an angel in her kitchen

Somehow a fuzzy rabbit next to a wooden Rasta strikes me as absurd.

 I reluctantly drag out three boxes of Easter decorations. I like my house the way it is, artistically cluttered, and I don't want to add any holiday drivel.  Having grandchildren drives the need to arrange bunnies and chicks on my shelves this time of year, so I start unpacking.
Last Easter I put away my mother's decorations and wondered if this would be her last holiday and it was.  Marie came alive during the holidays and her closets were packed with Santas and jack-o-lanterns and throughout the year she created all these little pockets of warm tradition for her children.

Meghan O'Rourke writes in The Long Goodby, "I miss hearing my mother say my name."  I understand.  And I miss watching her eat chocolate ice cream, scraping the bowl and saying, I'm not that hungry. And arranging pink peonies in her favorite blue china vase and watching her eyes light up as her great granddaughter stampedes into her house, mushy dandelions in hand. I miss seeing my mother enjoy her life.

Carrie is baking cookies with  little Cameron helping on the sidelines. Carrie wears my mother's red and navy apron, the only item my daughter requested from the estate.
Cameron perks up and says, "your grandma's here."
 What? asks Carrie.
Cameron repeats, "your grandma's here." 
Grandma Marie? asks Carrie.
 "Uh-huh," Cameron replies. 
Where is she? Carries asks.
 "She's right there," says the toddler and  points a chubby finger at a space by the wall that holds nothing but empty air.
 When Carrie was a baby she would wave her arms and giggle, her eyes fixed on a corner of the room that no one occupied.  My mother would comment, "she is laughing at the angels, she can see them, the good ones always can."  But then the children grow up and the grown-ups tell them there are no such things as ghosts and they stop seeing angels.
Sonny rolls his eyes at these stories, I knew he would, but it's fun and oddly comforting.