My Mother Returns

My Mother Returns

Today my Mother came to visit the zinnias on a warm fall day. She was dressed in yellow lace that swirled about as she moved against the soft wind. Her wings soared her around as she touched a red bloom then a pink stack of petals. She didn't stay long. Just long enough to catch my attention for the flowers. I think she is telling me in this rare visit that it is time for the flowers to end. A frost will come soon and I must gather the seeds for another year as she did for her gardens.

Upon your death revised June 2020

In a hazy noon of July summer
Shaded little under still pines above me

the carriers labored up your own steep land
to place your polished casket in the dark hole 
dug in the cooler morning by friends 
and some respecting foe

A rude place to hold your body down


As I waited in the buzzing heat 
for your story's end
I slipped into a daze 
I saw the other side

As you reached the azure river that slid over smooth grey stones 
bounded by fields flowing in colors of Heaven.


As you glided across gentle waters
golden fingertips reached for you.
Hands pulled you close as arms entwined you 
Your eyes were warm stars
when you saw your mama running to greet you. 

My peace was intense 
as I felt you slip into that promised land

Of love and ease.
Ease.


Breathless suddenly,
 mourners wails, 
and soft weeping from some 
at your final day
 seeped into my heart.

Leaning into a close pine to release my grief 
in a last hug for you,
My tears streamed into the black roughness of bark


As I weakly forgot that yourself now resides on the eternal mountain 


Soon the family walked the worn path home 
Home changed forever again at death,
they spoke of your goodness and made heart promises
To meet you again. 

Not me though.
I ran wildly through the shallow river screaming my sorrow
at your loss 
from my being alive.
 grief has wrapped me tightly into pain
that makes me stand alone in nothing

Only looking into the time to be with you again.

We were one 
and separate 
for a lifetime.
Your leaving makes me alone
not finding who I am
without you

Death is final for your body
but not my heart.

HOME

HOME


Home is a house, a place that warms you, comforts you, makes you feel safe and waits for your return.  There you have experienced love of family and friends and the familiarity of your surroundings. Time lets you see the same street and the house on the corner with the swing on the porch. Neighbors have the same flowers and gardens year after year. You play with Chris and Arlene in the summers then attend school with them and others in the fall. Friends come and go. The Millers add a new patio. The Steven's saplings have grown tall for shade.

During college you come home on weekends. Home is different after being away. It is smaller and duller and you wish Mom and Dad were more modern.

The first apartment is a home but you know it is only temporary. Your Mom has helped you furnish it with discards from the basement and thrift store finds. It will fade without feeling as you move on.

Home is your grandmother’s house at Burning Fork in the south where you visit on summer vacations. She has a wide stairway leading to a low room with quilt covered beds in a row. The warm musty scent at the top of the stairs invites napping and reading and soft memory of good times. The front porch has the swing to emulate activity as you push to and fro doing nothing but dream. Swinging is best alone as you create stories and find answers in your imagination. Her home has no chores or pressure and is filled with other family times and her love.

Aunt Lucy's homes were mine. In 1967, I owned that upstairs bedroom on summer afternoons as I read the forbidden Peyton Place found on her bookshelf. As she moved from Louisville to Frankfort and back to Louisville our visits followed her. Her nice homes were different from our farmhouse and she treated us to beautiful things. We were always welcome.

As children, we lived in Eastern Kentucky for a while with grandmother and Aunt Lucy and Uncle Ken. Grandfather Callie was there but bedridden with lung disease. That was the real home I remember from childhood. Every inch is etched in my memory. There was an attic we slept in when we had company that was decorated with scary stern faces of old grandparents in ornate gold frames. The upstairs was not equipped with lights or heat. When the lantern burned out the pitch dark was filled with the occasional bat and imagined creepy beings that produced groans in the beams causing us to cower under a pile of wool quilts that scratched unbearably on baby skin. The rest of the house was filled with light and doilies and green beans simmering on the free gas run stove. The front porch there had a swing on each end and offered a view of the garden, the hill over to Spruce Pine and the Licking River up Straight Fork or to the left up Howard's Fork. Then, no road existed up the river branch so we watched for riders on hill climbing mules come down the traces or even the sound of a vehicle bouncing over the rocks in the river. Grandmothers house was surrounded by mountains and trees and cowpaths and high rocks that entertained us daily. Our only responsibility was to stay out of trouble.

Grandmother moved to Burning Fork, then Louisville, then Frankfort. Each of her homes gave us the same feeling of peace. To her we were all special and she showed it. Mostly by talking to us.

When we left the hills, my family lived in the Appalachian foothills of southern Ohio. Changes came with this move. We had work in the garden and house chores and schoolwork. But plenty of time to roam and play in the woods and fields. We were in the country and lived it. The house was simple but kept warm and clean by my sweet mother.

In 1962 we moved to an old used up home in northern Ohio. It was different here as we grew into adults. We were already pulling away from the familiar to something unknown but our own place in the world. I never liked that house or the flat land close to the highway and neighbors who never learned about us. They did not welcome us. I had lost my place with people. Schools were different and there was a town close enough to visit and every day we heard the clock tower chime 5 o'clock and the factory whistle its start times. The trains rumbled on tracks thru town. In the distance in the back field, we saw the blinking light of the phone tower at night. Many cars went by on the roadway but no one waved and we did not recognize the passengers. The saving grace for that place was the flower gardens my mother established and shared thru the years. Mother is gone to Heaven but I still drive by the Townline Road home to see the changes and to see any flowers left from my Mother at that home.

Home is the feeling of a place. My current home is an 1845 remodel in New Haven. We have raised children and grandchildren here. But I still dream of modern and convenience and get disgusted at the millionaire previous owner who didn't update and repair things. It is comfortable and has a front porch that we use. We know many people here and the history of the village allows to learn of a different people as industrious as my Appalachian ancestors.

Home is a place of memory and solace as you travel familiar roads and see the places and things and people from your past. I saw your face in the face of your granddaughter today and thought of how you loved me till your end.  And I heard the voice of my mother as I listened to my friend Hazel describe how hard life used to be when they were young. And the simple fun they had before modern life. Scattered flower gardens and pots of begonias around the old houses speak of work and pleasure we remember. A row of dahlias on Route 7 continues as part of the family. Hillsides recall old barns angling back to the earth and country kids climbing to the high rocks used as playhouses and shelters from the mountain giants and Indian ghosts from the caves and mounds. Home becomes smaller as we lose mom and dad and great aunts and their reverent tones as they talk of their parents and grandparents. Pieces of our lives disappear and change as homes change.

Then the home grows bigger as we communicate across the wireless space. We connect with old schoolmates who we no longer recognize and distant cousins who we only know by name and great grandmothers.

People say you can never go home again. They are wrong. Home is a cemetery in a front yard, orange lilies along the July roadside, and road signs naming your place. It is a history of your travels along the roads and your feelings as you pass.

Home is a song from your youth that takes you back to 16 and the day a boy whistled and looked into your eyes and deeper.

Your aunts keep you in the arms of the mother you have lost. They know the love you need for home.

Home is your sisters and other sister women who share the terrors of femininity and the day to day drudgery of work and child raising and husbands and bills and coupons and repairmen and insurance companies and businesses that think we are weak and stupid.

Home is a target for our heart. A safe place of peace. A touch of a good memory inside yourself given by God.

I still search for home.