IF THERE ARE ANY HEAVENS

A memoir about a son grieving his dying mother.

Award-winning novelist and short story writer Montemarano chronicles his 79-year-old mother’s last days as she struggled to overcome Covid-19. At the end of 2020, she developed a cough and fever and was quickly hospitalized when her oxygen levels dropped. On Jan. 6, 2021, after an urgent call from his sister, the author left his wife and son in Pennsylvania to drive to Elkhart, Indiana, where his parents and sister lived. Among the books he took with him was e.e. cummings’ 100 Selected Poems, containing the poem that gives Montemarano his title: “if there are any heavens my mother will(all by herself)have / one.” Montemarano took his Bible, as well: “O Lord heal me for my bones are troubled / I am weary with my moaning.” Although he calls his heartbreaking memoir a “not-poem,” he writes in spare verse to reveal in intimate detail his mother’s deteriorating condition; conversations with his sister, who is a nurse, and his mother’s doctors; visits to his father, debilitated by heart disease, diabetes, and obesity; and watching “the Steelers-Browns playoff game” simultaneously with his son. All around him swirled remarks by Covid deniers (“this is just made up by Bill Gates”), anti-maskers, and a president who insists that the virus “is going to disappear.” While their mother remained in a “wait and see / precarious / critical” condition, he and his sister constantly researched treatments online (he includes his desperate search history) and talked to people about what they should do. They were, he writes, “twin sleuths looking for a magical / maybe miraculous / something.” Their mother’s good days made them hopeful; her setbacks, despondent. Finally, a physician gave them incontrovertibly bad news: Her lungs were destroyed. Wearing protective gear, Montemarano and his sister witnessed their mother’s last hours, grateful that, unlike many others, she did not die alone.

A poignant elegy for a beloved mother.