Happy Mother’s Day

The sound of the brass knocker on the front door hammered through the houseboat. Definitely not one of our neighbors. It was a delivery – and a very special one – it was my Mother’s Day present from Hannah. As I tore open the envelope I thought, please let it be something she made. And it was, and here it is, waiting to be framed for my perpetual pleasure:

I cheated and opened it when it arrived on Saturday. Some things I can’t wait for, and there was no one here to keep me in line. Bill was out racing and Hannah is on the other side of the country digging into her final three weeks of school.

My favorite part of Mother’s Day, when my daughter is absent, is hearing her musical voice greet me and tell me about her life. I’m always amazed and impressed by her specific interests and original thoughts, by her passion and humor, and by the life she’s creating.

As a child and a teenager I used to tell my mother about my days, and I suppose I still do. I will talk to her about dinner with friends and she will tell me about the California poppies growing in her front yard that blew there from a nearby mountainside. Mother is, and has always been, a gifted gardener; she appreciates each bloom. Then I will tell her I’ve bought the tickets to Savannah and she will bring up the poppies and wonder why they only grow in front of her house and not on the lawns of her neighbors. Next, I will tell her about Hannah’s Mother’s Day painting and she will announce that there are beautiful poppies in her yard and wonder how they got there. The thought that one day my daughter will listen as I cannot remember the last thread of my conversation terrifies me and I push it away.

There is a photograph of my mother, Hannah, and me, standing on a bridge on the Seine with Notre-Dame in the background from ten years ago. We are bundled up against the cold, Hannah has not yet dyed her red hair black, she wears glasses instead of contacts and not a speck of makeup; she is a little girl. But because the light isn’t great and our faces are partly in shadow, my mother and I don’t seem that different from the way we look today. I stare at the photograph and remember; she had begun to lose her memory even then.

There are days when I could use my mother’s special encouragement, and I choose to wear a piece of her jewelry; the glittering marcasite broach or the little gold turtle with seed pearls I pin to a collar. They’re talismans, and with them, I summon the inner strength and pride she gave me.

I see it in Hannah and am reminded it is always there if I just remember to look for it.

Happy Mother’s Day.