I remember Mama

Another year without you, Mom. Three years without hearing your voice, or feeling your embrace. I'm still shocked when I remember that you are gone.

I think that inside each of us is that little child who cannot conceive of a world without her mother, and when it happens, its so very shocking that it feels like a part of what makes you YOU has been violently ripped out of your body, leaving a bloody hole.

As I was driving home from work tonight, I thought about this very thing, and how the only thing that eases the pain is the good memories. We certainly made a lot of those, didn't we Mom? You and me and Dad. And later, much later, you and me and Dad and DD. How much you loved picnics! And watermelon, and roasted chestnuts, and pasta. How many figure skating shows and competitions did we watch together? I couldn't watch them at all for the first couple of years, but this past year, I have been able to enjoy them once again, though its just not as much fun to watch them alone. What about the dollhouse shows? The opera? The jazz on the lawn. The Barn Theater in New London? How about all the books we shared? The Quiet Man? Clark Cabral and Greta Medeiros? Remember getting all dressed up in our Easter finery to go to town to see The Sound of Music, just you and me? The brown bomber? All the sweaters and hats and mittens that you made for me and my dolls...and my daughter.

The iron stove at the Inn, the squirrels, the chihuahuas. The three of us in the back room. Mr. Peck. Raking the leaves, the fire drills. Armand the bread man, Eric the milk man, the meat man.... The errand runs at 70 mph. Skippy Lyons. Emily Vernlund. Marian Ryberg. Vaugh Gregg.

Gram and Auntie Anna and Auntie Nettie and you in that old green kitchen on B St. In the dining room across the lake.

Always laughing. Always loving.

Always remembering. Memory Eternal, Mom. Someday, we'll be together again. Till then, I have my daughter, and the Theotokos, and my memories, and a whole life waiting for me to live it.