep her forever, I reasoned, but hospice will give us some months to soak up each other’s essence, to swap life lessons and stories, to marvel at the circle of life as spring blossoms around us. I was high on my own denial, trying to haggle cancer into letting us keep her around for just a little bit longer. Maybe, I thought to myself, she’ll even make it to summer! We can just go on and on like this, keeping her barely alive and showering in a gray plastic chair from season to season.

  Sometimes it’s hard to see through your sorrow at just how much illness and death changes your life. “This is all totally normal!” you sing, twirling on your mountaintop of hospital stuff like Maria in The Sound of Music. But then you blink, and you see it: nothing is normal. Your parents’ queen-size bed is gone, shoved into a corner of the basement. Your mom’s bedside table, once home to a precariously stacked collection of Sue Grafton mysteries, is now just a forest of pill bottles and cups of ice water. Your dad sleeps on a cot on the floor. You and your brother curl up in a pile of blankets at the foot of the hospital bed, waking at four AM to douse your shell of a mother with morphine. You deliver each dose through tears, panicked that the pain meds might kill her before the cancer does.

  This time when life crosses into death is dark and raw and, frankly, terrifying to revisit. Ten years later, and it is still one gray blur of the deepest, most bone-crushing sadness I have ever known. I can still feel the despair pouring out of me, like some sort of viral illness. And the memories are tinged with shame, because I so desperately just wanted her to die during the last week of her life. I wanted this awful misery trapping my family to be over, wanted my mom’s suffering to stop. But I also hated what the cancer did to her. It stole her away, sucked the life out of her—her body tossed aside, an empty cup. In those last two weeks of her life, she was gone but still alive. She was not actually dead yet; she could moan, and breathe, and sleep. But the woman who’d sometimes still climbed in bed with me to sing lullabies, even though I was long out of college, was gone. The woman who’d bought thirty air fresheners at the hardware store “just in case,” even though we only needed one, was gone. The woman I’d watched cook dinner with the phone tucked under her chin, laughing to a friend as the endless, curly phone cord wrapped slowly around her waist as she moved, was gone. Just like that.

  My mom had left the building, but her body was still there.

  I did not like the creature left in her place. She was zombie-like, her eyes stuck half-open, her mouth ajar, her breath rattling in her chest like a tiny Salvation Army bell ringer. If you have been through this purgatory of They’re Not Dead Yet but, Holy Crap, They Sure Aren’t Alive Either, you know what I’m talking about. (If you haven’t, that means your mom died another different but equally awful way, and I am so very sorry.)

  With the arrival of this Zombie Mom, I stopped sobbing desperate pleas of “please let my mom live” into my pillow at night. Now, I desperately wanted her to die, for her body to join the rest of her, far away from this misery.

  When you start hospice, someone—a nurse in white clogs, or your social worker in her bejeweled glasses—will hand you a little blue booklet with a crude drawing of a boat on it. Receiving this book, Gone from My Sight, is a rite of passage, like some sort of induction ritual into a death sorority. It is the What to Expect When You’re Expecting of dying, detailing what will go down the closer your loved one gets to death. There’s the way the body can be both bony and swollen, the limbs blue. There’s the death rattle, that terrible name for the short, violent, fluid-filled, end-of-life breath. And then there’s terminal agitation, when the dying person can suddenly become delirious, confused, and restless, with bouts of strength and energy. And it is, simply, awful to witness.

  One night, she tried to escape. For days she’d been muttering “I’ve got to go,” while constantly trying to get up and down out of her bed. She demanded we change her shirt, all day, over and over again. I was sitting next to her on the edge of the mattress during one of the wardrobe changes when she suddenly jerked upward. With the strength of a thousand Olympic sprinters, my mom, who had previously needed help to walk to the bathroom just steps from her bed, stood up and ran into my bedroom, climbing into my bed. “I’ve got to go!” she shouted at me. I screamed to my dad for help, and he charged up the stairs, my brother close behind. Somehow he managed to calm her down, moving her out of my bed and back toward her room. She stopped in front of the bathroom in the hallway. “I need to pee,” she insisted, even though there was barely any liquid left in her body. She was leaning on my dad now, her strength gone just as quickly as it arrived. As he lowered her onto the toilet, she put her hands to her head, moaning. “What’s happening to me?” she whimpered softly. “Am I dying?”