Saturday, February 14, 2004

Valentine's Day 2004

There are dozens of thoughts swirling around my head on this Valentine's Day. One very important one is to be sure to tell people who are important to you, that they are- not just on this day that seems rather forced and commercial, but on all days.

On this day twenty years ago, I got a phone call while I was dashing around trying to pack and confirm plane tickets to travel 2000 miles to be at my Mother's deathbed. I was a little over six months pregnant. The phone call was from my sister telling me that my Mother had died a few minutes before and that it had been peaceful. And so I didn't get to say goodbye and she never got to see her grandson. I have to trust that she knew her importance in my life, even though I didn't get to tell her that last time.

Red was her favorite color. There were moments of my youth that the living room was decorated with red - area rug, two chairs and two large ceramic accents which sounds like too much red but actually wasn't. She had red outfits that she loved to wear, down to matching lacy red undies, shoes, purses, and jewelry- not that she necessarily wore them all at once. She had an excellent sense of proportion and balance. There were hand blown glass paperweights and personal accessories tucked away here and there. Of course when you tell a child your favorite color, many of the gifts you get over the years will be that color -and we were no different. It was always a challenge to look for something new and unusual in her color. And she seemed genuinely delighted in our creative searches and the gifts we found. For us, anything that came in red, other than the absolute practical item, was a potential gift.

It feels right somehow, that she would die on a day associated with her favorite color- as if there is some design in the universe.

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