No More Blessings
by KJ Hannah Greenberg

 

 

I wasn’t even forty when we buried her. She had predicted a fairly early passing, but none of us had accepted her prophecy. Yet, we had had to shovel dirt over her body. All of us cried at the cemetery.

 

It had been more than twenty years since I told her to stop laying her hands on my head, to cease blessing me. Adolescence had become my authorization to dismiss her faith and all its accoutrements.

 

I stopped dressing modestly. I ceased accompanying her to communal prayers. I, likewise, contemplated, for a short while, changing my gender identity.

 

Despite those acts, she urged me to come home weekly, to celebrate her milestones with her, and to cook soup from scratch together. I excused myself with my acceptance to a respectable medical school; I didn’t return much.

 

After completing my residency, I rented an apartment in a city near hers. The hospital that hired me had a department in my specialty. After five years there, I was promoted.

 

Meanwhile, my brothers and sisters continued to accept her hands on their heads. Some had clung to our childhood religion. Others had taken my path. Yet, whenever possible, each of them helped her if she stumbled when walking and brought their children to see her. Always, always, always they encouraged her to bless them.

 

During that span, my father was silent. He watched me rebuff his wife’s loving kindness. He witnessed my siblings reflect it back to her. When he shook his head at me, he showed me that he remained oblivious to my hurt.

 

I was and would forever be the family’s baby. I received more bits and bobs and knew so many leniencies beyond the ken of my older siblings. Yet, my toings and froings had been as nothing to her.

 

Mine wasn’t the first tooth, the first weaning, the first day at kindergarten, the first membership in an honor society, the first to place on a dean’s list, or the first to be accepted for a professional degree.

 

Since I didn’t marry first and had yet to have children, I carried on as a household statistic. I was a moon orbiting the planets that had been created before me.

 

Mom said it didn’t matter. She claimed that my smile, especially as it lit up my eyes, was to be cherished, that my manner of organizing the kitchen drawers was to be emulated, that my kindness to the  beggars who frequented our door, was to be admired, and that my knack for telling stories, especially to family members feeling glum, was to be prized.

 

When I was sick, she’d prepare my favorite broth, arrange my pillows just so, and fashion one act plays using my best stuffed animals. When I broke up with significant others, she’d buy tickets for her and me for professional ballgames despite the fact that she detested organized sports.

 

The first time that I pushed her hands away from my head, she teared up but said nothing. The second time, she teared up and then left the room. She didn’t try a third time.

 

I have no idea whether she cried when I went to medical school. When one of my older sisters left home to pursue a law degree, she cried for two weeks. When another sister joined the coast guard, she called that daughter daily. She adored my brothers’ wives yet cried for a week after each family wedding.

 

I paid for piercings. My ears were a jungle of jewelry. As well, when I wasn’t in surgery, my nose sprouted hoops of various sizes. Nonetheless, I never told Mom about the additional puncture I had in my belly button.

 

I wonder if she would have cared if I had dyed my hair in ombre hues of pink as my roommate had done. I wonder if she would have been wowed by the fact that my scrubs featured forest creatures and that my surgical cap was tie dyed. I’m guessing not.

 

Mom wore various bright or muted colors, but never black. Her skirts swished a she hobbled, weeded the garden, or concocted herbal cures. Although she always wore a scarf on her head, I know that her hair varied in length from super short to very long, depending on her whims.

 

Every now and then Dad would scold me, telling me to call her more often and to take an interest in her activities. I’d answer that patient care drained me of the ability to think about. His reply to me was usually months of additional silence.

 

Eventually, my roommate, too, married. My salary increased and my loan payments were going well, so I opted to keep the apartment by myself. Around that time, Dads calls to me focused on urging me to visit. He’d mutter about Mom’s declining health.

 

I’d retort that as semi-retirees, my parents’ schedule made it easier for them to come to me. Sometimes, Dad visited, alone.

 

Mom still insisted that all of us plus my nieces and nephews descend upon her and Dad for holidays. Their apartment was small, but the food continued to be delicious. At such times, she’d bless each of my siblings before they returned home. Me, she’d hug. I think she snuck in unarticulated blessings while she clenched me.

 

None of my medical know-how was of any use when she perished. She died minutes after she experienced sudden loss of all cardiac activity. Her heart, like the rest of her, was worn (that’s not a formal diagnosis.).

 

A few months after she was buried, it was, again, holiday time. Dad laid his hands on my siblings’ heads before they left his home.

 

I was the last to leave. I didn’t want witnesses when I asked Dad to bless me, too.

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