Two

I want a cigarette. Bad. I’m sure I could scrounge up a pack if I looked hard enough.

I can taste it. It wouldn’t be menthol. He doesn’t smoke menthol. And it’d be short…much shorter than the ones I used to smoke. I would breathe deep. I’d fill my lungs and then feel the burn as smoke poured out of my nose.

I want a drink. Make mine a whiskey…cinnamon flavored whiskey and coke, please…on ice, of course. I want whiskey at 9:43 in the morning. I want to scorch the back of my throat as it slides down.

Cake would be good. Bakery cake with sticky white icing. A decorated cake…pink flowers…green leaves…no writing, please. And the inside should be yellow and spongy and leave gooey brown goodness on the bottom of the plate when you slice it.

Yesterday morning I looked at myself in the mirror as I dressed for work. My face, despite the artificial glow of carefully applied foundation, bore no expression. Good Morning America played softly in the background as the words “Happy New Year” came to mind.

Only it’s not happy. It’s not happy at all. Not that it’s not ever happy, there are happy days. But this day is not happy. So it’s a new year but not a particularly happy one… so far.

I hadn’t realized this before…this marking of the year that I do in my head. In a way it’s a relief as it serves to explain why January 1st has little to no meaning for me anymore. My year doesn’t begin and end at the same time as everyone else’s. My year ends on February 25th and begins again on the 27th…if I make it.

I leave the “if” in there because I need permission not to. On this day, more than any other, I grant myself permission to consider what would happen if I didn’t. Because, I don’t have to. No one does. Life is a choice we make every day. Someone else said that first, I know. Maybe that person, like me, experienced the capriciousness of life. Maybe they lost someone.

I don’t like to use the word “lost”. I didn’t lose Trey. He died. Actually, if anyone is lost, it’s me. I’m lost. More lost on some days than I am on others, but I’m always lost. I’m navigating a path I never thought to take. And yet, now that I am on it, I often try to imagine what would happen if I had to start all over again. What if I became even more lost? What if the thing that I never thought would happen happened again? Because that is the one thing I do know. The one thing I do know is that the worst does happen.

It’s a gray day, as it should be. It was this way last year, too. I suspect it always will be.

You can’t prepare. It hits you about a week out, without warning. Sadness covers you like a blanket. You feel the weight of it and you carry it around all day until, at last, you can close your eyes and escape. With any luck, sleep takes your blanket and leaves a respite in its place. It might last a day, two days. This year I was lucky, I had a few good days before the words “Happy New Year” appeared as though written in red lipstick on the mirror in front of me. And that was that.

Yesterday my boss’s face appeared over the top of my cubicle.

“Enjoy your time off tomorrow.”

Filled with irrational rage, I stood up and left the space without speaking. A big part of me hopes he realizes sometime today. That same part, the hurting part, the part that I’m allowing to run rough-shod over any and everything today and only today, that part hopes that he feels like a worm when he remembers.

It’s 10:43 now. I’m still in my bathrobe, my hair looks like shit, and I’ve never needed a mani/pedi more in my whole entire life. But, I’m not smoking and the half-empty can of Coke Zero on my desk remains untainted. The jury’s still out on the cake. My son and I are having lunch. He, too, is marking another year. He and my daughter-in-law are choosing the restaurant. I may choose to eat cake.

That’s what today is about; making choices and leaving room…deciding not to smoke, how to dress, what to eat, and whether or not to live. And, I’m leaving room…for tears, irrational emotions…and, quite possibly, cake.

Last First

Tonight, at 10:36 pm, exactly one year will have passed since I received the news that my son, Trey, was dead.

Within minutes I had my first conversation with a county coroner.

Within the hour, two policemen stood on my front porch. I’d never had policemen on my front porch before.

Two days later I wrote my first obituary.

And, the next day I designed a funeral program for the first time.

Five days after the call came in, I greeted the first guests to arrive at the first funeral I’d ever arranged for one of my children.

Despite never having done so before, my brother-in-law led the service beautifully.

Afterwards I hosted my first wake.

Friends and family, anxious to express their sympathy, appeared at my door; some for the first time.

Eight days after my son died, I returned to work from bereavement leave. I’d never taken bereavement leave before. I’d never been so bereaved.

A couple of days later I made my first request for a copy of my son’s death certificate.

The following Wednesday, my oldest son visited the sheriff’s department for the first time to collect his brothers “personal effects”.

Easter was the first family gathering that didn’t include Trey.

