Mother’s Day is fast approaching, the first Mother’s Day since my mother’s passing. I am trying to get all of the dread out of they way so that day doesn’t feel so bad when it gets here. I bought fake flowers and made an arrangement for her grave. I did that last week. So that’s done.
The cemetery where my mom is buried is a sea of fake flowers. Every grave has an arrangement in varying degrees of sun-faded hues. I think it is supposed to be comforting and beautiful that every soul is recognized, but somehow it makes me feel even more sad. It is a facade. You can leave those fake flowers for months without changing them if you wanted to, no one would know the difference. Then you could walk away and forget them for a while. As if.
I am the worst kind of daughter. I brought the small flower container home from her gravesite months ago. I had every intention of making an arrangement for her, but time got away from me as it always seems to do. I needed to put one of those green styrofoam things in the bottom so that I could stuff the wiry ends of the flowers into it. That way the flowers will remain affixed for months, looking fresh and arranged, carefully and lovingly by a doting daughter. Her grave sat flowerless in a sea of flowers for months as if saying this person, this life, really didn’t matter much. No one cared enough to remember her with fake flowers.
Knowing full well that I had failed as the doting, loving daughter, I overcompensated by not only making an arrangement, but also making a wreath, with ribbons and a little flower pendant. That should show everyone just how special she was and make them forget that her grave stood empty for the past 6 months. I knew that I had to get this done by Mother’s Day. I couldn’t bear for her grave to be bare on such a sacred day! Even I’m not the kind of awful daughter that would let her mother’s grave be flowerless on Mother’s Day! I am not an evil monster!
When I placed my arrangement on her grave, I noticed that someone had placed flowers in the holder that was affixed to her headstone. It was probably the groundskeeper. It basically consisted of a bunch of fake flowers with most of the flowers missing, just wiry, rusty stems and sun-damaged leaves. I wish they hadn’t even made the attempt. It was truly done by someone who didn’t care for her and it showed. Amongst all the arrangements, this was the worst. I pulled it out and threw it on the ground, I didn’t even bother to put it in the garbage can. It made me feel guilty that a stranger had made an attempt at least.
I just want to get that day over with. The first Mother’s Day without her. More than anything, I don’t want to be inundated with all of the great mother-daughter relationships in the world on that day. I lost my mom and I lost any opportunity to repair or enhance that relationship. That day is just a reminder that whatever was will always be; unchanged, unsaid, unrealized, frozen, arranged, rusty, wiry, and faded.
The other day I was sitting in my rocking chair, watching the news, drinking my hot tea. My son woke up and climbed into my lap, he’s getting so big, he can barely fit. It makes me feel small. He was chattering away, talking about his life, Lego’s, Minecraft, school. He paused for a moment, his attention caught on the latest headline, he sat up a little, looked at me and asked, “Mommy, why do the police like to kill black people?”
If you were to ask me who my favorite writer is, I might be inclined to say something that would impress you with my great literary insight like Hemingway, Keats, Austen, Joyce, or Fitzgerald. I love them all, but if I were to be completely honest with you, my favorite author, one that has influenced me the most, well that would be… Stephen King.
I think I know that answer.
