Speaking With Mom

Had a flashback to a dream from early in the morning. I was sitting in the back seat of a car and had a long conversation with my mother on the phone. I don't remember what we were talking about.. just catching up, I think, and when the conversation ended, I felt bad that I didn't get a chance to pass the phone over to my father and my siblings. Because it was a relief to speak with Mom, the kind of reassurance you can only get from your Mom. And I wished that I could have shared that with the rest of the people in my life who miss her as much as me.

I don't know why I had the dream. Naturally, I think about her daily, but not in a desperate way. Just remembering the good times, the lessons I learned from her, her laugh or her compassion or her funny quirks. Living next door to Dad in the house she designed and lived in for her last ten years of life, I have the opportunity to walk past specific memories of her everyday. Her shadow is everywhere over there, but that is okay. The wind chimes hanging from the birch tree in her final special garden area never fail to ring when anybody walks over there. It's like she's calling out, like she used, as she was bending over weeding or digging. "Hi Kate!"

Maybe it's because yesterday, in dressing for a day trip down to the big city mall to finally purchase Don's first flat screen LCD television (and oh boy, is he ever happy), I chose to wear one of the jersey tops I took from my mother's closet after she died. I hadn't worn it yet, and it hasn't been washed since the last time she wore it (which was, when? I wonder), so it still had her special smell on it. As we ran our errands, it was like she was wrapped around me all day. Maybe that's why.

I've worn many of her clothes at different times over the year, or adorned the simple gold chain necklace, or even her wedding band, for very special times. It's like having her with me for certain events, whether it be a gig or a family gathering (of which, sadly, have been far too few since she died... Mom was much better at keeping us together than we are proving to be without her.) I don't make a big deal about it, I don't usually tell anybody, unless they point it out. Then I tell the person, "It belonged to my mother."