In the Middle of the End

Traditional days become even more of an emotional juggling bout with each phase of life, but this year it seems all I do is push my emotions away.  It's Thanksgiving and I'm stuffing.  Literally.   Last night I dreamed my brother called me out from the pulpit at our mother's funeral.  He ranted that I abandoned her and shoved her into a nursing home so other people could deal with her because I never cared about her and I'm the reason she's dead.  I sat, ice cold, waiting for someone to stop him, but knowing it was all true.  True enough, anyway.   My mother needs one-on-one care, and Assisted Living doesn't provide that.  She's been that way for a while, but I was hoping we'd get by in a place where there is much bustle and traffic to keep her short term memory occupied.  She has won the "Perfect Attendance" award for morning and afternoon activities, never missing a game of Bingo, crafting session, or a sing-along.  But she's going int...

I place my mother's miniatures -- the ones she kept locked away -- on a low shelf of my bookcase.  It gives me so much satisfaction that I am interrupted by emotions.  Here, the porcelain St. Bernard mother and pup are eye level to a small person of five or so years, and I smile knowing they will most certainly be discovered by a favorite pair of little girls.   I treasure things in a very different way than my mother did.  Scattered around my life, my world, are the sentimental, sacred and fragile elements of my journey.  Beautiful old Irish linens get flung on outdoor tables, thirty-year old baby cups serve juice to young visitors, and I wear the pink and red zippered sweater that my grandmother made for my mother when I was just two years old.  I don't mind the thought that these particular little figurines will be most definitely touched, and picked up, and probably carried about -- possibly even lost or broken.  Because in the moment, they will de...