My Aunt Martha died the other morning, and I come from a family that is very close. I always used to say I have more than one mother in how my aunts and grandmothers have all influenced my life. I love my aunt very much. Today, she is a heavenly mother of a little girl named Corrie.
Of Backpacks and hymn books
Gold,
despite what some say,
doesn’t
just come from mines
or
rivers.
Love,
passed down, and at first,
it seems
like a mother always into
what you
do after school lets out …
and,
you roll your eyes when
she
grabs the papers mixed
up
and crushed in your
backpack.
I
wonder why you put
my
head under the faucet again.
More
shampoo, and nails embed
into
my hair and I want to ask, “Why …”
Only
to find decades later, I wash
my
daughter’s hair with shampoo
two
times before I rub in the
conditioner
But
I massage her head until
one
day, my daughter’s gone
and
her shampoo bottle sits
half full
on the counter.
I
ask, “Why?”
Just
like when I want to
drink
a Coke, but you tell
me
to watch how much I drink
because
my skin won’t be as soft.
When
I think of you, after I’d
learned
you’d gone, I
think
of first the sigh of the
teen
when her mother grabs the
backpack …
Only
to realize, years later, she wishes
her
mother was still there to grab
her
backpack.
When
I think of you, I remember
the
sound of laughter, Christmas lights in
every
room, and sometimes a piano playing
songs
long sung in a Methodist Church from the
old
Hymn books.
Gold,
despite what some say,
doesn’t
just come from mines.
You
walk on green paths, the kind
you’d
plant gardens by, and hold a
little
girl’s hand.
