Signs in the Paint
Sometimes grief grabs you by the heart and squeezes so hard that love comes out. Five years after moving into this house, I finally painted the master bedroom. Last weekend I was crawling along the floor foot after tedious foot, cutting in where the baseboard meets the wall, splitting the long straight lines of white into two colors - like a before and after - when I stopped for a second to consider the moment. And I thought, I wish my mom could see me in this good life. Tears pricked my eyes and heavy sadness fell on me like a thick blanket. Grief is like that sometimes, sudden and blinding. I wanted to cry. I wanted to lay down right there, brush in hand, and dissolve into sleep. Most of all, I desperately wanted to see my mom and have her see me, so far from where I was when she left. The windows of the room were open, an unusually warm spring breeze drifting in. My husband was mowing. The man I moved 1200 miles to join, near family I had just met, in ...