Treasures: A Note from Mom

Had my mother lived, 

she would have turned 68 this month. This picture of her

(with my sister and I, one of whom had sense enough to keep her mouth closed)

was taken when she was barely twenty-five.

When my sister, Anne, was here recently for a wedding,

we went through some of mom's old boxes,

things we'd been threatening to sort through for years

but never got around to. 

(Always there are innumerable people for her to see, hometown things 

to eat, do and revisit while she is here.) 

Two days before she and I began sorting through boxes,

I'd been lamenting the fact that no one on this earth could now tell me 

where we'd lived in Anoka, Minnesota the summer I was six.

 No one was alive who could provide me with a physical address

in case someday I wanted to search it out. 

And while sifting through dusty reel-to-reel tapes of her old radio shows,

audition tapes and personality interviews,

I found an envelope with guess-what on it; 

our address-

in Anoka, Minnesota. 

Voila!
(D'accord, Anoka. Someday I'm coming out there
in search of this here address,
hoping to find out if there's still a door, a window or a building left standing.
And maybe to do a little research on where ya'll got your name.) 

The other treasure in this box of things that was not letters,

was a note, addressed to me,

a simple little note

probably written when I was my niece's age

(a teenager). 

On the back was a very short shopping list, the two things on it crossed out

 (which you can nearly see in the lower right corner).

Even this little shopping list was special to me. 

The two items were stationery and env (for envelopes).

When I was 13 (probably around the time this note was written),

mom and I made dates to write cards and letters together. 

At our little house on Russian Hill in San Francisco,

we would get out our stationery and pens,

candles and incense, music and tea

and we would sit together at the kitchen table, 

writing friends and relatives.

A few months before she died,
while struggling with the pain and the terrifying
realization of the finality of terminal cancer,
she wrote me a note on the back of a postcard which she handed to me when I came in the door.
It was one of the beach-lined cards we'd bought for her in Hawaii,
a trip made in between chemo treatments a few months before,
to a place she'd always wanted to see.
Our last trip together.

She wrote:
"Let's make a letter-writing date.
You bring the incense,
I'll bring the candles."
She died not long after. 

 I've decided to frame the recently found note about the clothes
and hang it on the wall in my laundry room.

While looking for the right frame, I've kept it in my office

propped at eye level where I can see it from my desk chair. 

But as I sat in said chair the other day, the day of her birth 68 years ago,

I saw that the note was cut off by something in front of it

and all I could see was,

"Kirsten-My-Sweet

Please put..."

So, as I sat there, thinking of her on her birthday,

 I did a short writing exercise

asking what she would say to me now

and here is what went on the page:

"Kirsten-My-Sweet

Please put...

                                                              * my love for you in a safe, airy place.

                                                              *your love in my suitcase.

                                                              *your dreams down on paper.

                                                              *your ideas into action.

                                                              *your story out there.

                                                              *our lives together in perspective.

                                                              *your relationships in order.

                                                              *compassion at the top of your list.

                                                              *your fears away."

Happy Birthday Mom!

I love you

and you are missed.
And I'm going downstairs right now
to put my clothes away.