I took the gum from her purse: spearmint rain 5. I don’t know if was her favorite or just one she thought she’d try because she expected to live. This woman, my mother, who carried gum in her purse for as long as I could remember was maybe trying a new flavor there in the days before she was to die.
It was Trident she carried when I was a kid, always she had the blue one, but sometimes the green and sometimes the orange fruity version that lost its flavor and got hard too quickly. She had it and she chewed it, I imagine, but I never remember her being one you knew to be chewing gum. She never chomped on it or snapped it or blew a bubble. I don’t know how she chewed it because she never let it show. But she always had gum and she always shared.
When I took the packet of gum I thought I might chew a piece from time to time to remind me of her. After just two pieces it occurred to me that I might want to stop taking the occasional piece from this packet because one day I would get to the last piece of the pack that she bought and I’d finish chewing it and I’d have to throw it away and the packet, too, and that would be like throwing away one small real piece of her, one thing she chose and she touched and she carried with her to the hospital thinking she might chew gum again with her very own teeth which she didn’t and she wouldn’t.
