The Almanac of Last
Things
From the almanac of
last things
I choose the spider
lily
for the grace of its
brief
blossom, though I
myself
fear brevity
but I choose The Song
of Songs
because the flesh
of those pomegranates
has survived
all the frost of dogma.
I choose January with
its chill
lessons of patience and
despair and
August, too sun-struck
for lessons.
I choose a thimbleful
of red wine
to make my heart race,
then another to help me
sleep. From the
almanac
of last things, I
choose you,
as I have done before.
And I choose evening
because the light
clinging
to the window
is at its most
reflective
just as it is ready
to go out.
Linda Paston
The last rose of summer was clinging
to a spindly branch of the largest of Mother’s weather beaten
roses. It was white, the color of winter, and tiny. I carefully cut
it and placed it in a glass of water on the kitchen table, so that I
could appreciate its quiet perfection with my morning coffee. Her flowering plants had been
denuded by an overzealous yard-man, who decided in the middle of a
July heat-wave to prune everything to the ground. I walked around
looking at the stumps of 50 year old azaleas and camellias,
heartbroken. The roses were all that remained. Mother cried when she
first saw her yard. “They will grow back,” I said, and she
responded, “Yes, but I will never see them bloom again.” That
much was true.
My head was always full of questions
then, as now. What was life like for her at the end of things? Was
she sad? Did she have regrets? What had been her favorite thing to do
in her long life? What did she remember about me as a child? What
were the “bad years” when Daddy was drunk and Missy was sick like
for her? But Mother was not the kind of person who wanted to
reminisce. When I asked her questions like these, she just said, “Oh,
Jane, I can’t remember. That was so long ago.”
I’m on my own when it comes to
filling in the blanks about my mother's life. I waited too long to
ask the questions. We made some new memories in her last days,
however. I taught her how to do Sudoku puzzles! I, who can’t do a
crossword to save my life, taught her, a life-long puzzler, how to do
Sudoku! We completed two together. Later, when I spoke with her on
the phone, she’d done three more! I heard the happiness in her
voice.
Maybe it really doesn’t matter what
the bad years were like. Maybe it’s just what’s happening right
now that's important. But, I encourage you, if you're still fortunate
enough to have a living mother or father, not to wait too late to ask
the questions. Write the answers down in your own almanac of last
things.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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