mom's purple birdcage

one of my favorite chapters that's not in my book

Jan 21, 2025

My mom died six years ago today, on a similarly bitter-cold day.

The chapter about her death was, by far, the hardest material I wrote for dear sister. It was also the least edited, because I could only go back into those pages so many times. I left my words raw — and when I had to read it aloud for the audiobook, it was the only part that I cried my way through. To this day, I have no idea if you can hear my sniffles in the final product.

And so in honor of her Death Day, I thought I’d share a story about her that I cut from the book — mostly for pacing reasons. But it’s one of my favorite stories from one of the hardest time periods of my life. (I also think it’s a good example of how I used photos and videos to capture details in scenes that I would have otherwise forgotten.)

This occurred in April 2019, while Nikki was still home during trial:

[cut] chapter 49: purple birdcage

It was the first Saturday in April, and we were spending the day as a family at my Dad’s apartment with nothing to do but be together. The trial was almost over: Cross-examinations had been conducted, and both sides had rested their cases. Closing arguments were scheduled for the following Monday, in which Nikki would sit and listen to two dramatic retellings of the life she had lived, presented to the jury with inaccuracies that she’d never be able to correct. No more attorney meetings. No more strategy calls. A decision was coming, and all we could do was wait for it.

Around lunchtime, I offered to make a trip to Adam’s, a local grocery store with a popular café that sold Nikki’s favorite mozzarella and pesto sandwich. I had the urge to buy all the foods she loved: the chaco tacos from our childhood, the Minestrone soup she’d been craving in jail. I wanted to fill her up with nutritious, delicious foods.

I wished mom could cook for us. Food was her love language, a way to comfort and coddle her family—and anyone who came into our lives. My grandmother may have given up her Jewish culture, but the archetype of the doting Jewish mother remained somewhere inside my mom. And now, it seemed, in me.

Faye came with me to the Adam’s Cafe, my little sidekick, and ordered the same sandwich as her mom.

While we waited for our food to be done, Faye and I wandered into the adjoining grocery store and garden center. It was like walking through a greenhouse, with shrubbery hanging from the ceiling, big potted plants lining the floor, and tables spilling over with blossoms and buds. The air was thick with mist. It smelled alive. Faye knew the place well and regarded the koi in its small pond as her close personal friends. We came here often, and each time I had the urge to buy Nikki whatever beautiful living things I could.

I decided to buy her some flowers.

While Faye said hello to her fishies, my eye scanned the area. There was an Easter display surrounding the koi pond, with rows of flowers planted in dainty painted teacups and tea pots.

Mom would love these, I thought, remembering the tea sets she collected and her signature hot mug of green tea that she’d bring from room to room, cradling it in both hands. And for them to be flower pots — Mom’s annual spring tradition was planting flowers with her girls, our six hands burying roots in potting soil.

The display felt so her.

A few other random trinkets caught my eye, each one reminding me of my Mom in a comically specific way:

a giant koi fish statue that was almost exactly the size and shape of the big glass fish where she kept candy for her grandkids;

there was a giant hippie Santa head, reminiscent of the niche Christmas ornaments she collected, and the “peace-love” era of her 60s childhood — and why did it look oddly like my Dad?

As I made the connections and smiled, Faye’s voice piped up: “Grandma’s here with us.”

“Faye that’s so funny, I was literally just thinking of Grandma when you said that!”

“No,” she looked up at me. “She’s here with us. She’s watching this. She wants us to buy that.” She pointed at a hanging birdcage with a plant inside.

Also very Mom, I thought. She liked funky, decorative statement pieces — I could see her buying a hanging birdcage with a plant inside, appropriately purple.

I smiled. Without too much thought, I said, “These actually remind me more of Grandma,” reaching for a tea pot painted with pink flowers. I missed sitting and drinking tea with her, the warmth of our conversations. It was a feeling so strong it nearly knocked me over.

“No,” Faye insisted. “Grandma wants us to get that.”

So, after overriding my resistance to gifting Nikki a cage, no matter what color, I bought it. I felt my mom so strongly in that room that, against all rational thought, I believed what Faye was saying. My mom wanted to give Nikki that purple birdcage.

We finished our shopping and went back to the apartment with two brown-paper bags filled with fruit and sandwiches. Faye carried the birdcage planter in through the screened door, holding it out to Nikki. “Your mom wanted you to have this,” Faye said plainly, as if it were an irrefutable fact.

“You mean my sister?” Nikki laughed, but when she met my eyes I shook my head no and smiled. “You heard her right,” I said, smiling. “Mom.” I noticed that a picnic blanket had been laid out on the floor of the living room. Like cooking, picnics were one of Mom’s comfort rituals. Nikki had put out plates and made it look cozy. If Nikki was not allowed to go outside and feel blades of grass in her fingers (for fear of setting off her ankle monitor), then we could make do on the living room floor.

Nikki’s eyes widened, but her face didn’t show any judgment or dismissiveness. “Oh wow, Grandma wants me to have this?” she said, taking the plant in her hands. “I’m curious Faye, did you see Grandma or did you just know she was there?”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answer.

Faye considered the question and said, “I see her. She has white hair,” while looking past Nikki, pulling her hands down her left side, as if looking at someone in the distance and stroking long flowing hair. “She’s beautiful.”

Then Faye looked at Nikki and said, “She wants to feed you.”

A swell of something rose in all of us. I caught Dad and Nikki’s eyes. We were all smiling, nodding our heads, witnessing a truth so real we could feel it.

***

Six days later, Nikki was convicted. That ended up being our last Saturday together. After the verdict I thought about that damn cage — how my mother was adamant to show it to Faye.

A purple birdcage.

A birdcage with life planted inside, overflowing.

Psst! The paperback of my book, “dear sister: a memoir of secrets, survival, and unbreakable bonds” is out in ONE WEEK with an updated ending to document our reunion.