Mother's Day coffee, and flowers

Flowers for Mom

I sat down on the grass and had a cup of coffee with my Mother Sunday.
After making my annual Mothers' Day pilgrimage to see her, planting real flowers on her grave stone, washing it off, I got out my thermos, poured a cup, and we talked.
For as long as I knew her, she had always loved coffee, and now that's she's been dead 40 years, it just seemed the natural thing to do.

We talked about my brother and I,  about her grandkids all grown up now, by name, and about her great-grandchildren, who she never got to meet.
The hot coffee was more delicious than ever in the warm sunshine. The faint memories of having coffee with her came back. I wish I'd spent more time drinking coffee with her though.
I've lost track of how many years I've brought flowers to her grave in the Waurika, Oklahoma, cemetery, 120 miles from my home, and it occurred to me  that there will come a time when I'm no longer able to make that trip. 
So I told her that this fall, God willing, I'm going to come down and plant some daffodil bulbs that will come up every spring, after I'm gone. 
But when I come back, we'll have another cup of coffee.

Mother's Day Flowers

"For Mom," Mother's Day Card, 5 x 7 watercolor card, inspired by a Linda Riddle painting

Bring your mother flowers this week.
I will this Sunday, driving down to the Waurika, OK, cemetery, as I have for many years, to plant real flowers on her grave.
Forty years ago she died this summer, just two months after I'd taken her to Scott White in Temple, Texas, and they found nothing wrong. She spent the last month of her life in the Duncan hospital, most of it in a coma.
I've written about this before, though it's been a couple of years.

My annual journey is my tradition, to wash the grave stone, a chance to talk to her, to remember, to reflect, to plant real flowers. I know she's not there, but it doesn't matter. It's a reunion. 
This year seems more important than ever, for some reason. Especially now, in the midst of pandemic craziness, I want to focus on love and kindness, and beauty, and she helps me. That's why there are flowers, flowers she deserves. And thus today's little watercolor card.
Bring your mother flowers this week.
Mother's Day Reunion

Mother's Day journey--what the gravestone doesn't tell you...

My tires will crunch across the gravel lane at the Waurika, Oklahoma,  cemetery this Sunday, this Mothers’ Day.

Every year I drive down to plant some flowers, to remember, to talk to Mom.

The south wind sweeps up the prairie hill west of the little town, full of memories, especially memories of the last years of her life.

It comes up out of Texas, across the nearby Red River, like she did to live with us years ago, Francis Faye Culp Clark.

Today her gravestone is almost 40 years old, and it records her name and the years of her life. But that is, was, not her.

But it cannot record the life she lived, this child of East Texas, one of four sisters and two brothers, now all dead. The girl who played high school basketball at South park High School in Beaumont, the girl who got the good job with Ma Bell, and who helped the rest of the family through the Depression, the girl who gave baby brother 25 cents a day for school lunch. It can’t record her marriage and the birth of two sons and the joy of holding and raising them. It can’t record the pride in their successes, the tears in their failures. It can’t record her love for grandchildren.  It can’t record her strength in divorce, nor her sense of humor and most of all, it can't record her unselfishness. Nor her faith in the face of death.

And I can’t either, except from too few memories, and looking back through black and white snapshots, and from stories my brothr and cousins have told me.

But I can imagine more now, as I watch my daughter—who looks remarkably like her grandmother--holding and feeding and cuddling and talking to and disciplining her daughters and son. I see the eye contact, the touch, the strongest bond on earth, and I learn what I experienced—what every fortunate son and daughter experienced—before they could remember, but not before they could know deep in their souls.

I saw the same bond recently when a tall, 60-something  man slowly led his frail mother, by the arm,  into a restaurant to have dinner with her, listening to her chat away.

I wish I could do the same, but I can’t. But I will do the best I can, and drive up to Mom’s grave, and tell her I miss her, and I love her.

I hope you can talk to your mother, face to face this Mothers’ Day. Don’t wait until it’s too late.  

 ++

Tomorrow--A Mother's Day Hug

Mother's Day journey--a reunion

Mother’s Day is a reunion. And though Mom’s been dead a long time, it still is for me, in memories and more.

The fading color photograph on my shelf must be almost 40 years old.

Six sets of smiling eyes focus on the camera. All but one set are young, very young. Grandchildren’s eyes gathered around Granny’s eyes.

Mom, our four kids and my brother’s and his wife’s baby daughter are sitting on the floor. Mom’s holding the baby in the cradle of her arm, but everybody is smiling.

Having a good time, soaking up the attention—a moment of happiness frozen in time.

      The kids are grown now, and Mom’s been dead for almost 37 years. I look around my room and see a couple of other snapshots…one of Mom and Dad back when I was a kid; one with my brother on a fence, me standing by Mom on a windy day when I was a college student in Oklahoma; one of Mom’s retirement party.

