Mid-May, my husband and I flew across the country from Western Washington to Western New York to visit our parents: one father and one mother. They are eighty years old. A day will come, not so far from today–one year? Two? Tomorrow?–when I will not have the opportunity to hear another word from my mother’s lips. Her voice will cease. I will not be able to ask her about her past, so much of which eludes me, nor about her present, one that is generally filled with physical pain and emotional unhappiness. My father-in-law is bright, but he is slowing way down, and he, too, is generally more sad than happy. Husband and I wish we lived closer to them, we, who moved far away from childhood homes to build a future and who now question our choices, questions that always end in conundrums.

During our stay, we visited cemeteries. On the way to one cemetery, we brought my father-in-law, and we stopped at nurseries. At the first stop, a rural and sprawling nursery–some plants over here, some plants thirty feet over there–we located the hoped-for sedum succulent, a hardy plant that thrives in all weather. The next nursery, hugging city traffic, blasted “Jessie’s Girl” by Rick Springfield through outside tinny speakers as we shuffled through tight aisles until choosing pink and white petunias and one bag of soil. The song, in another circumstance, would have kindled memories and spurred me to sing, but here, this song of my early teens produced regret: See what you left behind! 

We purchased two terracotta pots, one at a reduced price because of a chip, which we planned on turning from view. It may be that the terracotta pots will crack over the next winter; it is unclear. But if they do, the cracking gives us increased cause to fly three-thousand miles, perhaps easing my conscience, giving back, perhaps too late. 

Finally at the first cemetery, we each had tasks. I hunkered near the headstone of my great-grandparents-in-law, dislodging a dead plant from a stone pot with bare hands and then yelping as a host of tiny ants dashed across my fingers, one biting. My father-in-law trimmed the grass back from his wife’s grave marker, a marker etched with his name as well, the year of his ending to be added. My husband planted the lasting perennials in the new pots, and then I added the delicate spring flowers. Water from a nearby spigot was poured. I requested the shears. Leaning on the grass near the marker of my mother-in-law, one of the most affecting women in my life, whom I let leave me before I gave enough in return, I cut away grass blades. Here, Babci. Let your name not sink into this earth-bed. Please stay. You are too much to be forgotten. 

My visit to the second cemetery took planning, too. Before departing Western Washington, I sent my mother a letter: I will pick you up at 9:00 am on Tuesday, May 14th. We have an appointment at Forest Lawn. My mother had made no plans at all for her ending, so it was up to me. I want you to get what you want; I don’t want someone else to decide for you. I picked her up in a new, big rental car. We sat in a lovely, historical office with tall windows. We drove slow through the grounds to her final resting place, a little bit of soil that I now own. She nodded, gave her okay. This dirt or other dirt, no matter. It wasn’t on her mind, her mind of thoughts that leave as they form. I held her frail arm, lost in a sagging jacket. 

Across the country now and back in my routine, I try to remember to write my mom letters. So that she can read them, again, and then again. So that she can remember.

In Volume 5, Issue 3 of Club Plum, regrets are remembered in the confines of confessionals; choices are remembered in the speed of Highlanders; fathers are remembered in food, in junkyards, and in clouds; loves are remembered in cages, abandoned discretion is remembered in taxis, and we alter humankind on the beach, and we give release when the storms break in summer.

Please wade through this season and join us.

Yours in words and art,

Thea

# Club Plum Literary Journal #ClubPlum #Club Plum Literary Journal #ClubPlum Club Plum Literary Journal