Several weeks later, we maintained our tradition of having a combined birthday party for both Trey and his older brother. For the first time, Trey didn’t attend.

Not since before my youngest was born had I celebrated Mother’s Day with just three children.

On September 1^st, I spent my birthday knowing that, for the first time, I could never have the only thing I really wanted.

For the first time in decades, I served Thanksgiving dinner without having to answer the question, “Are there any onions in here?”

As Christmas neared, I realized that for the first time in years I wouldn’t need to order that expensive chili water from Hawaii. I hadn’t anyone to give it to.

For the first time since 1997, I placed Christmas gifts for only three children under our tree and, during our Christmas party, no one visited the dessert table before dinner was served.

This past Sunday I didn’t watch The Oscars on television. It was the first time I’d missed watching since I was a kid. The last time I watched, I had to pause the show to answer the telephone. It was February 26^th at 10:36 pm.

Today is the one year anniversary of my son’s death.

There will never be another one year anniversary.

There will be another first.

This is the Last First.

And, That’s When I Saw The Duck

It was just a regular Thursday morning…

I go in late on Thursdays. My schedule was changed a couple of years ago to accommodate customers in other time zones. Personally, I felt those customers could have used the same method they use when planning to watch a program on television. For example, if an Alabamian hopes to catch an episode of “House” advertised to air at eight, eastern, she knows to pick out her spot on the couch no later than 6:58. They are used to it. They’ve always done it. My bosses weren’t having it.

Actually, I enjoy the extra time at home in the morning. I get to see my son and we can have a conversation that doesn’t necessarily include grunts. I can water my garden and/or pick flowers to take to the office. I’ve even been known to start a load of laundry. The real advantage, though, is that I can take my son to school.

School ended for most kids almost two weeks ago. But Shane plays football and, in this town, football players are expected to take summer courses in order to free up time in their fall schedule for weight-lifting, film-watching, and any other activity the coach might deem necessary to win the next game. Of course, all of this comes under the heading “PE” so as not to violate any Board of Education mandates. But I digress…

After throwing seed at the chickens and shutting off the sprinkler, I climbed into the driver’s seat beside Shane who always sits in the car for at least ten minutes before anyone else is ready. Two of his teammates waited in a driveway around the corner, soon filling my backseat to capacity, and the shrunken airspace with just a hint of man/boy funk.

The drive to school was short and quiet, as a local DJ hinted at lascivious content after the next commercial break. The backseat boys exchanged nervous glances.

Banter began as we took our place on line in front of the designated drop-off point. As we inched forward, the boys in the back opened their doors while Shane slid in for a good-bye kiss that could be my last. Every one could be my last. I know this; the preciousness of what I have left. I was also acutely aware of the amount of testosterone sliding out of my backseat. I turned my head, offering my cheek.

Summer should mean lighter traffic. For some reason, that hasn’t happened this year. So far, the lights are just as long, the lanes are just as clogged, and drivers in tiny cars with loud mufflers are just as annoying.

My commute takes me through several very large intersections which, when combined, include fourteen lanes of traffic. I glided to a stop at one of them while considering whether or not to listen to a CD rather than my beloved “Fresh Air” on NPR. The topic was electric cars and the batteries that propel them…snore…

And, that’s when I saw the duck.

She was small, smaller than the ducks I visit at our local park, and brown; mottled brown and white that would turn beige in a squint. Five look-a-like ducklings waddled, in military-like precision, behind her.

ACROSS SIX LANES OF MORNING COMMUTE TRAFFIC!!!

One hand grabbed the door handle, while the other found the console.

My mind raced.

How had she managed the first five lanes?

How would she manage the last? The turn-lane to my right always moved with a steady flow of traffic.

I considered getting out, but didn’t want to frighten her. She’d done such a good job, so far…

All I could do was wait; wait and worry, worry and wait, while white-knuckling my car’s interior.

Sweat beaded along my hairline as I eyed the rearview mirror. Nervous, I shifted my eyes to the passenger-side mirror, while wondering what I might do if a car appeared there. “They’d never see her.”, I thought. “She’s so small.”

The driver of the car to my left tapped her horn as though to hurry her along. I bounced in my seat in an effort at moral support.

I watched Mother Duck gain the curb, before checking the mirrors again. “Hurry!!!” (It was a silent scream.) Like molasses, the ducklings flowed over the curb behind her. She poked her billed into the underbrush several times before choosing a path and, in agonizing fashion, they were gone.

