”Life is not perfect.
Some loose ends may never get trimmed and tidied.”
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At seven, I accepted a job picking strawberries for a neighbor.
Irene’s berry bushes thrived
because they were in a hollow
where high temperatures quickly ripened the fruit.
Good for the berries, bad for me.
There was no breeze to blow away the nasty gnats or mosquitoes.
Worse than that, the job was boring and lonely.
The next summer, I convinced Marylee, my first friend, to join me.
Her company made the long hours in the sun easier.
But Marylee still hasn’t forgiven me.
“We were little girls,“ she said during our last visit.
Her voice rose in animation.
“The heat, the prickly spines, the mosquitoes!
For only a nickel a basket!
It was worse than child labor!”
It was on one of those days that Irene told me,
“You’re very much like your mother.”
“No, I’m not!” I protested. “Nothing at all!“
I saw my mother as quiet and complacent,
not realizing then that my mother’s life was defined
by taking care of my oldest sister, Dorothy,
who was crib bound and needed to be cared for day and night.
Somehow my remark got back to my mother.
I noticed a look of sadness in her eyes that hadn’t been there
when she’d greeted me before.
When I married and had two sons,
I often found myself feigning complacency in order to keep the peace,
and I thought of my mother.
Had she perhaps been doing the same?
Decades later I was called back from New York
to the little South Dakota town
where I’d grown up.
My mother was at death’s door.
It was a terrible night.
My young sons accompanied my husband and me.
After landing, at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport,
and getting a rental car,
we drove hundreds of miles,
all in the dark,
rain turned to snow then to sleet.
The snow piled up in banks
forcing my husband to veer dangerously close to steep ditches.
When we arrived at the hospital
I hurried in.
In the warm hallway, I shivered.
My mind was trying to compose my final words.
There was something important that I had to say!
Going in and seeing her,
so tiny her body didn’t even make a bulge in the blanket,
I felt faint.
Terrible pain showed in her face,
and the sight of it blanked out all my thoughts.
I took her hands. They were icy cold.
“Oh, Mom, I love you so much!”
Holding her bony hands, I repeated,
“I love you SO much.”
Then I felt his presence, saw his shadow.
The doctor came in,
“Time to leave now,” he said
and steered me out by my elbow.
In the hallway, I collapsed on the hard floor.
Then the words came to me that I should have said.
I should have apologized,
I should have acknowledged my betrayal.
If only I had one more chance, I would say:
“I’m so sorry! It was an honor to be compared to you.”