The Green Couch

Sometimes when I come home from a day's work, I walk in through the kitchen door and expect to see her sitting there on that green couch.

She bought the couch the year before she died. It was an average size couch with deep seats and high sides. We were in a local furniture store that was hosting a close-out sale when she found it. The twill-like softness of the couch called to her second only to the spring green of its color. It looked comfortable, with its come hither cushions beckoning out to a body to sink in and enjoy. She tried it out for several minutes in the store, while my husband went to find a salesperson to assist us. I think she secretly didn't want anyone else to lay claim to it; after all, there would be no ordering from the home office - it was a closeout sale. All sales final, no returns, cash on delivery. So she sat there, running her hands over it, smoothing the already smooth as silk fabric, oohing and aahing and looking to me to make sure it would "go" with her other furniture.

We closed the deal and made delivery arrangements, and she was happy for the day with her new purchase.

A week later, the couch arrived. By then she had been sitting in a chair, or at the dining room table, for a couple of days, having given her old couch to my sister. She had the delivery men set it just so, making sure it didn't butt up against the wall if a person were to sink into it a little heavier than most. She was pleased as apple pie with her new couch, and never said anything about its comfort level.

However, after awhile, sitting on the couch made her feel as though she had become a pirate ship, sinking ever so slowly after taking on a cannon blast. The cushions, at first firm and supportive, became softer with each sitting, giving in to the weight of the sitter, and getting comfortable became a chore. Worse, getting off the couch was impossible. She had to get out of it instead, as though it had grown attached to her backside. It was a struggle for most, but became a downright pain in the rear for her. Scoot to the edge, then lean forward and pull pull pull until the butt came unglued. It could be comedic if the one getting up wasn't you.

Despite the ever sinking cushions and the constant battle to release herself from it, Momma loved that couch. It was of a cheery green, much like the softer shades of spring that bloom during the first days of March and April. Curling up in it could be comforting, too, if you had a need for something to wrap itself around you. With its high sides and back, you could scooch yourself into a corner and cover up with a throw and a book, and stay like that for a period of time feeling the secureness of it surrounding you.

Memorial Day weekend was fast approaching, and with it my brother and his family were to arrive for a week of visiting with Mom and enjoying the beaches. My sister and her family, living only an hour away, also wanted to spend a Sunday, so we devised a plan to cook out on Daddy's grill and enjoy Mom's company for the day. She had been sick for a number of months, having been in the hospital seven times over the last four months, and deep in our hearts we all knew her days were numbered. Diabetes and congestive heart failure were ravishing her body, taking their toll on her kidneys and lungs and circulatory system. Walking had become hard for her; she could barely make it from her bedroom to the kitchen without becoming breathless. She often had to walk and rest, walk and rest. Her last admission to the hospital resulted in the dual preparation for both hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis - major surgeries both for someone in her state of health.

My husband, daughter and I all lived within two minutes driving time, and were preparing to move in with Mom at her request. We needed another place to live; our new landlord was turning in to a shark. At the same time, Mom had asked that we move in with her; she was afraid to live by herself now that her health was failing and wanted us closer, not farther away. We were spending our afternoons and evenings, weekends and every free moment with Mom - I had to get in all the time I could with her while there was time to be had. That Sunday before Memorial Day seemed like a good time to spend the day as a family, all of us glad for the excellent weather so that Mom could sit outside for a while. We cooked, we cleaned, we laughed, we told stories; it was a good day.

And yet, something was off. I wasn't quite sure what it was, but I knew there was a change in Mom, so subtle as to be almost not noticeable. I had spent every possible moment with her over the last several months, and I could feel it. It was as though she had given up, and was taking this last opportunity to say goodbye in her own way. She was just a little too bright and a little too happy, with an underlying sense of sadness. Her body was worn down, weakened by years of diabetic ups and downs. As the day wore on, I acquiesced to my daughter's insistence that she be allowed to do the prep work in the kitchen, and instead I sat with Mom, enjoying our time together.

Our day ended on a good note. My sister and her family left first; their drive home with full tummies would be a bit more challenging as they had further to go. My daughter and I cleaned the kitchen, putting the dishes in their rightful places and wiping down countertops and appliances. She, too, left shortly thereafter, young enough to have things to do and people to see and plans for the evening still to come. My husband and I were the last to leave.

