“She is a society of one.”
When I read that sentence last August, I went cold.
My mother wrote those words in her diary many years ago, just heartbeats after my father’s death. Then she rewrote it a second time on a different page, years later. She wrote pages and pages in painful third person, writing a total of 10 years as “she.”
As I read each page, her third-person thoughts continued to knock the summer wind out of me, like successive sucker punches to my gut. By the end of her journal, my soul was winter.
But when did I really turn into Ann Coulter — a hardened humanoid, a snarky, self-indulgent woman missing the care gene, that female sixth sense that “feels” unconscious pain on someone’s skin, that gift to sniff out and nurture a wounded soul even finding one in a crowded fish market at night.
As big as my soul-defrosting dilemma is, my real moral quandary is figuring out how much of me was already in deep freeze before I read my mother’s words, before I consciously went cold.
For years, I’ve rattled around life, bragging to Mom: “I got a promotion!” or “I won an award!” or “I made it through grad school!” It’s like I’m still bringing her found treasures from the beach or woods, just to hear her words of praise. But my look-at-me model of communication has been one-way and selfish. Because of it, I’ve missed the pain on her skin. I’ve missed the smell of her soul’s open wound.
In my attempt to heal my frostbite, I say her six words over and over again. Like marbles in my mouth, I roll them around as I mindlessly run errands around Loveland, as I hike a morning trail, ignoring the brilliant Colorado sky. I see only the icy pain of her society-of-one flame; it hypnotizes me to stick my heart into the fire one more time, just to see if it still hurts. My moral compass charms me by softly whispering, “Do it again, just to be sure.”
I do know one thing for sure. Before Mom was a society of one, and I became a society of two with my husband, my family was a society of six. Every time there was a sibling scuffle or a move to a new town, Mom would say, “Cassidys stick together.”
That message is forever embedded in my moral circuitry, just like being an Irish-American and a die-hard Democrat. Cassidys weren’t wimps. We were raised on Kennedys for breakfast, not Fruit Loops.
The tough Cassidys stuck together. That was the law.
Right beside that law carved in my family’s collective consciousness are the progressive values of empathy, courage and responsibility for self, for others and the world; I learned these before I could talk. Like my chestnut hair and the freckles on my face, I proudly owned my progressive obligations; they were bleached into my brain, by Mom.
So when I saw Ann Coulter in my moral mirror, my very existence reflected back at me. Before complete moral collapse, I ran to a real mirror to make sure my Clairol Nice-And- Easy Medium Brown color hadn’t turned all L’Oreal Preference Superior Blonde Platinum.
Chilly nights now turn leaves to brown and orange. Fall has taken hold of Colorado. Carved pumpkins dot porches throughout Loveland, sporting hacked smiles, awaiting the trick-or-treaters. As I begin to carve my own pumpkin, I think again about the Cassidy moral code. Tears drip down on the squash below.
I finally get it. My Oprah light-bulb moment relaxes my skin. Mom is one. But she is one in a larger family. She is a Cassidy, still number one, but Mom also belongs to that greater family of Americans who are courageous enough to care for others, who graciously and humbly put others first. And I need to re-join that family.
I put my knife down and leave my pumpkin whole. I pick up the phone to call Mom. And suddenly, my heart goes warm.
Bridget Cassidy of Loveland (bridgetcassidy2009@gmail.com) works as a grant writer for Grow LLC in Denver.
