Days Gone By (For My Children)

I found the small princess doll that looked like Belle.
It reminded me of days gone by—of sweet desires—
squeaky toys, stars and moons and skies of clouds.

When hair was twisted, crunched, or in curls, and I knew just how to make you happy. But had no clue how to be myself.
I only knew to drown in moments full of babies’ savory odors, squeals of joy, and salty tears. All of you in a circle around me—corralling my importance.


Sunlit days overflowed with parks green, chilled by oceans, dripping with ice cream—the passenger seat full of Mema or Aunt Edith. Islands loomed ahead, while smooth rocks and shells shaded like the sunset waited for us, below chipped picnic tables on uneven ground.


Autumn leaves fell on dreams of a future where an apple pie would rule majestic from the center of a bare shining table in a cozy clean kitchen. I would stand handing out cookies to my babies as they flowed home from school into my cinnamon fantasy that first found its seed in my grandmother’s sunlit afghan 15 years before.

On brisk days of reality, I pushed strollers and recounted days gone by to tiny ears alongside bow lips that only opened for “Ma ma ma ma ma ma ma” and did not yet know, “Enough.”

Russet snapshots flash—a baby in red on a flat rock in Appleton’s ridge, sweet full cheeks flush in plaid on a blanket covered with leaves at Aunt Edith’s stoop, and a perfect chin beneath a crown of curls that finally dips down in sleep as R.E.M.’s relentless lullaby around the sun works its magic, as the van passes the “Witchy Pumpkin” yet again.


Winter was crisper than autumn, the sharp bite of Northeasters edging out sunny dreams. These days brimmed with Mema in Ames, Walmart, Penny’s—donning her Santa cap as I tried to recreate her magic. It’s so cold here, I do not want to drift back, save for those few balsam weeks.


Spring blooms eternal in southern places, but up here only my dreams of summer could take root in the chilled muddy ground. I chased them impatiently into Aunt Edith’s kitchen for tea as little hands reached in the cookie drawer and we made ready for a drive. Mema’s office would be surprised by a lunchtime visit and little feet would not want to touch the brittle frosted grass of winter’s cold grave.


Those days my best friends were old ladies and my favorite memories were remembering ones older still, all my dreams were merely dreams, and I was trying to be what I had imagined I would be, not what was my share of destiny.

This is where I drift back to now, with a sweet small ache for cocoon days of dim lights by a bedside where tiny feet kicked as I lifted them to change—to days when a trip to the store could bring time with my mother or Aunt, simple favorite foods, and a bright light in small eyes.

I don’t know yet how to reconcile the longing for such company as I’ll never have again—the yearning for a mother, for a family with roots deep in the earth. But I plow on, up hills framed by blueberries with small hands in mine, that grow despite my pleas. I look at the eyes of changing faces and try to keep focused on a path still into them, so that one day we can drive by old places and tell new stories in between, and sweet desires will have safe haven and new dreams will be discovered.

Is That a Phone or My Tinnitus?

In a moment of revelation, I set my cell phone ringer to sound like an actual phone ringing (or some electronic imitation thereof). I decided I'd like to have my first thought when I hear it ringing be, "Hey, a phone is ringing!"

I enjoy imagining my purse on a park bench between my grandmother (were she alive) and me and hearing her say, "Well, I'll be, is that a phone ringing in your purse?" rather than, "I think I'm going crazy, I hear Pachelbel's Canon!"

I have a low brow Tracfone that doesn't give me the option of choosing the song that best suits my personality of the day. But even if I did, I think I'm sticking with a phone sounding like a phone. When it rings at the beach, there's no longer a domino effect of other mothers madly searching their bag. At first, everyone would just state quite confidently, "It's not my phone", because, after all, it didn't sound like music, it sounded like a phone. Now, they just look at me and say, "Your phone is ringing" before I can even slip my hand into my bag.

Maybe somewhere deep down inside me, I'm a bit old fashioned, even if I do Facebook. I would never "lol" for the simple reason that I would never write "laugh out loud", so why would I abbreviate it? I spent the first few years thinking it meant "lots of love" and that my nieces really liked me more than I thought they did. When I watch my daughter type an email (which I just broke down to), I want to slap her hand as I see her backspace over "see you later" and re-type "c u later". I tell her that's for texting (which she can't do because I won't let her have a phone) or IMing (which I also won't let her do) when time and space is limited. But she read in American Girl that it's better to write that way in an email because it then takes less time for your friends to read it. I told her it was promoting stupidity and American Girl should be ashamed. I was driving so I couldn't see her, but I'm pretty sure I felt her roll her eyes.

