I've been content.

It doesn't look like much on paper screen, but it's a big deal. I'm not aching. I'm not yearning. I'm not wanting. I'm being.



I awoke to a dazzling display of pre-dawn shimmer tickling the bedroom panes. I've slept well the past two nights, and I could have easily rolled over and returned to slumber in the early moment's of the clock's fifth strike...but then I noticed that calm, that rightness that has been missing for so very long.

I was all set to share my stories of the past two days. Nick has easily made this holiday weekend the most enjoyable of my recollections. Hiking and relaxing and quieting...it's been champion to set my soul free. There will be other times to tell.

I did something this morning that I haven't done in a great many months. My eyes began to see the glory of my surroundings, as they always used to, and I reached for my camera, taking the above images. How long has it been since I've reclined back and enjoyed the moment? Too long, far too long. I am always looking ahead, waiting to enjoy when I get to that place.

I love seeing the world through a camera. The essence of immortalizing life in one frame is heady, and your eyes are no longer dulled to the beauty and the importance of every movement, texture, and hue. Life's canvas is paralleled by none other.

My aunts, Debbie and Brenda, gave me a really great camera for Christmas last year. They were sneaky little elves and scoured shopping centers on December the twenty-third—serious dedication considering the mentality of 12/23 shoppers—after an internet order did not arrive as planned.

My reaction was that of shock. I knew it to be a very expensive camera. I remember the slack-jawed look I gave my mother just after I opened the gift and just after they left. I didn't know what to say or how to react. Does one accept expensive gifts? Mom quieted my unease. "Your aunts asked if it would be ok if they spent more on you and Charlie this year...you've both had tough times and they'd like to do something special for you. I was given a 3-month death sentence just before Charlie's birthday...and, well, you know what's been goin on with you."

Mom and I were watching The Bishop's Wife that afternoon, during a last minute "wrap session" as we called them. She was feeling ill toward the end of the movie and we stopped it at a point, saying we'd finish another day. I pulled the cassette from the VCR the day she passed away, leaving the spooled ribbon divided just there...I remember spending Christmas Eve with my dad's family, and Mom feeling lousy. The frustrated tears pooling in the hollows beneath her eyes as she looked above and begged for Christmas...she fought so hard to have another Christmas...well past the point her body wanted her to fight. I lost all desire to appreciate life after she died. Life without Mom was just plain ugly, I had decided. My camera lay as dormant as that video cassette.

Last Friday was May 26th. I told Debbie that morning as she prepared for work that this was the first monthly "anniversary" of Mom's January-26 passing that I actually observed. The others passed without me thinking of it, only to, days later, feel soul-less for being so unaware. But I knew it was coming this month, I knew it the night before...and for the first time in four months I wasn't overcome by sorrow.

I'm wandering back toward the living. I'm wandering back toward joy. I wandering back to myself, which is the greatest tribute to my mother that I could ever hope to erect. I couldn't keep her body alive, but I nurture her spirit forever. Life really is very precious.

Yesterday was Mother's Day.

I thought I would be cool with it...the weeks leading up to it had been better...I felt myself breathing easier, the sharpness of reminiscence having dulled to a bittersweet ache. But as Nick bought the last part to his Mother's Day gift Thursday evening, and I looked around at the bouquets of flowers, balloons, and sappy cards, I knew a chilling emptiness that cannot be truly understood until you've lost the one person who ever really knew you inside and out.

But still, I promised myself I would be stoic.

Nick offered to accompany me to my mother's final resting place the day before. My first instinct was to reject the idea, the idea of going there at all. "Why do you look for me there?" she'd be saying...but as the day wound down, and as my tongue loosened and hold ups wilted with the combination of my stomach medication and dinner's wine, I took him up on his offer.

Sunday afternoon came and he stopped at Walgreen's first, needing both a card and wrapping paper, and there I grabbed a bag of peanut M&M's...I told him I was doping up before the onslaught. It was cold and rainy. I muttered, "This is just like Easter. Will all holidays be dreary now?"

He parked along the edge of the cemetery and retrieved an umbrella. I was crying almost immediately and in little time I felt loving arms blanketing me in life and staying the chill of death. I tried to go back to the car almost instantly, but he held me there saying, "Take as long as you need." And I stood there, remembering her smile.

When finally we returned from the muddy trek, Nick pointed out that I should have saved some M&M's for after. I sniffled very impolitely, having no Kleenex—I was so prepared to not dissolve that not only did I not bring tissues, but I had applied mascara that morning as well—and mumbled, "I'll remember that for next time."

Nick asked her birthday...I told him it was the fourteenth of August. "That'll be the next biggie," he made a mental note. Then, adding lightness, as he is so adept at adding, "Then, Halloween." And, although I am certain it added to my attractiveness ten, nay one-hundred fold, I laughed a shocked gurgle and my congested nose knew no restraint.

As we passed Culver's on the way to the cemetery, I had noticed Lemon Ice was back for the season. Nick stopped there on the return, saying he would find me some napkins to mop up my ruined face. He returned with the treat...and even though I knew my stomach was already showing signs of protest from the M&M's and I knew it was going to be "one of those days" wherein it would be an effort to keep anything down, I let the citrus slush numb my tongue and the memories of summery loveliness I built just one year ago take their hold.

I attended Nick's family's Mother's Day celebration...it was easier, somehow...celebrating in a home that wasn't so imbued with the sense of loss...being able to step out of the spotlight and just exist.