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My Mom didn’t want a funeral, she told us many times she wanted a simple celebration of life. She only wanted her closest family to attend her burial, which was eighteen of us. Her three children, our spouses and children, her twin sister and her husband and their two sons with their wives and grandsons, gathered together to lower her Lake Blue urn with engraved daisies into the earth, a week into May, right after Mother’s Day. It wasn’t and really never is Spring weather for Northern Michigan during this time. It was gloomy, gray and threatened to rain over us during the 30-minutes we shared our memories. She more than deserved a sun-filled blue sky and flower blooming day to match the life she craved and experienced at times throughout her days. I remembered thinking that the soft rain drops would have been welcomed to fall on my face if the sky did open up—the rain would have mixed with my tears as I thought all the times in her 75 years where she struggled and triumphed.
Afterward, we drove to my middle brother Curt’s and his wife Stephanie’s house on the base of Peninsula, that looked over West and East Bays, for a potluck dinner filled with all mom’s favorite dishes and desserts. Lighthearted moments were brought up as we talked back and forth about her recipes and food traditions that we all plan to carry on. Christmas brunch with a waffle buffet that started with fruit toppings and ended with peanut butter and chocolate chips, her homemade cinnamon rolls, three different fluffy quiches, perfectly cut fruits and bacon done crispy well-in the middle medium-and chewy rarish, that grossed me out. Her Fourth of July strawberry pie with homemade whipped topping and lemon meninge pie with floating thick waves of spongey sweetness covering the tart. Family movie night with grandma’s lasagna or Rubin sandwiches and her specialty candy bar ice cream cake and homemade caramel corn on top. She spoiled us, making each dinner special catering to our favorites. My heart ached when I took a bite of her peach cobbler my sister-in-law made to honor mom. It was good, but it wasn’t quite like my mom’s, missing something slightly. I closed my eyes and pictured my lovely mother sitting at gorgeous marble table eating along with us, listening to her family celebrate her, winking as she looked down. “Ha-ha-ha! You can never duplicate my perfections.” I smiled at her quick-witted talents.
The kids were grouped together around the living room looking at family albums as they poked fun at hair styles and fashion of the good ol’ days in mocking old and shaky granny and granddaddy voices. The youngest, four-year-old Austin, walked unsteadily into the room as he balanced an armful of coloring books. They each grabbed a book and flipped through the pages, I walked over to spy what pictures my two girls wanted to color. Becca started with a light glittery yellow crayon and filled in some stars on a galaxy picture with a smiling moon. Rachael, my oldest, colored in a bright aqua and started with the tail of a mermaid holding a treasure chest filled with gems.
I felt dizzy as I lost the moment of being at mom’s memory dinner as the smell of a hot plasticky wax scent of well-used and loved crayons surrounded the kids in my brother’s living room. I was transcended back to my six-year-old body with dark blonde ringlets and a pink tutu dress I always had to wear and through my eyes and saw my little fingers coloring with the reds-oranges-yellows-blues-indigos-and violets of my childhood. Remembering the rainy days of Summer that smelled of my kindergarten classroom. Mom’s busy times where I would get a new coloring book and her assignment to color pages for everyone she could name to buy time to finish her own project or get housework done uninterrupted. A trick I have used when my girls were little. The surprise of shock using one of my unwrapped naked crayons that had no color title and forcing myself to be okay with my risky choice by completing the whole page. The hours of dumping out my crayon box to re-organize them by my favorites and the countless coloring page gifts I gave to my family--knowing to take my time and stay in the lines on mom’s because she kept every single poorly ripped page I ever handed her.
That inky musty smell of my crayons paper wraps with hints of mass production and stale artificial grease filled my nose and I saw my finger scrape over the flat top of one of my least favorite colors to see the color residue it left under my nail. A calmness and ease entered my mind as I stepped back to a time when I wasn’t feeling overwhelmed with loss and sadness of missing my mom where the relief of a simple turn of the page brought a new picture into view and how blurriness could easily be fixed by a sharpener waiting to help.
I heard my Aunt Priscilla’s voice telling me as we picked pea pods from my mom and her vegetable garden that grew between our houses, “you see honey, how those pods have peas inside?” My Aunt asked as I ripped into a pod with my teeth happily munching on the sweetness. “Yes," I answered. "They keep safe and sound in their pod until a hungry girl snacks them!” My aunt laughed and smiled at me. “Your mom and I are two peas that shared the same pod,” she explained, “your mom is my twin and we were grown in Grandma Irene’s belly at the same time.”
I shook my head up and down and I recalled their stories of what being a twin felt like, their double wedding, buying land on Silver Lake to build their houses next door to each other, and how they raised us as one big happy family with Sunday dinner taking turns between our houses. I relished in being the only girl, other than my Aunt and my mom. The little princess that didn’t get invited to play sports and go on the silly boy adventures.
My Aunt looked at me and said, “I have something for you” as I grabbed my light sun-faded pink beach bucket of pea pods and followed into her kitchen. “What I was wanting to tell you in the garden is how special your mom is to me, not because we are twins, but because we were and always will be two-peas-in-a-pod.” I giggled as I thought of a pea pod with my Mom and Aunt the little peas hanging inside a pod.
She pulled a coloring book from behind her back, on the cover it had peas in shape of hearts in the pods that connected to a vine on the front cover with other bright fruits and vegetables in the background. I was speechless as my eyes hovered over the biggest coloring book I had ever seen. “Wow! That is a big book Aunt Cila!” She flipped it open and showed me the uncolored cover page with the heart peas in pods and then another page with the heart shaped peas in a bowl on the family’s dinner table. She counted out loud the number of place settings and chairs that the table held.
