Habit (15 page)

So we've got something from just about every one of Ma's different phases. We drew the line at the abstracts she tried in the late 1960s to early 1970s: paintings of stripes done in masking tape, caged in primary colors. Ma has recently realized that her cages were a subliminal way of expressing how she felt back then: trapped. She would be the first to agree the stuff was not worth keeping, but I think she should get credit for experimenting.

Looking at the portraits, it really is fascinating how someone can be such a nuisance and also have this superb gift for expressing the soul without words. Maybe it's because they're of our children, but those three portraits can bring me to tears. Ma identifies with Mary Cassatt, who often painted her own family. She believes portraits are most effective when the subjects are linked to the artist by blood. She's also figured out that all the faces she worked on over the years were actually getting her ready for her great passion: Byzantine icons.

Since Ma began to make icons, it's been hard to get her to paint anything else. (Icons are
made
, not painted. The artist never signs an icon. It's something about humility. Ma flatly refuses to sell them to non-Orthodox people. It would be blasphemy or something.) Icons are always of the saints, the angels, and the holy family. She says the whole point is to help the viewer to feel close to those unseen heavenly beings, like having a comforting photograph of a loved one that is far away. Here's a
Mother and Child
she gave me:

What I found intriguing when she started is that there's a whole series of prayers and meditations to do during each of the stages of making an icon. It's very hard to get it right, and therefore most people, Ma included, can't just paint alone at home. They have to go to a master iconographer for workshops, which are seven-day exhausting marathons. At first, if she didn't get the prayers right, Ma found that the layers of clay, gesso, egg tempera, etc. wouldn't set: The gold leaf would peel off the board or something, even if her materials were perfectly prepared. Maybe there's some more concrete explanation, but it sure is interesting if it's the kind of spiritual phenomenon she implies. There's something so profound about the eyes in Ma's icons. I don't dare tell her that or she'll assume I'm ripe for conversion.

As with many things, Ma doesn't really know when enough is enough. Icons must be shared with the Whole World, and she has decided that this colossal task is completely up to her. For about fifteen years, she has been determined to make a video about icons that will once and for all convert everyone on this earth and save our souls, amen. (I have a sneaking feeling that besides the trip to Greece, the world's need for this video is what is motivating her to go through with the cancer treatment instead of just moving into Father Nicholas's attic to let nature take its course. I'll take it, if that's what it is. Far be it from me to quibble about what Ma wants to live for.)

So, of course, in Ma's study there are a lot of compartments just for icon stuff: file after file of bizarre unpronounceable Russian and Greek names (
Deesis. Hesychia. Kazanskaya. Vladislav Andrejev
). I'll bet Ma hasn't even a clue what's in there.

I skip the icon cabinet and try one last drawer that looks promising. There's a file for each of us children, one for Daddy, and an intriguing section devoted exclusively to MANNERS, which contains some of the lists of dos and don'ts she has inflicted on me and the kids when she's feeling a particular urge to boss us around:
Do not brush your hair at the table. Do not put your knife in your mouth.
But I see no sign of a file for BIRTH CERTIFICATES or anything remotely like it, and while the SOCIAL SECURITY file gets my hopes up for a second, there is actually nothing in it at all.

So the options for identification are as follows:

Driver's License:
Confiscated.

Passport:
Expired.

Birth Certificate:
Misplaced.

Social Security card?
Nope.

Medicare card?!?
Sorry.

—Ma, you don't seem to exist.

—I don't seem to
what
?

—
Exist
. We have no proof of your existence.

—
Really
, Susie. You're being very negative.

Okay, here's the bright side: Without that passport, she won't be skipping off to Greece for a while.

I
T'S TONSURE TIME.

I'm peering down Ma's hall, past her gallery dominated by all the inscrutable patrician ancestors, watching her closed confessional bedroom door.

I wait.

Suddenly, the door opens and out bursts Ma with the Bishop. She's smiling.

The Bishop is based in Carlisle, but he travels constantly to perform jobs like this. I've actually been curious to get a look at him because I've heard he cuts a dashing figure. He's a lot younger than I expected, thirty-five at the most: tall and lean and very serious. His long beard is black, and he has a thin, equally black braid hanging down his back that reaches all the way past his waist. On the table by the icons and beeswax votive candles, he places a black hat that has some folded pieces of paper in it.

—Those are all the names, says Ma.

She and the Bishop have agreed on an assortment of saints' names that might be appropriate for Ma's new nun title. At the end of the ceremony (and I am not making this up), he's going to pick a name out of this hat, because apparently it's up to the Holy Spirit to decide.

There are also some scissors on the table. The tonsure ceremony is basically a haircut. You abandon your everyday life and are reborn to one of prayer and service. At the climax of the ceremony, the Bishop will cut off a lock or two of Ma's hair—something about symbolically shearing away all her worldly passions. From then on, she'll eschew haircuts for good, just like Father Basil and the rest of the clergy.

Oh my gosh, hair scissors. Names out of a hat. Why aren't my siblings here.
National Geographic
should cover this. Where is my camera?

