Dead Mom Walking

by Rachel Matlow

  She was also into Iyengar yoga when I was little. Mom was always folding herself into various poses around the house—doing a more comfortable version of downward dog, for example, where she’d bend forward and rest her outstretched hands on the kitchen table. Or she’d drop down on the living room carpet and kick her legs up into a shoulder stand. There are baby pictures of me climbing up on her, mid-pose, as if she were a human jungle gym.

  Mom’s proclivity for meditation and yoga was considered odd back then. We lived in the mostly Jewish, upper-middle-class Cedarvale neighbourhood, where head-to-toe Lululemon and an over-the-shoulder yoga mat were still decades away from becoming de rigueur. Mom was a teacher; Teddy was a judge. We lived in a nice house with a pool. We certainly passed as normal. But I always had a feeling that Mom wasn’t like other moms.

  Case in point: I remember in senior kindergarten coming home and announcing that I needed a Halloween costume for school the next day. After a few minutes of scrounging, Mom’s face lit up with an idea. “You’ll be garbage!” she proclaimed. She got a black garbage bag from under the kitchen sink, threw it over my five-year-old body, and used her hands to tear holes for my arms and head. It was her next move that was really inspired, though. She started fishing through the actual garbage bin for dry pieces of authentic trash that we then threaded together with string before festooning me from top to bottom. As a Jewish kid, it was as close as I ever got to trimming a Christmas tree.

  The next day, I couldn’t have been more embarrassed, surrounded by My Little Ponies, He-Men, witches, and ghosts. How on earth did Mom think this was a good idea? There I was, with an empty box of our dog’s Milk-Bones dangling around my neck. My teacher, Mrs. Winemaker, looked me up and down before making a concerted decision to declare—a little too enthusiastically—that next year she wanted to be garbage for Halloween. Goddess bless.

  Mom was very caring and loving in her own inimitable way, but she wasn’t much of a capital M Mommy. As a joke, she would sometimes refer to herself as “Mommy” when she’d catch herself performing something quintessentially motherly. But it was always said in self-reflexive jest. She didn’t bake cookies. She didn’t brush my hair. She didn’t put sweet notes in my lunch box. In fact, Mom never even packed my lunches. I distinctly remember when she said to me, “You’re in senior kindergarten now. It’s time you made your own lunch.” We were standing in front of the fridge. I looked up at the towering shelves of food with utter confusion.

  “What should I bring?” I asked.

  “Your cousin Sarah brings a yogurt,” Mom replied.

  For much of elementary school I’d pack a cappuccino yogurt and a box of Smarties; when lunchtime came I’d pour the latter into the former and stir until the dye bled into a colourful swirl. Sometimes I’d bring mini pitas stuffed with Nutella. I usually rounded things off with a Mini Babybel, a Coke, and a Caramilk bar (for dessert). I was very popular in the lunchroom.

  But even more than I enjoyed my signature concoction, I loved going to my friend Alimah’s for lunch. Her mom, Barbara, was a stay-at-home mother, so Alimah could go home every day for chicken noodle soup, tuna sandwiches, and sliced-up carrot and celery sticks. Seeing Barbara in action was fascinating. She was more like the moms on TV: aware of Alimah’s school assignments, making sure she did her homework, limiting how much TV she could watch. Their home was an oasis of routine and predictability. Barbara even assigned meals to days of the week. Wednesday was spaghetti night. Friday was pizza.

  There wasn’t much cooking going on at our house. Much later Mom would insist she’d been “chained to a stove for eighteen years,” but the rest of us remember differently. For dinner we’d usually go out to restaurants, order in, or Teddy or Mom would pick something up on their way home from work. Every so often Mom would courageously attempt to concoct something interesting, like Greek fish or chocolate pasta. But it would be more of a performance than a bona fide meal. “Mommy made supper!” she’d sing.

  She certainly wasn’t interested in being the type of mother—or wife—who put her own life on the back burner, but she’d also made a conscious decision to not be “too overinvolved.” She’d felt smothered by her mother growing up and was afraid of even coming close with me. Literally. Sometimes she’d look over at me lovingly and pet the top of my head. “Pat, pat,” she’d say, careful to never intrude on my physical space.