In a gush, I exhaled the breath I’d sucked in upon seeing the duck. Tears came to my eyes, and I wondered how she’d known. What force told her it was time? Whose hand held traffic at bay?

Who said there’s no such thing as miracles?

Hair Raising

It’s fitting, I suppose, that I have unruly hair. I’m a pretty unruly woman. But, sometimes, I think it’s my mother’s fault…

Some of my earliest memories are of my hips wedged between my mother’s ample thighs atop our ultra-chic, avocado green, vinyl couch. For reasons known only to her, she insisted on using a comb on my hair. And, not just any comb, but one of those barber’s combs with skinny, pointed teeth that were so close together a dime wouldn’t pass through them. As she raked those teeth across my scalp, I gritted my own and prepared for the blood that was sure to start running into my eyes just any minute. Occasionally, I howled, until I realized that only made her angry, causing her to plow even deeper.

The only respite from the raking came when she found what she referred to as a “knot”. I don’t know how it happened or why. I only know that every single time my mother raised a comb to my head she found the hair at the nape of my neck to be a tangled morass that inspired her to mutter mild epithets between groaning tugs.

There was lots of “I’ve never seen anything like this in my life!”, even though we both knew she’d seen it just last Saturday. And she whined a lot. Occasionally, the comb she extracted contained more than hair. The mass more resembled a bird’s nest than a knot, with wisps of lint and the occasional tiny scrap of paper woven into the mix.

And then there were the permanents…

For years, my mother lined us up on linoleum that was scored to resemble stone, if you were willing to allow that stone could possibly be tinged the same avocado green as the couch. By now, she’d invested in detangler which allowed her comb to slice through our tresses, unfettered. It was pretty smooth sailing, really, until it came time to roll. Because, rolling required wrapping, and wrapping involved small wisps of tissue paper, and, once again, she met her match at my nape.

At this point, she turned us over to my grandmother who owned a beauty shop on the ground floor of what would now be termed an assisted living high-rise. The real money, however, was made styling hair for regular customers who no longer required a return appointment. She spent Saturday mornings at the funeral home. Mother dropped us off after lunch and picked us up several hours later.

“Remember now!”, my grandmother called from the porch where she stood with one waving hand raised. “Don’t wash it for at least two days, so you don’t wash it out!”

I spent the ride home calculating how I could gain entry of the bathroom before my sister.

I drove myself the last time my grandmother curled my hair. By that time, I was compelled by more than style. By that time, the trek across town, and the smelly chemicals, the pulling, the tugging, and hot minutes spent under the hood of a hair dryer were a trade-off. Because, after she curled my hair, we could visit. She took me outside to her sun porch. She showed me her plants, some of which were decades old. She talked to me about them, told me how to grow them, and pulled up tiny samples for me to root when I returned home. It was worth the thirty minutes or so I would spend with my head in the sink later that evening.

The last time my mother tackled my hair involved one of those new-fangled curling irons; the kind encased in plastic bristles, the kind that not only curled your hair but brushed it, too. She was dolling me up for some kind of event. It may have been Easter. Easter was big deal at our house. It was one of two times, each year, that my parents would accompany us to church. We dressed in new dresses and wore pantyhose from freshly cracked eggs.

My mother separated a swath of hair from the crown of my head, twirling it around the plastic-bristled, metal shaft. Steam billowed from the contraption in her hand as she marked time. Time came, and she rolled her hand in an attempt to un-wrap. But, it wouldn’t. The curling iron, with its rows of plastic bristles, had a death-grip on my hair. Steam billowed from the crown of my head as my mother pulled and whined, pulled and whined.

“I’ve never seen anything like this in my life!”

Whines turned to whimpers as we both imagined what I would look like after she cut the hair at the scalp in order to remove it from the shaft. My mother cursed. My sisters watched in horror. Finally, the hair loosened. I never saw the curling iron again.

Two weeks later, my mother made an appointment for both of us at the hair salon she frequented. Despite odiferous armpits at the end of her pendulous arms, Sandra could feather with the best of them. Kristy McNichol had nothing on me…

I was in the eleventh grade. I don’t know why I remember that, but I do. I drove quite a distance to the salon and was somewhat taken aback by the pumping, bass-driven beat of the music that greeted me as I entered. “Toto? We’re not in Kansas anymore…”

A tall man with sallow skin under his brush cut rushed, as fast as his leather pants allowed, to reach me. I left with what amounted to a crew cut. And, I loved it…but I never did it again.

