Judgement, Hat of

Those of you that know me, know that my mom died recently, in a vaguely long and drawn out fashion. (This is obviously not the "Joy for Monday" post...bear with me. I suspect it will get funnier, maybe not though. Continue at your own risk. There are some very funny monkeys below if you prefer that.) If you know me, you also know that I did not have a spectacular, or even an averagely bad relationship with my mom.

My mother was a kind woman, her intentions were the best, her mind was open, and she loved me immensely in her fashion, which in many books makes me a lucky lucky girl. That said - she was a disastrous parent in most ways. The best example I can give for the purposes of this post is that I, in my entire life, have never had a conversation with my mother that wasn't about her. How can that be? you might ask. Case in point: when I turned thirty, and was legitimately having some trouble with it, I had gone on one of my rare trips home and mentioned my struggle to my mother. I am not a confider in my parents (for good reason - but I may explain that at another time), mentioning this was a BIG DEAL. Her response was...

"Well, you know every time YOU turn a year older, I turn a year older too."

This exact type of reaction is merely one of the reasons that I, after years of using many tactics to come up with some sort of daughterly relationship with her - opted out. Her response to my (basically subconscious) decision was to use all of the family holiday letters to mention how uncommunicative I was, passive-aggressively call me out for being terrible at rare family functions, and end many conversations and social outings with "I don't understand why you are so MEAN to me." Now - you may think that yes, my treatment of her does sound mean, but in defense of myself, I will share that I had done legitimately everything within my young power to have a tolerable relationship here. It was just not in the cards, and with a woman as intense as my mom was, you have to draw the line somewhere.

However - due to my mother's kindness and generosity, she was loved and trusted by many. Her friends, save for one - to whom I owe a lifelong debt of gratitude - all knew nothing of me but what she told them. Her best day-to-day friend, also her housekeeper, who I will call Julie, heard the most of how mean and ungrateful "How sharper than a serpent's tooth...blah blah blah..." I was.

Which brings me to the events of the hour.

I got the call, from the lifelong-debt-of-gratitude friend , that my mother was really dying for real. I flew to my parent's home immediately and went straight to the hospital. My mother was in ICU, sedated, unaware, tubed up, the whole nine yards of all of the stuff. The first time I went home I was there for a week. We (my parent's friends, me , my father and the brotherman) taking care of each other. I was pretty much, as you would expect, rocked out of my world. I am, however, a professional planner and all of those skills (skillz?) served me well while I navigated all of the stuff that has to happen in a situation like this, while I was also attempting to keep everything in my "everything-is-time-sensitive" job afloat.

So - here I am at my "we-have-a-terrible-relationship-why-are-you-so-mean-to-me " mother's deathbed, with all of the relatives giving me the "nice-of-you-to-show-up" eye. This was not, what we commonly refer to as "fun." We go into the terrible horrible meeting of the Council, where my father, very bravely, stepped up and told the doctors that my mother, his wife of 35 years, should be "do-not-resuscitate." This was an emotional moment, to say the least. We all file out into the waiting room, me at the end of the line of council folk. When I get there, Julie the housekeeper is crying. Hasn't hit weeping yet, but she obviously needs some comfort. I, tenuously, still seem to have my shit together, so I go over to comfort her. I put my arm around her and grab her hand. I tell her how important she was to my mother and how much my mom loved her. She looks up with her big watery eyes, sniffling, and says to me....

"You know, Heather, I hated you for so many years because of how terribly you treated your mom."

I believe she followed up with something about how I wasn't the evil spawn of Satan destined to burn in hell while bound to a rock with my eyes plucked out by vicious tropical birds and was actually quite impressive, but I have no idea, because my soul had frozen in that moment. I excused myself to make a phone call, got up and slowly walked out of the waiting room, and then barrelled down the hall, blind and hyperventilating. My younger brother (thanks Brotherman) took one look at me, physically grabbed me with what I assume was basically all of his strength, and held me while I totally and utterly lost it, in the privacy of some random corner of the hospital.

So - Mom didn't die that week. And I flew home. And then flew back and forth. And waited. And flew back and forth. She died a few weeks later. And we planned the memorial.

At which point it was deemed important by Julie that my mother's "Red-Hat-Lady"* hat appear at her memorial service. This fact was communicated to me by the Brotherman. To which I responded "Well- then I hope Julie brings her big Hat of Judgement." Beat...beat...and then the Brotherman and I both bust out laughing uncontrollably...

I have since let go of my rage about this particular moment, Julie knew what she knew, and said what she said and has taken very good care of both of my parents. If that's the arrow I have to take to have the life I have and love, then so be it. But.... the Hat of Judgement! What a life it has!

The mighty "Hat of Judgement" has taken on a life of its own. Having shared this story with a few friends in Chicago, the Hat of Judgement is getting around. There is a man with whom I am acquainted that heard this story before he met me. Upon our first meeting, before hands were shaken or greetings exchanged, we physically tipped our hats of judgement at each other. We now speak of Flipflops of Despair, Boots of Shame, and my personal favorite runner up to the hat, the Cloak of Loathing.

So - the next time you are in a meeting, or onsite, or out in public, and someone is particularly evil to you or simply too dumb to exist in your personal space (yeah- pretend you are all above that - but you know EXACTLY what I'm talking about,) I say - tip your hat of judgement.

"I tip my hat to you sir."

Professional, polite, and will make you feel better on the inside.

*Hats! The Red Hat Society Musical at the Royal George Theatre, 1641 North Halsted Street, Chicago, IL