Another Mother’s Day
PLEASE READ TO THE BOTTOM OF PAGE…..
Mother’s Day, 2014. Another year, another day when I am missing my dear mother, Betty Russak, so very much. She was my cheer leader, my counselor, my sage, my protector, my healer….perhaps the word “mother” best sums it up. Those who have such mothers understand, and those who have lost such mothers, I know, share my tears. So, in memory of my one beloved mother, here is a poem I wrote some years ago….
MOTHER’S DAY
What do girls do once they’ve lost their mothers?
Fill the cup.
The cup needs filling.
Who will care?
Who will plug the emptiness, the sadness?
Because you know that life goes on.
But not for mothers
who worry of belly aches
and finals
and two-hour plane rides
and almost jobs
choking sounds which are words made
when we’ve had a day that was, oh, not quite?
(The perfect pitch of mothers who can hear us in the silence)
Who find with equal grace
a dropped hem,
a swollen eye?
(Their eyes in shadow and yet they see the language of our souls)
What do girls do once they’ve lost their mothers?
They tell their husbands at the breakfast table
who smile and turn the page.
They tell their friends
who embrace and share a serving of heartbreak and coffee,
and then go home to their own stories left untold.
When all we really want –oh–
- Mommy. Ma.
Standing before us in the old blue sweater
tissues and safety pins in the pockets
with hands as firm, timeless as oak,
soft as the moon.
How many tears can one shed in a void?
Who will count the tears?
Does it really matter?
(There is a paradox in this proximity, so close we feel that breath
in harmony with our own. Yet distance cannot reach them).
What do girls do once they’ve lost their mothers?
They wipe their tears and leave the void
to face their children
who have mothers still.
They take up the sweaters,
turn them inside out .
Arms in sleeves,
they fill the cup again.—Shirley Russak Wachtel
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And so, I fill the cup…….
!
And yet again….SEE PHOTO AT TOP!