Since then, I’ve been shorn by a tattooed biker chick, one Valley Girl, a middle-aged woman with an unfortunate spiral perm, and one really nice Vietnamese man. He didn’t try to talk to me. I like that in a stylist.

Several weeks ago, I got the urge. You know the one; that feeling that you have to have your hair styled…NOW! Several weeks ago, the Valley Girl had sent me home looking like something the cat had dragged in, and it wasn’t the first time. As I left work, I made the decision to stop at the first salon I passed.

It took longer than I anticipated. I was almost home. The sign on the marquee read “Famous Hair”. The fact that it occupied a space just two doors down from the market was a huge selling point.

She was introduced as “Nancy”, but I’m willing to bet her green card reads “Tran” or “Nguyen”.

“What you want?”, she asked, whipping a black, nylon robe round my neck, matador-like.

I produced a copy I’d made of a style I’d found on the internet. Nancy laced tiny fingers through my hair as she studied the picture, frowning.

“But it doesn’t matter…”, I laughed. “I gave up a long time ago. My hair does what it wants to do…and I let it.”

Frayed Strings

No one loves their children more than I do. My youngest is thirteen now, which only goes to prove that all the minutes I spent wishing he could be my baby forever were for naught. But I knew that…

To my credit, I’ve turned those mournful minutes into reasons to be grateful. When he recounts an exchange with another student in school, I pay attention. The day will come when sharing won’t be so easy. When he calls “Mom”, as I walk past his darkened room, I stop and listen before reminding him, again, to go to sleep. When he allows me to take his hand as we walk, I feel it as I hold it. And, when he wraps his arms around my waist, and rests his head against my chest I thank God for the blessing. Every little boy hug, every little boy kiss, could be the last.

He turned thirteen last week, three days before school let out for summer.

“Do you want a party? You could invite your friends from school, the guys from your baseball team, and some of your football friends. We could go to the park. You guys could play baseball, and we could cook-out.”

Shane sat silent, looking through the window to the backyard. Movement in his eyes told me he was considering the offer. He’d attended several birthday parties this year.

Valerie invited him to his first boy/girl, night-time party. There was dancing, which led to sweating, which provoked Shane to stealthily comb the health and beauty aids aisle during our next visit to the grocery store.

Chelsea’s mother went one better and rented a pool-side clubhouse. As we pulled up, the outer walls of the building seemed to vibrate in time with the disco ball sparkling through an upper-floor window. Expecting hesitation from Shane, I turned in my seat to offer words of encouragement from someone who has personally experienced countless disco balls. The backseat was empty, the car door slammed, and by the time I turned around Shane had mounted the walk towards the door without so much as a wave good-bye.

A pattern began to develop, and I saw my mistake.

“Oh…I just realized all the parties you’ve gone to this year were given by girls. Boys your age don’t have birthday parties, do they?”

Relief colored his face.

“Not really…”, he smiled, lowering his head.

“Ok! So what do you want to do? We could go out to dinner. Your choice! Or we could go to the movies. You could take a friend….You tell me. What do you want to do?”

“I want to spend the weekend with Josh.”

Josh is his oldest brother. He married just before Shane’s birthday. He and his wife live in a rural area seventy-five miles away.

Shane left on Friday.

Friday night I had dinner out, and for the first time in a long time, no one offered me a children’s menu. My companion and I enjoyed uninterrupted adult conversation. And when we left, there were no tell-tale crumbs beneath our table.

Saturday I slept in, and woke to a quiet house. I never realized how much noise is generated by the simple act of breathing until mine was the only breath drawn. I took my coffee to the patio and never felt compelled to grab at the table beside my chair in hopes of steadying it. Birdsong fell on my ears without accompaniment. No one asked me any questions.

I spent the rest of the day doing as I pleased. I shopped without uttering the word “no”. I turned my Ipod up as I gardened, never giving a thought to what might be going on inside the house. I gutted the playroom, and in so doing generated quite a pile for the next charity pick-up. He hasn’t touched those toys in years…

I organized his dresser, and added several threadbare t-shirts to the aforementioned pile. The one with the hole in the collar has bothered me for months.

I baked cookies for the neighbors and no one whined, “You always make the good stuff for other people!” I watched tennis on TV without giving advance warning of an imminent takeover of the den. Music wafted from speakers mounted beneath the eaves as we grilled on the patio and no one asked me sardonically, “Why don’t you like rock music anymore?”

As I turned out the lights above the mantle and closed the sunroom door against the night I thought, “So this is what it will be like when he is gone. I can do this…”

The phone rang and I jumped to answer it.

