Tomorrow

I went through my blogs and found 23 unpublished. This one was written a month after my mother passed away in August 2006. I was about to continue down the road in the RV with Phoenix and Diablo and The Last Voyage of the Cosmic Muffin.

Tomorrow I leave home with mixed feelings. I'm not excited; yet, I'm looking forward to being alone. Road time. Time to contemplate in solitude on the events of the last month. To cry alone. Years ago, after Rusty, my mother's dog,  had been put down Mom said she had not had a good cry. She was waiting for Dad to go on a trip at the end of the month. Then she could grieve alone. I wondered how she could store away the emotion, as if it were a coat to be pulled out of a closet at the first chill. You can't tell the night air not to come because you're not ready. Can grief be pulled out when it is convenient to wrap it around your heart and soul?  I never knew if Mom had that a good cry. Dad did not go on his trip.

Now I have done the same thing. I have not burst into a long hard cry since Mom died. I  have caught myself aching for Mom’s presence, missing her dearly, feeling sad and lonely. I have been caught off guard when for no apparent rhyme or reason the emotion was triggered as if a spontaneous combustion of thoughts ignited in my heart to violently remind me that my mother died.

Oh, my eyes have shed their share of tears.  I have felt an ache fill the back of my throat and I have choked on a heart so tender that just one more thought of her would indeed break it and make it stop beating. But I have not sobbed. I have wanted to, but I want to be alone. I don't want to be consoled or have to explain why I just fell apart. I want to be at the ocean, sitting in the sand. I want to be at the place of the beginning. The place of the end. The place where something else lies beyond the horizon. Where Mom is.

Tomorrow…

If it had been any other month there were things I would have shared with Mom.  Ordinary things that nevertheless would have been of interest to her. I would have told her that the old barn on Rt9 is being relocated to Duchess County. Being restored instead of demolished. She would be delighted to know this. I would have told her that the patio and back porch on the Grey’s house is being redone. This would have pleased her too. I would have told her that I found old grape vines still growing behind the barn and Dr. Gabay’s wife offered fresh rhubarb for a pie.  She would have sent me down their way to pick enough for a pie and some for the freezer. I would have shown her the freshly minted Colorado quarter and put it in the cup on the top of the cherry cabinet where she saved every new state quarter.  But, it wasn't a month like any other. It was the first month since Mom died.

I lost my watch this month too. An $1800 Tag. It doesn’t seem to bother me too much.