An ongoing series about uprooting our lives in America and moving to France. For what's happened before, see previous Jours of Our Lives entries here.
I CALLED MY older daughter, Blair, and gave her the terrible news. I couldn’t reach her sister, Bret. Then I phoned a couple of old and good friends who’d known Mother well, and with whom I could voice my disbelief, horror, and pain.
We spent the rest of the morning trying to get a flight home on Delta Airlines. We already had return tickets for May (which we actually hadn’t planned to use). Now they were our way home for my mother’s funeral. Marseille was the closest airport, so we would drive there, leave the car, and fly to Paris. But we couldn’t get there in time to get out of Paris that day, so we would spend the night at our wonderful Hotel Saint Germain (the staff there immediately offered help) and leave Paris the next. The staff of the Hotel de Cacheral outside of Stes-Maries-de-la-Mer also were great. They immediately said we could leave all of our things there, and helped us move them to the owner’s house in a guest room, so they would be safe until we returned to claim them.
The house that Bobbye and Bill built at 1775 Maple Street
It is a fine and well-thought-out house that my mother filled with tasteful antiques that she searched the countryside for, and that she infused with savory and sweet smells from the delicious meals she cooked every day. The food was all homemade. No cookies were bought in packages at the store. Ours were baked in her oven along with her pies. Her strawberry preserves and blackberry jams were perfectly jelled. She made me some of my prettiest dresses until I became too much of a know-it-all. She washed and curled my long hair so I looked the proper and well-kept little girl. We picnicked and played croquet and badminton in our yard, drove to the lake every weekend to swim, ski, and play.
My parents let us be wild and free—which was quite a gift for us, though not for the other people at the restaurants, whom we terrorized, and the people whose yards we ran through while we played. Mother drove us to glaciers in Colorado and villages in old Mexico. She taught me the courage and fearlessness that I’m not sure she knew she had. She became a widow at age 41 with three teenagers to raise and didn’t run away. She potty-trained my children. What else can I say? She was the President of her Scotch-Irish clan, Clan McAlister, and was proud of her name. She was a smart businesswoman who managed her money and investments well, and what we heard over and over again in Batesville was that she helped people constantly and didn’t expect acclaim.
Bobbye Ann lived at 1775 Maple for 42 years. That house lives and breathes her. And it’s empty without her, even with all of us there.
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I slept very little for days. There was too much awful business to do, decisions to make, and I wanted this memorial for my mother to be personal and dear, a celebration of her life. But I was wrung out. My body clock was whacked, and my brain wouldn’t work. I didn’t recognize people I’d known my whole life.
We were excited to see our pets, Snapp and Cleo, but they had mixed reactions to us. Before this, whenever we went away on a trip, feline Cleo usually acted mad when we returned. This time she couldn’t have been friendlier. Snapp the dog, who was usually beside himself when we came home, gave us a little snub which, of course, hurt our feelings. We may have left, but we hadn’t abandoned him. Had we? In truth, I think all the children, whether human or animal, felt alike. We hadn’t given them up, but we’d left all the same.
Mother’s funeral was grand with the McAlister tartan up on display, flowers cascading everywhere, and the church I’d grown up in filled with friends and family. It felt intime as I stood up to deliver the eulogy I so wanted to give to honor my mother publicly.
I think the desire to please your parents never goes away, and it wasn’t always easy to please Bobbye. She’d devoted herself to us when we were young children and dealt as best she could with the young widowhood she was forced into when my father suddenly died. But it was tough, and she didn’t get support from people who should have supported her. Difficult years followed. When my younger brother Brent died, this was another terrible loss for us. Mother could’ve become bitter, but she grew and mellowed, and she and I forged a different relationship. She appreciated my caring heart, work, and hardships with my own children. She expanded and evolved to support gay rights and causes, when it had once been problematical for her to accept that her son was gay and died of AIDS. Her liberal Democratic political views were an area we always bonded in, and as I’d matured and she’d gotten older, we’d each seen the other more clearly and forgiven old hurts from the past. She’d been sad for Jim and me to leave for Europe. She’d valued our not being far away. Did she feel abandoned as well? I hate it that my mother was sad and lonely, though I believe this is partially a function of age or, at the other end of the spectrum, can happen any time throughout life. I suspect she felt this way more often than I would like to admit or think about.
We were in Arkansas for almost two weeks, and then it was time to return to chasing Matisse. I still felt exhausted and was on the verge of freaking out. I had to leave much undone at my beloved mother’s, and the thought of dismantling her house was almost more than I could bear. In fact, the two homes I once had and adored would be gone in less than a year. This is major psychological trauma to deal with—on top of the fact that My Mother Is Dead and never got to come and enjoy the nice life we have here (even though I believe she is bathed in the light of God, surrounded by joy, peace, and her loved ones).
Friend Patti drove us to the airport in her newly-restored 1964 1⁄2 Mustang convertible. Otherwise, I would’ve wept and wept. But the wind blowing through my hair in that cool car was a tonic. It was difficult to leave and hard to stay in Arkansas. France reclaimed me.
Life goes on. The world evolves, and so do we with love and laughter and new beginnings. But life also stops. It will never be the same again, and this hits me at the oddest moments. At such times, I feel the loss of Mother empty in me. It can never be refilled. I am sorrow. I am like my children and pets: My mother did not abandon me, but I am abandoned as well.
Beth Arnold
Arkansas
April, 2003
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Unless otherwise indicated, photos by Beth Arnold. Not subject to use without permission.
Beth Arnold lives and writes in Paris, where she produces her "Letter From Paris" new media project.
You can find the Chasing Matisse book by James Morgan here at Amazon--or you can find it in or order it from your favorite book store.
Jours of Our Lives illlustration by artist (and couturier) Elizabeth Cannon. To find out more about her, click here.
If you'd like to start at the beginning of Jour of Our Lives, click here.