Happy moments. Happy memories.

This Mothers’ Day will bring more happy moments in many homes. There will be flowers, and meals, and well-wishes, and smiles.

At OCC

 I know Mothers’ Day is to honor mothers, but I think we get most of the benefit.

We move so fast these days that it’ll be an effort to slow down for a few hours, and enjoy those around us. We need to stop and say, “I love you, ” while we can. To laugh, to hug, to tell stories, to just do nothing but enjoy time together.

 Those are other reasons to celebrate Mothers’ Day.

My reunion will be an annual pilgrimage to the Waurika, Oklahoma cemetery to plant flowers and talk. 

My brother and I met there for one of those reunions a few years back. “I wonder if anyone will plant flowers at our graves,” he asked. That went unanswered, but we had our reunion, full of memories and laughs and tears. Then we went our separate ways. This week, when this photo was found, he said, "You had the pooch and I was trim. Now I've got the pooch." We have our mother's humor.

      If you follow custom and have a white flower corsage on your lapel because your mother is gone, make sure those who have red flowers and their mothers still here take full advantage of the day. Make sure children and grandchildren and spouses tell their mothers how much they love them.

This is one day when we can control time for a little, with what is important, before time takes over again.

And by the way, make sure you take lots of pictures Sunday. Because when time does take over, and the red flowers change to white, those snapshots of smiling eyes focused on the camera, which you took this Mothers’ Day, will be more important than you can ever imagine. They're part of a reunion.

Tell your mother you love her.

     

Mother's Day story and journey--Part 2

(My annual pilgrimage to Mom's grave comes Sunday. Part two of this short story begins a week of memories, some factual, some fictional.) 
Almost noon, just about on time to the southern Oklahoma cemetery--although he was never late.

"Mama, mama, you were so special, never complaining

"Regrets, regrets , Mama. You’d be proud of the kids, if not me after all that’s happened.”

"No wonder I stay away," he thought. "It keeps the memories in the back of my head where they're far away....

"Mama, mama, I loved you so much,  but, but...”

He slowed down before turning from the pavement onto the gravel ruts between the freshly mown grass, leading up between the concrete posts to the cemetery. Idling upward, he could hear the gravel crunch  beneath the tires. He could see his brother's station wagon already on the hill, his silhouette leaning against the fender, waiting.

The cemetery perched on top of the prairie hill, and there were no trees in the newer section. It overlooked the creek bottom  and town, shimmering in the heat, a mile  below, and the wind never seemed to stop.

His brother waved, and he rolled down the window, letting the May humidity blast his senses. The smell of cut grass and alfalfa blew through the window  as he pulled up beside the station wagon.

"Yo, bro, good to see you," said his brother, standing up and reaching for the handle. His brother was a little taller than he, and a little heavier, but he  suddenly saw how much he looked like their mother--the rounded chin, long flat cheeks, thin lips and high forehead.

"Brother, it's been too long," he said as he got out of the car, grabbed his hand and pulled his brother toward him for a brief, if solid hug.

"Yeah, it has, but you're the one who's been distant.”

"Please, no sermons, I've had a million of them…”

"The years, the years"

"No, no sermon intended. I just resent how you've withdrawn from the times we used to get together. We're all we've got left, and we're not going to be like our uncles and not speak to each other for the rest of our lives."

"Damn, I guess it's easier to go it alone--I know we're all we've got left of Mom and Dad--and I don't want to lose that either."

"You still believe that?"

" Yes, I do…the years, the years.”

" Know that bro, but that doesn't mean we can't still get together. Now let's go look at the grave. Did you bring the flowers?"

"No, I was late and in too much of a hurry."

"That's one thing about you that hasn't changed," he said, as he turned and walked toward the grave.
+++
Tomorrow--photos and memories

A Mother's Day story and journey -Part 1

 (I will make my annual pilgrimage to Mom's grave this Mother's Day. This short story begins a week of memories, some factual, some fictional.) 

Thumpeta, thumpeta, thumpeta.

The concrete sections of the old WPA highway jolted his teeth and memories as he drove back to his Mother’s grave for the first time in years.

Heavy asphalt covered each of the seams of the narrow highway, exaggerating each bump, forcing him to slow down after getting off the interstate an hour ago.

But after the mind-numbing hypnotism of the 75-mile -per hour ribbon pavement. he found the change in rhythm and speed welcome.

Old pavement reminded him of his childhood, growing up in Oklahoma. The sections of concrete slowly keeping time under his tires reminded him of years gone by when he was a teenager in the red clay Oklahoma town.

Coming back to Oklahoma had turned the clock back even more, he thought.

"Why haven't I ever put flowers on her grave?" he asked, over and over, after his brother suggested a reunion on Mother's Day, at the cemetery.

