Mourning Glory

I feel inexplicably sad and drained today, which is uncanny since I’m usually able to explain away my dark moods, a talent bolstered by the many years I spent whining to my therapist.  It’s the tenth anniversary of 9/11 today, but I don’t feel a direct sadness when I think about it.  Maybe I just miss my mom as I tend to do when “big” days are on the calendar.  My mom and I spent that morning of September 11, 2001 on the phone, first with her checking that I was OK, and then just bursts of conversation to talk about the day’s events as they unfolded.

Earlier today while I shared a commemorative moment of silence with my husband (and our dog licked my leg), I thought of all the changes in my life over the years.  Wondering what my then-self would say if she could see me now, ten years past, sitting with my husband and my dog, remembering that day.  And in cinematic flashes, there was a rush of images…

Said husband, knowing I’m in a weepy mood, is interrupting my train of thought with worried looks and an occasional butt rub.  I suppose I should anticipate this, since after all he did declare to me in his personal wedding vows to rub my tushie when I’m feeling low…

So, in a rush of images over that moment, I observed the profound shifts in my life over the past decade…

Some more patting and concerned looks…ok, back to writing…where was I?

Evidently he was intuitively conspiring to knock me off an overwritten, gooey blogging path.  Now all I’m recalling is a jumble of memories, but the salient things that popped up as I sat for that moment is how I’m so glad that went vegan, and how I lost my mom.

You know how your junk mail and catalogs follow you around from address to address?  That continues after you die, and I know this since I’ve become the recipient of credit card offers and non-profit solicitations addressed to my mother.  Yesterday, an envelope arrived for her with the return address of “League For Animal Protection of Huntington” (the Long Island township I grew up in) .  I had no idea she gave to that charity, or even how they protect animals, which is probably just two species, but I don’t want to open the envelope.  I like holding it in my hand, observing its shade of bright white, staring at her name in caps, touching the ridge of the adhesive address label, feeling the weight of it in my hand, conjecturing on what the envelope inside must say.  And it is as if my mom is continuing to live on as an animal lover, in a league of animal protectors.

And, I guess she does, since she’s doing it through me.

This is how I spend much of my morning of September 11, 2011…looking at this envelope and missing my mom.