A Remembrance of My Mama

As a child, I was madly in love with her. Something about her enchanted me. She held this calm gracefulness so foreign to the nervous energy of a five year old. Her tired worn hands had known true work but felt tender when they brushed my hair. Her eyes were distant but kind when she looked at me. There was a stoic set to her jaw and she rarely spoke but when she did, I listened because I knew her words were carefully chosen and important. She never laughed, and I longed to make her smile, fix that thing I sensed was broken inside her, return that thing that was missing.

In my attempts, I planted myself firmly under her feet. She would gently remove me and plop me at the edge of the coffee table with paper and crayons.

"Draw me a picture" she'd say and run off to make the beds. Within 30 seconds, I'd be back-paper in hand.

"What is it?"

"It's our house."

"Where's the front porch?" 30 seconds later, I'd be back again.

"Where's the hedges-the tree-the flowers?"

I'm sure she kept sending me away so she could just make the damn beds in peace, but she was teaching me things. Composition, color, detail and even a bit of patience. Out of the those exercises grew a love of art.

"I'M going to Kingergarden!" I taunted my siblings. "I get to draw and paint ALL DAY!" They hadn't seemed impressed. I was enthusiastic when I returned-they had easels and real paints and paint brushes! Then someone said the word "tomorrow" and I began to comprehend that 'Kingergarden' wasn't a one time experience. Thus began an 18 month struggle to pry me from the steering wheel every morning, sometimes literally dragging me into the classroom-all the while me screaming "Please don't leave me Mama! Please don't leave me."

She did all those things that Mamas do. She cooked; she cleaned; she hummed to herself. She smelled of coffee & cigarettes. She planted marigolds in the Spring. I hate marigolds, but whenever I'm in a nursery, I pick up a flat and inhale, just so I can smell her again. She sang Johnny Mathis songs when we decorated the Christmas tree-even now when "Winter Wonderland" plays, it's her voice I hear.

She was terribly unsentimental, but after she died, I found a folded piece of paper in the bottom of her dresser drawer. On the outside, she had written "age 6". I opened it. It was Holly Hobbie-drawn by my hand. She had kept it. A remembrance of her baby; now a remembrance of my Mother.

"I'm nothing like you," I said to her once-watching her get ready for work-studying her as I often did in my teen-aged years, still trying to understand things no child can understand, still firmly planted under her feet. "You didn't know me when I was young," she replied. She hadn't meant it as a compliment, but I take it as one.

A few years ago, my cousin Doug dropped by the house. I was sitting in my usual spot, at the kitchen table, cradling a cup of coffee, cigarette smoldering in the ashtray. He had a strange look on his face. "Is something wrong?"

"It's like I just went back in time 20 years" he said.

I felt the tears well up & I smiled. Maybe I'm more like her than I thought.

But one thing is for certain, as I look up at the paint stained glass filled with paint brushes on my window sill, I know now she will never leave me.