My mother was in high spirits the Sunday we took her to Keifer’s, one of Jackson, Mississippi’s oldest and most beloved Greek restaurants. We sat in the corner of the main dining room, framed by posters of Grecian beach scenes in faded terracotta and cerulean blue. Beneath her soft, cream-colored turban, she was unmistakably bald, her lashes and brows dissipated months ago. Her breasts had been gone for months, too; she wore baggy denim button-downs to conceal as much. Even still, dining out with her children was a small victory, and if she were able to pretend everything was fine, we were happy to oblige.
“Hi, yes, I’d like the Jr. Greek Salad and the Pita Mozz,” my mother said, ordering her usual. The pita mozz, a Keifer’s staple, is a round pita covered in a thick sheet of crusty, broiled mozzarella cheese. Served with a side of creamy feta dressing, it makes the must-eat list each time I come home for a visit. “And can I get them at the same time?” she asked our young server. He nodded; swiftly collected our menus from the sticky, plastic table cloth; and stepped back into a waltz of other servers who spun out plates of hummus and grape leaves with the precision of a Broadway chorus. But the Pita Mozz came early.
As sweet as the baklava in the display counter, my mother said to our server in a kind, maternal manner, “I’m sorry, but I asked for this to come out with my salad; I’d just like to make sure it’s still hot when our food gets here,” He apologized and whisked away the small, piping-hot pita. Then we waited. And waited, which is odd at this iconic institution, known for its speedy, no-frills service.
When our food finally hit the table, the Pita Mozz was missing. Again my mother inquired about its status, this time a bit terse, still bald, and hungry as ever. Then the young waiter would use his judgment so poorly that surely, to this day, he must hesitate before opening his mouth in front of middle-aged women.
“Ma’am,” he said, “I’m sorry, but I took your Pita Mozz back in the kitchen to keep it under a hot light, and one of the chefs ate it.”
“WHAT?” she said.
The server stumbled over a few words, half-heartedly attempting an apology, but it was too late. My mother was already out of her chair. She did the only thing a bald, bamboozled, self-respecting woman should do: She marched through the ensemble of spinning servers, down the narrow hallway, past the faded terracotta posters, and tore into the steamy, clamoring kitchen to give the staff a piece of her mind. I do not know exactly what took place in those few minutes—expletives, finger wagging, something about how their mothers raised them—but I know that when she returned to our table with her ripping-hot Pita Mozz, she felt validated. Because when you have cancer, there’s not a lot of that.
***
At 15, I’d never heard the word “malignant,” so I didn’t know what it meant. I only knew that dad was home and mom was not. She’d gone to the doctor for a routine check-up, and instead of coming home to wait for me after school—smiling, eager to hear about my day—she was told that she had Stage 3 breast cancer.
They removed 35 lymph nodes and scheduled her mastectomy for the next day. She’d begin chemo in two to three weeks. But before throngs of middle-aged women could descend on the house like a S.W.A.T team with enough casseroles to feed a mega-church; before she’d sit still for hours at the hospital, goo pumping into her port; before her lashes would dry up and fall off like dead leaves from a winter tree; she would first need to come to terms with losing all of her hair.
My mother had long prided herself in a voluminous brunette mop of Lebanese locks. In the 1960s, she donned an of-the-moment mullet; in the 70s, she fashioned it into an extravagant bouffant. In the 80s, she used it as a landing pad for small animals, and now, in the 90s, she primed it with the same esteem found on the covers of hair-styling magazines in southern salons.
About a week before the chemo, I found her sitting alone on the couch, her hands folded in her lap, legs crossed. She was wearing black leggings and a warm, yellow Walter Anderson tunic that would soon become her uniform. “I just want to be comfortable,” she’d say.
She was waiting for me in silence. My eyes must have grown wide at the sight of her freshly shorn, inch-long pixie. “What do you think?” she asked quietly as she implored me with her glass-bottom brown eyes. It was the first time I realized my mother was afraid. Of anything.
One Sunday afternoon, mom and I waited at the glossy beige checkout counter in Dillards to return a few blouses she’d bought for my grandmother. Mom was wearing her soft cotton turban, another chambray button-down, and under-eye bags that sagged with the weight of a woman who is both battling cancer and grappling with her parent’s respective descent into Alzheimer’s and dementia. There were always matters of their safety to consider, like whether or not they’d open the door to anyone who knocked and give money to anyone who asked. There was the managing of their doctor’s appointments and subsequent pills that would follow, not to mention the emotional strain of watching her parents dwindle further into a foreign world she did not have access to, and from which they’d never return.
The department store saleswoman greeted us with a cheerful grin. “What can I help you ladies with?” she asked. My mom explained that she needed to return some blouses. The saleswoman pawed at the necklines, looking for tags to scan. But her tone changed when she realized these purchases were past the return-by date. She explained, it’s the policy. To which my mother grabbed a nearby pair of scissors with the crazed look of a woman who has no qualms stabbing a Dillard’s employee over an off-brand silk blouse. My mother pressed, firmly, that it was only a few days. She’s caring for her aging parents. She’s battling cancer. She’s a little preoccupied. Surely the saleswoman could make an exception. Let this be a lesson in how to fatally embarrass your teenage daughter and potentially go to prison. The blouses were rightfully returned.
