Gray-sky Faith

Somewhere over the rainbow
Bluebirds fly.
Birds fly over the rainbow;
Why then, oh why can’t I?

I am six years old. My mother, a pretty thirty-five year old who looks about ten years younger, sings me to sleep from the foot of the stairs. After I’d climbed into bed a little earlier, she’d asked if I’d wanted a glass of water.

I always did. It was 1962 and New Hampshire tap water tasted just fine. And every time my mom handed water to me in the green plastic cup that I listened to her fill from the adjacent bathroom, I found that I was thirstier than I’d expected and that the water tasted especially good.

Sleep, sleep my little fur child
Out of the wilderness out of the wild…

That was another of her bedtime songs. The lyrics were from a children’s book, but she’d made up the melody, which had everything you could want in a lullaby. It rose and fell, then held low and warm. A song tinged with sorrow yet undefeated by it.

Today she’s eighty-two and I’m fifty-three. Neither of us can drive anymore and I can’t leave my house. I’m mostly bedridden and flat on my back from a rare disease. She’s better off than that but has lost her independence too. We seldom see each other.

I call her every day I can. We reminisce and joke a lot – sometimes about what she’d been calling the “Bonko Birds” at her birdbath. I’d learned online that they’re really called “Junco Birds.” By any name, she still enjoys feeding them and watching them come to her balcony.

I’m learning to slow down and simply enjoy the sound of my mother’s voice again. With both of us confined to quarters, I’m glad we’re so comfortable with each other that we can tell our stories from the past even though we both know we’ve heard them all before.

Today though, my mother sounds serious from the time she picks up the phone. She tells me she is looking out the window at a tall tree. Very tall. She says it looks like it’s touching the sky, which is all cloudy. And that it reminds her of her mother.

She brings up the last time her mother had asked her to play “Trees” on the piano. During my grandmother’s last year of life, she’d often ask my mom to play this piece. That last time she’d asked, my mother had looked back at her, saw the empty expression on her face, and had a strong feeling that she’d never receive the request again. She was right.

Over the phone, my mom’s line of sight apparently continues to follow the tall pine up to the unbroken line of clouds. She says again that the tree is very tall and reminds her of her mother.

My mom reminds me of a tall tree too.