Seasons Changing

The spring I was seven the couch sat against the window in our front room. With the blinds open you could see out into the road that led to our driveway. I had been sitting there watching the road for hours, waiting for any sign that she was coming home. The house was still, it always was when my dad was this mad and my little brother was smart enough not to provoke him. There I sat, cloaked in the silence hugging that same tear-soaked blue cotton pillow I had held onto many times before. Even at that age I knew what she was doing. I knew she would not be home for days, weeks, or possibly months. If my little heart could have willed anything, it would have been her pulling up in the driveway. Maybe she had just gone out for groceries like other normal moms did. That wasn’t the case though, so I sat on that couch by the window looking out onto the street, letting my tears soak that blue cotton pillow.

…

The summer of the year I turned 14 was magical. Home was still rough, but I had found an escape when I got on the back of a horse. I felt as if I was flying, as if none of my worries could ever catch up to me going that fast. My mom had been gone for a few weeks and my Dad had started to accept our temporary normal. I had just competed on horseback and the adrenaline still coursed through me the whole ride home as we sang alone with the radio. As we pulled into the driveway the singing stopped. Lights were on. That meant she was home, and a fight was about to ensue. I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want to hear the names he would call her or the excuses she would make up. I wished she just would have stayed gone. We all knew the drill by now. I refused. I climbed out of the truck and up the magnolia tree in the front yard. The air was still fresh with the scent of the dying magnolia blooms. The sun was setting, and I settled in at the top of the tree thinking maybe my problems wouldn’t find me up there. As I nestled in the crock of the bending branches the tree beneath me started to shake. When I looked down in the shadows, I saw the large frame of my dad clumsily making his way up to me. I sat, solid in my resolve to hide from the world, until he was face to face with me, clinging to the branch next to mine.

“Come on down Itty-bit,” he said with clear exhaustion.

“If life is this hard than I don’t want to come down. I’m staying in my tree.”

“Well, if you are staying in the tree than I am too.”

There I sat, as sunset turned to night and I cried out every tear my eyes were able to produce, and he sat with me. Later when we finally climbed down and went inside to face the inevitable, the fight never happened. The excuses still came, but no names were called, and sleep found me safely in my bed.

…

If it was a cold fall when I was 21, I wouldn’t have known. My heart was so full of love that it filled me with a heat emitted from the inside. My twins were just under a year and we hosted thanksgiving in our house, the same house I had grown up in. My dad had passed away years before and I had gone a long stretch not speaking to my mom, but with the arrival of the babies our relationship had become something I couldn’t have dreamed of. She had become everything in a grandmother that she hadn’t been as a mother. The years of drug abuse had halted, and she glowed with pride as we pushed them on the swings that sat across from the magnolia tree in the front yard. The sweet baby giggles, the crunch of the leaves beneath our feet, the soft glow of the early evening sun, it was one of those moments that felt frozen in space, undisturbed by the turning of time. It was love, and I was lucky enough to be in it.

…

It is winter now, and I am older. I sit by the window staring at the spot of the wreck that took her life. I know she isn’t coming back this time but, in my head, I still hope she has just gone out for groceries. Sometimes I am so sad that it feels like my world has ended and this new one that took its place is strange and foreign, like I don’t belong here. The twins are getting older now. They talk about her all the time. My daughter clings to the matching dresses they use to have and tells me how much she misses her. All I can say in return is that I miss her too. I tell my son that it is alright to be sad, but he doesn’t have to be sad alone and just like my dad sat with me in that tree while I cried, I sit with him. This winter has been cold, my bones have felt icy. Aches in my body remind me that time is moving on without her. Who I am now without her? As I walk into this new season there is one thing I know without a doubt. Despite her addiction, despite all the heartache, I was loved by my mother undoubtably, unconditionally, and unchanging even in death.