LOSING MOM - Epilogue

Epilogue

It is a perfect Maine day. Blue sky so clear and pure it feels like I could see right up to heaven if I look long enough. Is she up there? I wonder. 

My mother’s absence is like a deep, dark void. I was so sure when I got to Maine, to this place she loved beyond all measure, I would feel her presence again. But though there are memories of her everywhere - on the beach, in the woods, in the camp, on the porch - she is nowhere at the same time. How can that be? How could something I love so much disappear into nothing? 

White clouds sail across the horizon, their shadows chasing each other across the river in the late afternoon light. The tide is almost full as my sisters and I paddle away from the beach, the bright blue and orange of our kayaks vibrant against the darker blue of the water surrounding us. Our families stand gathered on the porch that hangs out over the river - husbands and children, spouses and significant others, all lined shoulder to shoulder along the painted white railing above us - watching as Sal, Lib and I maneuver our boats around each other and stow our paddles out of the way. The soft sounds of guitar and banjo waft over and around us in the gentle but steady afternoon breeze.

Lifting the lid off the square, linen colored box in my lap I pull out the two plastic bags we’d stored carefully inside, handing one to Sal and the other to Lib. “Ready?” I ask, offering an encouraging smile, grateful to be an observer rather than an active participant in the task at hand. They both nod, then open their bags and empty the contents gently into the river. I watch, mesmerized, as my parents’ ashes billow and swirl just below the dark surface, merging together into a big, milky white cloud.

I take my peony blossom, the coral pink one I’d picked from the bucket of colorful blooms a neighbor had dropped off earlier that morning, and lay it over the dispersing cloud. Sal and Lib follow suit, and I notice they both brought two flowers - one for each parent, I suppose. Oops, I think to myself, sending a quick, silent apology to my father that I’m more focused on Mom, she being the one who just died. Sure, we’d recently had Dad’s ashes exhumed so we could scatter them together in their beloved river, but I’d mourned my father good and well for the past twenty-five years. Today is for Mom, I remind myself. It’s okay I only have one.

The five blossoms float together for a minute between the kayaks and as I watch, two of them begin to drift away from the others, bobbing for a moment side by side, before moving apart in opposite directions, circling the three that remain in a tight cluster between them. I glance at Sal and Lib to see if they’re seeing what I'm seeing - that these flowers are telling the story of our loss - but they're both staring upriver, and I stay quiet. By the time I look back, the flowers have drifted away, caught up in the current of the incoming tide, and I wonder if I made the whole thing up in my head. 

Ever since Mom died I’d been desperate for some kind of sign from her, something to reassure me that I hadn’t really lost her, that she hadn’t disappeared forever. But the more I’ve looked for her, the more elusive she seems to be getting, making me feel sad and disconnected. And scared. 

Where is she? Why can’t I find her?

But I suppose that’s how it always feels when you lose something you really love. At first you can’t believe it’s gone and you search everywhere, certain it will show up if you look hard enough. Then as time goes by and it’s still lost, that certainty dissipates, and you begin to worry you may never find it, that it might be gone for good, especially if it’s something valuable, something you really, really love. So you keep retracing your steps, at least in your mind, hoping beyond hope that by doing so you will lead yourself back to the place where you lost it.

My sisters and I let our kayaks drift along as our family, each in turn, toss their peonies over the  rail into the cloud of ashes below. A ripple of soft laughter floats above me in the air, and I smile at the sound, the love emanating from the porch swirling down around me, soothing my anxious thoughts like a warm salve. I let my gaze drift out over the river, breathing in the view that is as familiar to me as the face of a dear, old friend. 

Mom has to be here somewhere, I decide, picking up my paddle to head back into shore. There’s just nowhere else she could be.