The Litany

“When all the others were away at Mass
I was all hers as we peeled potatoes.
They broke the silence, let fall one by one . . .
Cold comforts between us, things to share
Gleaming in a bucket of cold water . . .

I remembered her head bent towards my head,
Her breath in mine, our fluent dipping knives –
Never closer the whole rest of our lives.”

– Clearances III by Seamus Heaney)

I find myself becoming my mother. When visiting a new place, whether it be a beach, forest, crowded museum, or bustling city center, she would stand still no matter the pace of her companion, or more inconveniently, passersby who were not expecting her abrupt stop. Visually distracted, my mother absorbed each moment, be it new or familiar.

On those rare walks with my busy adult children, I play games that my mother would once play with me. “Name that flower.” “Can you guess the tree?” “Listen. What bird is calling?”

I find myself stopping, abruptly, with all the wonderment that my mother once possessed. She knew that small moments are special and often result in the best memories.

My mother knew how to listen: to birdsong and rain, thunderstorms and sorrow. Having faced many obstacles and trials in her eighty-five years, she never lost her childlike sense of wonder or her joy for life.

Oftentimes, she and her friends would take pontoon rides on Crooked Lake. They would bring picnic baskets filled with tea cakes, sparkling water, and white wine.

They would laugh and talk. My mother would listen and advise. She always had an ear for others and a heart designed to soothe.

As the years have passed and my children are grown, I am starting to forget the daily phrases that I have come to think of as Memaisms, solid bits of country wisdom that my mother shared with me throughout my life. At times, when the breeze blows a certain way and the lilacs begin to bud, or when I am harried, frustrated, or worried, her words come to me unbidden.

“Haste makes waste.
Pretty is as pretty does.
A penny saved is a penny earned.
A place for everything and everything in its place.
If you have nothing nice to say,
don’t say anything at all. Fiddlesticks.
Don’t fret over things you can’t control.”

I am certain that my mother’s heart also resonated with the litany of her own mother’s words. Each morning when I sip my coffee, I can see my mother sitting with my grandmother. Their eyes, mirror images of sparkling blue. I can hear my grandma Mim exclaim in her Ozark drawl, “Hmmm, that’s goooood coffee.”

It is the small gestures, the daily moments, intimate and homespun, that create the most lasting memories. Ripe tomatoes that barely cling to the September vine. The burst of blackberries in early autumn.

In dark moments, I feel profound grief that I was not with my mother in her dying hour. That I arrived too late and the holy water that I poured over her head ran down heavy and fast like tears of regret. My mother, however, taught me that overthinking and overly emotional responses did not pave the best course of action.

She was a farmer’s daughter, a country girl with the sharp intellect of a scientist, the heart of a nurse, and a feisty spirit that harbored big dreams. My mother lived through the Great Depression and saw her brothers off as they went to fight overseas during WWII.

She knew that practicality and calm aided survival. She did not always agree with my tears and tender nature.

At times, my mother’s wisdom pierced like an auger. An honest litany where harsh words were necessary to justify a soft ending of understanding.

My mother was there before I took my first breath; she was there, when as a child, I cried at night in loneliness and fear. She will be there as well when I take my last breath at a ripe old age.

Old, but still in need of her assurance and comfort. The words to my favorite childhood story will float phantom-like through the hollows of my wrinkled ears.

Perhaps, it is not that I am forgetting my mother’s litany, but rather, her words have become part of my cells, my heart, my soul. I walk with her spirit each day in hope that I can share in her light.

If only I could leave others with that sense of unbidden wonder. The shadow of my mother’s spirit as it rises with that first waft of apple blossom in early May, or the delicate wind chime that rings with her laughter.

Today, I am looking out of the same kitchen window, sitting at the same table where I have written so many words, creating my own litany that I hope others will remember.

The seasons have changed yet again. Early April has brought bouts of warmth, cold, clear blue skies, and torrential rain. Despite the fickleness of spring weather, the lilac buds blur lavender. Lilac leaves, just green.

Green and lavender, abstract silhouettes against the sharp blue noon light. Beautiful, misted colors, so like the memories of my mother.

I have recently read Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy. In her debut novel, she alludes to the ties between mother and child.

It is said that actual cells, beyond our shared DNA, proof of our connection, mother and child, exist in our hearts and brains, our blood, at the time of birth until our time of death.

McConaghy writes: “Mam used to tell me to look for the clues.”
“The clues to what?” I asked the first time.
“To life. They’re hidden everywhere.”

I know this as truth. The blue of my mother’s eyes dawns each day. Her love taps on my heart like the fixed cadence of a woodpecker.

My mother’s energy lifts the wind and steadies my heart when I fall. I listen to her litany in the softness of the robin’s song.