Transition

Transition

My mother died last year, an event still on my mind. As my car backed out of the carport on the drizzly Sunday morning in July, there was a slapping on the car trunk. Brake the car, open the window. Linda said, “Community called. Your mother just died.” Spent the next hour or so in the room with her, church’s prayers at time of death, trying to reach family by cellphone, waiting for the funeral director. A nurse’s aide came into the room, expressed condolences, said, “You must be ‘her Bubba.’ She talked about ‘my Bubba,’ is that you?”  

We are trying to share her things with family members who might cherish them because of growing up memories. Furniture. Dolls she made and dressed long years ago. Weller pottery she collected. The mover is coming tomorrow morning. It isn’t that I “don’t want” these things, I want all these things, in fact, I want nothing to change, it’s simply wanting to share. There’s a big difference, at least to me; everyone doesn't seem to understand that. One relative wants a long sofa that has childhood memories of being piled with family for photographs during visits to the grandparents. That‘s the idea.

That Sunday evening, Linda and I drove around a bit. The neighborhood in the Cove where we grew up. Our old house on Massalina Drive looks the same except that little three-trunk magnolia tree that I stood on the front porch and watched my father and “Old Dave” plant one day in 1938 is quite large, has spread to shade the entire front yard. We had supper out, my plate of fried mullet for July, stopped by the bay to get a picture of the end of the day.

B