I can find the perfect Indigo Girls song to go with just about any emotion or phase of my life. Today, while driving home from a trip to Atlanta to see all four of my siblings, Emily Saliers crooned, “We’ve lost friends and loved ones much too young. With so much promise and work left undone. When all that guards us is a single center line. And the brutal crossing over when its time. Well, I don’t know where it all begins. And I don’t know where it all will end. We’re better off for all that we let in.” It was if she took the words right out of my mouth if I could speak them so poetically.
The last time the five of us were all together at once was when we loved our mother across that center line nearly four years ago. It happened as it should, her passing before her children, but as the song says, it was much too soon. She once told me when she was sick that she wasn’t afraid of dying, she simply couldn’t bear the thought of leaving us so soon. Neither could we, Mama.
We Mercure kids were somewhat of an anomaly to most of our friends growing up. Someone always in diapers running around, God knows how many pets and wild animal rescue efforts throughout the course of all those years, a short-fused father they feared and yet admired because he did so many cool things, and the most magnanimous and gentle mother on the face of the planet. More than once I would hear from friends, “I don’t know how your mother handles all of you and stays so calm all the time.” (neither do I, especially now that I have children). Controlled chaos was the central theme to our daily life. Our family had its share of skeletons and dysfunction, but the strong undercurrent of fierce love and loyalty was always present.
So when the tsunami of cancer violently and unexpectedly hit our shore and swept us all out to sea, it was more important than ever to cling to each other in the undercurrent. I worried after her death that some of us might drift apart, find new shores and feel the need to reinvent our lives. Mama was our anchor, after all.
Most days it feels like we’re all still drifting, looking for firm ground to stand on. But thankfully it’s a collective shore we seek. Her death has only strengthened our connection as siblings. I think we would all agree that missing her is inversely proportional to how we’ve learned to cope with her loss, our collective bond making that possible.
Being the oldest, I have had the privilege of knowing each of them the longest and therefore having the largest memory bank.
The memory of Adam flying me from Auburn to Augusta to see Amanda in college, terrified that I was riding in a plane with my barely 20-year-old brother without our father present to help fly. I hope he knows now, after we landed safely, how he became a complete badass/genius in my eyes that day instead of just my witty little brother.
The memory of standing by my mother’s side when I was five years old, watching Molly emerge into the world. Or the whirlwind, less than 24-hour trip I drug her on to the Grand Canyon with me, signifying in my mind the day she became my friend rather than a child I wanted to help mother.
The memory of getting in Amanda’s car one winter afternoon, thinking we were about to go for a run together, to instead be the first to know she had become a mother, then nine months later, standing by her side as that child made her grand appearance into our lives.
The memory of watching Hayes on stage and later the silver screen for the first time, being mesmerized that he could so effortlessly transition into an entirely different person, wanting to shout out in the theater, “That’s my baby brother!”
The memory of all of them tenderly caring for our mother in her final days. Their strength and compassion did and will continue to inspire me for all my days.
The memory of Adam flying me from Auburn to Augusta to see Amanda in college, terrified that I was riding in a plane with my barely 20-year-old brother without our father present to help fly. I hope he knows now, after we landed safely, how he became a complete badass/genius in my eyes that day instead of just my witty little brother.
The memory of standing by my mother’s side when I was five years old, watching Molly emerge into the world. Or the whirlwind, less than 24-hour trip I drug her on to the Grand Canyon with me, signifying in my mind the day she became my friend rather than a child I wanted to help mother.
The memory of getting in Amanda’s car one winter afternoon, thinking we were about to go for a run together, to instead be the first to know she had become a mother, then nine months later, standing by her side as that child made her grand appearance into our lives.
The memory of watching Hayes on stage and later the silver screen for the first time, being mesmerized that he could so effortlessly transition into an entirely different person, wanting to shout out in the theater, “That’s my baby brother!”
The memory of all of them tenderly caring for our mother in her final days. Their strength and compassion did and will continue to inspire me for all my days.
So yes, as the song goes, we are better off for all that we let in. The love of my siblings is living proof of that to me each every day.
So beautifully written….
Beautiful! <3