Pearl Moon of Loss and Remembrance

This is a dedication essay from the Full Moon book the members of my quartet are writing. We have decided to dedicate it to our mothers, and here's my offering:

The full moon coming in the last week of May 2010 finds me struggling with a whole new set of emotions as I go through my mother’s house after her death to finish writing the last chapter of her life for her.

Ten years ago, already a widow for a decade, she sold the house where my brothers and I grew up, built a brand new one and then decorated with all new furniture. I have no emotional connection to the house or any of its furnishings, so the thought of selling it to someone new is not difficult. Neither is going through all her clothes, many of them only worn a few times, or the dozens of pairs of shoes or the mounds of costume jewelry or the new dishes and pots and pans. All of that is just the flotsam and jetsam of a woman who was fortunate enough to be comfortable in her retirement years.

It is the other things that I come upon that cause me to stop in my tracks and wait for the wave of grief I know will come. The notes written by my children and carefully tucked in unexpected places; the recipe cards written in her hand and stained from years of use; the one carnival ware dish from her grandmother, miraculously kept safe from the growing pains of her five children.

In her jewelry case I found her wedding bands from fifty years ago, worn so thin that they were replaced with a new ring long ago. These original bands, bought by desperately poor 18 year-olds, were carefully preserved in their original case, the socket where the tiny diamond sat empty, pulled to put into an arrangement in the new ring. Only a few months ago my mother pointed that diamond out to me – still proud of its clarity and shine. Now, I posses both sets of rings. I put them together and they fairly throb with the ghostly remnants of their hope for the future.

Shortly after my parents were married, my mother gave birth to a daughter, She was born with a severe birth defect and only lived to be 12 days old. In the old cedar hope chest in the storage room of my mother’s house, I find a scrap book where notes and cards from a happy baby shower are pasted, followed by the death notices and sympathy cards and a ribbon from a funeral flower arrangement with the name “Theresa Ann” on it. She never spoke of these events unless I asked her about it, but there in the chest, next to the little white garment that was my christening dress three years after that first baby, was this scrapbook – now entrusted to me to keep.

When my father died I was already a grown woman with a family of my own. My parents lived in a split level which had two short sets of stairs, one going to the lower level and one going up to the bedroom level. Because the upper set was not set into the ground, they squeaked when anyone walked on them. When you lived in that house, you got to know who was coming down the stairs by the sound of the squeak. The day of my father’s funeral my mother and I were sitting at the kitchen table in the center level of the house. We could not see the steps from where we were sitting, but I heard someone coming down them, and that someone was my father. Of course, it was only a split second before I realized that he couldn’t be the one, but when no one came into view I couldn’t help feeling a little unnerved.

Later, I interpreted that as a sign from him that he was gone, but still near. After my mother died on May 1 this month I watched carefully for a similar sign from her and was disappointed when none seemed to be coming.

One hot day this week, 23 days after my mother passed, my daughter and I were working at the house beginning the clear out. Sloan was in the bedroom trying to sort through the mounds of jewelry my mother collected. She wasn’t one to buy or wear expensive pieces, but she loved costume jewelry and sorting it into some reasonable form for the sale was a challenge. When I sat down in the bedroom chair feeling weary and over-whelmed, Sloan handed me a flat, velvet presentation case and told me I might be interested in what was inside.

It was a pearl necklace.

All my life I have loved pearls. My husband has given me pearl earrings and a bracelet and this year for our thirtieth wedding anniversary, which is the pearl anniversary, he gave me a ring. But we could never afford to buy a pearl necklace, which I have coveted since I was a teenager. And here, in just an ordinary moment of an ordinary day, was the pearl necklace I’ve always wanted but never thought I would have. A necklace I never remember my mother receiving or wearing.

I took it out of the box and fastened it around my neck. The pearls felt heavy and cool against my skin. The perfect round orbs glowing like the full moon itself and I felt a sense of peace ease around my heart.

And that was my sign that mom is near.

Denise Kalin Tackett
May 27, 2010

Buffalo Jam

This is another essay from my National Park Series and a photo I took at Yellowstone

They seem out of place in our modern world, a holdover from a time people needed the meat from such large beasts, but there are buffalo everywhere in Yellowstone.

Some are in herds like the one we stopped to see on a quiet early morning, but many are in groups of three or four. Sometimes just one will come moseying down the road or lie like a dark boulder in a field or stand like a sculpture set among a clump of trees.

This ancient mammal was almost killed off by greedy white people who really didn’t know better, or care, but today these animals are safe within the park boundaries. Now they must live as they once did taking their chances against nature and weather and predators and the occasional careless motorist.

We snap photo after photo of these lumps, as dark brown against the yellow grasses as dark chocolate wrapped in a gold tissue, and as usual when there’s an animal visible from the road, a car jam begins to form. At Yellowstone the sight of any animal can cause a jam. Once you’ve been there awhile, you learn to stop whenever you see a car on the side of the road with their occupants staring into the distance.
“I think it’s a bear – see that dark spot moving on the far hill?”
Or
“There’s a buffalo in the trees by the river!”
Or
“A big elk with huge antlers just ran over that hill.”

Because Tom is a landscape photographer and not especially concerned about capturing photos of wildlife, we are often the cause of mini-jams ourselves. People would pull off the road next to our car and look eager until they realize Tom’s camera is pointed at the scenery and there’s not a critter in sight. So, they get back into their cars and drive off, no doubt a bit disappointed.