“Hello?!”, I never gave a thought to sounding casual.

“Hey, Mom.”

Those two words began tales of Clydesdale horses, front flips from diving boards, and a dog Shane loved enough to bring home.

“I’m glad you’re having a good time.”

“Ok, Mom. Gotta go.” Male voices parried in the background. I understood the distraction.

“Ok…” Silence in the line told me he had hung up already.

For the first time in thirteen years Shane hung up without saying “I love you.”

But he does…

A Numbers Game

I spent the better part of my thirty-fourth year dreading my thirty-fifth. It wasn’t that I expected anything to change. I didn’t see thirty-five as some kind of horrific milestone, though now looking back on it, I think subconsciously I knew I’d reached a realistic half-way point.

What I couldn’t get past was the ugliness of the number itself, the overt roundness of it, the slovenly way it sits on its protuberant bellies as though fully sated and content in its rotundity. For twelve months I avoided, at every opportunity, speaking my age. The image invoked by the words disgusted me.

What makes this behavior remarkable is the fact that I assign no importance to age. I couldn’t tell you the age of my siblings, and it takes an appreciable amount of ciphering to determine my father’s. I know the age of my children, but only because I am expected to recite it with some frequency. If you admit to having children, you are expected to know when you had them. I suppose that’s fair…

For a full twelve months, while in my early forties, I aged myself by one year. As my birthday neared, a friend laughingly pointed this out to me, proving her point by counting backwards from my birth-date. She jokingly held forth my lapse as proof of some kind of mental instability, and her jeering bothered me at first, until I realized that my behavior only proved what I already knew; it really didn’t matter. For years, the question “How old are you?” forced me to think. It just wasn’t a number I carried around in my head.

Until now…

I still hesitate when asked my age, but not because I don’t know the answer. I hesitate because being forty-nine means I’ll soon be fifty, and I don’t want to be.

As my birthday nears, I find myself surrounded by two types of people; those who know, and those who don’t. And, it is those who know who have made it difficult to share with the others. For the first time in my life, people seem to feel it acceptable to pronounce me “old”. And, they do so, loudly, and often.

My father was the first to raise the baton. Months ago, as we chatted on the telephone, he mentioned my upcoming birthday, casually asking “How old will you be?”. He’s in his late seventies; the question didn’t surprise me. This was before I’d learned to hedge, and my answer came quickly.

“Fifty.”

“Fifty?” His voice was loud. “You’re going to be fifty?” This time his volume was accented by an accusatory tone. “Do you know how old that makes me feel…to have a daughter who’s going to be fifty?” He laughed as though he’d told a joke. I struggled to see the levity, while chuckling softly so as not to hurt his feelings.

Since that time, my birthday is never mentioned by anyone who doesn’t feel it perfectly appropriate to point out my longevity. Some appear awestruck; as though living fifty years is an accomplishment worth considerable thought and recognition. Some seem to feel as though my age poses a ticklish predicament. They giggle and point as though I’ve caught my heel in a sidewalk grate. And, of course, there are those whose faces fall in sympathy. I prefer not to know what they are thinking.

A dear friend mentioned my birthday the other day, and immediately asked how old I would be. As we’ve known each other only two years, he had no reason to know. Because he is a man, and younger, I really didn’t want him to.

I vacillated between simply ignoring the question and employing my finest southern accent, reminding him how improper it is to ask a lady her age, sure that in his usual manner he would soon turn the conversation in a different direction. While I hesitated he began to throw out numbers, “Fifty-five? Seventy-six? Fifty-two?”, until I could take no more.

“Fifty.” I said it, again.

“Well, why didn’t you just say so?” His response resounded with authenticity, imbuing me with the courage to explain. He listened quietly until I finished.

“I have to admit that while you were talking I imagined myself fifty…and my heart did a little flip.” That one didn’t even hurt.

Last Saturday, my children and several friends celebrated my birthday by coming to my house for a cook-out. My oldest son manned the grill, and everyone else brought plates and plates of my favorite foods. The broccoli casserole my daughter-in-law made was the best I’d ever tasted, and by the time I discovered the potato casserole my daughter had cooked, I had to scrape the sides of the dish just to get a taste. My delight in their cooking skills was enhanced by the feeling that they belonged to me. I hugged them both, telling them how much I appreciated them. They did me proud…

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Despite my warnings, my daughter insisted I have my favorite cake. The raspberry-filled, white-chocolate cake she produced was perfect. As we admired her creativity, in scattering wine-colored cherry blossoms around the perimeter of the plate, she produced the obligatory package of black and white candles; the kind that usually come with a set of gray, plastic headstones.