I've broken down and let her wear skinny jeans, if they aren't too tight*, and I've even been known to "OMG" in an IM (it somehow seems less sacrilegious, and even though I try not to, I say the full phrase sometimes.) So, maybe it's just a matter of time before I give in to some things. Maybe you'll drive by my daughter when she's in high school, wearing skin tight jeans texting "LMAO" on her cell phone to some boy she's never met from Facebook. But for now, I take comfort in knowing that if my grandmother could read my emails she would understand every word I wrote, and if she heard my cell phone ringing, she'd actually say, "You'll turn that thing off when you're with me or, by God, I'll leave you sitting here".


*Author's note: Those skinny jeans are now not only skin tight but highwaters. I'm halfway there...

Birthday Princess, June 4, 2009

Today is my first birthday without my mother. To say my birthday without my mother doesn’t feel the same seems redundant. Without our mothers, we would have no birthday. There isn’t a mother in the world that doesn’t remember something about her child’s actual “birth” day. The details of our children’s first Christmas, first Easter, even first birthday celebration get fuzzy and blend together. Pain makes memory more vivid, emotional or physical. It makes sense that this day remains crisp in a mother’s mind, the memory of a small human making its way out of your body in one form or another.

But this morning when I woke up, I was surprised to find that umbilical cord was still there, the end now dangling in the netherworld. I could pull it in hand over fist, and find its end raw and unattached. I waited for the reassuring calm and comfort that my brother and father have spoken of feeling enveloped in, as they feel my mother’s presence. But like my sister, I felt nothing. My mind then moved on to guilt. Wasn’t it too bad that I never said to my mother, “I can’t imagine a birthday without you.”, or “thanks for the life”, or even a simple, “thanks for all the birthday spoils”, of which there were many.

What my mother lacked in patience for traditional mothering throughout the rest of the year, she attempted to make up in holidays and birthdays. I often feel the strain as a mother to try and live up to the exuberance of my holidays past, and the generosity of my mother in my children’s holidays and birthdays.

When we were little, whether our birthdays will filled with just our family of 5 or with a few friends thrown in, there were always streamers and balloons and cake and numerous, numerous presents. The last present was always hidden in a treasure hunt led by creative, witty clues all written in my mother’s neat slanted script. Later in life, when she lacked the energy or ability to do the actual “leg work” of a party she was still always ready with the cash fund and usually some general orders. No one’s birthday went by without a dinner, a cake, ice cream and some presents, even when cash was tight.

My mother’s indulgence has damaged my real world expectations. When C and I were first dating, I remember being stunned when he forgot to buy me a present. How could that be possible? I was the birthday princess! This year, lacking the drive of my mother’s birthday spirit, C asked me “Do you want a cake?” I looked at him as if he was crazy, as if he had just asked me would I need my feet for the rest of the day or would I like them chopped off. You see, my mother has spoiled me. What a shame, now that I am acutely aware of just how much, that I can’t spoil her back.

Trials and Trails (March 2, 2009)

I don’t know if I can go about actually describing the moments, the reminders, the trails that lead to my sorrow these days of mourning my mother. Mourning, grieving, grieving is better-- mourning gives an illusion that there is an end, “a period of mourning.” I don’t believe there is an end. I believe I am in, or am entering into, my first real period of understanding of what my life is to be like without her. How many instincts, moments, there are that I didn’t recognize before--of thinking of her, bonding with her. How much of my life was lived for her approval--not approval, but in order to join her more. Joining her in her past was the only way I knew to get to her, it was there that she seemed the most content, the most “in life.” I suppose that’s why I am writing the story that I am.

Her living brought me great comfort, there were only a handful of months put together that brought me great stress. But I’ll admit the best of her evaporated when she left her home. That’s the real reason of the story isn’t it? My dream fulfillment of bringing her home again somehow.

Sorrow, real sorrow, it is a verb, it is a place, a plane of being. It can’t be explained, there are triggers that pull you there in a moment, but to try and capture them and hold them out for Chris to understand how I came there; it’s futile, pointless, because it’s not the moments that ferry me there that matter--to speak of them feels a distraction. How can you explain to someone who hasn’t been there? It is a place that will always exist on some level within me--because my mother will never be a voice I can speak to, a conversation, a story told, a question answered, an existence to be comforted by, eyes to see the pictures of my life. Part of me is now gone, half of my history swallowed up, dissipated, scattered. My favorite half by far.

How ironic the things you can’t understand about your mother until she is gone, I could never understand, truly, how she felt about losing her mother, such a huge loss for her, until I lost her. So many stories have come forward to me that I can’t query her about because she is gone, gone from me in the way I needed her.

I could curl up in this sorrow for a year and not be done with it. With work and babies and love and life, it sits below the surface waiting for the moments in a day to pulse out. It strikes now, blows to my heart and stomach, surprising me. It’s becoming familiar and I’m sure that the sharpness, the acute blunt force will dull with time, but the striking will not. Writing is my only hope of resurrection.