My Mother's Cats

From the moment I first considered accepting this position, this new role that charges me with caring, gives me the responsibility of caring, I have wanted (not wanted...longed for) my parents. I wanted to talk with them, seek their counsel, listen to their advice about my choice, my future. I wanted to hear my father's voice, hear his words. (I wanted to hear his mock horror that I would join a Republican Administration!) I wanted my mother, too. I wanted her with me, I wanted to share this with her.

This wanting, this longing, has been my partner for the past month, these past weeks of decisions and farewells and hellos have been shadowed with absence, with the space in my life they held.

So why a picture of a mug with a cat in a window? Because it is my mother (not literally, I'm okay), it is a duplicate of the picture that hung on her door at the Nursing Home. It is the picture she and I talked about every day during the last months, weeks and days of her life. (See my 3/30 post.) It is a memory for me. A memory of her and all she was to me and how I miss her.

This mug, this mug with the cat in the window, will go with me to my new office, to my new role, my new role of caring and it will remind me. It will remind me of her and how hard it was to lose her, how hard it was to watch her slip away from us. It will remind me of all of this but it will also remind me that she is with me. In a small way, in my small way, she will be with me.