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15 June 2008 - 23:57

sleeping in my mother's bed

Our weekend trip for a birthday and Father's Day brought with it an extra person, and an extra dog.

Which brought an extra dilemma.

Someone would need to sleep in my mother's bed.

Even before the subject came up, I knew the solution...

It would be us.

Her room was mostly untouched. Nay, not untouched. Unchanged. The personal items on her dresser still there, but clean and dusted. Likewise for the bedding, save for the dog biscuit crumbs left by the Boston terrier, the black and white Bark Monster. My father admitted he had slept here "a few times", but he hasn't actually moved out, nor back in.

Her sheets were crisp and cool. Pink on the bottom, white with pink roses on the top.

I lay on the left side, where she would lay, facing the doorway. Cracked slightly open, as it was when she was alive. Closed to muffle the noises from the non-sleepers in the kitchen and living room, but ajar to allow access for the Boston.

Which, in retrospect, may not have been a good idea for us.

As the wife and I lay there, I did not dwell on the many frames of family photos and projects of grandchildren that faced me above the desk. Most of these arrived in the latter years of her life, the life reflected in the image on their headstone.

Instead, I thought about the larger framed art that were on these bedroom walls. Many there for almost the entirety of my life. Put there when my mother was young.

Above their headboard, a peaceful pastoral mountain scene. So typical I cannot even recall its details. But to the right, looking across her husband's pillow, hangs a print of a high, thin waterfall falling into a pool framed by large rocks, surrounded by heavy forest. Beyond stand incredibly tall snow-capped peaks. It is a scene worthy of Maxfield Parrish, if maybe a little more realistic. But I doubt such a fantasy mountain scene exists.

Maybe in New Zealand.

Also on the right wall, past the foot of the bed, is a print of an abandoned milk pail, tipped upside down on an abandoned fencepost. "Hung to dry" I seem to recall the name. A perfect nostalgic remembrance for a Nebraska farmgirl who did indeed rise to milk the cows. Tucked into the bottom of the frame are two newspaper comic strips, fading with age. Both about Boston terriers.

There are no paintings on the wall at the foot of the bed, just her dresser and mirror. But I was surprised, as we turned out the lights and my eyes adjusted to the dark, to see a line of glowing, plastic stars, arcing over that mirror.

And finally, facing her on the left side of the bed, with the family photos, is a large oil painting of a dark starburst. Mostly black, purples and dark blues with bursting flashes of red. An original painting, if you look at the right angle you can see the outline of a portrait underneath where the artist reused a canvas.

This dark, astral image is in complete contrast with everything else in the room, yet it would have been the first thing she would see every morning.

Painted by my brother.

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