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

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

OPENING DOORS

Image
  Opening Doors I was born after the fireworks during an opera in 1964 and from the off was an unusual child. Having escaped every form of enclosure as a baby and being found at the bottoms of numerous stairs, on window sills and in presses I was christened a Divilskin.   I sat sideways in prams, propped on yellow satin cushions, listening. As an infant I looked like a very old soul. While still a toddler I eavesdropped in cars and relayed information back to the people who were being discussed, much to the mortification of the adults. I always opened doors in other people’s houses, of rooms that weren’t even tidy, and rooted in their cupboards asking can I have this, so I could take a piece of them home .   I was tied into the back seat of an Austin 1100 with baling twine to stop me climbing out the windows and regularly given a drop of the craythur on a dodo to sedate me enough to sleep. As a little girl   I played alone with dolls, endlessly dressing and undressing them
Read more

Frankly Speaking - An Essay - Part 1

Image
"I like the way you've done my eyes Meeeee shell" Artwork  © MDM I met Frank Sinnott when I was a Communion Child in 1971. I was brought across the road to be given a pound and have my dress admired. I was terrified of a parade of random hairy dogs that lay across the steps of Old Pound House like savage mats. I was almost more frightened of the hairy lad looking out at me from under his wild hair in the hall. He started to visit us, making wildly inappropriate suggestions to my Mother, each of whom had a soft spot for the other.  We were privy to all the comings and goings across the road, from the house going up in flames to Sonny Condell ringing the bell looking for divilment at 3am after a gig. He tried to teach me the guitar but I was more fascinated by the peas in his beard and the newspapers on every inch of the room. As I grew up I began to write, and it was Frank who gave me my first writing gig on his beloved "Boker". This time last year I
Read more

GRAVITY - a dramatic review of a blanket

Image
mdm Zzz I saw the word sleep in the ad. And women curled up under grey blankets. Blah blah blah ........ so very what I thought and scrolled on. It came back into my feed repeatedly so I tapped the link. It's a heavy blanket to calm you down is what it is. Calm a scourge? A woman with a racing brain who rarely sleeps ? Go ahead, hit me with your best shot. My amazing Doctor  -  had once issued the immortal line - "We'll have to bring out the big guns " and prescribed a strong sedative that I became immune to as speedily as my head races. Trying to sleep with the mania of a Bi-Polar high means that your brain is fizzing with kaleidoscopic colours and thoughts. Sometimes it hurts more to shut my eyes because of the flickering. On tour with my play I lay on a hotel bed in the last hours of sunlight before showtime and remarked wearily to a woman in the corner that it was easier to stay awake. As a child I had many names. That Divilskin.
Read more