He'd never been able to find time to go back these 20-something years--something always came up--but when he thought about it, he knew there was something else--as effective as a roadblock.

It was guilt and regret.

"The years stream by like the concrete under your tires on the interstate, but when you slow down on this road, each section jolts a memory," he thought.

He'd been back to Oklahoma  twice in those years--once for a funeral of his best friend's wife--and once for the wedding of another friend. He could tell former church friends were uncomfortable around him.  Both times he visited the grave, but he hadn't brought flowers.

Instead, he'd drive through the cemetery, searching for the grave site. He'd park, get out and walk over between the other gravestones.

When he'd find it, he'd crouch down on his haunches and talk to her as he wiped the dust and dirt out of the engraved letters on the flat granite. He'd pick at the Bermuda grass growing up around the edges.

Mostly he muttered to himself.

"Mama, Mama, I'm sorry Mama, I just never had time, did I? You were so unselfish, the most unselfish person in the world. I'm sorry I forgot the flowers. You'd sure like them," he said, looking at the flowers adorning the other graves.

He hadn’t even sent her cards in those  later years, even though she knew she loved them.

Going through her things after she died, he'd found every card he'd ever sent her--especially the ones he'd made when he was in grade school.

"Mama, mama, what is it with me?  I was too busy for you, and then too busy for family."

Now the thumping sound of the highway was hypnotizing him as his thoughts went back.

"Wish you could see the kids, Mama—our girl looks so much like you. They were sure your joy--since I didn't take time."

He hurt inside as he thought about those last months of her life...when he finally took time for her. His eyes misted as he thought about driving her to the hospital that last time, and holding her hand tightly, trying to reassure her. He swung around the curve and saw the cemetery hill in the distance.

(To be continued)

Tomorrow's pilgrimage toward a reunion

They're all gone now--Sissie, ET, Mom, Ima, Addy, Gladys

Francis Faye Culp Clark

June 15, 1909-

July 5, 1980

It's more than two hours southwest and 35 years back in time for me tomorrow. I go to plant real flowers at her grave, and think, remember, talk, and touch mortality. 
Tell your mother you love her.
Brother Jerry and I have mementos and photographs, and more. We have questions and wondering we'll never find out. We have cousins.

Mom with grandchildren Travis, Dallas, Becky, Derrick and Vance

We and our children and our grandchildren carry her genes, her grace and goodness--and her sense of humor.
Mom, you'd delight in our your grandchildren and great-grandchildren.  
I know it's a long way from humble East Texas, but we've all traveled miles and years, and can never thank you enough for your unselfishness, how you cared for and reared us. 

Retirement at MD Anderson

We wish we were as good as you, but any goodness we have we inherited and learned from being around you.   
We look forward to a big reunion. In the meantime, I'll see you tomorrow.

Front row, right corner, on a Ma Bell basketball team

Dad's portrait of his bride, 1943

Mother's Day journeys, no silence in my memories

Francis Faye Culp Clark

1909-1980

Sunday I will head south into memory.

It took a long time for me to begin this annual trip, I'm sad to say. But now, I look forward to the trip
to the cemetery a mile west of Waurika, Oklahoma, where the prairie wind never seems to stop. After we moved from the little town where Mom lved with us until she died, I avoided coming back to the grave and planting flowers.

My brother Jerry at the grave.

But for the past several years, as I've faced my own mortality more and more, and had my own deaths and tragedies.and missed her more and more, I always look forward to talking with her again. Oh, I know she's not at that grave, but for some reason I know I can talk with her there...she and me, alone.
In the morning of Mother's Day, I put a garden trowel in the car, and stop and buy a gallon of water, and a few flowering plants from Lowe's, preferably ones that will last longest in sunlight. Then I head down the Bailey Turnpike to Chickasha, and south on US 81, back through memories of Rush Springs and Marlow and Duncan and especially Comanche...through Addington to Waurika, county seat of Jefferson County, where we lived for 12 years owning the Waurika News-Democrat, and she with us for a few years, till she got cancer and died a couple of weeks after her birthday in that 100 degree heat storm that lasted more than 30 days.
I'll go down some old WPA 1930s pavement, listening to the thump, thump, thump of the tires, and then after passing through Waurika, up the hill on US 70, pul off the pavement, and listen to my tires crunching across the pavement, and the meadowlarks singing, till I come to her grave.
I'll get out and come talk to her, and use the trowel to clean off the grass intruding on her grave, and dig down at the stone to plant the flowers some of the dirt from last year still there. I'll plant most of the red flowers, use a lot of the water to saturate the ground. No plastic flowers for my Momma's grave. She loved real ones. Yes, they'll eventually die, but so what? Better than fake. More of the water will wash off the stone, and the wind will soon dry it off, except for the water lingering in the incisions on the stone--her name and dates. They fade last, like my memories.

