Forget- Me - Not.
Forget-me-not.
“As life
grows longer - awful feels softer”, but some nights the mountain in my chest feels magnificently monstrous. It was on one of those evenings that my Mother
would have described me “as having my
tearbag too near my eye” that I first
saw the Angel of Collections.
It was a moonlit
evening where the sky resembled a Monet canvas. A blur
of light, a warmth, a presence, he sat slowly waving his wings to catch the memories as they flew like
butterflies into his outstretched net. It was the formless and the stillness, in the maelstrom of dancing lights that surrounded my
mothers bowed head.
The water
is always like lava in the nursing home taps and I run the soft white flannel under it for
a hand-scalding minute. We all cry in
the toilet here, except my brother who cries at home. The Angel is nestled betwixt flowers and photographs on the window sill. Sparkling iridiscent pinks , lilacs, greens
and golds, a myriad of coloured vibrations that as they leave her, he captures
for all eternity.
As I tenderly wipe the steaming cloth over her
face she releases the sound of my childhood, a satisfied aaahhh, a protracted
sigh. It is my final gift to her, and the only one she can
respond in any way to. It is enough. And down through the years the childrens
voices echo “Ever this night be at my
side, to light, to guard, to rule and guide, Amen”.
As the
Angel does not have a mouth he speaks his mind.
He tells of all the forgotten things, and I watch them appear in
shafts of sunlight, rays of
moonlight and in the flecks of sudden rain that speckle the glass like fat
tears. He prompts me to chase and catch all the tiny things , to access the vast recall that entwines us.
Cleaning the food from my Mothers mouth , we bring to mind images and moments that
are plucked from a pale pink purse and released on tippytoes into the room, and I watch
them mingle with hers, in a dance of remembrance. Some nights there are so many lights in the room that my Mother smiles.
She nuzzles
into the cloth, feeling its warm scratchiness on her face. The new girl with
the tea trolley knocks quietly now, and she is transfixed in the light from the
hall, staring into the candle – lit vortex.
“Can I get
you anything?” she asks while her eyes widen. Later she will tell the girls – “It’s hard to describe really
............... a celebration ? “ .
I smile and say - “ Thank-you, but we
have absolutely everything we need. “
********************************************************************************
Michelle
Mahon April 14th 2012
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