There has always been love in my family, with affection openly displayed and freely given. We are Southern by blood, and find it hard not to give a hug and an "I love you" to those who are important to us when we depart from their company. Even new people who have recently graced our lives with their presence will at least receive the hug and a warm welcome. So it is no surprise that I have always told my Mom that I love her and given her a hug and a kiss before leaving her of an evening. I always initiated the ritual, going to her and enfolding her in my arms, seeking from her the love I knew without a doubt she had for me. It was a comfort to her as much as it was to me. We'd laugh about some little comment or repeat of the evening's funnier moments - there was always some sort of goodnatured ribbings going on when we got together - then we'd hug. I whispered in her ear, most every time, that I loved her, and for her to behave. She'd laugh and say "That's no fun."

But this Sunday, well, it was different, you see. It was different because she initiated our ritual hugging. She came to me, and enfolded me in her arms as though to comfort me. She rocked me back and forth a time or two, then told me she loved me. There was no laughter or joking this time. It's a though she knew that time was slipping away, and she wanted me to know that I was loved. She told me she was proud of me; had always been.

My heart aches, trying to write this down. The screen is blurring - blinking does no good. It just blurs again, like I'm looking through an aquarium to the other side.

The next morning - Memorial Day - my husband and I lounged around until mid-morning, being lazy and having no particular plans for the day except to go see Mom. I knew Momma would be getting up soon, so I called her to let her know we'd be over in an hour to help her with breakfast. The phone rang and rang, until finally after ten rings it went to the answering machine.

And that's when I knew.

Denial is oftentimes a person's worst enemy. It is a vicious bedfellow, allowing a soul to lounge around in the darkest of hours, oblivious to the lack of light, convincing oneself that everything is as it should be.

Denial whispered in my ear that it was still a bit early for Mom to be up. I still had time to hop in the shower and get over there if I were quick about it. Denial told me that I could still make it in time to fix her a healthy breakfast, maybe have a cup of coffee with her.

An hour later, denial reached out of the darkness in all its raging madness and took to shattering my world like so many glass crystals under the wrong end of a falling hammer.

There she was on her beloved green couch. Her morning bottle of water was still chilled, her morning pills pooled together beside it waiting to be taken. The blinds across the french doors were still closed, so I knew she hadn't made it very far into the morning. Her hand where it lay on her belly was still warm, as was the side of her face where it rested on her shoulder. But life had exited her body nearly an hour or so ago, leaving the remainder of that vessel cold. I sat with her, not knowing exactly what to do, except to hold her hand.

God, I wasn't ready. Not yet. And then the floods came, and I broke loose with all my inhibitions and the sound I heard was my own voice, wailing out my grief and I cried for someone to turn back time. This couldn't be happening, it was too soon, I wasn't ready I wasn't ready no I wasn't ready not yet please not yet somebody make this not be true.

And the body that encompassed all the essence of my Momma's soul for sixty-six years lay there, telling me it was so.

She was gone. The beauty of her was up there in the air, circling, floating around, surely looking down on me at that very moment, watching me grieve and somehow conveying to me that the one last act I must do for her was to take care of her now more than ever.

After six years of doing without a crutch, I started smoking again that day. I'll quit when I get over this ache. Or maybe - hopefully - before then.

Calls were made, family came, services were arranged and attended. The death certificate was signed by her nephrologist so as to spare her the indignity of an autopsy. He was such a kind man to my Momma, in life and afterwards.

We scattered her ashes in the yard. People look at me funny when I tell them that. My Daddy had passed away six years earlier; he had always made it known that we were to "feed the fish" by way of scattering his ashes in the Gulf of Mexico. When Mom and I talked about her wishes, she said she couldn't swim, so of course she didn't want to be scattered in the Gulf. Instead, just let her be fertilizer for her favorite places in the yard. That summer her muscadine vines and hydrangeas and Christmas roses bloomed like they never have before.

The couch went to my sister. My brother had no room for it, and I couldn't face it every day. Every time I go to my sister's place now, I see Momma sitting on that couch. On bad days, I walk in through the kitchen and see the couch here, at home, where I last saw Momma. So no, I couldn't deal with having the couch.

It is still worn in the cushions, and it still grabs you when you sit down. Getting out of it continues to be a struggle. I get a mental picture in my mind when that happens, and it's Momma, declaring she loves that couch and it surely must love her too, because it won't let her go.

