Morning Light

I've enjoyed this open airy space on many mornings past, with its large east facing window flooding the room in early morning light. Sunrise and a cup of coffee by mom's bedside in this room was my morning ritual for a couple of years while mom was declining and in need of assistance. Morning has always been my favorite time of day, the rising sun bringing new beginnings and fresh starts, the gift of life and breath, and a day full of possibilities.

I'm grateful for the mornings I spent here, times when mom (Flo) and I drew close in ways that we'd not had the opportunity to before. Mom's experience of these mornings, however, was vastly different from mine. Though there were days I had to reach deep down inside to find a smile and a cheerful voice before I entered the room, for mom each sunrise represented yet another day of pain and difficulty.

Even so, most mornings were a pleasant time together. Mom's medication schedule required an early wake up when she would have rather kept right on sleeping. I brought her medicines and breakfast, and we conversed while I drank my coffee and she ate what she could. I tried to make those morning meals enticing. I made pretty arrangements on the plate, little toast bites on one side, slices of fruit on the other, or wedges of boiled egg circling the edge of a plate with a small dish of yogurt in the center. I always brought too much, and she always ate too little.

We talked about yogurt, how she had never eaten it growing up, had never even heard of it. She wondered when and how it had come into our lives, this new delicious thing that she'd been so completely unaware of for so many years, for most of a lifetime. She also seemed surprised by the notion of having fruit for breakfast. Especially the pears. A large lovely painting of pears hangs in the kitchen. She did it years ago and old photographs show how it went through a few renditions before reaching its current state. Mom was not unfamiliar with pears, yet she marveled at how she had never realized how good they were. She gathered up lots of things for their shape and color, objects that would add interest to a painting. I have another smaller painting of pears. I wonder if she had only painted them, never tasted them. Though that can't be right. Maybe they were more appealing in the morning, separated from the pencils and paints in the studio.

Most mornings mom ate her breakfast in bed. The pain she endured once she got up and started moving around was absent while she was still laying down after a good night's sleep, so she was reluctant to get up, sometimes even to sit up to eat. She was in her late 80s. Who was I to tell her she had to sit up or get out of bed? When she had eaten as much as she was able and had taken her medicine, she rolled over and went right back to sleep in all that glorious sunshine.

Mom's whole house is uniquely special, bearing the marks of her creativity in many ways. Every room has something interesting to appreciate, but for me mom's bedroom is the best room in the house. The morning light flooding the room lifts my spirits every day, though mom is absent and the fern is the only living thing for me to greet. The room is lovely and though I usually bring my coffee with me when I open mom's house for the day, I don't sit down to enjoy it in the sunlight. Mom isn't there, and staying now wouldn't bring the pleasure that sharing those mornings with her often did.

I'll be looking for a room with an east facing window when this place sells and it's time for us to move on from here. A place in which to make new memories and to enjoy the sunrise and my coffee together. Until then I'll enjoy the few moments I spend in this room each morning.