Missing my mom

[Begonia]

I wrote this a year after mom was gone and now it's been five years.  I especially miss her during the holidays.

Sundays at Pamida 

Sundays are always hard
lonely cold sad with missing
my mother, gone a year now
still the void; she and I the
single women in the family.
Mom understood Sunday’s
slow march of tugging
emptiness.

And now me alone alone.
I sometimes still see mother
in places she and I would
go on Sundays when
I went to North Dakota.

Like the Pamida. Aisles
arranged same as Pamida’s
everywhere: clothes shoes
towels sheets muffin
tins Ajax Folgers birthday
cards candy salsa CD players. 

We would push our carts
around, her knees hurting
and sometimes lungs
too hard to breathe. But we
could laugh about the raccoon
bedroom slippers and thong
panties as we stopped to say
hello to all the other alone ladies.

I still go to Pamida—a different
one—to find my mother on certain
Sundays when I am too alone. 
She is there by the pink fleece
sweatshirts or looking at a new
rug for the bathroom. 

Last Sunday when I took a cart
I found mom’s list lying at
the bottom. It said Revlon
Lipstick Bounce Hefty Trash
Bags Crest and Pringles. 

I must have just missed her.

[Ruth]

how lovingly and skillfully expressed, dear Begonia  This is really the stuff of life that matters, those simple little things that meant so little but carried such huge weight.  As we get older and the rosy tinted sheen has gone off life, our mortality becomes something we have to reckon with.  I am there with you in spirit and I could see so clearly what you were feeling and expressing through this prose. 

[Begonia]

Thank you so much Ruth for your kind comments...Hugs...

[Pooh]

I think it's wonderful Begonia that you can express in words how much she meant to you.  Thanks for sharing.

[pam1]

Love it, Begonia.  I lost my mother too, the smallest things make me feel the same way...like I just missed her.  Scents especially. 

[Pen]

I miss my mom everyday & it's been over 30 years since she died. So many little things remind me of her, from thimbles to geraniums to clouds in the sky.