A Pottery Owl

[poliphilo]

My mother indicates the pottery owl on her chest of drawers. "Do you remember?" she asks. "You walked miles to buy that."

Indeed I do. But I'm surprised she does.

And pleased, of course. Sometimes I think she's no longer here and then there'll come a flash like this which shows she is.

It was half a century ago and I'd have been about 12.  We were on holiday at Tarr Steps in Somerset and it was her birthday the following day and I hadn't got anything to give her, so I took off in the afternoon and walked to Dulverton- a distance of something like eight miles there and back. A stretch of  the path lay along the river valley. It was very lonely- and I had to go past a ruined house with a history (did my sister and I make this up or was it an authentic tradition?) of suicide and haunting.

Comments

[wyrmwwd.livejournal.com]

My Favorite Pilgrim does this, too. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, she will ask me about something that I told her about in my first year of seminary... something that I had totally forgotten until she brings it up.

That was a sweet story. It must be so hard to see your mother passing away so very slowly...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

This came out of nowhere. My mother has never been one for dwelling in the past.