Happy birthday
I was sitting down to write a blog about something delightfully Parisian when the date hit me: July 27.
My mom would have been 64 today.
My mom, Jane Goldman (that's her on the right, during her first trip to Paris with my dad in 1983), died on January 10, 2007 after a nine-year battle with breast cancer. People usually say "battle" for anything to do with cancer, but for my mom, that word quite accurately describes her experience. She was cursed with a particularly virulent form of genetic breast cancer that her aunt had been fighting since her late 50s. When my mom was diagnosed in 1998—three days before my 12th birthday—we had no idea what lay in store: a mastectomy, chemotherapy, radiation, reconstructive surgery, more chemotherapy, brain surgery, another mastectomy, more chemo and radiation, more brain surgery...you get the picture.
For one year, between 1998 and 1999, she was pronounced "in remission"—a frighteningly misleading term that makes it sound like, "You're out of the woods!" when it in fact means, "You can be cautiously optimistic until we find that the forest has grown more trees."
During that brief respite, when my mom's hair had grown back in its lustrous silver shade but much straighter than before—I inherited her (previous) unruly, voluminous curls—we took a family trip to Paris, the first time I'd ever set foot in the city. It was on the eve of the millennium, so the Eiffel Tower was partially obscured by a giant countdown clock and festooned with twinkling lights that still dance a dazzling show on the hour to this day.
I had been studying French in school, so I couldn't wait to finally test my language skills in the wild, as it were. I think my parents were more excited to take the opportunity to celebrate my mom's potential recovery that (realistically) might never come again. They were right.
When I moved to Paris the first time at the age of 24—four years after my mom had died, just a few months prior to my 21st birthday and subsequent graduation from college—I realized how much my impressions of the city had been informed by that first trip. In revisiting monuments and museums with Joshua (my then-boyfriend, now-husband), I couldn't help thinking how much I wanted to call my mom and reminisce about the times we'd seen those places together for the first time. I also missed my shopping buddy—my mom never met a store (or sale) she didn't like, a trait that I've proudly inherited.
Now that I'm living here a second time, four years on, I'm still discovering parts of the city that I hadn't yet explored at age 13, or even 24. I'd love to be able to call my mom and rave about these new experiences and discoveries—I even catch myself eagerly awaiting her overseas visit so we can hit the shops and walk and talk. But most of all, I wish I could see her smile as we traipse down the city streets—like in all those pictures from 1999, when she thought maybe, just maybe, she was out of the woods. I can picture her grinning from ear to ear below the Eiffel Tower or smooching at the camera in front of the lip-shaped fountain at the Centre George Pompidou (that's Josh and me, above, at that same fountain in 2010).
But even as I write this, missing her on her birthday, I know that she's somewhere—still smiling.
#
My mom would have been 64 today.My mom, Jane Goldman (that's her on the right, during her first trip to Paris with my dad in 1983), died on January 10, 2007 after a nine-year battle with breast cancer. People usually say "battle" for anything to do with cancer, but for my mom, that word quite accurately describes her experience. She was cursed with a particularly virulent form of genetic breast cancer that her aunt had been fighting since her late 50s. When my mom was diagnosed in 1998—three days before my 12th birthday—we had no idea what lay in store: a mastectomy, chemotherapy, radiation, reconstructive surgery, more chemotherapy, brain surgery, another mastectomy, more chemo and radiation, more brain surgery...you get the picture.
For one year, between 1998 and 1999, she was pronounced "in remission"—a frighteningly misleading term that makes it sound like, "You're out of the woods!" when it in fact means, "You can be cautiously optimistic until we find that the forest has grown more trees."
During that brief respite, when my mom's hair had grown back in its lustrous silver shade but much straighter than before—I inherited her (previous) unruly, voluminous curls—we took a family trip to Paris, the first time I'd ever set foot in the city. It was on the eve of the millennium, so the Eiffel Tower was partially obscured by a giant countdown clock and festooned with twinkling lights that still dance a dazzling show on the hour to this day.
I had been studying French in school, so I couldn't wait to finally test my language skills in the wild, as it were. I think my parents were more excited to take the opportunity to celebrate my mom's potential recovery that (realistically) might never come again. They were right.
When I moved to Paris the first time at the age of 24—four years after my mom had died, just a few months prior to my 21st birthday and subsequent graduation from college—I realized how much my impressions of the city had been informed by that first trip. In revisiting monuments and museums with Joshua (my then-boyfriend, now-husband), I couldn't help thinking how much I wanted to call my mom and reminisce about the times we'd seen those places together for the first time. I also missed my shopping buddy—my mom never met a store (or sale) she didn't like, a trait that I've proudly inherited.
Now that I'm living here a second time, four years on, I'm still discovering parts of the city that I hadn't yet explored at age 13, or even 24. I'd love to be able to call my mom and rave about these new experiences and discoveries—I even catch myself eagerly awaiting her overseas visit so we can hit the shops and walk and talk. But most of all, I wish I could see her smile as we traipse down the city streets—like in all those pictures from 1999, when she thought maybe, just maybe, she was out of the woods. I can picture her grinning from ear to ear below the Eiffel Tower or smooching at the camera in front of the lip-shaped fountain at the Centre George Pompidou (that's Josh and me, above, at that same fountain in 2010).But even as I write this, missing her on her birthday, I know that she's somewhere—still smiling.
I've heard people say the ones we love never leave us, but it really is true. We take the memories they give us and build upon them.
ReplyDeleteLove you, Jess.