Ending on, “eight. Eight places for a family on a Sunday night dinner.” She paused, as my fingers traced the black lines of the picture. “Like our family,” I told her.
“That’s right,” she answered back with a smile. I need you to color these two very special and meaningful pages as creative as you can for your Mom.” I nodded as she continued, “I want to remind your Mom how we will always be two-peas-in-a-pod. I want her to know that I will always be right next to her, no matter what. And…this page with the peas on the family’s table…I want your Mom to know that Sunday dinners from now only are filled with only happiness and healing and love.”
I gazed up into my Aunt’s face fully knowing that she meant. My Dad, a grumpy hard-hearted man who always found something to complain about or ruin. A few weeks ago, at a Sunday dinner where my Mom spent all day cooking and preparing his favorites. He was endless messing with her on that long Sunday. He tried to hide her potato masher, her pots and pans and forks but she found them under their bed. She cried all day but silently, I could barely tell. The oven somehow got turned off during the late afternoon and she pulled out a pan of half cooked meatloaf with bloody pink mashed potatoes on top. My Dad laughed his cruel laugh as our hungry family was seated quietly around our table. My Mom looked defeated as she slumped down to her knees in front of the cold stove. My Dad’s blooming voice filled our house, “Well…fancy Nancy, are you losing your mind? Poor old women forgetting to turn on the oven. Crying over raw meatloaf.”
My Mom stayed calm and looked right at my Dad, “Get out. GET OUT! Take your sick ass and leave! I don’t need---my family doesn’t need you and your pathetic attempts as a father and husband!” I remember struggling to get out from my corner chair and taking the edge of the sage green table cloth down with me. My oldest brother, Todd grabbed my milk before it tipped. Always saving me from our Dad’s wrath. My Dad’s arms reached out to catch me going by but missed me as Todd used his whole 14-year-old body as a wall to bend down to pick up my plate that crashed to the wood floor. I fell onto my Mom’s body, wrapping myself around her. My Aunt and Uncle were right there too and they helped my Mom and I stand up.
My Dad’s laugh rang in my ears again but quickly stopped with his chair banging against the table. Aunt Cila told us kids to go play outside for a little while. I walked to the screen door stepped outside but didn’t leave as my brother’s and cousins ran off to play catch. I wanted to help Mom. My Dad stormed off to his van with a look of shock that proved my Mom really did see him as he truly was.
My Aunt, Uncle Ken and my Mom cleaned up the mess and placed the pan back into the heating oven that was starting to heat up. I heard my Uncle say, “Nance, you and the kids can have this tomorrow. Just warm it up is all you’ll have to do.” My Mom nodded, “thank you Ken.”
My Aunt and Mom began to scramble eggs and pour buttermilk pancake batter into pans on the stove. I couldn’t hear every word but made out ‘good riddance,’ and ‘I already met with my lawyer twice.’ My Mom noticed me standing at the screen door staring at her. “Hi there my littlest.” I smiled and she ushered me inside. “Want to stir the pancake batter for us or go color me one of your pages from the new circus coloring book? I colored her a fierce yellow lion roaring on swinging from a traipse above a packed red and white striped tent. When breakfast for Sunny dinner was ready, I walked over to my Mom and Aunt. I handed her my artwork, “Mom, the lion is you and your roaring away your hurt feelings. ROOOAAARRRR!” My Aunt jumped back, pretending to be startled and my Mom smiled and said, “well…what a strong and brave lion I finally am,” as she hugged me into her side.
We ate our eggs and pancakes, singing the name game song and playing I spy. Mom's voice was silly as she roared through her name like a real-life lion making meows, growls and even purrs, that made me laugh.
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I was now sitting on the couch behind the children coloring, in my hand were a bright green crayon called ‘Fresh Growing Green,’ a deep green called, ‘Jade Green,’ and a rich yellow named, ‘Golden Rod.” I thought of the two pages I colored from the book Aunt Cila gifted me that were framed and given to Mom for Christmas the year my Dad left. The heart shaped peas were filled in with these vibrant and gem stone greens. The yellow was the color of the lion I colored for her when I heard her roar for the first time. I leaned back to rest my back and shoulders against the cushions and rattled the daisy filled vase on table behind the couch. My Mom’s favorite flower. I turned and brought my knees up on the cushion to feel the daisy petals and take in a deep breath. The grassy dirt smell rushed my brain and the light earthly fragrance from the middle of the flowers bounced inside my nose. I thought of my mom’s sacrifices and love she gave us all so freely. A tear welled up and I let it drop into the flowers, my Aunt sat down next to me and said, “your mom loved those flowers. Even those weeds that bloomed small daisies that grew behind our houses growing up that you picked for her. She patted my leg, remember you’d bring her tangled messes of wild flower weed stems and long dried grasses with only two little daisy flowers and a dandelion that she’d put on her kitchen table? Always with just two tiny daisies… Why did you only pick two daisies and one dandelion to give her?
I took my Mom’s twin’s hand and told her, “I do remember only picking two daisies for her, those were the two peas-in-a-pod and the single dandelion was to remind her sometimes she would have to be brave and roar like a yellow lion to be heard.”
My Aunt’s eyes closed against her tears, she gently nodded her head as she now understood why and with an emotional whisper for just me to hear, she let out a small "Rrrrr," as we sat together celebrating my Mom and her twin sister.
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