Wear Art Thou Mother

     I wore my mom today wrapping myself in memories. First, I put on her gold chain, the one with the gold Celtic cross, with its infinite halo over a spiral-etched cross. The one I bought her for Christmas in Dublin, the year I studied abroad, away from her. The necklace I frantically searched for after her death fearing it had been melted in with her ashes or lost to some forgotten corner of her decaying house. It felt like a sign, a celestial kiss when I rediscovered it tucked away with her silver bowls, a reminder that she still saw me.
     You see, my mom always believed heaven wasn't high above us in some remote corner of the galaxy or unseen atmosphere but all around us, an invisible second dimension, undetectable to the naked eye, but felt through the spirit. Finding her cross, I felt her across the divine barrier.
     But today, I tucked it under the collar of my blue dress, not ashamed of her or my Christian faith but because I wanted to wear her blue beads further attiring myself in her love. She always wore beads, her bright, artistic sensibilities attracted to color and texture. After all, she's my inspiration for a creative life encouraging my writing and showing me new ways to see the world and its inhabitants.
     Next, I put on my tanzanite ring, the one I picked out in Maui on my belated honeymoon. A birthday gift, I picked out myself with her money and her taste in jewelry. She thoroughly approved my purchase in her name. It's encircled presence on my right hand reminds me that she still holds mine. Squeezing it tight, as I enclose my long fingers over my son's small palm passing the love through touch.
     Her touch grounded me, made me feel present, loved, whole, connected to another being not floating loose in the ozone. That's why I hug my sons a lot, squeezing my love into their little chests, kissing the tops of their heads, and holding them tight as we cuddle up to Disney movies on the couch.
     I also wore my mom in my hair crowning the curls I inherited from her, the ones I passed down to my youngest with the black wire star barrettes bedecked with small sapphire crystals. They still conjure up scents of incense and Chinese food, a souvenir from San Francisco's Chinatown, our favorite destination to many mother/daughter meanderings up the Pacific Coast Highway. They top my head with memories of an over-stuffed backseat of a rented Ford Taurus packed to the gills with a boogie board, a tent, a box of sand and shells from Monterey Bay, two identical pairs of discarded Birkenstocks, warm jackets, Phantom of the Opera programs; a quilt I bought her in Sausalito, too precious for her to put out, ironically now well-loved and frayed by her grandsons who Linus it around the house for forts and cuddles and draping the dog.
     Lastly, I lightly mist myself with her scent. Her Inis perfume bought during her visit while I studied my Masters in Ireland, another mother/daughter misadventure complete with a cross-country road trip to the wildly idyllic West, where she jokingly yelled at the Catholic school girls to run while they still had the chance and an impromptu sing-along in my friend's house with my German friend playing guitar and all of us eating curry and drinking wine. The crisp, ocean-fresh scent reminds of her playful side, her toes deep in the sand at Coronado Beach or floundering with the boogie board in P.B laughing her ample ass off as she ungracefully got dumped back onto the shore. My sons love this same goofy, unselfconscious side of me too.
     So while, I couldn't hold her hand or bring her flowers or treat her to lunch today. I still carried her with me. Not the way, I'd choose if I had any control. I still consciously feel the absence. But she was there sitting atop my skin, the one she once formed in her own body, and deep within my pores absorbed into my blood stream. She came out in laughter with my son and kisses rained down on their heads bear hugging them deep into my bosom the way she once enfolded me.