“Do you like the Emo candles?”, she asked demurely.

“Where are the matching headstones?”, I countered.

“I said they were Emo, Mama.”, she answered with quiet forcefulness. “I’m being sweet.”

I meant to mark this day. Had all gone according to plan, I’d be wearing a jacket against an early chill as I clicked down a neon-lit sidewalk in Times Square. We’d be on our way to dinner, fashionably late of course, in a restaurant requiring reservations be made months in advance. Tomorrow would have been our final day in New York City. Our visit to the fashion district would be a wonderful memory as I laced my sneakers for one last run through Central Park.

As it is, I accept the blessing of over-time with a company hedging its bets against a fragile economy. I’m schlepping my son to football practice, and I’m writing. My gift to myself is my writing. I will document my half-century in words, and feelings, and words, and epiphanies, and words.

Happy Birthday to me…

From First to Last

I’ve had occasion, lately, to consider my “firsts”; my first kiss, my first sleep-over, my first job…

Days after completing the survey, I find myself still considering. While applying make-up, my first pair of boots walk through my mind. They were black patent leather, and the sound of those heels on institutional tile transformed me from a twelve year-old, angst-ridden seventh-grader into a confident, edgy, prepubescent force. While driving to work, I hear the sound of horses’ hooves on pavement as I relive my first carriage ride. It was mid-afternoon. We were in Chattanooga, on streets packed with tourists. But, the fact of him beside me dimmed the sun, stilled the crowd, and isolated our love to a single point in the middle of a busy thoroughfare wherein we were the only two souls that mattered.

I wish I’d appreciated my “firsts” more. I wish someone had reminded me, before I turned back to make sure no one was watching through a front window, that I would be allowed just one first time to surrender to Jimmy’s embrace. I wish someone had been there to whisper in my ear, “This will be your only first date.” It would have been helpful if, before placing her into my arms for the first time, the nurse had looked at me knowingly as she said, “This is your first, and only, daughter.”

I’ve reached the age when thinking of “firsts” leads, naturally, to consideration of a growing number of “lasts”. I’ve birthed all the children I will ever bear. I will never again feel the sweet pull of infant lips upon my breast, or feel the rush of emotion in realizing the miracle inherent in our relationship.

Since the age of twenty-one, sex has been a repetitive act. And, while each encounter offers a new and wonderful experience, nothing is like the first time; the virgin time. As synthetic fibers scratched against my bare back, I wish I’d had the wisdom to consider; is this the right place, the right time, the right man? Are you ready to be a mother?

What if, before you first stepped onto your college campus, a guide stopped you, taking you by the arms? “Stop!”, he might have said. “Stop, and look around. This is the only first time you will walk upon the ground that will change your life. Your next step will forge your destiny. The decisions you make now will determine your life course, because tomorrow will be your second time.”

I enjoyed driving my first car, but might I have enjoyed it more if I knew that I’d never see another one like it? Would I have relished the feeling of pumping the clutch, and finding the gears, if I knew I’d never feel that again?

I will never again reap the harvest from my first garden. I can never again get my first perfect score in English, or Math, or Spanish, or bowling. I have already baked my first birthday cake.

I know there are more “firsts” ahead of me; my first stress test, my first colonoscopy, my first AARP card. And, I hope for more; my first published book, my first trip overseas, my first healthy dill plant. I can’t grow dill. I’ve tried, and tried.

One day, I know I’m going to find just the right spot…

Traditions in Transition

My family’s Easter traditions became lost in the cry of gulls over pristine white sand. My sister travels to Destin to spend the holiday with my father who, understandably, welcomes the opportunity to visit without travel. Often, as finances allow, one or more of us join them. More often, we do not.

For years, my older children traveled the seventy-five miles between my house and theirs to participate in smaller scale celebrations. This year, my daughter is grateful to have the extra hours at work, and after putting in eighteen hour days for two consecutive weeks, my son is looking forward to an afternoon spent resting on a riverbank, watching the water ripple around his fishing line.

I assembled my final Easter basket last night and felt the finality. The look of wonder left Shane’s eyes years ago, but I’ve continued the ruse, for both our sakes. I admit to feeling just a little ridiculous as I fluffed plastic grass and poured jelly beans into plastic, egg-shaped baseballs. Next year I’ll limit myself to a nice card, and maybe a bag of chocolate-peanut butter eggs.