  Mom had had a list of things she’d do differently when she had a daughter one day. She would never tell me what to do with my hair. She would never make me feel guilty for choosing to do my own thing. Above all, she would never lean on me. “I never want you to feel like you have to take care of me,” she’d say.

  Mom believed it was important to teach me things. She explained how her mother always wanted to do everything for her when she was little, which she interpreted as a power play to make her extra dependent. With me, the pendulum swung. Mom wanted me to be independent. Ultra independent. I was often left at home alone, and was the only seven-year-old allowed to walk up to Eglinton—one of Toronto’s major arteries—on my own.

  I routinely made that six-block trip to do my errands. I’d go to my favourite candy store, The Wiz, and fill up a large bowl with Pop Rocks, Fun Dip, and Bonkers, and then head across the street to Videoflicks to rent a comedy like Heathers or Ruthless People. On the way home I’d stop off at China House for a bowl of wonton soup. At first the waiters were a little weirded out by a child dining solo, but they soon came to recognize me as a regular—who paid in quarters and dimes from her piggy bank.

  When I inquired about Mom’s free-range approach to parenting years later, she happily defended herself. “I taught you how to look both ways and cross the street, and you were very good at it. So I let you go off on your own!”

  Teddy was the one to wake me up in the mornings for school, take me to the doctor for checkups, and make sure I ate enough fruits and vegetables to survive. “You’re going to get scurvy,” he’d warn. But other than that, no one really monitored me. I was allowed to eat as much Häagen-Dazs, watch as much TV, and stay up as late as I liked (I even had a TV in my room). Mom treated me like a mini adult. When I wasn’t in school, I could do whatever I wanted with my time.

  I relished my freedom—I wouldn’t have had it any other way—but there were times when I’d fantasize about having some authority at home. Time to take your medicine, I’d say to myself as I popped my daily Flintstone vitamin, imagining an adult was forcing me. To fit in with the other kids at school, when I’d get grass stains or rips in my pants I’d pretend to be afraid of Mom’s wrath. “Man, my mom’s going to kill me!” I’d say, mimicking what I’d heard on the field. I knew Mom couldn’t care less. (If anything she was proud of me getting rough and dirty.)

  I loved Mom so much, but I’d sometimes wish she was more like Barbara. Once when I was sick and she didn’t offer to bring me anything, I admonished her: “When other kids are sick, their moms bring them orange juice!” (“You don’t want one of those other moms,” she’d snap back. “I’m more fun!”)

  * * *

  —

  MOM MAY NOT have been like other moms, but the truth was I wasn’t like other daughters. In the first seconds after I was born, Teddy was even convinced I was a boy. He says that when he took in all ten pounds of me, he immediately thought Our little football player! And cried out “It’s a boy!” After giving me a once-over, the doctor quickly interjected: “Actually, it’s a girl.” “That’s a girl?” Teddy asked in disbelief. Mom was beyond thrilled. She hadn’t allowed herself to want a girl, but deep down she’d really hoped for one this time.

  As I grew up, people continued to mistake me for a boy. I was often called “Josh’s little brother.” I was a tomboy—or what Larry David would later call “pre-gay.” I had short moppy hair, wore only jeans and T-shirts, and felt a profound sense of disappointment with the girls’ shoe section. I was pretty happy in general—I had f
riends and did well at school—but I always had a feeling of being on the outside. I didn’t feel like one of the girls, and I knew I wasn’t really one of the boys. The only other kid who reflected my gender was Casey from Mr. Dressup. And Casey was a puppet.

  Once, when I was six, Mom attempted to put me in a dress for shul. I resisted. We struggled. She even tried to sit on me. “Please, Rachel! It’s the High Holidays!” she begged. “I don’t want to!” I yelled back, squirming my way out from beneath her. Back then Mom still cared a little about what people thought and didn’t get that it was actually humiliating for me to wear feminine clothes. Thankfully, she quickly gave up, and I emerged triumphant in ripped jeans and high-tops as we left the house. Staying true to the list of things she would do differently from her mother, it was the last time Mom ever tried to dictate my sartorial choices (or any of my choices for that matter).

