Ave Maria

Half an hour after you died, someone was singing the Ave Maria at Ronald Reagan’s funeral on the nursing home TV. You would have loved the irony of that one, showing your wry smile as you joked that the bigger funeral certainly did not mean the more charming or intelligent of the two people. But already we can’t share the nudge. Already you have taken the whit and wisdom with you. Just when we thought we had you happily settled. It is still a shock half a year later that nobody else sees the world the way you do. Or would, if you were here. Can it be that for all forty-five years of my life my jokes were only good for you, my unpredictable mother? Can it be that my humor is yours? My husband says it’s true. Quite frankly, I didn’t see it coming, so how could I know I’d miss it? But of course I do. And you. You chose to go below, quiet at last. Now you dance in slow circles with the others who have left us, sweeping arms softly across your new sky. You are so happy that you don’t have to worry about your hair color anymore and it stays that perfect shade of red, L’Oreal #7AL. I am the one who has been cheated, not you. And I still have to pay eighty bucks for my hair color. That would make you laugh too, right after you stopped wincing over the price and wondering why the boxed version wouldn’t do. Allowing only a brief shake of your head because you know exactly where I am stubborn. But still the twinkle in your eye, either way. Once again I lose the focus of the stoplights as I cry unexpectedly in the car, listening to my favorite CD. Someday I will learn the right words. Can you believe that I thought that song was about? No. You’ve known the right words all along, simply moving through the mysteries.

Written November 17, 2004