“As life grows longer - awful feels softer”, but some nights the mountain in my chest feels magnificently monstrous. It was on one of those evenings that my Mother would have described me “as having my tearbag too near my eye” that I first saw the Angel of Collections. It was a moonlit evening where the sky resembled a Monet canvas. A blur of light, a warmth, a presence, he sat slowly waving his wings to catch the memories as they flew like butterflies into his outstretched net. It was the formless and the stillness, in the maelstrom of dancing lights that surrounded my mothers bowed head. The water is always like lava in the nursing home taps and I run the soft white flannel under it for a hand-scalding minute. We all cry in the toilet here, except my brother who cries at home. The Angel is nestled betwixt flowers and photographs on the window sill. Sparkling iridiscent pinks , lilacs, greens and golds, a myriad of coloured vibrations that as they leave her, he captures for all eternity. As I tenderly wipe the steaming cloth over her face she releases the sound of my childhood, a satisfied aaahhh, a protracted sigh. It is my final gift to her, and the only one she can respond in any way to. It is enough. And down through the years the childrens voices echo “Ever this night be at my side, to light, to guard, to rule and guide, Amen”. As the Angel does not have a mouth he speaks his mind. He tells of all the forgotten things, and I watch them appear in shafts of sunlight, rays of moonlight and in the flecks of sudden rain that speckle the glass like fat tears. He prompts me to chase and catch all the tiny things , to access the vast recall that entwines us. Cleaning the food from my Mothers mouth , we bring to mind images and moments that are plucked from a pale pink purse and released on tippytoes into the room, and I watch them mingle with hers, in a dance of remembrance. Some nights there are so many lights in the room that my Mother smiles. She nuzzles into the cloth, feeling its warm scratchiness on her face. The new girl with the tea trolley knocks quietly now, and she is transfixed in the light from the hall, staring into the candle – lit vortex. “Can I get you anything?” she asks while her eyes widen. Later she will tell the girls – “It’s hard to describe really ............... a celebration ? “ . I smile and say - “ Thank-you, but we have absolutely everything we need. “
Posted on: Sun, 24 Nov 2013 12:59:12 +0000
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