  When I was seven, I told my parents that I wanted to join the local Forest Hill hockey league. I’d watched Josh on Saturday mornings and couldn’t wait until I was old enough to play. What I actually thought was I can do better than that. (Josh, almost five years older than me, was by no means a jock.) Back then there were only boys in the league, so the organizers were apprehensive. But no one said no. When Teddy took me shopping for equipment he kept asking, “You’re sure you’re going to play?” as we approached the cash register. I was sure.

  Even when I got two penalties in one game, Mom was so proud of me for being the only girl in the league. She admitted that if it had been Josh knocking over other boys, she would’ve been horrified. But her little girl being called a “goon”? She couldn’t have been more pleased. She loved it when the other mothers would tell her that their sons were intimidated by me. “Way to knock ’em dead, sweetie!” she’d cheer.

  Mom was an out and proud feminist, and she wanted me to be one too. She’d order children’s books from the Toronto Women’s Bookstore featuring strong female characters. (There were only a handful at the time; my favourite was Molly Whuppie, about a clever girl who fearlessly outwits a giant.) I was fully on board with being a baby feminist. I remember Mom teaching me the word “assertive,” although I didn’t need lessons in how to embody it. Mom recalled how, when I was three years old, she tried to scare me into submission. “I’m counting to three!” she warned. “One…two…three…” Apparently I just stood there, unimpressed. “What are you going to do?” I asked. Mom laughed and gave up after that. “I learned I had to go at things slant with you,” she explained years later. “I couldn’t go head to head. You’d win.”

  When I was eight, I decided to switch schools. I was bored at my neighbourhood elementary school. I was already able to multiply in parts and do long division, so grade two math just wasn’t doing it for me. “I’m sick of counting animals!” I complained. One day I went to check out an alternative school called Cherrywood with Barbara and Alimah, who was considering transferring there. What I saw amazed me. There were no walls, teachers were called by their first names, and students could work at their own grade level. Their system made perfect sense to me. That day I came home having made my decision: “I’ve found a better school and I’m going there,” I declared. Mom was totally supportive. She didn’t want me to feel held back, and besides, she was an alternative school teacher herself.

  On PD days Mom would bring me along to City School, where she taught English and drama. There were posters on the walls with slogans like STOP RACISM and BEING GAY IS NOT A CRIME, BASHING IS. I’d stare wide-eyed at the older students with their rainbow mohawks, lip piercings, and knee-high Doc Martens. Teenagers didn’t look like that in Cedarvale. They fascinated me. And they all loved my mom, their rebellious role model.

  Elaine was an unconventional teacher, even by alternative school standards. She taught a course called “Nature Writing as a Spiritual Path” and got her students to meditate and hug trees. She’d take her writer’s craft class out to cafés to work and encourage them to write freely about whatever was going on in their lives, pushing them to go further than they thought they could go as writers. Mom thought it was important for students to own their education, to be involved, and to have a lot demanded of them. She was incredibly supportive of her students and treated them with more respect than adults usually did. “I wish your mom was my mom,” they’d say to me. I’d roll my eyes, even though deep down I knew how lucky I was.

  To Mom’s credit, whenever Josh or I seriously asked her to change her behaviour, she listened. Unlike her mother, she wanted to be able to hear us. She stopped reading books during my hockey games after I told her I wanted her to watch; she refrained from gossiping about me and Josh to her friends when we asked her not to; and she even started bringing me juice when I got sick. “Mommy brought you orange juice!” she’d sing.

  But the learning curve sometimes seemed like a gentle slope. I didn’t always feel heard. When I was really upset with Mom or Teddy, I had to find creative ways of getting their attention. On one occasion when I was about seven, angry about who knows what, I took a pad of paper and wrote “Fuck” on every single sheet. Then, while Mom and Teddy were out, I went around the house taping up my expletive art—on the walls and furniture, inside drawers and cupboards. There must have been a hundred sheets. I didn’t want to be cruel—I considerately used masking tape so as not to peel paint off the walls—but I did want to get my message across. They’ll see how mad I am, I thought. They’d open the front door and be greeted with “Fuck.” They’d walk into the hallway and see “Fuck.” They’d open the fridge, “Fuck” again.