My mother’s treatment required two types of chemo. The first would make her violently ill, sending her from the bed to the toilet at a moment’s notice. The second would relieve her of constant vomiting, but cause her entire body to ache always. Even still, she created a routine to shelter me from her cancer.
In the mornings, she’d muster the strength in her reserve, pull on her turban, and sit by as I got ready for school. She didn’t say much, propped up on the bathroom counter, her soft velour robe pressing into the mirror. She gazed at me and listened as I rattled on about homecoming games and girlfriends and the zit cropping up on my nose, threatening to keep me home from said homecoming game. My mother, a spark plug beneath an award-winning smile and a velvety southern accent, wanted to keep all harm at bay. The burden of sadness had no place in a child’s life. The same went for cancer.
She’d rise again in the afternoon, just before I came home, and try to make herself presentable. Then, after greeting me with an exerted smile, she’d crawl back in bed for the duration of the night.
She did this almost every day, except for the few days she was still sleeping when I got home. In a near-posthumous state, lying as though she were already in her coffin—her head deep-set in the pillow, eyes sunken into purple valleys—she strained to appear strong, or alive at all.
That summer, my mother was hell-bent on taking our usual family vacation on the Gulf Coast, not knowing if it would be her last. On good days, she’d pad down to the white, sandy shore of Orange Beach, Alabama, and rest beneath an umbrella. She’d close her eyes and suck in the salty air, tuning out the neighboring sounds of a country music radio station at full volume. One night on the way to dinner, mom was quiet in the front seat. Just minutes from the restaurant, she said to my dad, “Pull over.” She was still looking straight ahead, her focus on the road. “Pull over. Right now.” Before my dad was in park she was already hanging out the the car door, puking like a college kid on Spring Break.
Before cancer, she used to pose asinine questions like, “Am I bad mom?” She asked me this one afternoon from the couch, the same place I’d find her months later after chopping off all of her hair. She’d been watching Oprah, a show I’m certain existed solely to plant seeds of self-doubt into the minds of well-intentioned mothers everywhere.
“Do you think I’m unfair?” she once asked with no basis or warning. “Today on Oprah, there were these mothers who…” Each time I’d roll my eyes and say “Noooo-uuuhhhhhggg, you’re not a bad mom,” and stomp off into my room to tie up the phone line for the next 800 hours.
When my brother left for college, my position in her world grew enormously. She’d always been a PTA parent, a Girl Scout leader, and host to many sleepovers—but with only one of us in the house, her orbit shrunk. All of her efforts focused solely on me. While her laser focus was part smothering, I’d grown accustomed to it. I was the only girl, the only granddaughter, the baby of the family, and I happily stepped into my role as the free-spirited center of attention. Other people were instructed to accommodate me, with directives given specifically to my brother: Help your sister with that; Go tell her it’s time to leave; stop pretending to be Camola The Toilet Monster, it scares your sister. In the thick of her cancer, fifteen felt far too young to grow up.
What I didn’t realize, as few 15 year olds have the reference, when my mother was on the precipice of death is how much she must have felt in limbo. Not yet dead, but barely alive. Certainly not thriving. Making plans for me in the event of her death, yet unable to make them in real life. Eager to embrace each moment yet consumed by exhaustion at the thought of living another day. What a simple pleasure it must have been to go to Keifer’s with her children that Sunday, pretending all was normal, making plans for the day.
I tried against all my natural inclinations to be selfless and mature, to offer her peace and balance in a world that felt as if it were closing in on her. I encouraged her to embrace the no-hair thing, to forego the scratchy (and frankly, obvious) Raquel Welch wigs that made her sweat. “You have cancer,” I’d say, “It’s not like people are going to be mean about it.” I never knew what to say, so instead I’d shuffle into her room with flowers or poems I’d scrawled that day, anything to bring her light back to its usual lumen. But even when she grinned, her exertion was obvious.
After eight months of treatment, mom went into remission. “I’ll never complain about my hair again,” she said. (Just the other day, she frowned at her reflection on FaceTime as she ruffled her hair. “It’s too flat,” she said.) Our perceptions shifted, just like that. One moment, she was dying; the next she was not. We made plans again: What was I going to wear to prom? Did my friends want to come over this weekend?
We still go to Keifer’s when I come home to visit. It’s in a new location now, across the street, with an expansive outdoor seating area. Dangling lamps in the shape of red grapes hang from the ceiling and faded posters of iconic Grecian scenes still abound. Last time I was there, we sat on the patio beneath whirring fans and ordered all of our favorites, Pita Mozz included. “So,” mom said in a chipper tone. “What should we do today?”
Beautiful ❤️