May 12, 2013

• Rose Petals–Aging Children — A Letter

  “Hello Mama,” You would hear me say, and standing at the door, your hands resting on your arms, you would have waited hours for us, and every sound would be, “That must be them, ” and finally, we would have made it back where you wanted to be — near the main road, for you had lived away from people most of your life.  I am so sorry, for you must have been so lonely, and I could read it on your face like letters which came with each new wrinkle which formed so slowly on your face.  “Get out, get out!”  Your hands would be damp like due, and each of our children was going to get hugged no matter that you were waiting, that you were tired, and time after time each year someone would be on the way back to Middle Tennessee, but homecomings never got old, and you wanted us to fill the house with old friends or get out and, “Loafer,” as you called it — Just to get out and to go see people who you had not seen in a while, and if we did the right thing, we would have found something new and pretty to show off and to wear.

  The grand kids would be sitting with a piece of cake bigger than the mountain before I could get my suit case out, and Daddy would accept the hugs, keep the dogs off, and you would tell us how we were going to get to rest in the next day when we knew full well that you got out in the kitchen and banged pans like cymbals, for when the sun came up, the morning work was supposed to get done, and folks who slept late were wasting the hours needed to get the house ready for the company and to have dinner on, and so year after year — I would pull the covers over my head and hope to sleep just a little more, to wake up to the country morning, and then it would start again; “Slam”, “Crash,,”  “Bang,” and “Clang,” until we would give in, get up, and then the day was off right for you.  You would have cooked the farm breakfast, the eggs, biscuit, and sausage, but you knew that I was going to settle for a piece of your coconut cake, so over coffee, then you would begin to get the news.

  I know that you have been close by a few times the past couple of years, for you are watching over all of us, and you are thinking that we will spread dinner on the ground and smell all of your pretty flowers soon — The happy times, your reunions, and I wish now that I had brought the kids more often, for how will they ever hear about your Mama living on an island in the middle of The Tennessee River and that she would come over to swap eggs and chicken for provisions for her Mama and her Dad.  Some called the place, Hiwassee, the Indian name for the place that had the grocery and the old village medicine people, and I cannot ever imagine an island that large considering The TVA came in their and flooded area after area to create lakes which would sometimes cover the big trees.  I need to know so much more about all of these things, for they are our legacy, and it was as if you never knew any of your mother’s life, for she had some demonic need to persecute you and us, so just go figure Mama, and remember that she was a horrible, “Gossip,” and she decided that you were the easiest to break down as you had baby after baby..  How could she have hurt you so much?  It just seems the way of things, that there is so much hurt, but I learned as you would learn that sometimes to those who inflict great pain — Then they will not know when, but they will have loss, loss as deep as the well which touches the water where only darkness can go, for the water is a table and it runs and runs under the earth and on out to the sea.  I have known about the secret wells for as long as I can remember, for I read about them in the fairy tale books at school, and then I began to see traces of souls swirling, swirling in the dark.

  “Yes, Mama,” the pain has been terrible, but you always said that a big family was good, for some would break your heart, but some would soothe you like the warm quilts which you made before I was born.  We count on daughters, but to survive — Then some we let got free, for we start dying too soon ourselves, and we can only hope that time will open eyes with blinders to what was the reality of their youth, so my friend Roberta told me to no longer pray to God for help but to let God know that it is bigger than me, the evil, the lie, and how it all came about, so I did just that this year, for I have some life to live as well; So I handed the hurt and the pain over to God and said, “Now she is yours, for I cannot help her,” and she needs so badly to make her statement of hatred for the foolish men who sealed her fate the fault of something inside me.  She was my baby, and I loved her, but I have let her go, for I will not accept even a scant of her troubles that she chose brainless fools to give her first passion to.  She is now grown, and I know that some things just are not fixable, and perhaps I should have seen it coming, for she never could see the people who you became — So I carry on.  Mary shares her love so fully, and she needs me more than I can even give, but I will go to Mary, and I will know what love is — Abiding.  Mary had to find the wounded to care for, for she is a lot like me, and we three could hold hands out on Sand Mountain, and we could walk and talk on Decoration Day.

  I felt you near me when I was sick, and I feel you near when I am in pain.  Karen and Matt sent me a beautiful bouquet, and in it are white roses, and I want to save the petals and bring them to you, for they will seep in to the ground, and you will know that I came home just to see you, ate some more coconut cake, and drank some coffee, and I am going to let those petals from white roses fall and flutter, seep their perfect scent and rejoice in you, in your sweet life, another thing which I could not fix — For until I was too old to understand, I never knew that I could have you.  I would like to know more about the Partin man who you wanted to marry, whose letters your mother hid away until you were a bride at 16, and I just want to catch up with you to fly on clouds together, and maybe we can find Dad and a DQ, take a ride in the old blue 1956 Chevrolet, the one we were so proud of when we drove it home — A fine car, the most beautiful car until Dad and you stepped out in that LTD.  What chatter there must have been on the mountain top when you drove up in that black LTD shining like the sun, and I can just feel the tongues of fire wagging, “Can’t you Mama?”  “Thelma and Amos are just showing off with that fancy car, and they were not fancy back when we knew them, and they shore ain’t fancy now!”  “Tongue Wagging,”  that was a good term for gossip, and I could just see a bunch of old mixed up dogs with their tongues hanging down their neck, smacking their lips, wanting to chew on a bone, because their mouths were so full of dead meat a dry bone sounded good after all that drizzle and drabble of old hen dogs yapping up a storm, “Thelma and Amos, and that bunch of kids — Just a bunch of show offs.”

  You were better than them, because you would forgive and forget, and their minds, and their dark souls are going to be treading in that well where the water runs deep and dark, and there is no telling where the water ends.

  I will be alright now, “Do you hear me?”  It is Mother’s Day 2013, and I have cheated death twice, and I hope to bear this world a while longer.  I want to see more miracles, and I want to see the sun spin, and “Blessed Mary,” to know that she is in every rose bud, for it is her sign, and it is pure and sweet like love, and like the beginning, the baby’s head, the faint of human beings when they feel the need for love.  “Happy Mother’s Day, Mama,” and I will miss you every year, but as I told you, “This year was harder,” for I know my own limits, and I know when I have to put some things away, for they just hurt too much — Like the day we put you away in your royal blue gown, your hands with our pink roses, a picture of James, and all of your work done. I just know that your breath is on the springtime air, so I will tell you, “Good Night, Mama,”  and knowing you, your apt to be endeavoring to find life boats for those in the darkest wells.  They never knew that underneath it all you had a heart of gold — And that can never be taken from you.

  “Mother Mary, surround my mother’s resting place with roses, and make certain she knows that Jacob left her flowers I sent for her special day.  I will write you another letter, and I will send it in whispers across the sky.  “We loved you Mama, and the best of us has come from the crystals which sparkle on the hour as the chandelier of new day is streaking always across the east, for no longer must you wait until sunset to rest.”

  A Prayer Letter For My Mother

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