the coat

she had been on the verge of leaving for ages, lifting her coat off the hanger, wrapping a scarf around her neck, pushing her feet into boots, planting a hat atop her head.

our young selves—the child i was, that my children were—would hear her calling "go outside. enjoy the fresh air...but it's cold out there—don't forget your mittens and heavy socks," as she attempted to get me, and later her grandchildren, out the door.

winter turns to spring, summer arrives, fall, then winter is once again upon us and she, dressed in her coat, ready to go, lingers.

this image of my mother bundled up in her coat, impatient to move on but stuck and going nowhere, is what i have. it does not exist except that i make it exist. in my possession are real pictures of her—some recent, some from decades ago, some nice black and whites and early color ones that are fading to yellow—but today i don't notice those, i only notice the one of her in her coat and hat.

an abrupt little breath and she is ready, she is prepared for this final departure. "get going," she'd say to us. "you'll overheat and catch a chill if you stand around in the house too long dressed in all those clothes."

but now it's her turn to leave. "go, mom," i tell her. "please go. it's time."

her hand grasps the doorknob and finally—finally!—she turns it and opens the door. she hesitates a moment but does not look back over her shoulder. when i think of her leaving us i am standing in my kitchen viewing the impossible—a procession of snowflakes that defy gravity: the snowflakes don't head obediently toward the ground but fly free like small bleached bugs, higher and higher in the sky of an upside-down world, the world reflected on the granite countertop.

so many weeks buttoned up in preparation, so many hours spent waiting. when my mother steps out on the air to greet snow and sun and moon and stars, i bow my head, my face hot and wet. at last, for her, relief. she had been in that damn coat way too long.



In memory of my mother who recently died peacefully at her home after a long illness.
Dear heart, best friend, I will never stop missing you....

cracked

last may i was in massachusetts at the house on the hill where my parents live. the house is situated above what i like to call our golden pond—that's beck pond on a map—the place where i grew up and still, to some extent, consider home.

the weather was pleasant and sunny but not yet warm enough for swimming. my dad, a fit and healthy eighty year-old, was busy preparing lunch while i visited with my mother. over the last few years my mother's health has been steadily deteriorating, slowly diminishing under the silently prowling brain thief that is alzheimer's disease. speech is cumbersome for her—her ability to express even the simplest of thoughts is disappearing, and the few words she does manage to say are arrived at only after a great struggle. but on that day we were, in our own figure-it-out-as-we-go-along fashion, "conversing", with me holding her hand and guessing—do you mean this, mom? or this? no? how about this?—and filling in her blanks, trying to get the answers right like i was taking a bizarre multiple choice exam.

after lunch, my father and i made my mother comfortable on a chaise lounge on the patio overlooking the pond—she walks with difficulty and staircases are treacherous for her—and went down the stairs to the water, with my mother in our sight the whole time. we came back up and walked by the vegetable garden, checked to see if my mother needed anything, and continued around the other side of the house past my parents' beautiful stonewalls and up a long stone staircase—all built by my father (my mother helped) using stones they found on their property. (when you need rocks for a landscaping project it helps to live in new england where backyards can be full of them.)

it was then that my father pointed out the nest.

a large robin's nest filled with four gorgeously blue eggs.

but it struck me that something was wrong, horribly wrong.

i couldn't believe what i saw.

why—oh tell me why?—would a bird build its nest on the ground? i've seen nests built quite low in trees and bushes, but never on the ground, and this one was next to the foundation with no bushes or plants or anything to camouflage it, no protection whatsoever from predators.

when i looked at that nest, so utterly, hopelessly, exposed in a corner by the chimney, i was overcome with sadness, a deeper sadness than the situation called for. after all, birds and animals die all the time—nature is cruel, nature is unsympathetic. that's life. those are the facts. i knew that, knew it well. i thought get a grip; get over it. but in that moment i couldn't. i was hit hard by what i believed was the nonexistent future of the tiny lives contained within those shells; i was overcome by inexplicable and somewhat irrational emotion. i just wanted to be able to do something to fix things, to make things right, and yet there was absolutely nothing i could do, no way to change the outcome fate had in store for the baby birds.

a few weeks passed. one day i was on the phone with my father and suddenly i thought of the robin's eggs. i asked him if, by some miracle, the babies had hatched without incident. of course, i already knew the answer, but i waited for him to tell me exactly what happened.

