Reminders

Every time I turn around, I see a reminder that the seasons are changing and we’re wiping our feet on fall’s doorstep. Leaves turn color on the trees from the top down, from their tips to the heart, which is something I’ve never noticed before now. The air is cool and brisk, relief and redemption, sweeping the fresh-fallen leaves across the sidewalk. The birds are fewer in number. After this summer’s heat, I presumed they would have left town a long time ago. If I had wings, I would.

I still have trouble remembering that mom is gone. Somehow the world didn’t stop turning. I’ve been watching the moon go through her phases, progressing from small wedge to half to whole and back again, and she appears to shine impertinence at her cyclical precision. The moon has seen civilizations come and go under her watch. Why would one loss affect her more than the others?

(Mom whispers, “Don’t talk about my death, focus instead on my life.” I follow her advice like a good daughter.)

Mom was the sun in our sky. She projected light. She wrapped us in a loving gravitational hold, safely within the orbits she ordained. We could not imagine our world without her. We could not imagine the depth of the darkness left in her wake.

I feel raw like a cut apple slice left out in the open.

What did I learn? What did she teach me? I’m grasping at her insistent lessons and losing them as if they were sand falling through my clumsy fingers.

She wanted me to be thankful for each day. She wanted me to face life and death as she did with a core strength born from extreme fire and pressure. She wanted me to find faith in daily miracles that we witness with unseeing eyes. She wanted me to trust in the unknown, rest in the serenity of seasons, and wake to new adventures. She wanted me to hold tight to those I love without forgetting that to hold on involves first opening your hand.

She taught me the love of language and dreams. She taught me to swim against the current, to fight to make it further upstream than she did. She taught me I could do anything I set my mind to, but that I was my own worst enemy. She taught me that even though the world is not going to be fair or just, I could make it a better place. She taught me beauty is not found on the outside, it lies within.

I found a pale, alabaster shell the size of my whole hand, fingers outstretched, half buried in the sand the last day I was at the beach this past spring. I was amazed that its fragile surface had not been crushed by retreating waves or hungry birds. Later, my treasured shell name was revealed as ‘angel’s wing’. Perhaps delicate, meant to protect, two halves cradled what it held inside, this shell remained intact whatever the ocean threw at it. And no longer earthbound, it had the potential to soar. That was my mom.