We’re not a particularly religious family. While my father could be called a religious scholar, given the hours he has spent reading various religious doctrines, only one of his four daughters attends church regularly. I’ve decided that this lack of structured piety is partly to blame for our lack of celebration.

As a child, Easter meant a new dress and a fine white purse to match my shiny, new, white shoes which I would wear only to church. It meant traveling across town to share dinner with a family of friends from Chicago, who marked the occasion by molding butter into the shapes of lambs and crosses. Our Easter baskets were always grandiose things; large and round they were stuffed with chocolate, before being wrapped in pastel-colored cellophane, cinched with matching ribbon. Easter morning found four of them, arranged in a grand display upon the kitchen table. The trick was to slide your hand into the flap created by the cellophane in order to pilfer a peep before Mom and Dad woke up.

By the time my children were born, Easter dinner had become a strictly family affair. Easter egg hunts were added to the celebration, meaning my children usually had at least two opportunities to load their baskets. The hunt at my parent’s house was always conducted outside, while I occasionally chose to nestle my children’s loot against window sills, behind curtains, under a lamp, or between two books on a bookshelf. The children seemed to prefer the indoor hunts. I like to think they enjoyed the intimacy.

“What are we going to do today, Mom?” Shane’s question left me wanting. We settled on a trip to the park. He and his Dad will play pitch and catch, while I walk the dog around the track. It should be a good day for it. The weather is beautiful. Later, we’ll cook out.

But I can’t help wishing there was something more…

Growing Things

He is thinner than the last time I saw him. His t-shirt flutters over his abdomen in greeting.

Shrimp dance about the pan as he shares the mundane.

“Went to Ace Hardware today!”

“Oh, yeah? What did you buy there?” I add a splash of Worcestershire.

“Oh, you know…those flowers you always had.”

I smile into the steam of sautéing shellfish.

“Honey, that doesn’t help me.”

“You know! The ones you always pinched the dead blooms off of…”

Another smile, as I moved the pan to a cooler surface.

“Ok…”

“I think Nanny had ‘em…Four-o-clocks? Were they Four-o-clocks?”

“Yes!” I turn to face him. “Four-o-clocks! You got Four-o-clocks? You know they spread. You will have lots of Four-o-clocks!” I smile at the image of my son in his garden. I never pinched Four-o-clocks. Four-o-clocks don’t require pinching. But he remembered. He remembered the pinching. The flower is of little consequence.

“I know…” I see the smile spreading underneath his hanging head. He did it for her.

“Heather picked ‘em. I told her they spread. She got those, and the others you always had…Begonias? Didn’t you always have Begonias?”

“Yes.”

“And, Bachelor Buttons. She got Bachelor Buttons!”

“Ok, the Bachelor Buttons are small. You need to plant them in front of the Four-o-clocks.”

“Ok…”

The conversation continued as I relished the memory. He never came out with me. He never accompanied me on my walks through the garden. He never commented. He never asked a question.

But, somehow, he knew. Somehow, he was there, as we grew together. And, when the memory surfaced he acted on it, creating new memories…his memories, and hers.

Mother’s potted plants lined our patio. I never went out with her. I never accompanied her as she watered each one. I never commented, or asked a question…but, somehow I knew…

Weighing Waiting Women

Women learn, from a very early age, to be good waiters.

The first thing I remember waiting for was my birthday. As the oldest of four girls, it was the only day of the year when the spotlight would be for me, and only me. Children came to a party for me. People bought presents for me. Mother baked a cake for me. Birthdays were always worth waiting for.

And then, of course, there was Christmas. True anticipation usually began about a week after Thanksgiving, when large, brown cartons were extracted from the attic and strewn haphazardly about the living room. It was mother’s job to string the lights, which meant more waiting for my sisters and I as we perched on the edge of a couch rarely sat upon, waiting for her signal to breach the boxes. Completion of decoration led only to more waiting. Twinkling, multi-colored lights reflected in our eyes as we “watched” the tree while imagining what hidden treasures lay underneath.

In a house with four girls and one bathroom, there is always a wait.

Soon after my sixteenth birthday, my father presented me with a reasonable facsimile of a car, featuring two seats on four wheels, and very little else. I soon realized it was the seating that concerned him most, and the words “Wait for your sister!” became the bane of my existence.

