Coolcoolcool, so while I was sitting here waiting to decide if my symptoms (shortness of breath, hyper-vigilant edges with gooey fatigued interior, sweaty feverishness) indicate

a) Coronavirus or
2) hypochondria or
C) impeding panic attack,

I remembered I forgot to tell you a tiny tidbit of embarrassment. THIS WILL NOT STAND. Not when the rest of my life has evolved to such a nirvana-like state of mid-40’s IDGAF.

I spent an overnight at my mother’s a weekend or so ago (what is time, amirite?), due to my child’s away-game sporting event, held near my mother’s house. It marked my first visit to her house since my dad died, and the first time in some number of years since I’d slept there. I will skip details, the most interesting of which was how the house suddenly seemed HUGE.

And not, “Whoa, what a haunting perspective of smol lonely widow in McMansion of memories,”

but in a very childlike/Alice in Wonderland way of, “The door is too tall! The ceilings so high I can barely make them out beyond the clouds! My adult body takes up a third of the space I remember taking up last visit. Am I a hobbit now, because I must now jump up to crawl into this bed at night.”

Which? I get on a Psych101 level I guess: Literally so reverting to childhood it gives me reverse vertigo in which I see the world again through the eyes of a six-year-old. Except my parents didn’t live in this house until I was in my 30’s, so suck it, therapists.

Later, tucked into a huge and suddenly tall bed that my mom claimed had always been in the guest room
(but I feel sure the current king-size could never have been mistaken for what had once been clearly a queen,)
I thought about how my dad died in this house, and would he haunt this place?

Then I wondered if the mystery with the too-huge guest bed was that it in fact was the king bed my dad had died in, and my mother had moved it to this room because it was haunted but also she couldn’t get rid of it, and so was then forced to lie to me about it because she didn’t want me to worry about sleeping in the bed my dad died in.

Then I laughed at my own ridiculousness, because why would my mom do something so messed up? Anyway, even if my mother was up to extreme weirdness, I had nothing to fear, ghost wise. My dad did not buy into that woo-woo nonsense. If anything, he’d be the kind of unemotionally detached ghost who would get hella bored in like five minutes and leave.

#

Anyway, for all you The Exes Fans out there, my mother threw this double-whammy my way, the very first conversation out of the gate as soon as I walked in the door: Maybe one of The Exes is dead?

!!!

She didn’t come right out and say this, of course, which is the story. Mom took great pains to mention (in our very first conversation, with her now typical pressured speech) that she is now often speaking to my dad’s cousin’s wife, with whom my mother has not spoken in 30+ years. For the sake of convenience, we will call this Dad’s-cousin’s-wife/widow Mrs. Bixby.

I knew of the existence of Mrs. Bixby and her husband, but never met them because she and her husband had a falling out with The Exes and severed ties like… thirty years ago.

And I guess this is one of those cases where you can know something and not KNOW IT-know it. In this case, me knowing the family history that this happened, and never once questioning how it was OK for The Exes to sever ties with blood family (and my mom apparently also severing times out of loyalty to The Exes, since she didn’t talk to Mrs. Bixby all those years either) even as my mom continues to be butt hurt to this day that I severed ties with The Exes and white knuckles her motto of Family Being Family No Matter What whenever it comes up.

All this backstory merely to set the scene for this conversation my mom has with me the moment I sit down on her couch, which is: Mrs. Bixby is spending loads of time with one of The Exes, apparently they have set aside their grudge, and as such, my mother has also been texting tons with The Ex and Mrs. Bixby, who is also recently widowed! They are a team of Widowed Women!

My mother goes on to say Mrs. Bixby had an answer to this symptom my mother has had since my dad got sick: high pressured speech where I can literally say nothing for twenty minutes while she barfs words on me. It’s been a problem.

Since Dad died, I’ve been hard-core nudging Mom to see a therapist about the high pressured speech, because that’s a LOT of words, and she complains that people don’t talk to her anymore, but HEY, they’re probably not talking because they can’t get a word in edgewise.

Anyway, Mom tells me Mrs. Bixby knows EXACTLY what Mom has. It’s called Widowmania. And it’s a thing widows do, and it just happens with or without intervention until it doesn’t happen anymore, so. JUSTDEALWITHMYTALKING ItsANormalFunctionOfWidowhoodWhereAreYouGoingComeBACKHERE.

Whatever, right? Glad Mom has a posse of buddies and they can all help/support each other.

Except my mom keeps pointedly coming back to how They’re All Widows, and that’s why the three of them have been spending so much time talking, and why Mrs. Bixby is down with The Ex. And every time my mother says it, she cuts her eye my way.

Finally, I realize my mother is hinting that the other Ex has died.

I don’t say anything, right? No follow up questions. No raised eyebrow. This is the hill I’ll die on: I absolutely will not create an opening in which my mother/sisters think I give a good goddamn about The Exes. So I did what I have been doing since this debacle started; I deadeye any reference to an Ex, ask zero follow up questions, and stare out the window until the speaker takes a hint.

But of course later, as I curled up in my mom’s weirdly large guest bed, I did text my husband, with loads of emoji’s and a liberal sprinkling of WTFs?!?

He pointed out there was no way Middle or Little wouldn’t tell me if The Ex had died. But… maybe they wouldn’t? I have kind of spent the last 5 years telling them I don’t care to know anything about The Exes, thankyouverymuch.

I must confess, I did google The Ex by name to see if there was an obit, even as my husband texted there wasn’t even a published obit for my dad yet, these things take time.

I didn’t find any notices of death, but I did summon The Ex’s LinkedIn from the depths of the internet, which was so sullenly and terribly written, I was torn between confirmation (Wow, what an a-hole through and through!) and wondering if s/he was so low functioning I should reserve some empathy for the fact s/he might have some organic brain damage.

When I saw Middle the next day, she didn’t mention anything related to The Exes or death. This might’ve been because we only spent an hour together, with our mother in attendance the whole time, and Middle might not have wanted to spring the news on me that way.

But as the day wore on, I began to agree with my husband that probably The Ex is still kicking around somewhere, although surely there will be a day not too far away, when they no longer will. But I couldn’t get over how pointedly my mother suggested the death. I spent the next couple of days wondering if she was messing with me – implying something dramatic to see if she could get me to care.

Finally, I decided CHEERS that person is dead to me anyway, so whatever. If they’re really dead, my insides match reality, so whoohoo. Or as much whoohoo as is polite to express in the matter of someone’s death.

And then I guess I repressed it, on account that I never did figure out what my mother was up to.

And then briefly unrepressed it this morning so I could tell you! Enjoy!

 

PS: Mostly unrelated, I saw this today and loved it: