Francesca. The day my inspiration died.
On most days, it feels like she’s just left, and that she’s just a soft warm breath away. Then, something will happen to remind me that she’s gone forever.
But is she really gone? I feel and see her everywhere: in my closet (clothes I bought knowing she’d love/hate/steal/borrow), my collections (which piece/s would she want for herself), my relationships (what would she think of how my friends support me), the places I visited (wishing she was with me), the food I ate (we loved the pleasure of food — swooning over croissants and soufflés on our last trip to Paris). She was, from the moment of her conception, a lifeforce that changed and defined me. A magical creature of beauty, dimples, joy, and all things right who lived with me.
She was sentimental (loved her friends, dogs, family), intellectual (reading Sapiens, Sympathizer, and a few other books at the same time), passionate (you knew she loved you), an educator (devoted to her students, dedicated to doing it right), creative (you should see the gifts she made for us!), courageous (so brave), independent, and most of all, simply a wonderful and truly joyful person, even at the last — there was no morosity, no outward fear — nothing but a determination to fight, to win, to live.
During her illness, we were not allowed to speak about death or failure. She didn’t want us to cry or be afraid. Even when she was on end-of-life morphine and offered one clinical trial after another, she had only optimism. Her illness was so damned rare. I mean, if she didn’t want to talk about death, why would we? Who would it have helped?
Instead, she bought cookbooks filled with recipes promising to fight cancer, we brought flowers (peonies!), walked with her, gave her privacy and anything she asked for, hoping it would make her happy while she recovered between treatments that failed. She consulted every specialist, fought private insurance systems (each single treatment session was in excess of $42,000 USD — a shocking and unimaginable fortune for a 15 minute IV drip appointment in your arm), and entreated her employers to be flexible with her time (they were). She walked her dogs. She tied on her roller skates. She read. She proofed sourdough. She made kefir. It wasn’t time or effort wasted, it was time well spent, even though all her efforts only bore temporary fruit.
On her last day, she was up at 4.30 am to prepare for class. Living in Pleasant Hill (California), and teaching her students in the Lower East Side (Manhattan, New York) was a time zone challenge she loved and respected. All was well. During a break, she sent my husband, John, a text to wish him a happy birthday and sent me a text about his birthday gift. It was 8.31 am. That was her last text. At 9.30, Dave, her partner, called. We learned she was in an ambulance, speeding to the ER. Then we were hurtling to the ER too. Shocked, quiet, afraid, we arrived and were surprised at the polite reception by the hospital staff, who ushered us into a private ER room, introduced us to the hospital chaplain and to the doctor on call (I was strangely relieved to see it was a woman, white, and with a Chinese surname).
I asked to see her. The doctor warned me it would be hard. After all, Dave had applied CPR under instructions from the 911 operator he called. The EMTs who came to her rescue continued to apply CPR during the ambulance ride. Another team of EMTs, doctors and nurses took over at the hospital.
The doctor asked me if I knew about her condition. Yes, of course, I did; after all, I was her mother. I told her she was on morphine support for cancer. She had been in great pain, unable to sleep. The not-quite perceptible look of suspicion on the doctor’s face changed to one of sympathy and immediate professional care. Francesca hadn’t responded to the resuscitation drugs in the ambulance. Her body responded like that of an opioid addict. The morphine was doing its job, but it tricked the EMTs, the doctor and her staff into thinking my daughter was an addict. The doctor invited me into the ER room, warning me that what I would see would be distressing.
Our family and her friends began to arrive, one by one. They came from Lake Tahoe, Oakland, Orinda, Palo Alto, Sacramento, San Francisco, Stockton, Walnut Creek. Her friends were young, Millennials, like her, and everyone had that indefinable look of fear, hope, and horrible shock.
Nothing can prepare a mother for the sight of her daughter on a gurney, with tubes all over her precious body, plugged into blinking monitors under bright lights, the sound of technology, and the sight of nine exhausted people struggling, struggling so hard to revive her. I fell to my knees. I returned to the private room to join John and Dave, and my youngest daughter, Meimei. I was afraid to intrude on their work, on her struggle, but turned around and went back because I am her mother and needed to be there. I needed to be there for me. I needed to be there for her. I needed to be there just in case she woke up and needed me.
She never woke up. Her beautiful face was quiet and peaceful. She looked like she was asleep, with no idea all this commotion was around her, that it was for her. I wonder if she knew we were there: all of us, her sister, her brother, her partner, her friends. I wonder if she was aware.
The strangest thing that happened since she left (aside from fat tears that surprise me when they roll down my cheeks, wretched grief, jagging sobs, howls of pain), is the absence of anger that she’s gone. Instead, in the days since I last saw her, I am filled with deep sadness followed by a weird sense of wonder that I was lucky to have had her in my life. I am grateful. I won a very strange lottery. Fate placed her in my life and presented me with the privilege of being her mother, of experiencing a magical wonderful creature who was strong, who stood up for her beliefs, who believed in me, who loved me. Who was unlike me.
Her birth defined me, and again, in passing, she redefines me. I am forced to examine life and personal values. The worth of Things. I wonder every day if there was anything, anything at all, I could have done to prevent losing her. Should I have told her our family stories? She asked so many times, almost fearfully, as if the stories might be dangerous. I never told them because they were so alien to life in California. They are stories of exploited privilege, racism, and war. Would they have protected or sustained her? Would they have warned her? After all, a mother’s job is to protect her children — what could I have done so that she could still be with us? Nothing, I did everything possible (but thoughts like these are my personal hell).
My husband, children, friends, family, and beloveds have been generous, kind, and supportive; the loss of a child is momentous, unnatural, and even, ugly. But I am surrounded by good people. They catch me when I fall. They are my safety. They are my compass. But for her loss, I would not have so deeply felt their generosity. How did I get so lucky? You are forgiven for indulging your sense of irony — I don’t understand these feelings myself.
Her mother-in-law suggested we find a place to visit after Francesca’s death. I mean, we were so lost. Who plans for the funeral of a child? We knew there were things she would not have wanted, like a burial. And we knew there were things she loved, like the beautiful cemetery in Oakland where people walked their dogs (before COVID), where she walked her dogs (she was embarrassed when she told me about it). On the highest hill is a manicured pear garden with sweeping views of San Francisco, the best part of the new Bay Bridge, and in the foggy distance, the Golden Gate Bridge. It has magnificent sunsets. She rests there, at an address that includes the first letter of her name and the number of her birthday. It is peaceful and beautiful, rain or shine.
We are not all so fortunate, to have known a person who loved and lived so deeply and forthrightly in a mere thirty-six years. She lived an honest and, in retrospect, surprisingly pure life. Since her passing, I am learning more about her and her gifts to her siblings (direction, introspection, love), to her chosen family and friends (love), to her students and colleagues (love), and to me (more love). Her gift was Love. But she was always the quiet gift of Inspiration, and although she’s gone, her gifts of love and inspiration are not.
You would have liked her.
