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Early morning autumn sun streaks our wooden deck with strands of gold. The sky is a heavenly shade of blue. In the distance the sumac is turning. Celadon greens becoming burnt orange, barn red, mahogany. The reds stand out, brilliant against a drying, wheat-colored landscape. It is the sumac I remember most. It reminds me of the year my mother died, September 30, 1993, twenty-eight years ago today.
It is morning and I begin my daily ritual. Beside my bed, piled a bit unsteadily upon the
round marble-topped table that was my mother’s, is a stack of books. Nine books to be
exact! Why nine? I make no apology for my book choices, nor for the unwieldily pile.
The explanation is simple: one never knows which book(s) are a fit for what life is
dishing out on a particular day, season, challenge.
Its errand day and I am a widow, nearing the March 7, 2016 date my first and only love passed away four years ago. I don’t cry as often now, though quick tears can still surprise me. I am not crying now as I write, though I am remembering. I am remembering a typical Saturday with errands. My memories morph into what typical Saturdays throughout our later years became, after the kids were gone, when there were fewer deadlines, when meals could be fluid, when we could go with the flow. When spontaneity was part of the fun.
