This is a love song

In my heart, there's a dream here. Atop her head, floating. Floating higher than my memories that she's mine, I'm hers. In my heart, she's young. She is before my being her daughter. Eternally young and perfect, she is. We are friends, she and I. We play hockey, she tutors me in Economics. I stand outside her dorm, gaze into her window. And sigh. I love you, I say out loud, I will always love you.

Nothing moves but for the falling snow, the moon light shifting the shadows.

No one can reach her.

I am her daughter, not her friend. I didn't know her then, when she danced and played competitive sports, and rode trains to dates, and wrote in the journals that I now have, discover, trace my finger along every loop of her script. I'm trying to be her, understand her, sit beside her as she dreams her future.

Did she dream me?

Mom, did you wish for me? I know she wanted me, we've had that conversation. But I forgot to ask her if she dreamed of me, if she wanted me.

Too late to ask.

I walk into her room, arms laden with Christmas. The tree, the ornaments, the skirt, the colors. I'm not comfortable with this. Christmas outside of our house, Christmas in a room, in a bed. How can we do this? How can I?

I string the lights, one by one, through the tree. I have a purpose, insane focus. This tree must be perfect. My eyes defy me and I cry.

Mom, thank you for letting me do the lights this year. I know, it's your job and my job is the ornaments, but for tonight...

We broke it down. My father and I would get the tree; she would string the lights; I would decorate.

Thursday night, the tree was not eight feet, it was three. The tree was not Pine, but plastic. Or some other simulated something fiber.

I tug and push each light. It has to be perfect, because this is my Mom. I hang the ornaments, adjust the balance, step back, make some changes.

I lean onto her bed beside her. Mom, look at your tree!

She looks outward and nowhere.

I kiss her all over her face, hold her hand tight. Mom, look at the tree, it's Christmas.

Mom, it's Christmas. I kiss her cheek.

She smiles at me, moves the focus of her watery cinnamon eyes to the tree.

Quietly, in a breathy whisper, she says, That's nice. It takes energy for her to say those two words, for her to say something I can understand, to convey meaning, string a sentence. Yet she does it.

Her smile and her words, That's nice. It's the Grammy award, the Emmy, the Nobel. It's approval and delight.

She closes her eyes, flutters them open again, searches for the colored lights and focuses on the bulbs. I think it's focus, but I know she sees them.

She rests. I watch her, move my hand across her arm, whisper to her, I love you, Mom. I love you.

My Mother? She knows I've put a Christmas tree up for her. Somehow she knows.

That's nice.