My mother's friend Photini says it's okay to take pictures, and it feels a little awkward, but that's what I definitely have to do. The Bishop, the priest, and the mousy guy in blue jeans Photini introduced me to earlier do all the standard chanting and walking around Ma's living room with the crucifix I'd seen at Happy Hide-Away. Photini helps with the responses. No attempt is made to get the rest of us to participate. It's not clear why this is but I'm hoping Ma's friends Ellie, Olivia, and Babbie are as okay with their infidel status as I am, and can just appreciate what I am beginning to realize is something singularly momentous under way, right under our noses.

I take pictures. The chosen ones chant and chant. Ma seems so small and fragile in her loose cotton nightshirt, and so humble and totally sincere that she catches me off-guard, and by the time they get to the hair business, I'm beginning to blubber all over my camera. It doesn't matter how big the chip on my shoulder is about the succession of dogmas she's tried to force on me. It's almost irrelevant because
this
is; I don't know what
this
is, but it sure is
something
.

It's like the spectacle of David beginning his vows at our wedding twenty-five years ago. Determined, intent, face drenched in sweat and tears, David was so focused and serious and overcome that I began to giggle inappropriately. This spread from me to Ma and back again, gaining momentum. We pretty much howled raucously through the rest of the service. People who were there still ask what the joke was. Watching Ma now, I have an image of David's wedding face, and all my years of loving Ma while she was driving me out of my mind, and all the times I've been unutterably furious at her, and the love she's capable of, and I can barely keep the camera steady.

Photini holds a white linen cloth to catch Ma's hair when it's cut. They hang a black square thing covered in red embroidery around Ma's neck. A larger black cloth is draped over her head. She is given a long, thin candle to hold and a hand-carved crucifix, and I'm almost hyperventilating. Maybe it's the hormones, but it is so overwhelming to see this woman who has been in many ways such a problem for me, decisively leaving herself and all her faults, and being literally reborn. Who knows if she'll succeed, but that's almost beside the point. In this suspended moment, she's not my mother. The big, imposing, Bergdorf-clad fork-wielding creature I've been shielding myself from has morphed into someone opposite; gentle, peaceful, ego-less. She's so old. She's come such a long way. I am moved beyond words.

Oh my gosh, maybe she's really done it: Ma's actually found The Real Answer To Everything.

Ma's favorite prayer, the Jesus Prayer, is also called the Prayer of the Heart. The version J. D. Salinger gives us in
Franny and Zooey
is
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.
The longer version Ma uses is
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
The point being that when your ego is in charge, you can't help sinning. They say if you repeat the prayer without ceasing, rhythmically timed with your breath, if you really get it right, it becomes one with your heartbeat. Your ego is trampled and God will hear the prayer. I'm no expert, but if that's what Ma's supposed to be doing right now, I'd say she's mastered it.

I've been so busy with my catharsis all over the camera that I missed the whole
Harry Potter
Sorting Hat segment of the service. The next thing I know,
presto change-o
, Ma has a new name.

Introducing: Mother Brigid.

When you become an Orthodox nun, you wear no jewelry except a cross around your neck. You can wear black if you like, and you have to put on a special habit when in the presence of bishops, priests, and other monastics.

I thought black clothes would be out of the question for Ma, who's always been exactingly creative about her wardrobe and accessories. But she has assured me that simple black is all she wants, and she's embracing it. In the back of my mind has been a rather catty thought: If this is what it takes to slow down her spending, far be it from me to object.

So . . . Brigid.

I'm pretty sure this was one of the Bishop's ideas, and not Ma's. Before the ceremony, she rattled off a slew of impossibly long Greek names she was hoping for, that rivaled the standard set by von Moschzisker in their impossible-to-spell-or-pronounceability. So when the new name is announced, there's the slightest glimmer of a pause as Ma considers this first joyful step on the road to spiritual obedience and humility.
Black clothes, okay. Give away my jewelry, fine. Try to be an angel living on the earth, devoted to a life of prayer instead of terrorizing my children—I'll do my best. But
Brigid
? Isn't that an
Irish
name?

Sorry,
says the Holy Spirit.
I know you wanted to be Theotockos Nephpactos Hierotheos of Whatchamacallit Boopty-opolis, but you're going to make a much better Mother Brigid of Carlisle. Get used to it.

Ma smiles. Believers and infidels alike gather together around Mother Brigid and the Bishop for a picture.

Oh, and one more thing, Mother Brigid,
says the Holy Spirit.

Yes?
says Mother Brigid.

You have a colostomy coming up in a couple of weeks.

Ma, Philadelphia, 2007

I
T'S FOUR
P.M. on a Friday. We've been sitting here in the waiting room for an hour and we are both fit to be tied.

—Let's go home.

—Ma . . .

We borrowed a wheelchair today at the door of Franklin Hospital. Ma's back is bothering her, so luckily she can't storm out on her own steam. This appointment was almost impossible to get, and we need it. The new surgeon has agreed to perform his specialty, TATA, and I don't think he and Ma have spoken candidly enough about what they're getting her into. TATA will give Ma a reconstructed rectum sans tumor, with no dreaded colostomy bag. This would be fantastic except that the new rectum won't be as clever at communicating its plans in advance as Ma's original model. If you're old and prone to bouts of mobility impairment, there is a real lifestyle concern. If things go as planned, Ma will have to stay within close range of a bathroom at all times.