Mother's Day Story

A still from a home video of my mother (right) who will be 90 years old in less than two weeks.

When she married my dad in 1943, she was swept away along with the heady scented Mountains of Laurel Canyon, California where she'd grown up. Like a weathervane on a rooftop, or just something strange in the forecast..she took a road that would lead us into a valley. Though she came from another era, it wasn't as if we lived so far away? But like a powerful wind that shifted..it created an invisible barrier- making crossing difficult.
Yet my mom opened the window of memories in the dim light of an ordinary city in San Gabriel. Stories she'd recount became a backdrop.

Like the slides we watched, sitting around the living room floor in front of our old projector. They etched a pathway into my psyche through photographs (My Grandma's Hatbox-earlier post) and post cards. It was in the silver I set (kept away for special occasions), a manger scene, or the same box of decorations I'd reached into year after year.

I remember looking in her eyes as she held an ornament up-  fondly associating it with another time. It was when I'd hear her tell of the chapel my Grandpa built and the Holly and Poinsettia's my Grandparent's cut in the yard together. They'd been close and never said harsh words in front of her or her siblings.

She kept no journals..images were transmitted through characters. They- German's and Swedes..with cigars and smiles shaded under hats. Impressions left on faces..faces she once read. I held onto a vision..and like dreams, they can fade. We will dream again, but we must have a heavenly vision. Just as the prophets of old, who saw the future from the past and foretold-
Like a recipe, we'll construct and shape it to be sure, but this I learned-

 

Thanks for letting me share this with you..

A Happy Mother's Day to all you mum's~