Mom’s Birthday
December 2020
A month ago, Sophia planned a trip to a tearoom in Dallas for she and I to honor Mom on her birthday. We made reservations weeks in advance, but I didn’t give much thought to Mom being gone until the day of our excursion. This is the second year without Mom. These days when my friends talk about the stress of taking their dad to the hospital or their fear when their mother has a bad fall, I’m thankful that those days are over for me. I spent so long wishing for one more day with Mom, one more movie, one more evening sipping hot chocolate in front of the Christmas tree. Now it feels like the era of having an infant and changing diapers, I’m nostalgic for the caregiving days but am glad to let them be past. Mom and I had a good long life together.
It hit me on Mom’s birthday how many holes remain unfilled in my life since she left. We don’t have tea parties like we used to. Part of that is because of the pandemic, part of it is my getting older and not being able to eat treats like I used to. A lot of it is not having Mom here to beg me to join her for tea and make her a little something. On her birthday I made the sour cream scones Mom liked the best for the children and my friend Magdalena. Magdalena came over for Mom’s birthday party several years in a row. It felt good to include her in Mom’s day yet again.
On the way home I stopped for gas before the trip to the teahouse and reflected on how inconvenient going to the gas station is. When Mom was alive, we had a day set apart each week for running errands. I’d pick up her meds, take her to the bank and get gas. Now my trips to the bank are sporadic and the tank gets filled up when I’m in a rush to get somewhere and can’t spare that extra ten minutes.
There wasn’t much time when I came home to dress up before we had to leave. I traded my jean skirt for a black Christmas skirt that was a tad tight because of the weight gained after Mom died. I switched into a pink shirt that matched the embroidered pattern on the skirt and a head scarf to match that and put on a black cardigan. Sophia wore a short pink dress with black tights and a black cardigan like mine. In our pictures at the tea house, we look similar enough to be sisters. Same build, same shape of our faces, same smile.
Sophia drove us across the metroplex. Mom was terrified of freeways and never took them. It’s more stressful to me than scary. Sophia is master of the road. That’s a generational improvement. I was so comfortable with her driving that I fell asleep on the drive home. We drove north to Denton and then turned east. The car maps had other suggestions, but Sophia researched the routes and chose the path she was the most comfortable with.
The Beatitudes Tea Shop was everything Mom could ever wish for in a tea shop. A Christmas garland decorated the bright pink door outlined in a blue door frame. Inside the tables had poinsettias set out on the lacy table clothes. Delicate teacups and saucers and silverware rolled in cloth napkins set the table. They had a beautiful Christmas tree decorated with handmade ornaments and inspirational plaques adorned the walls. “Eat, drink, and be thankful.” “Trust in the Lord with all your heart.” They had a table laid out with Christmas knick-knacks for sale and their bathroom wall was covered in the kind of ornamental crosses that Mom decorated her bedroom with.
The customer service was wonderful and the food delightful. We had three pots of tea with the three layers of food. The first layer of the tea tray held finger sandwiches, the middle desserts and the top blueberry muffins and cinnamon scones. Everything was delicious! We bought some peach tea to bring home with us.
On the way home which again went through Denton, Texas, Sophia took me to Recycled Books which reminded me of Powel’s Books in Portland. It was set in an old opera house and filled with a maze of bookshelves filled with dusty books. Mom would have left there with three bags full, I brought home six new additions to our home library.
Because there was a case of COVID on Esther’s campus last week, the students were given the option to come home a week early and take their final exams from home. She and Joshua were homesick and glad to get back to Texas. Esther had flown in that morning and was taking a nap when Sophia and I came home. I too took a nap. Mom would have approved.
Dinner was toasted tuna sandwiches, another of Mom’s favorites. I also put out chips, bean dip and fake cheese for the kids to snack on. Mom would have turned her nose up on my potato, carrot, brewer’s yeast vegan version of cheese, but she would have approved the tortilla strips. She loved her cruncher parties.
The kids wandered in and out of the kitchen munching their way through dinner, but when Esther and Mike returned from going out for sushi, Esther captured her siblings in the music room. She sat down to play some Christmas carols for Mike and one buy one Jonah, Xenia, and Justin joined in to sing. I came to sing too. Basil and his friend Lorena ran past us from the second floor to the office. I chased after them.
“Basil, you have a great voice.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Won’t you come sing with us?”
“No!”
“What about you, Lorena?”
“I don’t sing.”
I left them, but when Lorena’s mother came to pick her up five minutes later, Basil joined us for the second half of a Christmas hymn. We used to have Christmas carol parties for Mom’s birthday every year on St. Nicholas Day. Our spontaneous sing along held a small echo of parties past.
I left the kids to go to the vespers service for St. Nicholas. In past years, the kids all came with me. It’s harder and harder to bring them to church with the mask rules and the lack of regularity. It was nice for me to be there to worship without distractions. St. Nicholas came to the house while I was away, and the kids greeted me with all the presents and candy left at our front door. Paper and wrappings littered the living room attesting to the fun they had.
My friend Seraphina came by next. She was another person Mom liked to visit with. We sat in the front room sipping tea and looking at the Christmas tree. Mom used to sit for hours gazing at the lit tree. It was her favorite place to be in December.
Even after the afternoon nap, I was exhausted when Seraphina left, but Esther had further plans for us. She and I watched the first episode of a television series depicting the life of Jesus and his disciples. It was a bit too dramatic for me, but again it was something that Mom would have loved. I thought how she would binge watch it if she were still around. One would never have been enough.
I miss Mom. I miss much about my life with her. I hated the way she’d bring me the mail and force me to go through it, yet it’s been a year and a half, and the mailbox gets over packed before someone remembers to go out there. No one has stepped up to take many of Mom’s jobs ` . Her room is still called her room, and her place at the table is still remembered as hers though the kids take turns sitting there. It felt good to spend the day going to a tea house and a bookstore and watching a show Mom liked even though they aren’t my pleasures in the way that they were hers. As time passes, I’m left with so many good memories and the frustrations and worries that used to plague me have faded.
Mom had many small pleasures in this world even though she suffered with depression and so many health issues. Now she is in heaven experiencing joy without limitations. Her tea parties if she has them are so much more than this earthly world ever offered. This Christmas, I may be a little sad missing her, but much more than last year, I think of her in heaven experiencing the joy of the resurrection and that comforts me. Mom, may your memory be eternal.
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