I've been eating canned peaches-childhood comfort food. I have about twenty cans in my storage pantry. They are staples from my mother's kitchen. Reminders of her middle-of-the-night snacks. She's been gone four Sundays and all the days in between. Gone so quick that I still reach for the phone to call her as I did everyday for the past several years. I pass the bedroom she slept in when she stayed with me and I think of the many days I stood in the doorway watching her sleep. Afraid that one morning I might wake to find her kidnapped by one of the many unseen entities she claimed sat on her bed. I dismissed her nocturnal visitations despite my own belief in the existence of such things.
I told her the dark ones were her fears and the others her angels. She said she was afraid to die. I had no comeback-nothing profound to counter such a statement because I am afraid too. Aren't we all? There are those who teach us how to die. Who take on the end of their life with dignity and peace. My mother fought death-wrangled with it like a heavy-weight champion and she won-time after time. When her end came she never knew-that's what I guess-too quick to hit her lifeline-too swift to throw one last punch.
I found a small angel charm on the floor the other day. I didn't recognize it but I looked around and nodded to my own unseen entities and thanked them. My mother is gone but she has surely joined the ranks of my protectors.
Live each day well or write a book.
Linda
