Thursday, December 04, 2008

Reaching out... and connecting

My mother was very much in mind this afternoon when I took the train to Wimbledon. She always wanted to go to Wimbledon, for the tennis of course, but it never worked out that she could go. And here I was on a train there! I told myself that while I was there, I'd stop for a moment, pause and love her with my heart and with my thoughts. And I did that and I enjoyed doing that. It felt so wonderful to be somewhere where she wanted to be and I thought for a moment that if she couldn't be there, I know she'd want me to be there, for both of us. I missed her terribly in that moment, wishing we were sharing Wimbledon together, discovering it together. But, I also felt very connected to her at the same time.

When I returned to my temporary home here, I began packing my bags for the journey home tomorrow. I brought one gigantic suitcase with me and a smaller carry-on bag, one I packed for the trip to Belgium. When I unzipped the carry-on this afternoon to empty out the dirty clothes from that trip, there at the bottom of the bag was a gold roadrunner pendant that my father bought for my mother on a trip they took to New Mexico years ago.

I haven't used that bag since I went to Croatia last June and hauled it along with me on trains, planes, rented cars and a sailboat. I have never worn that pendant and my mother never borrowed my bag. A fondness for roadrunners, however, is something that she and I shared.

These things happen to me on occasion and I'm not about to question why or how. I just sit down, as I did this afternoon, and appreciate the wonder and mysteries of the world, then I say, I love you too.

2 comments:

ghost said...

there's nothing i can say here. i just want to sit and enjoy the post.

Soulful said...

Wonderful.