Sacred Moments

The morning hours are hardest.  The house quiet.  Missing Mom.  Thinking about her smile; about her eyes, blue like the sea.

Pondering two sacred moments.  Recent days in Colorado.  My mom's lumbar hurt terribly after surgery; she rolled on her side her gown gaped open.  I massaged her upper back.  She affirmed yes in quiet pained breath.  I gently caressed her skin; beautiful ivory showing her 74 years of age.  Lower, she said, and I could feel the muscles, holding tight, protecting.  My thumbs pressed into the tension filled places. Still lower she said.  Her entire backside from the top of her bottom to her hip, holding tight.

In that moment with her backside completely laid bare, so vulnerable; it was sacred.  Her bandages soaked with fresh blood from newly sutured skin encasing her replaced hip.  Sacred, yes sacred.

My mother gifted me birth.  In her womb I was fashioned and formed; born in mid October in Mid Autumn; seasons changing.

With dad just eight days later. Grieving my mother's death and our loss at her memorial service. Later at home with him in grief and physical pain; his hands unable to grasp the tiny buttons to shed his dress shirt. He looked so handsome, donned his beloved cowboy boots perhaps one last time.  His voice in tender request to unbutton his sleeves; his shirt. Tender sacred moments.

I hung his suit, returned his boots and tie to his closet; wondered about Mom's clothes.  When is it time to remove, to reduce...what is the word...to simplify...?   The word is not present today.

Together their embrace, the mystery of conception three times; me the last.