The January sun came beaming down onto the south facing back porch of the house, so Mama opened the door to let it come inside. She planned to spend the afternoon being warmed by the rays and watching the birds through the glass storm door. Having been back in the house for about a week, Mama had not done much but watch movies on Voxer’s TV and have her sons bring her dinner. I presume they felt like I did, “What a good boy am I,” when in fact it was our sister who had been the dutiful child for years. The grocery shopping, errand running, cleaning, and God knows what else had fallen to her given that we all lived hundreds of miles away.
But today it felt good to be in Mama’s house. There were things she had needed done, like sweeping and laundry and shopping, that I was surprised to find great joy in doing. It was even fun to cook some food that would be there after I left. Mama thought this was funny because I was cooking turkey burgers for her and I don’t eat meat. I would have personally butchered a turkey if she wanted me to. To be able to do things for Mama, to be able to see things that need to be done and do them without being asked, is something I’m occasionally capable of only because of a spiritual path that she helped me find.
Mama and I had different religious beliefs — although being an Episcopalian and being a witch might not be all that different in some people’s calculus. What we shared were a set of principles that support and transcend those beliefs. I was 13 when Mama started to follow them, and I witnessed her struggle before then to ease the pain and confusion of her life and after then to live fully into the promises of this way of living. That journey had led her to the end of her marriage to my father (although, as the Possum sings, I don’t think they ever stopped loving each other) and to the little house in the Valley of the Cumberland that she loved.
Sitting in the kitchen of the house where she came, at over 50 years old, to live on her own for the first time in her life, Mama and I talked and drank coffee through the morning. We talked about our family and the good people who had married into it. I told her how grateful I was for the example she had shown me and the spiritual principles she had helped me find. Because of these, I told her, it’s possible for me to live a life I love. We hugged and laughed and cried a little bit. I packed up my stuff and got in the car to drive home, waving good-bye through the storm door. That was three years ago this week, the last time I saw Mama before she went to the Summerlands. If I had that moment back again, I would not change a single thing.