Words hold power
I put the pink notebook paper to my nose and inhale. I expect it to be scented. Shouldn’t pink paper have a sweet smell? There was only the faint odor of ballpoint ink, my mother’s favorite choice of pen.
May 2, 2003, nearly 20 years ago she was thinking of me and wrote me a note.
She passed away seven months ago and we excavate the lost and misplaced ephemera, decades worth. Every piece examined and either tossed or tucked away. We had a chaotic relationship and many rifts went ignored and unresolved, quietly swept under the rug
I vacillate between a bottomless grief and explosive anger. And just when I don’t think I can take anymore, a memory, a photo, a note appears and softens the sadness, diffuses the pain.
I unfold her message and hear her voice as I read “You are my sunshine and I love you so much.”
Her words swirl in my head, through my heart, to my hand and onto the paper.
“You Are My Sunshine” – 6”x6”, 140 lb. Strathmore