My first introduction to "pregnant lady syndrome" was when our blue Toyota Tercel bit the dust. The right rear shock had sprung through the rusted undercarriage and invaded the trunk. A week later my parents traded it for $100, its total value in parts.
After that I saw
blue Tercels everywhere. "You know, like when you're pregnant"
my mom explained, shaking her head laughing at my blank look "well,
when you are pregnant, you see pregnant ladies everywhere."
I see Gail
everywhere. Gail's grey hair, "crisp and curly" my
grandmother called it, worn by a woman walking outside the natural
cafe. Gail's walk inhabiting a body that moved towards its car in
the Safeway parking lot. Gail, not Gail. Gail's body, Gail's car. Not
Gail.
I also see her
otherwise: on Arroyo Burro beach, in the raft of western grebes
bobbing among the kelp, nodding in unison, preening; peering from a
peregrine's eyes, as it perched on a snag at the bluff's rim;
reflecting down from the ice crystals that ringed the moon. I
breathed her name into the air. Luna.
I don't mean that
the grey-haired lady and the western grebe and the peregrine and the
moon's halo reminded me of Gail. I mean that I felt her there, as
fully as if she stood beside me, as clear as her voice laughing
through the phone, or her handwriting spilling out a recent adventure
in a letter. I mean she was there.
photo from: http://www.fotopedia.com/items/flickr-482019868
When Judith and I visited Mother this time--the first time since we told her that Gail had passed--we wondered how Mother was dealing with the fact that her first-born died first.
ReplyDeleteToday I found among Mother's short creative writing pieces this one:
IN THE SUNLIGHT
When my first-born girl, Gail, was only a few months old, I gave her a sun bath in my mother-in-law's yard.
I undressed my baby, rubbed her lightly with oil, and laid her on a a thick pad on the grass.
I sat near her in my sun dress and made sure we left after 10 minutes on each side. The baby and I both loved being in the warm sun.
I learned later that my mother-in-law was worried about what the neighbors might think about us. She ought to be glad I didn't remove my sun dress!