Caught off Guard

Tweet

Small things,
catch me off guard.

Great Grandma Margaret with Winston

Which of course,
unexpectedly,
brings me to tears.

The kindnesses of
neighbors stopping by,
messages from old friends
both near and far away.

The sound of my mother's silver scissors
sliding across the table,
as if they are still in her hand,
except,
they are in mine.

Today, I made cookies,
from a recipe card,
written in her hand.

And it is her hand,
that guided mine,
I miss the most.

The Legacy of Laundry

Tweet

Today is the day of my mother's wake.

I find myself, in preparation for this momentous event, sorting laundry, folding clothes, and heating up the iron.

What started out as a quest to make sure my spouse had a freshly ironed shirt for the occasion, morphed into a familiar task that sets my soul at ease.

I find a certain harmony in the process of things; laundry, sewing, mending, knitting, doing dishes, and making beds.

Domesticity at it's finest.

Tasks that make up the backbone of everyday living (or loving).
Forgotten or left undone, we find to our peril, will catch one off guard, in a state of want.

Which is where I am today.

Caught off guard.
In a state of wanting.

Wanting, one more lesson from my mother on how to pick up a stitch in my knitting, or how to get the pleats pressed,
just right,
or all of the other insights that made
up the minutes of our history.

We will leave here.

Tweet

You and I can call it home.

Margaret Ruth Smith Hucker
August 13, 1935 - December 8, 2017

We will leave here,
    as my mother did yesterday.

It can sometimes seem like
  there isn't  a trace left,

But, that would be a mistake to think so.

While the traces can sometimes seem like breadcrumbs left along a path,
  not easily found or followed,
it is still there, and always will be there.

In the little moments, the small gestures,
  the eyes of my daughter, that mirror my mother's, looking towards me with love.

Sentences spoken, allow me to hear my mother's voice in my head,
  not realizing I have taken her expressions into my lexicon so deeply.

So deeply,
  she is embedded in my soul,
  it is in the soul we will meet again, and again.