there was not much to tell—events unfolded quickly. turns out, it didn't take long for what some people might call a bad luck disaster, and others might call a good luck opportunity—depending on whose side you're on—to come skulking along. the possibility of life for those unhatched-lings, which had been in doubt from the start, was like a dream—like something longed for, hoped for—with the dream coming to an abrupt end about a week after i left massachusetts. when hungry bellies demand sustenance and the brain yells go find food, what choice does any creature have?

my father informed me that the interior of the nest was in shambles—of the four eggs only three were left, and those were cracked wide open, their warm, wet interiors sucked dry, signaling fullness and contentment for a crow or a bluejay, a raccoon or a skunk. (he never did find the remains of the fourth egg.) not such a tragic situation, really—lives given up so other lives could manage to make it through another day. that's the way it goes.

i felt nothing after he told me the news—my emotional overdrive had been spent when i saw the nest.

actually, that's inaccurate. i no longer felt emotion for the ransacked nest, but i did experience an emotional response after i hung up the phone. i thought about my mother. it occurred to me that she had no idea about what had happened, no idea how events played themselves out after the nest's discovery. the story of the nest and its contents remained with her for a short time and then was lost—it became part of the realm of mystery—unless she was reminded of its existence.

in her world, facts such as these don't matter—they are completely useless to her. the facts remain for me and my father to decipher—we alone can break into them and get at them, allowing them to signal the beginning of another chunk of time, another chunk of reality different than hers, one where life has a before and after. we've become sharply aware of our own lives: it's as if we're in a kind of passage and, in order for us to avoid losing our way in this brittle existence, we need to know where we've been to help us figure out where we're going.

~  i took the photo of the nest on the day i saw it last year. my father was kind enough to save it for me after it was raided so now it's one of the nests i put on the christmas tree every year. the nest reminds me of a year of changes, and it always leads me to bittersweet thoughts of my mother.

spasm

2 am and i can't sleep. i can't summon one little dream to take my mind and set it down in a faraway land and let it go exploring. i tiptoe out of the bedroom, careful not to disturb my soundly-sleeping husband, turn on a light in the family-room-minus-a-family—sometimes it doesn't seem worthy of the name family room unless all six, almost seven, and maybe someday soon, eight of us, plus dogs, are gathered here—and sit down. lille gets out of her warm bed and joins me.

so it's just me and lille and my aching neck. oh, yeah, i forgot to mention that's one of the reasons i can't sleep. i did something to strain my neck—starting with a muscle spasm, maybe from a lot of lifting and leaning with shovels and rakes and watering cans and pots of dirt?—and the muscles ache to the point that i can't move my head from side to side or up and down, opening my mouth hurts, sneezing shoots burning streaks out from the damaged spot, and my head feels like a bowling ball perched on a twig that's about ready to snap.

but never mind that. my biggest frustration tonight is that i can't peck away on my laptop to pass the time and get my mind off things because typing hurts my neck, too. so i gather a few sheets of lined notebook paper, get three big pillows and a book to put under the paper, and scratch out these words trying—trying so hard—to get comfortable while keeping my neck motionless with all of the above stuff piled on my lap.

it doesn't take long. i think i am doing better when, suddenly, here it comes again. that spasm.

spasm: definition: a sudden, involuntary contraction of a muscle or a sudden burst of energy or activity or emotion.

i'm having one.

out of the corner of my eye i see her on her favorite wicker lounge chair on the porch. she stretches and luxuriates in the rays of warm bright light that soothe her arthritic legs. and there, by the sink, reflected in her silver metal bowl that i rinsed after her last breakfast of chicken and rice. and again, in the golden tumbleweed balls of her soft fur that remain huddled and unmoving in the four corners of this family room. and, finally, in her red collar which lies unsnapped, solitary, uninhabited, on the coffee table.

waves of grief reach me, sending quiet teardrops sliding over the curve of my cheeks. since i still can't sleep i take my lille hund—danish for little dog—outside, and together we hear the barred owls call who cooks for you? trying to find each other in the night. we also seem to be searching, lille and i, seeking a missing part of ourselves in the dark. i imagine we find her—her thick, yellowed-ivory colored fur, those big, brown eyes and blonde lashes, and the sensitive silky ears always alert for any movement, be it the rustle of leaves or the opening of the treat bag.

as she stood on the grass during her last days with us, i watched her carefully. time was running out. lizzi seemed to linger a little longer before she hobbled back into the house, taking a longer look around, her nose twitching, pulling in the air, extracting one more deep scent. was she thinking it's been a good life, this short time i've spent here on earth, or am i just anthropomorphizing?

