if the fates allow

It's Christmas and my house is heavy with history. There's this box that's more tape than cardboard and the peeling label says give to Dawn, my mother's handwriting. Those angels sat on our television set through the 50's and then some and my brothers' scuffles and other tomfoolery sent them crashing to the floor and onto my father's work table to be pasted together yet again.  I feel Marie in my house today and I'm not sure I want that, that empty hole feeling her memory creates in me.

I am preparing fettuccine with ham and peas for my father and I get crazy dicing the ham. I seem to have excess energy and the ham gets almost microscopic.  My mother's cream-stained recipe card sits on the counter. I have carols playing, the real kind Bing Crosby and I have candles lit and the room feels golden. She has been engraved on my brain for most of the day, it's been awhile since this has happened but it is happening today.



too many peas

My daughter arrives,"smells like Grandma's house. I can feel her, she's here."  I am an academic and a scientist and she teases me, "I know you don't believe in this stuff" and she smiles that smile young women give their creaky old mothers when they think we need catch-up instruction on the ways of the world.  And this is the point of contention, the girl has a master's degree and she believes in my mother's ghost and I do not.

My mind is a sitting target for obscure and irrational thoughts this emotional time of year.  Babysitting the unruly one, extra hours at the job, groceries galore, all the amazon gift orders and then it all cleared as if someone flipped a switch.  My anxious mind lurched for an explanation and then a calm sea filled that space. I swear I heard her, a small clear voice in the depths of me. 'This is good what you do" reverberated through my conscious self and the intensity made me grip the handles of my fettucini pot and my eyes got full, my paws dashing away that annoying moisture.  Probably a bounce-off reaction to her handwriting on the recipe card, Judy Garland singing and all that sentimental mishmash. Just a girl wishing for her mother and the missing is a bottomless cavern.



"someday soon we all will be together, if the fates allow, until then we''ll have to
muddle through somehow. So have yourself a merry little christmas now."