The Missing Place

The British say that the car keys have “gone missing.” When I first heard this as a child, it made me imagine missing as a place. I thought those lost keys had to be somewhere, perhaps between the sofa cushions, or stuffed away in a coat pocket in the closet. This notion led me to create my special missing place where I could remain connected to my mother, who was lost in the web of mental illness. Her extended time away from home meant hospitalization in a New York state institution. Folks called it the insane asylum back then.

Somehow, in my young mind and heart, I had realized it was better to be in the place of missing my mom than to be consumed by her loss. Without fully realizing it, I found a place I could go to in my mother’s absence and be with her as if she were there. The missing place was a void I learned to fill with her essence – her spirit. It was hard for me as a child when she was gone, but not as debilitating as it may have been if I had been trapped in the dark emptiness of her absence. There was a particular quality I knew and felt in missing her that kept me strong. All I needed to do was go to the missing place.

I could be with her while gathering small, flat stones at the Allegheny River, musing playfully about how wonderful she was – fun-loving, affectionate, and patient with my occasional temper tantrums. The river calmed me. Whenever the water’s smooth surface broke into ripples after tossing skipping stones, I was reminded of the ripple effect inside me that rose each time she had a nervous breakdown. The first one I witnessed happened in fourth grade, when I came home from school to find her barefoot on the living room floor, dressed only in her slip. She was cutting out paper dolls and mumbling to herself. She looked up at me, standing over her in my school uniform, and giggled. Then, to my dismay, speaking in a child’s voice I had never heard before, said, “Who are you?”

I went to the neighbors for help, spent the night with them, and the next day, Mom was gone. I lived with Mr. and Mrs. Doyle for months while Mom was at Gowanda State Hospital. They were both from England, I loved their British accents, and it was from them that I first heard that their car keys had “gone missing.”

Another favorite missing place was in the quiet of St. Mary’s church, where I could be with my mother in a Catholic girl’s reverie of prayerful devotion – my style, talking to God in a casual tone, free from reciting the formal prayers I had to memorize at school. Sitting in the front pew alone, usually on a Saturday when no one was around, I hung out with Jesus on the cross. We cradled each other in our mutual suffering – His agony on the cross and my anguish over my mother’s absence. The church had a pleasant odor; a smoky incense aroma left over from Sunday mass. And when combined with the smell of the polished wood, I was reminded of the cologne my mother wore, called Tweed. It was like having her there – the scent of her arms around me.

Being a tomboy, I loved climbing trees. I’d ride my bike to another missing place, a beautiful stretch of meadow off a dirt road in the country. A bountiful Macintosh apple tree stood alongside a stream. When I tucked into the arm of one of its curved branches, the view opened to a flowering pasture on the far side of a flowing creek. There, perched in the apple tree, I daydreamed for hours while munching on my pick of juicy apples. Thoughts of my mother mingled in the fresh air and gradually turned from worry to the hope of seeing her again. I could almost hear what she sometimes whispered in my ear, “You’re the apple of my eye.”

The Doyles were very kind to me, but I was mostly alone. Yet loneliness never overtook me because I could be with my mother in those missing places.