I am still doing a lot of thinking about Mom, in the run-up to the year anniversary of her death. At times I think I shouldn’t be obsessing about it (like picking at a scab), and at others I believe it is my necessary way of reckoning with having lost my sense of “home” when I lost her. Just yesterday, I was reliving the feeling I would have whenever I would stay at her house. Whatever stressful circumstance was going on in my life in Maryland would recede into the background, and would (all too temporarily) be unable to touch me. It was as if my mother had a magical power to weave a spell of safety around me as long as I was with her, and in her little house.
When I was the only one staying with her, I would move into her office and sleep on her fold-out twin bed. Although it was not an especially comfy bed, the addition of a mattress pad and a wedge, plus a couple of pillows made it into a little nest where I would sleep soundly. I would fall asleep and wake with the unique sounds of southern Illinois (cicadas, frogs, and suchlike) in my ears, and the faint scent of Mom’s house in my nostrils.
When a house has only one bathroom, you have to be especially considerate, and we had our morning ritual. After I had woken up and initially relieved myself, it was understood that before my shower I would awaken her so she could likewise avail herself before I further tied up the room. I would either call her quietly or tap her on the shoulder. Usually, being a light sleeper, she would get right up when she heard my voice.
At other times, I would wake up to realize she had already slipped into the kitchen and made a pot of coffee.
I still have a picture of the strip of wallpaper border she had in her bathroom. Even though it was “only” a bathroom, it was important to her to make every room in her house her own space, and surround herself with beauty - even if you only saw it while sitting on her potty! It was a row of cute birds sitting on a picket fence, and I’m pretty sure it made her think of the fence in our back yard in Zeigler, and the way the birds used to like to sit on it (and it brought back memories of my Grandma Chamness’s joy in watching them through our picture window).
Emerging from my cocoon in her office, I would come into the living room. Although now much of the furniture has been removed from the house, that room will always remain in my mind’s eye as it was. The TV cabinet; the two couches and easy chair with its accompanying footstool; the pictures on the wall arranged just so; the small secretary in the corner of the dining room with the portrait of Esther and Grover; the antique books arranged on top of the secretary - all of which had been in our living room in Zeigler.
Best of all, then there was Mom - either sitting at her dining room table or the small white table in the kitchen, with her cup of coffee in the blueberry mug. Perhaps she would be reading the “Southern Illinoisan” or her Bible.
The kitchen window was surrounded by various glass pieces, or had stained glass hanging in it, catching the sunlight. Some of the bric-a-brac was old, some new - but all were attached to a beloved memory or person in my mother’s heart and mind.
Often, there would be the apparition of Hobo’s face, framed in the window as he rubbed against the wooden frame, asking for breakfast.
Conversation would be small and pleasant, as befits two people waking up to face the day. What was the plan?; news of friends and loved ones; or an interesting book or article one had recently read.
Thus we would start the day in sweet companionship, looking forward to the coming hours. Now, I can only relive one of these precious mornings, as a treasured memory.
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