In the nearby town of Cody we visit galleries where large photographs of Yellowstone’s animals are on display and for sale. We wondered how much time a person would have to spend in Yellowstone to capture just the right shots of these animals.

But we didn’t have to wonder who was doing it. Throughout the park, as we were stopping to look at the sites, a car or pickup truck would pull up and someone, usually a man, would get out holding a camera with a huge, long lens and fire off a few quick shots if an animal was in sight. If there wasn’t one, he wasted no time getting back into his vehicle and racing off to the next location.

It is perhaps a way to make a living, but not in the spirit of the park, which exists to preserve nature and wildlife and shouldn’t be rushed through like another day on the clock.

A New Resolve

One of the things people close to my mother said to me during the recent visitation and funeral was that she was a talented artist, but she never felt confident about it - she just never felt anyone else would think that about her.

It's true that she did have a wonderful artistic eye and she was successful at pretty much any kind of art she tried - but I think she was hampered by her own self-confidence. She was self-conscious her whole life about having to quit high school to go to work to help her family, and I think she believed only someone more educated and formally trained would have the right to declare herself an artist.

I’ve been thinking about this for several days now and it occurs to me that I am treating my creative writing the same way. Although I did go to college and worked in some form of commercial writing for many years; I’ve made it a life-long habit to hide away my creative writing and share it with only a few, carefully chosen friends. Although it would mean the world to me to be recognized in the greater world as a creative writer, I have also had to battle with my self-confidence.

My mother would hate that. She was always one of my biggest supporters when it came to my writing (although I seldom shared it with her either). She and my Dad worked so hard to send me to college – the first in my family to do so. Although she found it hard to promote herself, she would have been the first one to tell me to be brave and give it a try – after all, I have very little to lose and so much to gain.

When I gave the information to the funeral director for Mom’s death certificate, I made sure her profession was listed as “artist” instead of “homemaker”, knowing full well that if she were alive it would make her squirm, even though it was the truth. I have a hope that future generations doing genealogy research will look at that certificate and get a more accurate picture of the person she really was. And, by the same token, when I come to the end of my time I hope someone will list me as “writer.”

Now, I will honor my mother by working hard to make it true.

Memories of Mom

It's been 12 days now since my mother passed away and I'm beginning to put aside the sadness and helplessness I felt during her final weeks and think about the wonderful woman she was to me and to her family and friends.

This photo is one I snapped at Sloan's high school graduation, on a beautiful day nearly two years ago, before Mom got sick. It's a picture of the two women that mean the most to me; like bookends on each side - one a generation older, one a generation younger. We were a threesome of like souls.

Sloan and I will honor my mother's spirit and life in the coming months by going through her house and belongings and finding them new homes. And by putting her memory in the proper place of honor. It doesn't dwell in her house or in her "stuff", it belongs in our hearts and the two of us will cherish that the rest of our lives.

Pie Disasters

This weekend I went to a quilt retreat in Shipshewana, Indiana. It's a town that's famous for its Amish population and its good food, not the least of which is pie. Unfortunately, I was pie disappointed twice! At lunch on Saturday I ordered a piece of strawberry/rhubarb pie and got this horrible concoction with a half-inch of crumbs on top and the rhubarb encased in a thick custard on the bottom - it was inedible!

At dinner I thought I would be rescued with a piece of raspberry pie, but was served a slice of some kind of gook with two inches of pudding and about a quarter inch of raspberry smeared on the soggy bottom shell - again - inedible! I wanted to cry.

Where is a slice of good old-fashioned baked fruit pie? I'm not picky: peach, raspberry, apple, cherry - just about anything would do.

Of course I realize that I was probably over-reacting to this pie situation because my mother's death is still so raw and fresh on my mind. I feel helpless to change anything about that - and I take it out on the pie, knowing full well that, at least at lunch, I could have ordered a different slice and it would have been fine.

When I came home today, Tom and I went out to eat and it was so hard. Everywhere we went, the restaurants were full of people taking their mothers out to dinner for Mother's Day. Not only was I not able to do that for my mother, my own children were not available to do it for me.

I know I'm sounding sorry for myself, but there was no pie at that dinner either. Perhaps that would have changed everything, but on the other hand, there are some things not even pie can make right.

Sloan in the Garden

I was able to finish writing all my "even day" poems during April despite, or perhaps because of, my mother's illness. It seems the only thing I could do during this strange month was write. Here's one about our daughter written on April 10.

Sloan in the Garden

Sloan is in the garden.
She empties the pots,
chops down weeds,
tills the ground.

She cleans the tools,
rakes the old leaves,
piles up winter debris,
plans which plants to grow.

Inherited from my mother,
and skipping a generation,
this need to make things grow,
not minding the heat, dirt, bugs.

Sloan readies the garden,
on a warm, sunny April day,
even though it’s four weeks
until plants can feel the ground.

She looks ahead, she plans the future.

Final Times

My mother passed away early this morning, May 1, May Day.

It's ironic that this is one of the days I always loved when I was a kid and each year I presented her with a May basket of wild flowers in a container fashioned from construction paper and an old tin can.

So, I give this thistle to my mother today, a wild flower that grows in the fields where we live, and a weed that the artist in her loved for the sheer beauty of its shape and color. An acknowlegement that sometimes life is full of prickers and things that hurt, but overall it's a beautiful gift.

This is something she knew all too well, and a lesson I need to keep in mind over the next few days and weeks as I adjust to a life without her calming presence.