THE COLORS OF MY MOTHER
Nearly two years after my mother passed, my father passed. Many of us were helping to clean out the condo and ready it for sale. My niece came upon a bag stuffed full with what appeared to be dozens of scarves. She gave them to me and said she thought I might like to have them. I tucked the bag of colors in my box of goodies and when I came home the first thing I did was to empty the scarves into the drier for a whirl. After 5 minutes I opened the drier door to a shock that went through my body faster than a bolt of lightning. The colors of my mother leapt out of the drier and into my hands. I carried them to the table and continued my astonishment. My mother appeared out of every single scarf and her expressions changed as each scarf was laid next the one that had already given a performance.
My mother liked a preponderance of light brown, the color of caramel and ground spices. She liked to back it with a light aqua softness. She splashed a green color to keep things up front, insuring she would not disappear in the background of softness. All of her colors are background colors to me, but when I look at this bunch I can see that her background colors were foreground colors to her.
She used a golden rod yellow to accent the soft browns, therefore gathering the strength and brightness of sunlight, yet allowed for the softness of sunbeams as they cascade down the scarves giving a prerequisite to the uplifting spirit of caramel and ground spices on overloaded.
As I look at the collection of my mothers colors, there is one slight, almost splash of red. Oh mother are you saying, ‘blood of my blood?” Our blood of each other has created such different entities. Our colors are so very dissimilar. I always knew that, but this experience with your scarves is so graphically explicit. I have hung the scarves on a beautiful hand carved hanger and they intermingle creating an interplay that is expressing to me all of you and all that I knew about you.
I would someday like to uncover a secret, a hole in your character, but that will never happen because you strove to be perfect; you always were and you always will be. I do thank you because I always knew you did the best you could, more because you wanted the best. I know now that we are who we have become through the ages, through the stages and it remains just this way today as well as for those who will continue after us. We have done our best with our soft and vibrant personalities, with our soft browns and our brilliant reds, through our yellows, our greens, your blues and my black. You never wore white, neither did I. If you could see the beautiful colors of you, I would see your precious smile again.
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