Remembering Mom
That’s probably not the best title; my mom is still physically here, but has been largely checked out mentally for quite some time. She hardly remembers my sister and I anymore and, while she frets about where my dad is 20 seconds after he leaves a room, I’m not completely sure she really understands who he is either. She went into a marvelous memory care facility yesterday and I had planned on writing a tribute to her this morning. But then I came across this little piece that I wrote a couple of years ago, before she had completely lost it, and I thought it summed up my feelings nicely.
Muddah
I was sitting on the porch listening to the heavy rain as it beat steadily on the pine roof and happily splattered on the stones of the low wall that half encloses the front of the house. Thunder growled overhead; a low, guttural sound that to some would seem ominous but to me signals the onset of a welcome monsoon. As the scent of the afternoon shower grew richer I realized that even the rain smells different in the desert. It’s a combination of stone and wood and, somehow, the very dust blanketing the stone and wood it beats upon.
I was relishing the scent, creating a memory of the sound, the smell, and that pink Arizona light made more vivid in the falling droplets. It was one of those moments of noisy silence, when the sounds swirl and blend together, creating just enough distraction that the brain is able to quiet itself and become lost in a state of complete, meditative introspection.
And then my mother opened the door… solitude undone.
She sauntered over to sit with me on the creaky iron and wood bench, sighing loudly and observing, “isn’t the rain just beautiful?” Well, it was. Then she sat down with her book, proceeding to hum and bounce her foot and bring with her the faint smell of ginger snaps. But as soon as I think, way to ruin my reverie, mom, I’m already chastising myself for thinking that way. I start thinking I’m a horrible child and definitely headed to hell in a hand basket, and realize that I’m going to look back on this one day with nothing but fondness and more than a little sadness. I’ll remember a perfect Arizona rainstorm, for sure, but in all honesty I remember many of those. What I’ll remember about this one is my mother’s endearing (yes, sometimes annoying but still endearing) quirkiness. I’ll remember the fact that the woman can never sit still — she complained of RLS before it was even a glimmer in the eye of Big Pharma. I’ll remember the fact that she mumbles to herself constantly (hopefully I’ll remember that when I’m annoying other people — all the women in my family have a tendency to talk to themselves). I’ll remember the fact that she’s always hungry yet is still the size of a chopstick (see? Annoying!). But most of all I’ll remember her devotion to her family and the way she loves us all so fiercely. She’s far from perfect, as most of us are, but she’s all mine and I wouldn’t trade her for a goldmine. Well, maybe if it was a really large goldmine…
