Beautiful hats in silenced memories

She placed one of her best hats on her mother's head in the coffin. How pretty her mom looked in that hat! Her mom would have liked to see herself in the mirror with it. Not much of a hat, more like a fascinator, a small cascade of lavender feathery flowers with a net containing them on the base.

"Are you going to bury her with the hat or do you want to take it back with you?" What a stupid question to make to a grieving daughter that had just traveled for 14 hours to be there just in time for the burial!

While she admired her mom in the coffin, her daughter approached and sang a mournful tune. A beautiful voice that no one besides her had heard before. An improbable Italian tune that amazed everyone at the funeral home. Never again would anyone hear her daughter singing like that. Her daughter died two years later, without ever singing in public after that.

She remembers the scene as she puts on a winter hat. Late nights, when both she and her daughter couldn't sleep, both haunted by different demons, each one in a separate room, she would hear her daughter practicing tunes. She yearned for talking to her about it, to share with her what she knew about singing and music, but doing so would only open an even big chasm between the two. 

The constant buzzing in her ears now dampens the sounds of the memories she might have in the deep recesses of her brain.

Wasted tears

 She was laying in bed. It was cold and she felt as if the hand of a small child was touching hers. It felt like her daughter, as a child was telling her in a terse way: “I love you! Now go on”

No mom, no sweetness. She then remembered the tears she left her daughter shed growing up. What for? Tears were supposed to teach one a lesson. They make one stronger for adulthood. Had she known her daughter would die so young, she would prevent every tear. Not a single one would ever roll down her sweet face because there would be no need for lessons.

Spools

 She remembered one story her mom told her when she was a child: “when I was your age I use to save the wooden spools to make pretend high heels. We would put the spools on our heels and wound around the ankle with twine. We would go up and down the neighborhood trotting with our high heels. We would stay on these spools for so long that we would have the hole engraved on our heels. After a while the twine was not needed anymore.” 

As a child she found grotesque that image of heels permanently marred by the imprint of the spools. But the fact that the girls back then treasured the wooden spools, keeping and trading on it was somehow sweet. 

From now on, she could never ignore a wooden spool. 

Reflexions in search of a poet

 She is looks at a pile of old journals. She finds some of her reflections from the time she had lost her son: 

"I'm looking for a poem

to dress myself with,

to cover the private parts of my pain.

Poems there are many,

but poets, 

very few.

I lost mine.

So I pile the poems

that are scattered around

trying to find him

to no avail.

Time dilutes the memories.

The good ones.

The sad ones.

Until all it is left

is my dried up soul."

----------------------------

"When I lost my son

I lost my solitude

I'm surrounded by his death

All the time.

I want to be alone

to remember him

but all my memories

are blurred by a big

sad stain of his death.

When I lost my son

I lost all my friends.

Most of them don't

want to be stained

by his death.

The dear, dear ones

I can't bear their emotions

any longer.

If they are happy

it seems so frivolous,

if they are sad

it seems so frivolous.

"Tell me about the son you lost?"

Oh! You didn't lose any. How would you know then?

When I lost my son

I lost all my wishes

my future doesn't make sense,

because my son will never be present.

I lost my companion

in long chats at night

in phone calls 

filled with intelligent conversations.

I lost an important reference"

-----------

"I wish I could have embraced you at the time of your greatest suffering, but all I can do is to submit myself to a similar suffering, living on the verge of hopelessness and death.

My desire is that when I get to that critical moment, I'll see you and we will embrace each other"

----------------

At this point she stops thinking. She knows that there won't be such a moment. Her children are gone and there will be no embrace, no permanence. 

Once I had a life that made me feel so small

She reflected on how people make a big fuss about holidays, memorial dates, birthdays... How they attach themselves to big events. How all these big things clutter the vanishing memory  that clings to remain relevant in her brain.

It's the little things that hurt the most. That folding of the laundry that is done in silence, that underwear that doesn't need to be bought, the socks that will go lost forever, the shoes resting in the closet with no wear, the recipes that go untasted.

In these insignificant moments and when the absence is most evident. There is no memory that can exactly convey what would her daughter do, what would her son say. Those moments in which she looks around and there is nothing but a cat and dog that got tired of waiting for her and resorted to curl on the bed.