Sunday, I meet my sisters at Mom’s.
I get there before them, and walk into Mom’s room at the nursing home. She’s sitting up in bed, asleep, with a smile on her face. Head tilts down slightly, chin just touches her chest, soft, brown curls float at shoulders, and the bones of her neckline push to the thin skin against the loosely tied hospital gown.
I thank God for the gift of her smile.
“Mom?” I touch her hand, she opens her eyes, and smiles even brighter.
“I brought you some flowers. They’re from my yard.” I press the posy of passionate purple violets and perfumed lily-of-the-valley into her hand.
“From your yard,” she says.
In that moment, I know that we’re both rushing back to a place, a time, in my yard, with my young daughter, picking flowers, rushing the scents, the trills of birds, tufts of clouds, hovering pines, overflowing forsythia bushes, the seeds, the life, the love, the bridge of my daughter’s existence pushing into our souls.
I pull up an armchair alongside her.
“You have the best chair, Jean,” she says. I think she’s right.
My sisters come in. Maria pushes a seashell into Mom’s hand.
“Remember the beach, Mom? Remember swimming in the ocean?”
Flowers and a seashell.