I miss my Daddy a lot and still think about him when I hear a funny joke or read a really good book. When he was alive, he and Momma were a unit; they did things together all the time and because we were grown and had families of our own, it was less often that we got together with them. For that I will always be sorry. But I have no regrets where Dad is concerned; he was larger than life and loved by his children and all who knew him.

I ache - literally, deep down hurt - for missing my Momma. Every day I think about her. When something goes wrong, or something goes right, I want to share it with her. She was my friend, my confidante, my mentor. She was everything I ever hoped to be and more when I grow up. I fear I will always hurt for missing her. Time eases some pains; for Daddy, time had done me well. But for Momma, it's yet to chip away at that wall surrounding my hurts and grief. I just....hide it well.

I regret Momma being alone when she died. I didn't want that for her. She told me she wanted us to move in so she wouldn't be alone, and I somehow feel like I've failed her. I wish I had skipped the shower and come straight over; maybe I wouldn't have been too late. Maybe. Just maybe. Just maybe maybe maybe maybe.

That green couch. It reminds me every time I see it that my Momma died alone, and that maybe it was my fault she did.

The Rooster

Mom couldn't have been more than fourteen the time she beat that rooster with a broom.

They lived in the house at the lower end of the hill. An old worn house, square with a front screened porch and a back door fitted with narrow steps leading into the yard beyond. It was built in the early 1930's, probably for a farmer's hired hand and his family. The whitewash was peeling in many places, and the forest green trim needed to be scraped and sanded and reapplied around the eaves where the water dripped during a rain. The house was built on concrete blocks, much like many other homes in that era, so the air could cool the underside of the house when the summer sun beat down from above. There was no air conditioning, and it was well after they moved out that window units were installed.

The rooster was an old codger, big and red and brown and spurred. He had been around for a number of years, getting meaner with each passing summer. He kept the hens happy and seemed to do okay with most of the adults, but he didn't take too kindly to Mom for some reason.

I remember her telling me on several occasions - those times we'd sit around of an evening telling stories of childhoods in Atlanta when Atlanta was nothing more than a mixture of two lane highways and a Rich's department store with a soda fountain counter - she'd tell us the story of the rooster, how she would always try to go out the front door, not the back, because that rooster still had long spurs, and if the day was hot and the sun was beating down, that rooster would get meaner and attack a pair of legs coming down those steps at the back door.

One day, though, she forgot about the old guy, and went out the back door, down the stairs, and ....*bam!* Mom said it was like getting hit in the legs by a small feathered beast. That rooster had come out from underneath the house and attacked her about the lower legs and calves before she could run or get away or find anything to defend herself. It wasn't the first time, but this was a pretty vicious attack. Apparently the sun had commenced to rotting that rooster's brain, because surely no yard bird with any sense would attack the child of the person who fed it each day.

Mom was always kind of dry with her humor. She'd get you before you knew what happened, and it was always funny to be the last one laughing. She who laughs last...well, you know.

So this time, Mom found a broom, and she started beating that rooster. She told us she swung that broom at the rooster and beat him and beat him and beat him until he was nearly as flat as the dirt she'd beat him in to. Then she beat him some more, to make sure he never spurred her again.

Later, as she was cleaning her face up in the bathroom after a crying jag from all the nasty spurrings she'd gotten, she looked out the bathroom window.

What did she see but the rooster, getting up off the ground. He was peeling himself out of the dirt, one feather at a time, wobbling around in the yard like he'd tipped up the whiskey bottle one time too many. She was pretty sure he would've been dead, but he wasn't.

He never spurred her again, though.

My aunt keeps working, even though she is well past retirement age and draws her monthly social security check. She is my father's twin sister, they being two of six children, all the others girls. Daddy used to tell people that he had five sisters, and they all had a brother.

Life was good for Mom and Dad. They'd raised three kids, saw those three children have children of their own, and watched these growing families venture out into the world to make their own way. Dad was near retirement when their fortieth anniversary came to pass on December 24, 1999. The plan was to go back to Germany. My cousin's husband had given them two buddy passes, as Delta employees are allowed to share, and they were flying over the following summer after Dad retired in the spring.

February came around, and the retirement party took place. Dad had already retired from the military, having served honorably for twenty-three years in the Air Force. We were all so glad that we could see him retire from another job of eighteen plus years where he started at the bottom and worked his way up to upper management. His contributions to this company were well respected and carried on even to this day.

