Forever 21

“Rebirth itself is merely a dawning on your mind of what is already in it.”

                                                                      A Course In Miracles, T-6.I.7:2

Mother’s Day comes while I’m still transitioning into spring, in the midst of blooming Dogwoods, Cherry Trees and wildly growing grass tamed by lawn mowers. None of this fools me. The life spring brings is as temporary as winter’s corpses, but it feels way less comfortable or familiar. I love the quiet of winter, the promise of snow, the dark and cozy it brings. It was so before Philip died, and has a certain ironic truth to it now. There’s no end to it – as soon as life takes form it’s dying; as soon as something dies, life is taking shape again.

The things whose beauty I marvel at – the bursts of May flowers, the Apple Blossoms, Cherry Blossoms, Dogwoods and Magnolias, the hot pink and wildly purple Rhododendron  – gone in a few weeks, their blossoms scattered while we’re left with months of green and heat. Or fall, when trees show their true magnificence as leaves go rust and red and deeply, beautifully golden…but all-too-soon they’re swept into huge lawn bags and carted away as so much nuisance.

Ruffling though some papers, I found something I’d written on Mother’s Day, 2002. Philip was 11, Natalie nearly 9. I was worn out. I wrote, “Today I want to leave…I think I need my eyes peeled back…I am worn with managing my children’s lives…Today I want to be jolted…I want to live life as if it mattered…as if my-self were not the center but the radiator…What if I felt useful?”

So there, on Mother’s Day, with all the taking-care-of I did for my children, I was not feeling useful. I was not understanding that even though they were growing up and away they needed me, and they needed me much.

I also wrote that I would like to write them each a poem. “To Natalie I would say, you are my heart. To Philip I would ask that he forgive me – it is hard and angry too often.”

What was hard and angry, and why don’t I remember?

I met Ed in 1996 when I went back to college to get the degree I still didn’t finish. He was my Professor, my mentor, and now my dearest friend. We started emailing and I have most of those emails in various binders. 18, to be exact, with one missing and one destroyed for reasons I won’t get into now.

I emailed Ed my life. What happened and what I felt about it. Reams of it, I have. And his thoughtful, insightful and beautifully written replies. I can go back to May, 2002, and find out exactly what was going on. I took a quick look, and right there, two days after Mother’s Day, 2002, I wrote an email to Ed, subject line, “My Son.”

How fucking grateful am I? I didn’t read that email, though. I decided, particularly with the memoir in mind, that I would start with 1996 and make my way through. There are stories there, things about my children that I don’t remember, but are right there on the page for me to re-live. Like when Natalie was four and Philip six. They shared a bedroom, and sometimes at night, after putting them to bed, she would cry and I would go to her. One night when she was sobbing, as I made my way to their room, I heard Philip say, “Natalie, why are you crying? I love you.” “No you don’t.” she answered. “I’m going away.”

Philip used to come in my bed sometimes, lay with me before he went back to his bed to sleep. One night he came in while I was burning incense. He snuggled up to me and said, “Mom, you know what that smells like?”

“What?” I asked him.

“That smells like flowers from heaven.”

“Really?” I asked him, both startled and pleased.

“Yes. Like I’m in heaven and all the people are flowers. Then I fall through the clouds and I have a flower for a parachute to fall to the ground and come home.”

Philip, honey – I know you’re around. But if you find that flower, if you fall through those clouds, if you parachute to the ground, could you please – please- come home.

© 2016 Denise Smyth