PAD 14-2 Memory

 I Remember

 

I remember looking down on Mom in her coffin

and thinking how beautiful she was,

though they put the wrong color of lipstick on her.

It was orangish and she always wore bright red.

But I’d rather remember her as she lived.

I remember her drawing flowers on paper plates.

I remember her drawing paper dolls and clothes for us.

I remember one particular day when I was five

that there was an uproar between us four sisters

and she got upset. She explained she was pregnant

and having another baby.

My oldest sister didn’t like the idea

but I took it all in stride.

She always made me feel special when she said,

“You are the only one of my five girls

with brown eyes like me.”

She loved the Lord and to go to church.

One time she even confided in me that at one point

she thought about being a missionary.

But she had a mission and that was to love Jim Shannon

and their five daughters.

I remember her “redding” up all the time.

When she cleaned she substituted underwear for a hairnet.

Mornings she’d say to us, “Get up and work.”

She never understood that wasn’t motivating.

She burnt popcorn for herself because it tasted “exotic.”

She could be having a bad day,

but she had a lovely telephone voice that she could

switch on and off with a ring or a click.

I remember one time when Dad was upset

because he couldn’t find anything for tomato ties,

so she tore up some good sheets so he’d have some.

I remember her baking lemon meringue pies for him on his birthday

and chocolate pies for us. And it didn’t happen very often

but she’d bake lots of cinnamon rolls that were really good.

She’d put turmeric in rice and made it yellow.

I didn’t realize people ate white rice until I went to school.

I remember her saying that when she looked

 at the clotheslines it seemed like she had five boys

because we all wore jeans.

I remember her exclaiming, “You’re only fourteen!”

when I began dating. Actually I was thirteen

but she didn’t know about the first one.

She liked her Mary Kay make up and her picture taken

in dresses or sometimes even negligées.

She had a sexy side to her and posed in leaves

with her bare shoulders out, and thought about getting Dad

gifts that I would be embarrassed to purchase.

She took pictures of everyone who came to the house,

including insurance salesmen and ditch diggers.

She wrote to everyone she met.

At Christmas time our living room door

and other doorways were loaded with Christmas cards.

She liked to draw and paint little Santas for Christmas.

She painted a big Santa Dad hung on the house eve.

She always said, “This is the best Christmas tree ever.”

She always made our birthdays and holidays special.

In her latter years she had a lot of physical problems.

She said, “Don’t get old!” I said, “What do you want me

to do, die young?” She did die pretty young, at seventy.

Her hair was still black, with one little white streak in front.