The last time I saw my mother, she walked me to the door to say goodbye. Then, before closing it again, she waited until I disappeared down the funnel of the stairwell. My mother was never one for parting phrases, mainly because she was overwhelmed by a form of timidity that verged on self-erasure. Which, in practice, made any kind of performance impossible for her: considering herself such a marginal figure, she couldn’t take center stage, even briefly. For that same reason, I believe, she didn’t think she had the right to proclaim the beginning or end of anything. Whenever I visited them, she would be standing behind my father both when the door first opened and later, when it closed and swallowed them inside.Article continues after advertisement
Yet on that day it was she who said goodbye to me last, alone on her side of the threshold, at the top of the stairs. It was more than a farewell: she somehow followed me. With the perspective of the intervening years, I’m inclined to say she was unable to let me go. In any case, as I made my retreat, covering each step with a smoke screen of words, she advanced at a similar pace. Seen through the lens of writing, the scene resembles a dance: a man takes a step back and a woman a matching step forward, the son takes another step, the mother another, until the exit is gained.
