My mother’s favorite color combination was purple and yellow. At least in her old age. When she was younger, during my childhood, she treasured the pastel shades of the sweet peas that grew in our garden. After I moved away from home I would bring sweet peas when I visited. My mother would wait by the window and as soon as she saw me she would run to the door.
“Ach, mein Kind,” she would say, “Oh, my child,” how beautiful. Then she would burry her nose in the bouquet of flowers and breathe in deeply. “So sweet. Thank you.”
As she grew older her taste streamlined into much starker territory. No frills. A single flower. A bare branch. Her old wooden desk looked as if she never used it. She kept canvas under the sofa. Paints in drawers. Brushes hidden behind curtains on the wide windowsill. Books lined up neatly and held together with bookends. But if you looked closer, if you stayed a while, you would notice that the layout changed frequently. One day she’d display a rock. The next day a feather. Or a small perfume bottle. Or the piece of sculpted soap you had given her the year before. You’d see that pencils had been sharpened or a journal had been moved. You’d find traces of pale green chalk dust. And if you woke at three in the morning you’d discover that the light was on in her room. She was an artist by night and a housewife by day. She tended to my stepfather’s every wish; she cooked, washed, ironed, cleaned, shopped, listened to his war stories, watched the shows he liked, kept him company until he went to bed. Then her imagination burst into paintings, into poems and short stories, into stitched designs that depicted lives she had not lived.
Lives she might have dreamt about.
A few weeks before she died, a friend brought her an arrangement of purple and yellow flowers.
“My colors,” my mother said. “She knows my colors.”
I sat by her hospital bed, held her hand, and wondered why I didn’t know her colors. I had lived in America for almost thirty years and I guess a trip home once a year just wasn’t enough to keep up with all the changes in her life.
When I returned to California I set aside a small spot in my garden where daffodils and something purplish remind me of my mother. Deep down in my heart I still see her picking pastel sweet peas, but I always try to fill some part of my life with the colors of her final years.
And for that reason I am growing bears number eighteen and nineteen for my mother’s garden. Their brown heads and paws embody the soil. Their outfits are green like foliage. Yellow and purple accents act as flowers. You will see them in full bloom tomorrow and the day after.
“Ach, mein Kind,” she would say, “Oh, my child,” how beautiful. Then she would burry her nose in the bouquet of flowers and breathe in deeply. “So sweet. Thank you.”
As she grew older her taste streamlined into much starker territory. No frills. A single flower. A bare branch. Her old wooden desk looked as if she never used it. She kept canvas under the sofa. Paints in drawers. Brushes hidden behind curtains on the wide windowsill. Books lined up neatly and held together with bookends. But if you looked closer, if you stayed a while, you would notice that the layout changed frequently. One day she’d display a rock. The next day a feather. Or a small perfume bottle. Or the piece of sculpted soap you had given her the year before. You’d see that pencils had been sharpened or a journal had been moved. You’d find traces of pale green chalk dust. And if you woke at three in the morning you’d discover that the light was on in her room. She was an artist by night and a housewife by day. She tended to my stepfather’s every wish; she cooked, washed, ironed, cleaned, shopped, listened to his war stories, watched the shows he liked, kept him company until he went to bed. Then her imagination burst into paintings, into poems and short stories, into stitched designs that depicted lives she had not lived.
Lives she might have dreamt about.
A few weeks before she died, a friend brought her an arrangement of purple and yellow flowers.
“My colors,” my mother said. “She knows my colors.”
I sat by her hospital bed, held her hand, and wondered why I didn’t know her colors. I had lived in America for almost thirty years and I guess a trip home once a year just wasn’t enough to keep up with all the changes in her life.
When I returned to California I set aside a small spot in my garden where daffodils and something purplish remind me of my mother. Deep down in my heart I still see her picking pastel sweet peas, but I always try to fill some part of my life with the colors of her final years.
And for that reason I am growing bears number eighteen and nineteen for my mother’s garden. Their brown heads and paws embody the soil. Their outfits are green like foliage. Yellow and purple accents act as flowers. You will see them in full bloom tomorrow and the day after.
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