thoughts

I must admit that I am feeling a little hesitant and a tad self-conscious with this post. Not sure what the tone of the post after I posted that my Mom passed away really ought to be. So I think I am going to just go with my gut on this one and try and be myself and share a tiny little sliver of the somethings happening in the last week or so.

Well, basically, it's an odd and relatively mundane thing that happens when someone you love very much dies. Life around you still goes on. The kids still need to be fed and bathed and you get a postcard that your Saveur subscription is just about over and dogs still bark out the window and dirty clothes pile up. Cars honk, leaves fall gloriously from the trees, you walk by a condo and you smell garlic simmering. The checkout person at the little produce shop gossips in Spanish to the checker on the other side of you as she scans your apples, pears and bananas. You get an email from school saying lice has appeared in a certain classroom. You try to make chocolate chip cookies and end up with puddles of oozing dough and try really hard not to cry because crying over chocolate cookies at this time would be really stupid. You walk to the bus and rejoice in it, you go to birthday parties and pumpkin patches and a harvest festival. You walk to school and kick leaves. Your son starts a list of how many decorated Halloween houses he see and is currently at 158. You curse someone in traffic since you are running late to a meeting and they are in your way. You eat lukewarm Ramen straight from the pot and it tastes superb. You do a late night run to Target for diapers and walk the aisles like you're in slow motion. You clip you nails on the bus even though you know you shouldn't.

But in the middle of all of these things . . . you get a card. Or twelve in one day. Or someone at work stops and puts their hand on your elbow and says how sorry they are. Or you walk into your neighborhood bookshop and they stop the registers, get off the phone and get off the computer to come hold you, tightly. All three of them. Your gorgeously sensitive husband with a terrible cold is fuzzily aware that you got up, packed lunches, changed diapers, filled cereal bowls and then takes one look at you and says, "It's okay to go back to bed." And you do. Your neighbor (that you want to know better) locks your gaze in the narrow hallway as you prepare to carve up pumpkins, hands you a foil-wrapped burrito and asks questions about the mom she never met. You get emails from across the globe and a call from a college friend driving to Fresno, CA and she didn't even know you were born there. People you know are extra kind to you and you feel it and you appreciate it on a level you never thought you would. And even though it is hard, you know it will get easier and you know you will be okay and you even know it's okay to miss someone like crazy.

And then you go and you buy a jar of hot fudge from Margie's, since your mother adored Margie's and was adamant that you should only ever have real hot fudge (not chocolate sauce!) on ice cream. And you put it on the dresser that was your mother's mother's, your Grandma Ruthie's. And you decide two things. To make a bit of a shrine to your mom, since you want to and you know she would love it. And also that you will leave the hot fudge on the shrine until your mom's birthday on November 6th and on that night the whole family (and maybe a few friends) will enjoy hot fudge sundaes. After a hearty but simple supper of really good soup and excellent bread and salty butter.

And so it is.

 

(Thanks for indulging the second person action, it was just easier that way.)

Comments

[suzanna]

Bon, that was amazing.
Thank you. S

[Jennifer Tawse]

Dear Bonniejean: it is a full moon night and your blog is really my saving grace today. I love your description of your days but this one just might top them all. Mom blesses your shine with her details and the "panther love" you spoke of recently. Keep on truckin? nope....keep on bloggin! Sister Jen