Reunion of memories

Such a travesty to summarize a life with so few words...no love, no memories, no humor...but that awaits us all. And then I kneel down, and talk. Our conversations are private and personal. I know she hears me. I sure hear her. Last year my brother Jerry and I were there. I'm sure he talked to her in his own way too. I'll lean over, and kiss that grave, because I can no longer kiss her.
Then I'll leave, meander through Waurika and memories and joys and regrets where we lived and worked. I'll head north 15 miles to Comanche, and stop at my Dad's grave, clean his grave, plant some flowers, and talk some more then I'll head home.
Silence is part of the trip... No radio, other distractions, other than wind and birds. But there is no silence in my memories.

Mother's Day thoughts

“Those are Momma’s glasses,” I said to myself.

I was digging through an old box in the garage recently, rummaging through old letters, faded photographs, artifacts of earlier times.

There they were--thin gold octagonal wire frames, around slightly scratched bifocals. Beside them was a Mothers Day card colored on torn, faded construction paper by a little boy named Terry. There were yellowed photos of a young woman and friends in flapper dresses and old cars, brittle brown envelopes with three-cent stamps  and hand-writing scribbled on them, postmarked in Texas in the 1920s and 30s.

I was sitting on the concrete floor, trying to straighten up and sort through the boxes one more time...you know, a typical weekend chore. Among the boxes of junk--junk that is too valuable to be thrown away, but you don't know what to do with--were baby pictures, kid pictures, young adult pictures that record the passing of time in individuals, in families.

There are days like that, family reunion days. You sit and visit with people you’ve known for years, watching them grow older. Some with walkers, some with oxygen tubes, kids and grandkids and great grandkids scrambling around, people feasting on a smorgasbord of food and faces and family. 

And then you think about them watching you grow older... like the stuff that spills out of an old box. A guest book of a wedding or a funeral, scribbled family history notes with dates of births and marriages and deaths of brothers, sisters, parents, aunts, uncles, children. 

Mom's coin purse

Tears of memories fill small items like a tiny black leather coin purse stuffed with a black and white photo of a young woman, carried by my mother 80 years ago.

Mom and Jerry at his graduation
from Lubbock Christian with the glasses

Certificates of membership, graceful handwriting you immediately recognize...even though she’s been gone 30 years now, and the boxes they’re crammed in. Old magazines, newspaper clippings.

A musty smell of growing older, perfumed slices of time frozen in eternity. They bring tears, until you think about your own children growing older, and what they’ll look at and remember some day when they’re sifting through boxes, wondering when certain snapshots were taken, who  those other people were. The tears are of sadness and regrets and memories, but not of growing older. 

Years and memories are like children, and like boxes full of mementoes, the more you have the fuller your life becomes.

I picked up Momma’s glasses and looked through them briefly, and they gave me a new outlook on all those boxes in our lives.

Mom, with glasses and the first five grandchildren, in Waurika
Vance, Dallas, Becky, Derrick and Vance

Mothers' Day Memories

Francis Faye Culp Clark

I'm usually on the road on this day every year, traveling south on U.S. 81 to the windswept hilltop cemetery at Waurika, where Mom is buried.

Jerry, Mom and Terry  ready to board the train in Albuquerque

Before I leave, I load a gallon  container of water and a gardening trowel. I stop at a Wal-Mart and buy red and yellow periwinkles or petunias. Once the two  hour trip is finished, I drive through the town where we spent 12 years raising family and running the newspaper, driving past memories, and head west on U.S. 70 to the cemetery, just a few miles north of the Red River and Mom's native Texas. Gravel crunches under the tires as I pull off the pavement and head to her grave.

There are usually birds singing, and the wind is blowing. Sparse Sunday morning traffic whizzes by. I'm usually alone. Plastic flowers and cut flowers adorn many of the graves.

Mom and I talk for a while. I occasionally sit down in the grass and write a letter to her. Then I get the water, the trowel and the flowers from the car, dig a small hole at the top of her gravestone, pour in the water and plant the flowers. Oh, I know they won't last long, but that's ok. She deserves live flowers.

Mom's Southwestern Bell basketball team, 1929. She's front row, right.

Then I pour water on the stone, washing off the dirt. The wind quickly dries the stone off, except for the water in the incised letters of her name and the dates:

Francis Faye Culp Clark

1909 1980

It takes longer to evaporate, like the memories that linger year after year. Mom and I talk some more. Then I wander through the cemetery, recognizing  the names of many of the people I used to work with or know. I come back to Mom's grave, almost all the moisture gone, bend down and kiss her name, say goodbye and start heading north.

I didn't make it this year, but will one weekend soon.

Mom's family...Mom, sister Vera (Sissie), her mother Elizabeth, sister Gladys, brother E.T. in Sissie's Dallas apartment, 1950s.