it was a good life.

in the end, i have no doubt in my mind—i can tell you this: she knew.

this i know

it is monday. midafternoon. i have to tell you
your green iridescent shadow and your
high-speed flight's vibrating hum shake me
tilt me off balance, catch me off guard
like a sudden jab to the head.
bam! gone!
i squint at the trees where you disappeared
winging your way into thick woods
to hide in a quiet corner the world
doesn't know about, can't claim for itself.
a tiny cup of twigs and grass, a place calling you
in like love oh-so-deep—
it's what we long for, isn't it?
i trudge down the driveway to remove mail
from the shiny new box, the old one rusted, smashed dead
by a snowplow—oblivious, hellacious scrapers—mad
snow mountain makers. there are winter days i think
i'll climb those mountains rising up on both sides
of the road, shake my fists, shout down
those monster dozers. shout down a lot of things
lost and out of reach—conversations at the pond,
you mixing cookie batter, you telling me
this is what it was like. in the kitchen i
slice through an avocado, scoop out
the inside, eat it with bits of toast, tomato, lemon
hot salsa burning my tongue. the toast
leaves behind crumbs big enough for a mouse
big enough for my mother to find her way
home through a forest of hummingbirds
back to the day the doctor asked
where do you live? what day is it?
later she tells me i remember everything, you know
and points to her head.
it's all in here.

flying in winchester cathedral

she gets out on the road early, heading down to boston and the northshore. the day is bright, but numbingly cold. didn't take the time to warm up the car, so the car is an icebox. the seat heater works quickly, though. in her head she says a silent thank you to whomever it was in the automobile industry who remembered the shivering people in the north country, and mercifully invented the derriere toaster.

after a while she needs music. the ipod touch is already plugged in. she presses the ON button and then the small, round CD/AUX button on the dashboard. the display lights up and playlists, albums, and artists scroll across the screen as she turns the knob. this is the hard part. with thousands of good sounds to choose from, how can this choice ever be easy? she thinks, woman what mighty dilemmas you have.

driving south on 95, she decides to leave the morning music decision to chance. she turns the knob for artist selection for a moment, and without looking at it, stops, then presses once, twice, for her surprise artist, her surprise song.

wooden ships, by crosby, stills and nash. so it will be. good. play on.

she sails away with c, s and n, mile after mile. thinks about her mother, about how her mind is starting to collapse with alzheimers. today she will sit with her, eat lunch with her, chat as much or as little as her mother's now mysterious brain allows, hold her hand, look into her eyes. she will not cry in front of her mother.

song after song plays. a favorite: southern cross....when you see the southern cross for the first time, you understand now why you came this way....

the time passes quickly; she is astonished to find she doesn't even remember going by the last three exits. a car suddenly appears in the rear view mirror moving at a crazy clip. it is zipping in and out of lanes insanely, passing cars and speeding down the highway like a runaway racecar. with frightening speed the car is almost on top of her; then it veers into the passing lane and in a flash flies past and is gone. she is cruising at 75 mph. that car must have been going almost 100. she thinks idiot.

c, s, and n sing out .....spirits are using me, larger voices calling.....
then another one. cathedral.
they sing in the car and on my way.....i'm flying in winchester cathedral.....

she is in her childhood home, flying faraway in time. her brother's dog, laddie, lunges and throws his paws up on the table, enthusiastically sticks his face in her mother's just-out-of-the-oven-home-made chocolate cake, and chokes down gooey, rich chunks, hardly stopping to breathe. her mother is scolding the dog. she and her brother are laughing like loons.

i was spinning back in time.....

she sees her mother making thanksgiving dinner for twelve people. everything—stuffing, cranberry sauce, soup, gravy, rolls, cakes, pies—is cooked from scratch. there is not a cookbook in sight. there rarely ever was. her mother just knew the ingredients. remembered them. now much of that ability to remember—names of places, what a book is about, how to knit mittens, who is president, today's date, what an umbrella is for, how to make simple decisions (what shall i eat? what would i like to do now?), how to form thoughts into words, even many of the words themselves—is gone.

let me out of here! the singers cry. soon the lyrics and the sounds fade away. the song is over, finished. in a while she turns off the ipod. she drives the car down the narrow snow and ice gutted road, beside the frozen pond and through the piney woods to her parent's house, the house where she grew up.