THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, May 14, 1995 TAG: 9505140024
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ELIZABETH SIMPSON
LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines
It has been eight years since my mother died. Still, I dream of her.
The images are a whirl. Sun-bathed memories of the woman who created a world of security for me. And darker, hazier images that wake me in a sweat of fear. I can never unravel one from the other.
There's the light-of-day mother who was always there. Every day after school she'd wait on the porch for me. Then she'd talk to me in her soft Mexican accent, laugh at my knock-knock jokes and sing songs until my father came home from work.
She sewed my dresses and attended every PTA meeting and school play. She convinced me I was the best kid in the world, told me I hung the moon above the elm trees in our front yard.
I can still smell her perfume, feel her hands, soft and cushiony, and hear the lilting laugh that could ease any school-day mishap.
The images are airy, scrapbook memories that leap to mind on Mother's Day. Another side surfaces deeper into the night.
The pencil-line of light I would see around my door during the middle of the night. The hall light on. The sound of her footsteps pacing the hall of our turn-of-the-century house. Her voice calling out for her mother, arguing with herself, crying, laughing, crying again. Delirious. Until dawn.
Who knows why? Was it leaving her native country and close-knit family in Mexico for the isolation of a small Midwest town? Was it some chemical imbalance? Some tortured memory from childhood? A genetic defect that brought on a stubborn depression?
Those were explanations no sixth-grader could grasp, so I would lie in bed and listen to the sounds of her torment. During particularly feverish nights, my father would send me to call for the ambulance. The dispatcher would ask what was wrong. ``Nerves,'' I'd mumble, not knowing the right words as I stood there twisting the hem of my pajamas.
I'd wish she had some other kind of ailment. Something other mothers had. Something we could talk about in the light of day.
I felt a mixture of sadness and relief the day I walked down the steps of that Victorian house for the last time. I knew I would miss my mother's love and security terribly, but I was secretly glad to be gone from the source of my most troubled fears.
In the years to come, my mother would send me boxes of brownies and hometown newspapers, letters filled with the banter of everyday life, entreaties to be good, sign-offs of love. She'd call me on the phone and say, ``Is this the best reporter in the world?''
Deep down, I must have known the hall light still came on. But I would focus on her sunny voice, her boisterous laughter.
When she was dying of cancer, I went back determined to ask about the midnight demons. All she'd say was that she'd had a good life. That she'd been happy, that it hadn't been hard coming to America. Then squeeze my hand.
There was a certain nobility about her by then. A joyful dignity in those dying moments. I never knew whether it was her last act of kindness to me, or whether she had shut out the dark memories. Or maybe felt relief at leaving them behind.
Today, I wear the Our Lady of Guadalupe medal that used to press against her moist skin, and keep a small red tin of her perfumed talcum powder.
I don't wear the powder, for fear of running out someday, but only open the tin now and then. And breathe in the sweet smell of mother. by CNB