My sister, Laura, had one speed. A snail once challenged Laura to a foot race. The snail won. Most weekday mornings found me biding my time in an idling car with a blaring radio, for what seemed like hours, as Laura completed her toilette. Weeks of begging, and pleading, and screaming, and warning fell on immutably deaf ears. Finally, I cracked. Bidding her adieu with a foundation-jarring slam of the back door, I jammed the gear shift into reverse. All I remember of my return home is the anger in my mother’s eyes. The rest has been mercifully carved from my memory, but whatever the punishment, it was worth it!

The summer after my senior year in high school was spent waiting by the telephone. I met John, weeks before, while on a trip to Washington, DC with a youth group. When he called, it was to say he would be in Atlanta the following week. My excitement was tempered by the knowledge that I was scheduled to be in Destin on a family vacation. To her credit, my mother allowed me to make the decision. I remember very little of that week spent on the beach, besides a feeling of longing.

College graduation began the wait for my big move. My best friend and I had planned this day for years. Numerous shopping trips for linens, and dishes, and what passed as artwork, made the waiting easier. The experience of living together wasn’t the euphoria we knew it would be, and I gained a valuable life lesson. With the assistance of a good attorney, it only cost $400.00 to get out of the lease.

The only thing more difficult than waiting for the results of a pregnancy test is waiting for his reaction. Pregnancy is the ultimate exercise in waiting. I skipped waiting to discover the gender of my children. A long-ago forbidden foray into my parents’ closet, just before Christmas, had taught me that surprises are to be relished.

Pregnancy came naturally to me, as affirmed by the midwife who announced I had “childbearing hips”. For thirty-six months of my life I was a walking miracle, and I never forgot it.

I loved the quaint expression of being “with child”, and all that came with it. Pregnancy, of course, meant shopping in exclusive shops; exclusive as in those selling maternity clothes, nursing bras, baby furniture, bibs, pacifiers, and the genius that is the One-sie. My children were of the generation first introduced to this remarkable example of adorable efficiency. Thanks to the invention of the One-sie, babies no longer required trussing in order to get to the diaper; just four simple snaps, and you were in!

Mothering is synonymous with waiting. Waiting room carpet patterns are memorized, and it isn’t long before a tote bag filled with the necessities of waiting, takes up permanent residence on the back seat of a mother’s car. Mothers wait for hours in check-out lines accompanied by the wailing of an over-tired child; hers or someone else’s. Her first child’s first day of school is torturous for a mother who imagines, all day, trails of tears running down her child’s face when in reality it is her face that is wet. She can’t wait for her baby to come home.

Mothers think of clever ways to pass the time spent in carpool lanes, and later, outside movie theaters and shopping malls. Mothers wait outside dressing rooms until, curious, they grasp the doorknob, prompting the rebuke, “Not yet!”. Mothers wait, sometimes anxiously, for school to start as summer wanes, along with her children’s patience with one another.

As our children grow, waiting mixes with worry. I sat white-knuckled, at the front window, for the full fifteen minutes it took my son to drive around the block for the first time, alone. That was almost ten years ago. Yesterday, when he didn’t arrive within fifteen minutes of our agreed upon time, my face appeared again, at that window.

Even today, I am hard pressed to say which was more shocking, my mother’s announcement of her diagnosis with cancer, or her concurrent use of the word “shit”, as in “Pretty heavy shit, huh?”. On the day of her surgery, the sunny environment of the waiting room, walled floor-to-ceiling by glass, competed with the emotions of the large group of friends and family it housed. Having recently returned to school, I spent most of the day with a textbook. I turned pages filled with words I only appeared to read, until the entry into the room of a small group of green-clad men wearing serious expressions. Their words left no doubt as to the arduous journey ahead, and I would begin my night-time sojourns in the ICU waiting room within weeks.

My father didn’t want my mother left “alone”. He and one or more of my sisters spent the day at the hospital, never missing one of the fifteen minute intervals during which my mother was allowed visitors. Visits were not allowed after nine at night, so my brother-in-law and I took turns sleeping in the waiting room. For many months, waiting became a way of life, as my mother slowly healed.

Commuting lends itself to reflection. Commuting in the rain requires more careful attention, until rainy streets become the norm, and reflections resurface. Such was the case on Wednesday, when, as I rolled to a stop under a murky, red beacon, I realized I have unknowingly adopted a constant state of wait.

Last year was a year of unwanted, if not unexpected, consequences. Reminders of what proved to be an achingly short spate of purest joy, plague me, in the form of physical reminders with psychological presence. The realization that I have been waiting for a different outcome brought an ironic smile to my lips, and a reminder. Inherent in waiting is hope. And, with hope, all things are possible.