When the Pink Blossom Fades Away

I love those hands. Soft and white, smelling of her favorite perfumed lotion. They were small and aging delicately with such a compassionate energy. The fingernails neatly filed into ovals with the slightest hint of a pale blush nailcolor. They rubbed my back when I lay sobbing in her lap over a love that left me broken inside. They wiped away the tears the heartbreak caused and cradled my face as she promised me it would pass, while smoothing my wisps of hair.

So often her hands insisted on brushing my DAUGHTER's hair, even though by then the arthritis was so bad some days she silently winced in pain with every other stroke. They were such a visible source of love, experience and even sadness. Maybe that's why when I dream of her I always see them. Her hands, just like the rest of her I miss so much.

***************

When you see a person almost everyday of your life you seem to almost not notice them. You could interact with them daily but not ever really SEE them, or the beauty they posses. Life is lived in such a hurry that you never actually stop and look to see their radiance.

Its like the violet blossoming tree outside of my bedroom window that blocks most of the outside view. The tree bounces in the wind, its flowers dancing to the music of the sparrows that call it home. But in all its splendor and beauty, it too goes unnoticed. Not until autumn's briskness takes away all its petals, leaving the branches bare, do I notice a difference. What is missing, I think. There used to be something else there that is now gone. When I finally realize what used to be, it is too late to be the audience of its pastel show. As I sit now looking outside of my window, at the emptiness of the tree, I wish I could do more than dream of her hands. I wish I had my mother again.

*************

But if I remember correctly, with a smile I might add, it was not so long ago I had wished she would just disappear.

Like when I was twelve years old. The glorious beginning of the rebellious years. I can't say exactly what brought it on, me being the middle child in a house full of women maybe. Four daughters and my Mom, that is. I felt unnoticed in a way. So what was my remedy? I could be the one that was loud and in charge. After my older sister moved out of the house, and all that was left were my younger sisters and I, that is.
The problem was that sometimes after my Mom would come home from work, I would still be in the drill sergeant mode.

That, of course, didn't work out too well because as my Mom put it,
"You are 'Little Miss Bossy', but I am Mommy".

During one of these days, my mother came home exhausted from work and told me to clean out all of our kitchen drawers. Still being at the tender young age that I was, I tended to mutter under my breath things that would get me a date with the belt if my Mom heard them. Deep into my muttering, I didn't notice my mother standing behind me not only watching me toss everything back into those drawers, but also hearing me talk about her always telling me what to do. When she tapped me on the shoulder, asking me if I had finished wiping the insides of all the drawers, I almost peed my pants.

"So you wiped out ALL these drawers?" she'd asked me and of course my answer was a slow nod yes, still having wet pants and all. Then she had asked me to stick out my tongue and I proceeded with caution, remembering stories she used to tell me of my Mamaw putting soap on hers because of her 'smart mouth'.

"You know what your Mamaw says about the bumps on the end of your tongue, right?" she asked me ever so slyly and I froze thinking of the TWO bumps I had from biting myself earlier in the day...or was it just because my teeth were too large?

"Mamaw always told me you get those bumps when you are telling a fib," she said to me with an expression that let me know that me and the belt and maybe even the soap would all become very acquainted.

I thought I HATED my Mom in those next five minutes.
But the times she made me laugh far outweighed the times that I cried. I can always have a good laugh when I think about Easter.

My Mom was a single mother with a low income but she was creative enough to always come up with the most fun things to do for her girls, especially on holidays. Easter seems to be the one holiday that is singled out in my mind as one of those times. We didn't belong to any community organizations or churches so that we could take part in any of the egg-coloring festivities.

And her income wouldn't exactly allow for all of us girls to have frilly ribbon-covered baskets full of chocolate candies and yellow marshmallow bunnies nestled in pink grass. So she gave us empty Easter baskets that she had bought the day after Easter the previous year at a half-off holiday sale and we set off in search of local Easter-egg hunts.

While we were in the car, we heard the end of a broadcast on a local radio station about an Easter-egg hunt being held at the governor's mansion. Needless to say we bounced all around the car, in those days when a seatbelt just wasn't used that often, begging her to take us. Being the Mommy that she was, she did.

That car ride was one of the longest trips I may have ever endured. My stomach did flips at just the thought of going to governor's MANSION to hunt for eggs. I was the first one out as soon as the car sputtered to a stop.

I pushed past my sisters ready to race all the way to the entrance when I realized that the mansion was located across the four-laned street. While we waited for the opportunity to cross safely, I gazed at all of the children on the other side and imagined if they had saved anything for me. Growing impatient at the thought of making the trip for nothing, and a little bit of greed, I guess, I squeezed my Mom's hand as we all sprinted to the other side.

We walked through the large, black iron gate only to be greeted by rows of tables filled with people in suits and stacks of papers. I wondered as I looked around how much fun this event could possibly be with everyone being so professional. The tables were set up to be some sort of check-in so we all followed my mother to, well, check in.

My sisters and I stood at the table while my mother spoke to the polite woman that wore the baby blue tweed suit and large 'Easter Sunday' hat. I looked around and noticed all of the girls with their beautiful satin and lace covered dresses with ruffled ankle socks, and their hair strung with cascades of ribbons, and immediately felt self-conscious. I looked down at my plain dress, long and off-white with a simple flower near the shoulder that was a hand-me-down from my older sister and thought that their parents must be rich.

Just then the polite woman interrupted my thoughts when she asked my name, flashing me a bright friendly smile. When I told her she wrote it down on a nametag with a fat red marker and passed it to me to put on the front of my dress. I turned to my sisters who had already adorned their clothing with the stickers, to see if they held the same excitement an impatience in their eyes as I did. Instead I caught myself eavesdropping into a 'grown person's conversation', as my mother called it, by listening to the question the woman asked my mother.

"What agency are you with?" she asked my mother who in turn looked at her as if she were speaking another language. When my mother still stared at her as if lost in translation, she offered, "What adoption agency?"

My mother looked at all of her daughters' golden skin and ringlets of fluffy curls, with our baffled expressions, then turned her pretty face, light as snow, back to the woman's attention and said,

"These are MY girls."

The polite well-dressed woman looked completely oblivious to the idea of multi-racial children and stated with a confused look, "This is an event for the children who are wards of the state or are currently in foster homes."

Even though my heart sank as we sulked back to the car, I had to laugh at the whole idea when I thought about it. And I smiled when I peeked at my mother and watched her look of embarrassment, that lasted just a moment, turn into laughter that seemed to follow us across the street. Then of course my excitement grew when I tried to imagine what spontaneous thing we would do next.