I sat alone on the co-op patio, my first quiet time in days. I’d been grocery shopping and now I was preparing to eat a salad, slowly at first, the way one meditates—becoming an island just beyond the buzz of so many doings, their steady hum fading into silence. With a plastic knife I crisscross-sliced the meat of half an avocado and scooped it into the salad box, added small roughly cut squares of aged cheddar, set my fork down and looked out over the treetops. My first bite was a little broccoli tree covered with balsamic vinaigrette. I remember thinking how large it tasted now that I was paying attention.
Rising up out of a gentle presence I considered what would be nice. It was a perfect day for a friend to walk by and decide to sit for a while of easy laughter and what-a-beautiful-afternoon conversation. A single thought later I knew I wanted the friend to be my mom riding up on her bicycle, grey hair curling out of her helmet, a fancy-seeing-you-here, unsurprised but pleased look in her eyes and smile. That’s how she communicated. All eyes, and a wide sideways smile that let you know she was laughing just a bit because maybe she was up to something good or maybe she thought you were. Yes, I wanted her there so badly I honestly thought she might materialize any second, just to say “I love you” even if she couldn’t stay to visit.
I ate most of my salad alone, remembering my morning at the monument place getting quotes for gravestones the way one sifts through different cars before choosing one; only I lacked the giddiness of anticipation. I was simply there, happy for sunshine and a cooling breeze, not even wondering yet how one pays for engraved granite or its security in the earth. I knew, on the edges of each yawn and slow step around the little shop, that a later hour would reveal the depth of such an errand. A sense of gravity and missing my mom more than I could ever relate remained my company through the whole meal.
They both sit with me now as type a day later—sadness and the weight of naming her spot in the cemetery—allowing no closure to these words. Closure is overrated anyway. In the continuum that is life, each moment is pregnant with mystery and sameness, marching together as we gather years of memories, day by day.
Rising up out of a gentle presence I considered what would be nice. It was a perfect day for a friend to walk by and decide to sit for a while of easy laughter and what-a-beautiful-afternoon conversation. A single thought later I knew I wanted the friend to be my mom riding up on her bicycle, grey hair curling out of her helmet, a fancy-seeing-you-here, unsurprised but pleased look in her eyes and smile. That’s how she communicated. All eyes, and a wide sideways smile that let you know she was laughing just a bit because maybe she was up to something good or maybe she thought you were. Yes, I wanted her there so badly I honestly thought she might materialize any second, just to say “I love you” even if she couldn’t stay to visit.
I ate most of my salad alone, remembering my morning at the monument place getting quotes for gravestones the way one sifts through different cars before choosing one; only I lacked the giddiness of anticipation. I was simply there, happy for sunshine and a cooling breeze, not even wondering yet how one pays for engraved granite or its security in the earth. I knew, on the edges of each yawn and slow step around the little shop, that a later hour would reveal the depth of such an errand. A sense of gravity and missing my mom more than I could ever relate remained my company through the whole meal.
They both sit with me now as type a day later—sadness and the weight of naming her spot in the cemetery—allowing no closure to these words. Closure is overrated anyway. In the continuum that is life, each moment is pregnant with mystery and sameness, marching together as we gather years of memories, day by day.