Momma

I am trying to define this new ache. To make sense of the picture now the piece of the puzzle that is you is gone. There’s an empty space, a hole where my heart keeps tracing your outline, as if somehow in the drawing I could find a way to put you back.

There are tracks in the snow of my memories where toboggans loaded with ham and cheese sandwiches are pulled into winter pines and skis lean against leafless aspens. Where your laughter bursts from broken snowballs, and a fire waits to warm our mittened hands.

There are rows and rows of fresh tilled earth where every spring you and daddy made a garden, where your hands tirelessly pulled up weeds to keep them from choking growth. And I see you diligently, devoutly weeding the spiritual garden of our home.

There are sunlit trails meandering through our summers where saddles squeak and the soft nickering of horses greet a Sunday sunrise. Where saddle bags are loaded with the lunch you prepared to be shared on a mountain peak, and the call to war of “apple core” was greeted with a chorus of “Baltimore” before the remains of the snack were launched at the elected “friend.”

And now there will forever be the fall. When meadows have shed their purple penstemon and ginger Castilleja no longer brush the hills. When the fracture of friable leaves beneath my feet will remind me of the gray November day when you were drawn away.

I whisper to the heavens, “I love you, Momma.” and your echo wraps around me, warm as arms, “Loved you first, love you most.”

November 22, 2024