#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream
Wings of a bird in the morning brook
My husband leaves early for his morning meeting, and when I go down to the kitchen I find his Happy Anniversary note. It was a rainy Saturday: same town, in the Unitarian Church. A reception across town at my parents’ house. Honeymoon in a friend’s cabin in the White Mountains on a lake. And then we packed the car and moved to Clearwater, Florida for a hot summer of married love. Thirty-two years ago. The first thing I do this morning, as we head out on our walk is check the spot of grass by the tree in our yard where the painted turtle laid her eggs last night. It looks like a tiny hill of mud in the grass. It’s intact! I’m very happy for the baby turtles that will hatch in September and find their way to the river. Or, to our little frog pond by the garden, as there are three baby painted turtles living there, Franci tells me, probably born last September. What isn’t intact is my echinacea. When I water my new perennials that I’ve randomly planted in our meadow, I find that something (deer? groundhog? rabbit? turkey?) has eaten the buds and blooms off of all of them. Not the daisies, and not the black eyed Susans. For this I am grateful. I stop as we go past the brook in the shade while Suzi and Charlie dip and drink. I snap some photos of the rippling water and find the wings of a white bird (a dove, for my wedding anniversary?)
“Something is moving through the air and headed your way.
It is a parcel bound in ribbons and bows; it has two white wings.
It flies directly at you; you can read your name on it. ”
My mother on my wedding day: June 27, 1987. Shirley Elaine Brackett Burke, 1927-2008
All day, I am thinking about my mother with a surprised kind of reverence. Last night, I wrote here in my blog about her dedication and devotion, her energy and generosity in giving us our wedding. It was a beautiful thing. I’m sure I thanked her, (both my parents, of course.) I’m sure we both did. But, of course, I never knew or understood from her point of view how much she was giving and doing. Now, now because I am the mother planning a wedding for my daughter, I am seeing more from the mother’s point of view. I want to do this with her energy and generosity and cheerfulness. I’m sure she had moments of stress and irritability. But I was shielded from them – or oblivious. Thank you, Mom. Thank you for my special day. I miss you today quite a lot.
