Nov 19
“Hi there, honey. I think she’s still in her room.” The receptionist greets me as I walk through the heavy, dark wooden doors leading to the place my mother now calls home.
Come at 3:00, the invitation said. Sofia couldn’t wait to give it to me when she brought it home, two weeks before the big day. Unzipping her backpack as soon as she jumped in my car, she grabbed the paper out of the bright blue folder and handed it to me, before we’d even turned down our driveway. “You’re invited to a Mother’s Day Tea Party,” it said. It was an annual event thrown by the kindergarteners for their mamas.
I see her sitting quiet, pensive at the table.
The flowers in the vase capture her attention.
She sits motionless…staring at blooms flush with lavender and pink.
Perhaps she’s back in her garden, tending her own blooms, alive with fragrant vibrancy.
Angela M. Shupe 