The Assemblagist

Born April 13, 1917
Died April 30, 2009

Momma slipped qui­etly away yes­ter­day morn­ing. I don’t have much expe­ri­ence writ­ing obit­u­ar­ies. My Daddy was Robert Jacob Heinold. My sis­ter was Ann Eliz­a­beth Heinold Cut­ler, my brother was John David Heinold. That’s my dad, the guy with the bow tie, in the large open­ing page photo. He died 20 years ago, he was 72. He made Mom smile all the time — so his pic­ture is there, instead of Mom’s. It seems appro­pri­ate. My par­ents adored each other. My brother com­mit­ted sui­cide. My sis­ter died a few weeks ago.

And then there’s me. Still here.

Self­ishly, I find myself want­ing to sleep today. No night­mar­ish visions of death dance around in my head. Instead, there’s Momma, look­ing at me with a smile cov­er­ing her whole face as I said, “I’m not leav­ing, it’s okay. I’ll stay right here.”

Mom in 1968

She tried to focus on my face and after a few sec­onds said, “It’s a good day.” Then the nurse gave her some mor­phine and she slipped back to the foggy haze of a world where her bro­ken body could not dis­tin­guish or rec­og­nize its pain.

“foooooossshhh,” she whis­pered, “fooooooosssssh”

“Fool­ish?” My heart cracked into a thou­sand pieces and spilled out of my eyes.

She waved her left hand in the air, a com­mon ges­ture I’ve watched her do all my life. She always speaks with her hands. Her skin, fine as a spider’s web, was cov­ered with pur­ple, black and green bruises from arte­r­ial sticks and blood work and IVs. I stroked her fore­head and placed a cold cloth just above her eyes.

“Oh honey, oh Momma… now you’ve smashed your hip and bro­ken some ribs. Oh, Mom… last time you broke your elbow. Now this… this…” my eyes swept over a minia­ture ver­sion of my Mother, skin and bones, her chest heav­ing with effort and she shut­tered as she took each breath.

“I’ll get through this,” she said. Her voice got stronger. “We’ll be all right.” Then she nod­ded ever so slightly.

Daddy at his retire­ment party in early 1980s

“Were you try­ing to get to me?” I asked. “Prob­a­bly” she whis­pered. I told her, “That’s not fool­ish then. That’s just you… you’re too impa­tient. I told you I was com­ing.” She smiled and fell back into her trance.

I wish ya’ll could have known my Mom. She never ceased to amaze me. Or leave my side.

c