Mother's day
This is Mother's Day in the US: a hard day for those who have lost or never had, a joyous day for those who have and are. I send all good thoughts to all of you, and hope the day brings what you need.
I offer, too, a little vignette:
“Mom Mom Mom,” comes the refrain from the table behind her, “Mom Mom Mom.”
She knows without turning around that there are bits of hamburger bun all over the floor thanks to Child Three's investigative spirit and aversion to bread, that Child One is poking Child Two with a spoon, and that they honestly, truly believe their lives will be blighted if they don't have ice cream right this minute right this minute right this minute.
“Hold on,” she says without much hope of it happening. “Give me a second...”
But as she swings open the door of the freezer, her words trail off.
Not her tidy arctic-cold freezer, with Tupperware dishes lined up on the top shelf and the frozen vegetables and main-course protein and boxes of emergency popsicles on the bottom. Not her time.
She reaches inside - not her hand, but her grandmother's, reddened with her afternoon with the wash and knotted with her time pounding the typewriter at the office - and touches the ice-box. The actual ice-box. The block of ice is already starting to melt, time going into the drip pan and sinking down.
“Mom Mom Mom,” comes the refrain from the kitchen table behind her. These are not her children's voices, but close.
She closes her hand on the milk bottle. It's cool, but not really cold. Her grandmother's ring clinks against the glass --
She jerks her hand back, and time freezes again, arctic, and she's staring at her tidy freezer. The strawberry ice cream is just visible behind the popsicles.
But just for a moment she smells a hot summer kitchen from years before she was born, she feels the weariness and fear and love in her bones.
“Got it,” she says to her children and to those who've gone before her, and she pulls out the ice cream.
............................
May there be respite for everyone today!
I offer, too, a little vignette:
“Mom Mom Mom,” comes the refrain from the table behind her, “Mom Mom Mom.”
She knows without turning around that there are bits of hamburger bun all over the floor thanks to Child Three's investigative spirit and aversion to bread, that Child One is poking Child Two with a spoon, and that they honestly, truly believe their lives will be blighted if they don't have ice cream right this minute right this minute right this minute.
“Hold on,” she says without much hope of it happening. “Give me a second...”
But as she swings open the door of the freezer, her words trail off.
Not her tidy arctic-cold freezer, with Tupperware dishes lined up on the top shelf and the frozen vegetables and main-course protein and boxes of emergency popsicles on the bottom. Not her time.
She reaches inside - not her hand, but her grandmother's, reddened with her afternoon with the wash and knotted with her time pounding the typewriter at the office - and touches the ice-box. The actual ice-box. The block of ice is already starting to melt, time going into the drip pan and sinking down.
“Mom Mom Mom,” comes the refrain from the kitchen table behind her. These are not her children's voices, but close.
She closes her hand on the milk bottle. It's cool, but not really cold. Her grandmother's ring clinks against the glass --
She jerks her hand back, and time freezes again, arctic, and she's staring at her tidy freezer. The strawberry ice cream is just visible behind the popsicles.
But just for a moment she smells a hot summer kitchen from years before she was born, she feels the weariness and fear and love in her bones.
“Got it,” she says to her children and to those who've gone before her, and she pulls out the ice cream.
............................
May there be respite for everyone today!