Mom’s Gone

 

This will be the fifth mother’s day I’ve lived through since my mother died.
The first year, the urge to find the best card for her was strong. It had to be purple, that was her color, and ornate, overflowing with flowers and fancy script. She liked such things, fancy things, pretty things.
By the second year, the expectation of phone calls had faded, the quick punch-in of her phone number no longer a benign obligation. Her soft, weary voice hadn’t greeted me for such a long time that it was receding, like the diminishing rush of rainfall after a storm.
Now five years on… the near silence has settled on my memories of her like a blanket.
However her death still isn’t very remote, even after these five long years; I still strongly link her with this now melancholy holiday. Some sentimentally engineered television commercials bring a sting to my eyes, their maudlin intent ignored by thoughts of my mom.
I wonder if somewhere an advertising writer smiles at the thought of his words having such an effect and if he thinks of his mother when he does.