…
The sun beats down on the hood of the tan station wagon as she pulls into the parking lot. The car seats are sticky. Air conditioning is blasting through her short, dark hair. She reaches across the passenger seat to grab her purse.
And a box.
Someone in a uniform takes her money and weighs the carton. She sticks the postage onto the corner and writes down her own address. Above that, she writes my name. And when that package arrives at our door in a couple of days she will lie and tell me it’s from someone else.
I never knew her as a woman. I will never have an adult conversation with her about motherhood or marriage. I’ll never get to ask her my hard questions.
I only knew her as a child. Part of me wonders if, because of that, I never really knew her at all.
But now I am a mother too. And I understand the fierce love that abides in the deep recesses of a mother’s heart.
I know why she did what she did on that summer day. And if it were possible to love her more for it, I do.
It’s twenty-five years later. The gift that was packed inside that brown box is broken and gone. It is ashes and dust. But there was another gift inside. I am discovering it now. One that has traversed time to reach me. One that doesn’t waste away.
I sip from a steaming cup, looking through a window at brightly colored leaves. The house is quiet and I am lost in thought.
There are no accidents. And though his coming back into my life had felt like a haunting, I am strangely at peace.
I am glad I asked him that tentative question, and I am content with his honest answer that hurt for a moment but exposed the truth.
A breeze pushes through the spindly oak in our back yard. It surrenders its precious few leaves, red paper that will turn to brown and feed the earth with its sacrifice.
The time is coming for giving thanks.
And I find myself deeply thankful.
…
No comments:
Post a Comment