Daddy retired on February 1st. On Valentine's day, he watched the NASCAR races - he was a big fan - then decided he'd go for a walk. His heart gave out on him two blocks up the road, where two young boys in their pre-teens found him lying face down in the road, non-responsive.

One of the boys, a recent CPR class graduate, tried to roll Daddy over in order to perform the CPR he'd learned in boys scouts. But Daddy was too heavy for him; too solid, too everything. He was already gone, as evidenced by the lack of bracing a person does when they fall forward. It was the skinning of his nose and forehead that lead the doctor to believe he never knew what hit him, thus he never braced himself for the fall.

Daddy would've been 62 had he lived ten more days. His heart failed him on Valentine's Day, of all days.

So my aunt, Daddy's twin sister, keeps working. I think she might believe that if she stops, she too, will face the same fate that her brother did.

Innocence Lost

There is a time in every child's life that innocence is lost forever amid the ever-deafening music ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-duming in the ear; sitting in a seat, pushed back as far as possible into its back and hoping beyond hope that by pushing hard enough, maybe just a little bit harder, the chair would move back a row or two. Eyes, round and unblinking, riveted on the screen, too frightened to look away because the knowledge that as soon as the eyes closed or wavered it was going to jump straight out into the audience and eat its way up to you. Squeezing of hands; cringing faces; feet pulled up on the edge of the seat; eyes peaking out from behind vulcan-split fingers; ears attuned to every single nuance of the ever-maddening musical score. Get out of the water! your child's mind screams to the diver.

Suddenly, the music hits a crescendo, the females in the audience start screaming, and a head falls out of the bottom of the boat right into the face of the diver you just tried to send telepathic warnings to.

Jaws. What more can be said? I lost my innocence with that movie; never again would I be a virgin of the horror flick. I was tainted goods, forever more doomed to be scared of anything that went bump in the night, dark hallways, sleeping with the door closed, and squeaky, creaking door hinges. I could no longer go in past a knee deep level in the Gulf of Mexico. Without a doubt I knew Jaws was waiting out there for me, ready to relieve me of my limbs. Swimming in fresh water was the same, until many years later when I realized that sharks didn't like fresh water.

We had gone to the movies, Mom and Dad, my brother Paule and Sister Joi. It was one of those rare family nights out; Daddy had just gotten a promotion along with a raise, and we were being treated with a family night on the town. After a quick dinner of burgers and fries, we went to the Cinco Bayou movie theatre to see "The Apple Dumpling Gang," a harmless, fun-filled Disney flick rated G for the whole family.

With that movie was surprisingly sold out, my parents made the bad mistake of letting my brother pick the movie and, being a boy constantly out to terrorize his sisters, he chose Jaws.

My Mom was sitting between my Dad and my sister, both of them having gotten a really good grip on Mom's hands. Jaws had already visited the midnight swimmer and given her a really good thrashing about; the da-dum, da-dum of the music was already permanently imbedded in the mind of every single person in the movie theatre; and my brother was sitting next to me on the end of the isle, grinning like a crazed loon.

Moving along, it was when the head came out of the bottom of the boat that my Dad squeezed my Mom's hand so tight she thought he'd broke it, until the pain in her other hand overtook that when my sister screamed then promptly stuck the thumb of Mom's other hand in her mouth and bit it.

After the movie, after getting home, my sister and I went to our shared bedroom and sat on the bed all night with the light on. Our feet never hit the floor and our eyes never faltered more than a minute, until the light of day came upon us and we were free from a night's terror.

We have cursed my brother ever since.

Spilled Lonesomeness

The earliest memories I have are of living in Tennessee with Momma and my brother Paule. Daddy was a young man in the Air Force, serving a remote year in a far away country that we could only see on the map. Korea was a foreign place to my brother and me; we couldn't fathom that there was more to the world than the house we lived in and the dirt road it stood on. He left my Mom with two active, energetic toddlers during the hot sultry days of summer in the year 1965, and didn't make it back home until the same dog days of summer a year later. My brother Paule had turned four the January before Daddy left; I wouldn't turn three until the following November.

Looking back, I cannot fathom what our Mom had to endure. She was young yet, still pretty of face with her ever-smiling Elizabeth Taylor eyes, high cheekbones, and full mouth, her figure still curvaceous despite having given birth to the two of us. I remember thinking she was pretty enough to be a movie star on the black and white television we were so lucky to have. I am sure we aged her that year just by virtue of our being.

