by Ruth Rouff
It was still sitting there, behind the milk, when Nick called to tell me of Donna’s death.
Thirteen years later, I still have the Chunky. I can’t bring myself to throw it out. It’s like a silver ingot brought up from a mine. Now that I look back on it, I think that Donna might have given it to me as a clue to her eating disorder. She couldn’t tell me directly that she was bulimic; she just hinted at it—with food.
Sometimes I think that if I ever get money, I will donate a lot of it to research into eating disorders and schizophrenia. That would be a worthwhile thing to do.
It’s been thirteen years since Donna died. In that time, I’ve made new friends and had lovers. Yet Donna remains the closest friend I’ve ever had. She was a charming amalgam of kindness, light-heartedness, loyalty, insight, and heavy-duty mental illness.
I remember her at her best.
Immaculate
I was sitting in a chair at the foot of my mother’s death bed, writing a piece about the “Immaculate Reception” for a book of true-life sports stories for teens. For those of you who are unfamiliar with football, the “Immaculate Reception” refers to an incredible play made in a playoff game between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Oakland Raiders back in 1973. It happened like this: with just seconds left to play, Pittsburgh quarterback Terry Bradshaw threw a desperation pass. Instead of his receiver Frenchy Fuqua catching the ball, it seemed to carom off the shoulder pad of Oakland defender Jack Tatum and back toward the Steelers, where Steelers running back Franco Harris adroitly caught it before it touched the ground and sprinted into the end zone for the game-winning touchdown. There was considerable controversy about this play. If the ball had touched Fuqua and not Tatum, Harris’s catch would have been ruled illegal. But the officials ruled that the ball had touched Tatum and not Fuqua and thus, Harris’s reception could stand. In other words, it was an “immaculate reception.”
I enjoyed researching this story. However, it was a bit odd writing about it in the same room where my mother lay dying. I should explain that there was nothing anyone could do for my mother at this point. She was quite old and was no longer able to swallow food without it getting into her lungs. Aspiration of food causes infection and, inevitably, death. My mother had been in a coma for several days now. Although we couldn’t be sure that she was insensate, she was certainly unresponsive. All the nursing home staff could do was to turn her every so often so that she wouldn’t get bedsores, give her morphine, and swab out her mouth with water.
As I looked up from my laptop, I studied my mother’s face. Her eyes were closed. She was wrinkled and shriveled. In a sense, the hard part was over, the part where she knew what was happening. During her last stay in the hospital, a week earlier, she had thanked me for taking care of her. She knew I loved her. Her death was just a matter of time. Her sepulchral immobility stood (lay?) in stark contrast to the action-filled world I was writing about. All her actions in this life, except for the rise and fall of her chest, were at an end.
A nurse came into the room. She looked at my mother.
“She’s taking a while,” she commented, not unkindly. “Sometimes it helps if you tell them they can go.”
A few minutes later, I got a call on my cell phone from my sister Janet and brother-in-law Carl in Arkansas. I told them what was happening and what the nurse had said. I put the phone to my mother’s ear. I didn’t catch what my sister said, but I heard Carl tell my mother, “You gave me Janet, and I thank you for that.” I hope my mother, in the depths of her coma, heard that.
After the call, I held my mother’s hand for a while. Then I went back to my laptop. My mother would have approved. Although she had never said as much, I could tell that she had been frustrated over never having had a career. Being a stay-at-home mother hadn’t been enough for her, but she lacked the confidence to do anything else. Don’t believe the bullshit that some people tell you. If you have more intelligence than a carrot, being a stay-at-home mother all your life isn’t enough. Thus, my becoming a professional writer pleased my mother: in a small way, I helped assuage her thwarted ambition.
So I continued to type. I had especially enjoyed reading about Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw. People had underestimated him at the beginning of his career, called him a hick and a jerk. But he showed them by winning four Super Bowl rings.
Yes, my mother would heartily approve of my writing in the room where she died.
Acknowledgements
“Pagan Heaven” was published in volume 20 of American Writing in 2000.
“On Mickle Street,” “Mona,” “Visionary,” and “Narcotic” were published in Woman 2 Woman, January/February, 2004.
“Narcotic” was published in White Crow, volume 6, issue 2, 2004.
“Resting Places,” “Renaissance” “Spoken Word” and “Ode to a Parking Garage” were published in Philadelphia Poets in April 2005, October 2005, April 2006, April 2007, and April 2010 respectively. “Benediction,” “The Bronze God,” and “Schuylkill” were published in Philadelphia Poets, April 2013, April 2014 and April 2015, respectively.
“The Thirteenth Sign” and “Grand Tour” were published in Rio: An Online Journal of SUNY at Stonybrook in 2005.
“Close” was published in the Coal City Review.
“Mona” was published in Mona Poetica, an anthology of poetry about the Mona Lisa, published by Mayapple Press in 2005.
“Madonna della Cucina” was published in the 2009 edition of Mad Poets Review.
“Replacing Phil” was published in Sangam, an online literary magazine.
“Hermitage” was published in SNReview.org in Winter/Spring 2012
“Immaculate” was published in Four Ties Lit Review in Issue 1, Volume 2, 2011.
“Romance: was published in SnReview.org in Fall/Winter, 2013
“Let Mike Do It” appeared in the anthology This Assignment is So Gay, published by Sibling Rivalry Press in 2013.
“Zip” was published by Wilde Magazine in Fall, 2013.
“The Phillies, Dick Allen, and Me” was published in winningwriters.com in Fall, 2014.
“Spook Show” was published in Bullmensfiction.com in November, 2015.
“Aquaria” was published in Philadelphia Stories, Summer, 2016
“Mess With Texas” was published in the anthology, Dispatches from Lesbian America, published by Bedazzled Ink, 2016.
Ruth Rouff is an English instructor and freelance writer living in Collingswood, New Jersey. After earning a BA in English from Vassar College and a MS in Education from Saint Joseph’s University, she has taught for a number of years in Philadelphia and Camden NJ. Her work has appeared in various literary journals, including Exquisite Corpse, Philadelphia Poets, and Wilde. In addition, she has written two young adult nonfiction books: Ida B. Wells: A Woman of Courage and Great Moments in Sports.
