the colors of sadness

They sat at the table in relational silence, comfortable yet somehow unfamiliar. The only noise came from a small TV on the far counter; the Hallmark channel again. Her mom stared into space, idly picking her teeth with a well-used toothpick. Another one of the oddities that had seemingly appeared out of nowhere.

The vibrant beads had been unceremoniously dumped in two glass containers that sat on the counter directly in front of them. It seemed like this approach would make the task easier, even if it only manifested as part of the tactile fascination that had also been recently evolving. Maybe it would be beneficial in some way. She took a deep breath before starting, unsure of how this would go.

“What do you think? Do you want to make a bracelet with me?”

“What do we do? I don’t know how to do that.”

“That’s alright! Me either! We can figure it out together. Ok, let’s start by picking out some colors. I’ll help you. What do you think about pink?”

They started with blue.

The dark blue beads reminded her of the time they played CatchPhrase as a family in the living room at the old lake house. She didn’t remember how old she was at the time, just that her mom was remarkably bad at the game, so slow to think of anything to describe the word on the screen. “Spit it out!”, her family had said. “What is wrong with you!?” They had all laughed at her on this occasion and on many others. Her mom had laughed, too.

The black beads were the color of the slowly enveloping darkness. The shame, the emptiness, the missed opportunities, the diagnosis that wasn’t shared until much too late when questions could no longer be asked and sentiments could no longer be shared. This was the color of the medical imaging, the backdrop of the dramatic reveal of the deterioration. The color of a death sentence, of dying a thousand deaths, each one painful and prolonged.

Green manifested as the color of money troubles. How the meager inheritance money her mom received after her own father’s death was used swiftly and fiercely, in an urgent need to donate to an increasing number of charities. They were scams, really. Green was also the color of the recycling bin her mom was fixated on filling, even if some days she taped the boxes back together before putting them in the bin. The color of the cost of care, the box of the special medicine that needed to be ordered from Canada to help calm the increasing agitation. Green was the frog in a boiling pot.

Silver was the shadows on their tired faces. The color of the Jeep her mom was told by the doctor to stop driving. “But I didn’t do anything. I didn’t do it”, her mom had said. “We know. It’s because we love you. We’re trying to protect you from injuring yourself and others.” The silver morphed into the gray that seemed to spread through her dad’s hair every time she went home. It was the color of the snowflake sweater her mom wore for weeks straight, refusing to wash it. Gray was the color of the Depends she taught her mom to wear on the last visit, trying to coax her by saying that she used them too. “Don’t worry. See, I also wear them. Let me show you how they work. We can do it together.”

White stirred up memories of her sister’s wedding. Was it because of her mom’s escalating religious fervor that her parents refused to go? Would it have made a difference in the outcome if her mom had been neurologically intact? Was this part of the condition, or was it because her sister was marrying another woman, a lovely, amazing woman, but a woman nonetheless? White was the blinding color she saw when her dad asked why her sister never visited anymore. “How can you be mean to a sick person?”, he had said.

“This is stupid!”, her mom exclaimed when the small thread evaded the hole in the bead, the loss of fine motor control all too apparent.

“That’s ok! This one is tricky, let me try.”

Yellow was the color of tennis balls that no longer bounced, the sun that shone behind the tightly closed blinds. It was the color of the runny eggs her mom shared at brunch with her dearest friends. A tiny light in the darkness, a few friendships that didn’t fade with the others.

Purple was the color of the flowers they shaded together in the large print coloring books, the wine her mom was still drinking at dinner, until they got smart and substituted it for nonalcoholic, the easy puzzle she refused to do. Purple was a pop of color in the art prints that she gave to her mom last Christmas. The ones that lit up her face every time she kept putting them in and out of the gift box. It was also the color that bordered so closely to red, bursts of rage and frustration her dad sometimes launched at her mom and were often ricocheted right back. The color of her mom’s changing personality.

They picked a few more beads.

Brown beads stacked into the color of the wood her dad chopped religiously twice a week while her mom was home alone. And it was the color of the pews at church when her mom was left there, unattended and unable to call for help. It was the color of multiple pots of coffee brewed in quick succession and placed in jars in the fridge, barely drinkable. The color of the chocolate chip cookies her mom couldn’t stop eating. The sand that buried all of their heads.

The orange beads reminded her of the two small boys her brother no longer allowed her mom to see. Safety concerns, hygiene, an attempt at boundary setting that borderlined on cruel. It was the color of the books she’d tried to give her dad so he’d educate himself on the realities of the disease.

The clear beads were a colorless hue. They were the shape of her uncles’ tears at her mom’s birthday lunch. The melted tray of the microwave that had to be replaced. And also that of the next one. The texture of the water from the showers they begged her to take. The translucence conjured the ghost her mom was becoming. The clear dissolution of their family.

All the colors swirled around in the dying afternoon light, and in her mind. They blurred together through the dampness in her eyes. The years of love and loss. The time they couldn’t get back and would never have. It all melted together, like the synapses in her mom’s brain. These were the colors of sadness, of impossible pain.

They carefully placed the letter beads through the thread, the last to go. She tied the surgeon’s knots, following the instructions but lacking the precision of the same name. She hoped it would hold just long enough.

The words didn’t matter. Or maybe they did. They were everything and nothing. This had all started with words as far as she could tell. And it would end without them.

But two words remained, at least for today. Even if they were not spoken or understood.

She then gently put the bracelet around her mom’s bony wrist and read the words aloud. “Love you”, she said.

”I hope you’ll always remember that I love you.”