I start today with a surface memory from the morning you passed.
I was supposed to get blood work.
I was three weeks past my weekly draw.
The nurse called with ‘come in, today.’
The ‘had I gone’ doesn’t exist.
I can’t what if.
I won’t what if.
I was there
beside you
exactly where and when
you left.
Five years later on the hour
I am here writing words to keep you.
The truth is I was thirtysomething
and I held your hand, often.
I didn’t think much of it, then.
I realize now what is rare.
When I was nineteen,
you held your hands above your head and danced
in a doorway in a bathrobe in a hotel in Florida.
Your grace taught me freedom.
Breastfed beyond two,
(I was the last child
to be held and understood)
I thought I was the anomaly.
You carried twelve
delivered all naturally
loved all unconditionally
and lived gentle into eighty,
leaving stories behind
of lives changed and healed.
Mother, you are the anomaly.