We lived in a small clapboard rental house in the middle of a long dirt road that I was sure went on forever. Murphy Drive in Smyrna, Tennessee, was all the world to my brother and me. From our vantage point, short as we were, we could see the ends of the world from our front stoop.

There was no air conditioning back then. Summer days always found the front and back doors open so any wind that stirred might bless us with a cross-breeze through the house. Screen doors now are made of aluminum or metal, with glass panes that slide up or down to hold out the elements while letting in the sun. Ours were warped, whitewashed wooden frame screens, each with a hook latch, the screening itself flimsy from being slammed so many times as we ran in or outside during the summers of the year Daddy was gone.

I couldn't have been more than three when it happened, but in my mind's eye I sometimes think it happened just yesterday. I don't know why this memory has stayed with me, anymore than the others, or why it has been so powerful for me. But it haunts me still, because my child's mind still thinks I made Momma cry even though my adult heart knows that she cried because she was lonely for Daddy, not angry with me.

We were playing hide and seek, my brother and I, but I grew tired of the game and decided to explore some of Momma's stuff in the bathroom. She always had a pretty little tin of powder sitting on the back of the commode. When I was extra good she would let me use a little bit of it after a bath, but only with her help. I wanted to smell the powder this day, because it smelled so good. It was that secret Momma smell, the one a well loved child associates with warmth and love, safety and security. Honeysuckles, maybe, or some other soft floral scent. Sometimes, even now, I get a sense of deja vu when I walk through Dillard's; I smell that scent again and it brings Mom back to me as though I were still a wee thing.

I remember taking the powder to Momma's bedroom and valiantly twisting and turning and pulling at the lid. Little did I know then that my three year old hands weren't made to open such grown-up things; but I tried and tried until finally, the lid popped off, so abruptly that it startled me. Out came the powder puff, fluffy and white and smelling like an angel, down towards the floor where surely it would make a mess and I'd be in trouble. Trying for a save, I inadvertently dropped the now-open tin of powder and made one very sweet-smelling mess all over Momma's wooden floor.

I remember squatting down and trying pick up what I could, brushing the remnants beneath the bed. Most of it had spilled out, but my little hands scooped up what they could and dumped it back in the tin. I thought I was nearly done when Momma walked in to the room. I was caught.

Looking back, she wasn't mad at me; Momma didn't yell or punish me or do anything unkind toward me. I don't know - don't remember - if I helped clean the rest of it up or if she did. I do remember her sending me out of the room. "Go watch cartoons with your brother," she told me. Grateful I didn't get a swat on the behind for my mischief, I remember doing as I was told.

And later still - thirty minutes, an hour, I am unsure what amount of time passed - I remember going back to her room, standing at the open doorway, asking her if she wanted to come watch cartoons with me. Bugs Bunny was on, I wanted to tell her. But instead I found her as she lay cross ways on the bed on her stomach, head cradled in her arms, crying. The powder was gone from the floor, the tin on the nightstand beside the bed. All should have been well - Momma wasn't mad at me and cartoons were on the television - but she lay there crying, a soft keening that I hear in my mind to this day.

It still has a powerful hold on me, this memory. Sometimes the power of it is so strong it washes over me like an old fashioned river baptism, drenching my soul in the sorrow of my mother's tears. It was the sound of loneliness, an emotion I didn't recognize until many years later. Summer was passing none too fast and Momma was lonely for my Dad to come home.

It wasn't until years later that I realized how much my Momma loved my Daddy; back then, however, I just knew that Bugs Bunny couldn't make Momma's eyes stop crying on that hot, sweltering Tennessee afternoon.

The Stories

The stories have been floating in my head for more than a decade now, gently tap-tap-tapping against my skull, calling to be let out. Memories swim in my mind, drifting down the river of my bloodstream into the fathomless cavern of my soul, echoing against the walls their unrecorded words. They are the stories of my family, of love and laughter, sorrow and pain. They are the oral histories passed down to me from my mother and father, my aunts and uncles; the nights sitting around the dining room table with the grown-ups, listening with a quiet smile as they reminisced with each other all the adventures of their own childhoods, laughing in to the night, me grinning because these grown-ups were mine. They are the tales of the grandparents, the cousins and nieces and nephews. The stories tell of the lives of my family; family lost to me through the ages of time and distance of land and sea, as well as those closest to me.

They clammer to get out lest they be lost forever.