Could anything be more trivial?
Someday soon, the ironed sheets will be gone from the linen cupboard, and I will know that my mother is really gone.
She sick now. She is dying now. But is she still here?
Maybe she’s alive so long as crisply ironed sheets grace the linen cupboard? I’m tempted to guard them with my life and body, throwing myself between thoughtless users and pristine lengths of percale. As if bed linens can define the contours of a human life!
There’s stratification where the line between Mom and not-Mom exists in history, but I’m pretty darn aware that the line is not actually important in the grand scheme of things.
When grandfather and teenaged grandson put linens away
Mom is dying. The sheets are irrelevant except when we sleep on them. And, yet, they seem to signify…
♦
Really Wonderful Things 
These sheets aren’t irrelevant at all.
My mother-in-law died three years ago at age 57. It was little things like this around the house that stuck, that hurt, but that helped us keep remembering her by.
I’m taking pictures of silly things like Mom’s perfectly organized, color coded socks and underwear drawers. I doubt I’ll see their like again. Certainly I’ve never had the energy for such extreme organization.
Thanks for stopping by.
Yesterday I was hanging out with [the kids] and noticed all your moms wrapping paper rolls and the Christmas yarn she uses to tie off all her packages for as long as I can remember. Little things like that hit hard.
Since my mother died last year, suddenly and unexpectedly, a million and one things–great and small–take my mind in directions happy and unutterably sad. If it’s the same for you, savor them all, they’re all of value. All my sincerest thoughts and wishes to you and your family.
I remember you wrote once about a very special cake recipe. Am I recalling that correctly?
My mother never showed us she loved us by cooking, so much, but those knife-edged creases in my pillowcase demand acknowledgement of how much she cares
Yes, the coconut fudge cake, about a 1000 calories a slice. One of the many reasons I am the (not so) fine figure of a man I am today.
A million and one things…
Take care.