Today is my grandmother's birthday. Milly Hastings, maiden name, Wyland. I am not sure how old she'd be today as she flew away at 82 when I was in my 20s. She had my Dad 11 days before her birthday in 1926. I had my girl, Sarah, 12 days after mine. My Mom had me five days before hers and had my brother, Jimmy, four days before my Dad's. And so it goes. Just silly thoughts on a gorgeous Fall day. I'm sitting here contemplating my day and am not going to go much past it. Yesterday I went through all my photos and two hours later had cleaned up the bottom shelf of the bookcase and each album lined nicely against the other as I sat on the couch and collapsed in tears.
The past.
"It is just a dream, Mom," says Leila to me, when I call her, and the emotion oozes out of me when she asks me what's wrong?
Thinking about the past, staring it in the face, I saw my life since my girls' births. I watched them at birthday parties, with family, on merry go rounds, the bandage on Leila's forehead after the car hit her on Halloween and miraculously all she had was that. I just started crying. Did they have a good childhood now that they're budding women? "Cat's in the Cradle" blaring in my ears.
"You fool" is all my soul says to me, and I wail.
"Mom, it's just a dream," my precious girl says.
So today I tip my coffee cup to Milly whose teeth used to click when she laughed. Who wore colorful scarves as she grew into widowhood. I have two violet plants on a windowsill here in Brooklyn that are blooming in abundance today after a summer of struggle.
Milly's been here.
It's a good dream.
No comments:
Post a Comment