I remember sitting on the couch with my Mom about a year ago, almost to the day.  We were talking about the upcoming wedding of my oldest daughter, Rachael.  The conversation turned to what I was going to wear, and then what she was going to wear. She had a blouse she wanted to wear. We walked back into her bedroom. She took the blouse out of the closet and held it up across her chest to show me how it looked, as she looked in the mirror.  She was approaching 89. I remember thinking, as she looked at herself in the mirror, about a time growing up I watched her spraying her hair and putting earrings on.  My Mom had all kinds of jewelry. She had nice clothes. Hair day was Friday, mall shopping was Wednesday. When I was really young, we shopped in Wheeling WV. She would look at clothes. Buy things, I still see her in my mind holding things up to herself, and looking in a mirror, to see how it looked.

I still can smell the hairspray swirling all around the room. I still see her getting ready. That day after I left her apartment, I sat in the car a while. I thought about her, her blouse, how she held it up to see how it looked. How she smiled thinking about the wedding. I thought about how we are as women. How at almost 89, she was holding up a blouse to see how it looked, and asking how it looked.

Several months before she died, she gave me a box of odds and ends jewelry.  I barely looked at it at the time. I put the box in the closet. Couple days after the funeral, I was looking for something, and there was that box.

I remembered. The hairspray swirling all around the room. Her powder compact. Her earrings. Her life. Loss is something so difficult to place into words. Sometimes it’s a deep hole. Sometimes it’s a silent tear. Sometimes it’s a smile. It’s lonely. It’s longing for a better day somewhere in your memory.

I know that I wouldn’t mind sitting on the floor in her bedroom again, even as the hairspray swirls all around.

💞