June

   It is June now. I don't know why, maybe it's the summer weather that makes me think of my mom or maybe because her birthday is in June, but she is on my mind. And for the first time since January, I feel a little blue about it. But it is different still. There is not the heaviness that was there in the past. Just a sad heart, wishing things were different. I thought maybe visiting this virtual landing strip might be a good idea. Lay it down and walk away. So here I am again.
   ...My mom was big on summer. Sort of depressed in the winter. We spent many, many, many days at the beach on Long Island. Malibu, Lido, Nassau, Long Beach, all the beaches were fair game. Mostly Long Beach in our last years there. She would read books and I would read or paint watercolors of the buildings on the board walk. We'd go for walks and talk.
   She had a sail boat on Shelter Island and we would take day trips out there to go sailing. Leaving our house early in the morning and driving home as the sun was setting. With a cooler packed with baked chicken and carrot salad with raisins and a container of Pringles.
   The marina was right near the ferry. We never sailed past the ferries because it made her nervous to think about getting past the two of them as they crossed back and forth, shore to shore. So we always sailed the other way. One day the current and wind was so strong, we were headed away from the ferries with our sails full of wind but we were slowly being pulled into the line of the ferries anyway. My mom was a nervous sailor. A nervous woman. Which I found very amusing most of the time. And she had a good sense of humor about it too. She could not swim. Was terrified of water. But wanted a sail boat. I digress... She was frantically trying to get the boat out of the way of the ferries, I think we ended up in a dead stop right in their path. I sat calmly watching her run around and said, "turn the boat around." Delightful idea and a wonderful metaphor. We sailed right through. This is one of my favorite memories of sailing with her.
   Another was being docked at the marina and rowing around the little cove in our dingy as the sun was setting, one time when we spent the night on the boat. We kept rowing in circles and laughing. There was a couple on a boat at the marina that called out to us, "You make the sunset more beautiful!" This is probably the place I like to think of us most often. Rowing in circles together, laughing and adding to a beautiful sunset. If I could time travel, I'd plop myself back in that row boat in that sunset.
   I have been thinking about my mom and what it would be like if she were still here. How I would take Desmond to her house in Rockville Centre and we would sleep over, go to the beach and go sailing often. How much he would love that. How nervous it would make her. But she would do it, and she would find shells with him and sea glass and crabs. Teach him boating words. Let him be a pirate.
  I don't really know what life would be like if she hadn't died. I don't know if I would have met my husband, if she would have stayed in the house we lived in, I don't know. But I know for sure, she would have been a wonderful grandmother. She wanted to be one so badly. She would have loved Desmond and he would have loved her. Not to mention my niece, Reya. Oh, man.
   And I believe she is around. That she sees him and Reya too, and me. That she is a part of our lives in ways we can't really see or know. I am sure she is being a grandmother in ways I don't know about. That she is looking out for him, watching over him and loving him.
   The day after I had been thinking and wishing that Desmond could have gone sailing with her, I thought, I should put up a post on Facebook asking if anyone has a boat that they could take us out on. Before I had even gotten around to it, Joseph called from work and said that a woman he works with invited him and his family out on her sail boat. The timing was just right. I like to think my mom orchestrated that for us. That maybe she heard me and answered in the best way she could.
   I have also been trying to go through things in the house, sort of a weeding out of "stuff" as I have been feeling a little overcrowded by all of our things. Our lovely abundance of things. I pulled boxes out of the attic that I hadn't really looked at since we moved here a few years ago. I found a box labelled "MOM". Inside there was her wallet, just as it was when she died, her glasses case with two pairs of reading glasses with the ribbon she needed to fix the one pair every time the lens popped out of it's "invisible" frame, the two wigs she wore which still smelled faintly of her, a pair of her jeans that had so many holes in them, they were ridiculous and a page pulled out of a J.Crew catalogue of a cute guy in his underwear that my mom had said was "cute as punch." I thought that was funny and wrote it on the page and stuck it on our fridge with a magnet. Funny what I kept. I looked through her wallet and laughed at the prom pictures of me in there. There was also a tiny picture of her and I. A number of fortune cookie fortunes, some store credits to book stores of course. I didn't feel terribly sad until I smelled the wig. It was an instant cry trigger. Oh, I just miss her. I just do. It is what it is, and it's okay. But she's not here and I wish she were. So I had a moment. Then I tried on her jeans which I could barely button and laughed about that. She always thought she was fat. Apparently, I am fatter. Oh well. Rockin' the fat. Just happy to be here.
  For a few days I have been hearing or seeing things that remind me of her. Heard the story about the butterfly in the cocoon, have also seen a lot of 5:55s. Things that are mom things to me. I think she is around.
   It is a strange feeling to miss someone who is so far away. Who you haven't seen in so long. I miss her and I forget what she was like too. The details of her. I think I may pull out some sailing videos I have of us on the boat. Maybe. Maybe not.
   Her birthday is June 18th. I like to garden that day. I like to buy a rose bush and plant it.
   If she were here, I would go to the beach with her on her birthday or for a sail. Bake her a cake, cook her dinner.
   If she were alive, she would love Zumba. I would like to be able to take a zumba class with her. She went to the School of Performing Arts High School in the city. You know the show Fame? That's where she went to school. I think I feel most connected to her sometimes when I am in a class at the gym, moving every muscle, sweating, my heart pounding. I feel the most alive and healthy and I think of her, how I am made of her and how strong she was and how she would love this too. I think of her watching me and think of her with that proud look on her face thinking, that is my strong and healthy Sarah. I like to think I feel her with me in those moments.
   I wonder what kind of cell phone she would have. What kind of computer. Would she have a nook or a kindle? Would she have resisted getting one? Would she come and visit me often? Would she have moved away? Would she be married? Would she watch the TV shows I watch? I think she would love the store J.Jill. And cliff bars. I wonder about a lot of things. I wonder what she is up to now. I wonder what she does all day.