I remember Everything

Mom left us in early spring missing the summer completely. She left quietly over five long days. Those five days run together now, but,I remember. I remember blooming flowers. I remember spring sunshine. I remember feeling as if the sky should fall.

You see, Mom was a gardener of everything green and blooming. She grew the usual run of the mill varieties of blooming plants but also unique flowers which could not be found at the local nurseries. Orchids bloomed repeatedly for her in what seemed an effortless tribute.

A friend brought me a beautiful orchid in full bloom the day after Mom died. It tore at my heart, and I believed it would bloom forever in her memory. It did not. Soon each flower fell apologetically to the floor until all that was left was a long stem shooting out of a tuft of green leaves. After a while the green leaves also fell to the floor. I trimmed the stem and set the pot away. I water it pretending it is merely dormant and will soon resurrect its self.

During one of those five days I was walking through her house looking around with my eyes open, paying attention to details I have been ignoring effortlessly, well perhaps not effortlessly, but with ease. As I walked along the familiar hard tiled hallway winding from the master bedroom toward her large white kitchen, I looked to my right into the entry way, where Mom keeps her ferns and ivies. In days past there were drooping ferns with rich foliage residing there and thick ivy’s reaching out attempting to wrap you in their lushness. Mom’s ivies would consume the house if she did not tend to them constantly.

She would cut off the long branching stems, “So they won’t get stringy” she would say attempting to groom me.

I would tease Mom about her green thumb; “If you were to cut off your finger and plant it you could grow another you.” I said this more than once over the years. She was never amused.

Today when I looked into this same entry way, there was nothingness. The plants which remain are withered and stunted; they need watering, so I went to the kitchen and filled the watering can from the tap. I knew watering them would not save them, only prolong their decline, and while I did this simple task, I stared out at nothing with unblinking eyes.

I felt like a working mule, trudging away the days clicking off meaningless tasks while life was ending. Mom was my witness. Did she wonder why I did not comment on all that had changed? Or did she think I had not taken enough time to notice? She said nothing before and nothing now. We pretended, always. We pretended it was not the end.

Oh How Easy it is to Screw UP!

All human situations have their inconveniences. We feel those of the present but neither see nor feel those of the future; and hence we often make troublesome changes without amendment, and frequently for the worse.
- Benjamin Franklin

At the Train Station

I long for the warm sunny place
A deep blue sky overhead
No passing clouds

The years have not changed me.
Somethings were always dingy

This train we ride is only part mine.
Destination, perhaps someone knows.

The sky overhead is unseen
There are no stars or moon