  I didn’t get the response I was imagining when they came home. I sat at the top of the stairs and watched as they stopped in their tracks, gazed around with wide eyes, and burst out laughing. “Get the camera!” Mom shouted to Teddy. I came downstairs and joined in the laughter, and then Teddy took pictures of me around the house cheekily posing next to my “Fucks.” Neither of them inquired into why I was upset, but I was satisfied to at least get their attention. Like goys finding Easter eggs well into May, they continued to discover my four-letter treasures for weeks. “I found a ‘Fuck’!” Mom yelled out as she opened the china cabinet to get the Shabbat candles.

  * * *

  —

  MY PARENTS WEREN’T religious, but we still lit candles on Friday night and kept kosher in the house. That’s how Teddy had grown up, and he hadn’t thought to alter things (he was also a vegetarian, so it’s not as if he had to sacrifice much). I resented not being allowed to have Lucky Charms—the marshmallows were considered treif. When Mom and Teddy actually did make rules, they seemed so arbitrary. I can eat all the sugary cereals I want except the one that’s magically delicious?

  By the same lazy logic, Josh and I were sent to Hebrew school every Sunday: apparently it was “what Jewish kids do.” I hated it. The idea of God was preposterous to me, the stories were way too far-fetched, and I definitely wasn’t into all the male pronouns. Mom would bribe us with a bacon-fuelled pit stop at McDonald’s on the way (she wasn’t one to care for Commandments of any kind).

  Mom went along with Teddy’s kosher thing at home. But when we were out of the house, it was a different story. She’d sometimes buy delicate slices of prosciutto before picking me up from one of my extracurriculars, and on the way home we’d park the car and dangle the mouth-watering strips of meat into our mouths, laughing like criminals.

  Josh got to quit Hebrew school as soon as he had his Bar Mitzvah. In an effort to get my parents to allow me to quit too, I emerged from my bedroom one Sunday morning having taped crucifixes all over my clothes (I was crafty with the masking tape).

  I walked up to Mom and said, “If you don’t let me quit, I’ll marry a Christian!”

  “So what?” she said, unfazed.

  “Okay, well then I’ll marry a Nazi!” I shouted.

  Mom burst out laughing. I’d won her over!

  They eventually acquiesced, but not with
out warning me that I wouldn’t be allowed to have a Bat Mitzvah. That was more than fine by me. I wasn’t interested in selling out for some gold bling with my initials on it. And I certainly wasn’t interested in becoming a woman.

  Growing up, I spent the most time with Teddy. We liked the same things: Blue Jays and Maple Leafs games, mini golf, bowling, batting cages, catch in the park. He’d drive me to my hockey, soccer, and baseball games. There was no doubt I was his spawn, but I don’t ever remember calling him “Dad.” (If I had to take a wild guess, maybe it had something to do with my contempt for authority?) I was aware of his public stature—people literally called him “Your Honour”—and I was proud of him, but I mainly saw him as my playmate. Teddy may have passed as a distinguished authoritarian in society, but with me he was just a big kid. When he took me on a whirlwind tour of Florida’s amusement parks, I had a hard time keeping up with him. “One more time,” he begged as we completed our ninth lap around Space Mountain. “We can make it to ten!”

  Mom, on the other hand, exposed me to more sophisticated culture: art galleries, museums, libraries, and culinary adventures. After our visits to the Art Gallery of Ontario, she’d always take me to Wah Sing on Baldwin Street for the best Chinese lobster in the city.

  Mom didn’t care much for kids’ stuff, so on the rare occasion when we’d go to the movies, she’d pick the film. This often involved a battle at the ticket counter—but not with me. Like the time Mom had her heart set on seeing Mo’ Better Blues, starring Denzel Washington as a jazz trumpeter juggling two women. I was ten. I braced myself as we approached the booth. Here we go again.

  As expected, the teenage box-office attendant informed her that the film was Restricted.

  “I’m her mother! She can handle it!” Mom declared, as if she were insulted he’d even think about refusing her child entry. He tried to reason with her. “But ma’am, there’s sex and violence in it.”