“It’s right around the corner,” Mom said in answer to my impatience about what I thought I should have vs. my reality, mainly like getting asked out on a date. Trust me, that one was never just around the corner. “I know it’s gonna get better,” she’d smile, her eyes squinting closed. I hated it when those Pollyanna sentences escaped her lips. Mom filled with an abundance of wrinkles and optimism couldn’t possibly know about my life. Hers was different. She let life happen; I kicked and screamed the whole way
Why would I listen to her any way? She owned turquoise-speckled Melmac® dishes, one step above Chinette®, her whole married life. My upwardly mobile cousin Toni, with an “i” for color insinuated that my classic white Corelle® with gold edging tinged on mustard yellow wasn’t much more uppity than Mom’s Melmac®. “They’re not anything like hers,” I’d said defiantly. Everyone knows there’s a difference between the safe unbreakable and living-on-the-edge break-resistant. I lived on the fringe of everything.
She talked about silver linings and lights at the end of tunnels. And Spring.
I woke up grumpy today. Actually I let him sleep. Just kidding. I was the grumpy one. I was tired of work, tired of the cold weather, tired of the winter-long cough… You get the picture.
Then I caught a glimpse of it out the window. Mom’s little, “It’s right in your own backyard,” I heard. “It’s gonna get better.”
On the drive to work, I saw the clouds part to allow a streak of light through, uncovering a blanket of light blue against the gray background. I saw the blossoms nestled on the tree limbs ready to burst.
Soon the irises will be blooming. “Spring is just around the corner,” I heard my own voice tell my grandkids. “I can tell it’s gonna get better.”
Related posts:
Print This Post
Pingback: Spring is here | So Humor Me
My mother always said, “Try not to think about.” I’ll take your word for it. “I can tell it’s gonna get better.” I like that best! ~ For both of us.