Missing My Mother, Part 1

There is never any “going back” but there is always a lot of “starting over.” So over and over and over I go, stumbling forward. I am somersaulting my way through life. Most mornings I wake up thinking about my mother. I just lay there, eyes closed and picture her in my mind. I see her laying in the twin bed across from mine, a puzzle book in her left hand and a pencil in her right. The light on the nightstand between the beds is always on. That nightstand followed her from the bedroom she and I once shared all the way to her apartment in Lincolnwood where she spent the last five years of her life. I gave that nightstand away. Now I wish I had not. I wonder why. What could I possibly have done with it? My house is already a mess. It was not an attractive piece of furniture. I have plenty of mementos to remember her by, and I always have the floating photo of her in my mind.

I miss her. I miss the nightstand too. I should have kept it. I should have kept all the dreams that floated over our heads while we slept across from each other. I cannot have her, the nightstand or the dreams back. She had to leave, the nightstand I voluntarily gave away, and the dreams are lost in limbo somewhere between my broken heart and my mother’s invisible spirit.