I’ve been a mother since 1991.  I’ve spent Mother’s Day at McDonald’s, the zoo (in two different cities), on the front balcony of a city apartment, and having brunch at a restaurant in Union Station.  I’ve gotten flowers, and car-cleanings, and hand-made pots as gifts over the years. Mother’s Day 2014 might just be my favorite.

My day started with a pleasant hour or so just being with my husband Jim, and then we decided to go out to breakfast, the two of us.  We had momentarily forgotten that this was the second most popular day for eating brunch (after Easter) but our third try got us both an excellent table and a nearby parking space.  The conversation vied with the coffee and hollandaise for enjoyment.

Back in the car, we set about to visit his mother’s grave.  He cleaned the headstone of bird droppings and we photographed the lovely silk flowers that JIm’s sister Virginia had placed in the vase on her last visit.  The sky rose soft and clear above Joanna’s resting place.  I could not help but cry; and I know, as much as I miss her, Jim, Virginia and their father Jay miss Joanna a thousand times more.  Their pain must be so hard to bear.  But Jim says, he’s thankful for Joanna’s life, and all she gave him.  I gaze at him as we drive to the next cemetery and concur.

For the next hour, we cleared leaves from various headstones at a total of four cemeteries.  Jim talked about his grandparents, aunts and uncles.  I photographed each headstone and we touched the plot markers, stood among the silent dead, and felt the stillness of the air around us.  I thought of my own mother, resting these many years, and wondered if heaven were such that our folks might be communing — or if the spirit is less choate than that in the afterlife.  I rather think Joanna and Lucille have found each other and gaze down upon us together, each with her own radiant smile.

In the afternoon, my son Patrick and I finished planting the new vincas, which we had started on Saturday.  By “Patrick and I”, I mean, “Patrick”, since our 2009 adventure with Mother’s-Day-vinca-planting had revealed a rare and fierce allergy to vincas when my hands swelled and reddened even through gloves.  So Patrick turned the soil and added a flat of vincas to fill the bare spots. I stood nearby with the hose and fertilizer, and we talked about the Rolling Stones, aphids, and Chicago.

About three o’clock, my stepson Mac arrived from college and my heart again filled with the joy of having the household complete.  We heard about his DC summer internship and the visit to his roommate’s family.  Then I went out to the kitchen to start my part of dinner while Jim and Mac visited on our porch, father and son, as strongly bonded as I have ever seen a father and son but with so much room for each to be his own person.

Jim grilled wings and vegetables, my favorite; and the “boys”, (men, really, 20 and nearly 23), gave me a sweet card and a gift of three months’ delivery of Nature’s Wonder, a healthy snack service that I have been wanting to try.  I hadn’t told anyone of my interest, but the boys had figured out that it might be something that would augment my continuous pursuit of a healthy diet.  My heart rose with gladness that they thought so personally of what I might like.

Throughout the afternoon and evening, I moved about the house, singing softly in my off-key voice.  I listened to our two young men talking, glad that they have a relationship independent of us, glad that they can be brothers to each other.  I watched my husband move the ladder down the length of the house as he cleaned the gutters.  Periodically I stood on the deck without  a coherent thought, amidst my begonias and impatiens. I could not have been happier.

None of us know what life holds.  Each day might truly be the last we see; each hour might be the last we share with those around us.  People change; things fall apart; circumstances rise and make demands.  Unintended events, unpredicted consequences, and just plain accidents, can rise to wipe away all that we hold dear. But yesterday, 11 May 2014, I had a day as near to perfect as it gets, and I’ll be putting that day on the keeping shelf, nestled in my little silver box.  I will always have the magic of its memory, come what may.