The Colour of Fall

The fall and winter seasons have always been my favorite. I don't know how best to explain it, but there's a certain something in the air around this time of the year that just makes you feel really good. All the leaves decorating the earth in brown, gold and yellow tones and that crispness that seems to permeate the air - a gentle reminder that winter is just around the corner. My son Tony, was born during the month of October, a wet, chilly and windy night. My water broke at around 6:00 p.m. and I was admitted at Madigan General Hospital. In between the labor pains and my desire to rip off the head of the man responsible for my delicate disposition, I can still hear the wind and rain whipping up against the window of my hospital room. Whenever I thought the pain was so bad I could just kill something, I'd look over and see my mom, who stayed close by throughout my intensive labor (lasted 24 hours). She'd rub my back, or my leg or dab the perspiration from my face and talk to me. "It's gonna be okay," she'd say. "It's almost over." Her calm washed over me and worked quite nicely with the drugs (which she'd insisted on) to sooth away the pain. I believe the only time she left my side was when the doctor told her the baby was on the way out. Before he'd even finished his statement she was exiting the room, "I'll be in the waiting room." She had her limits and watching her child writhing in agony while yelling obscenities at the top of her lungs, was stretching it a bit (Just kidding about the obscentities; I'd never cuss in front of my mom - regardless of the circumstances). She sat in the hall chain smoking until she got the word that she had a new grand baby, which meant a second time around for her as grandma; she was known as Nana after that.

Mom was standing at the window of the nursery gazing at her grandson (the only black child in the nursery), when a woman standing beside her asked, "Which one is yours?" My mom didn't tolerate the ridiculous very well. But she claimed she didn't respond by using any of the four-letter words she was famous for. She proudly pointed him out and said, "That's my pumpkin." And that was her name for him while he was growing up. Tony was always her pumpkin. When I was in labor with Michael I had only to look through the pain and there she was, and I'd know - as I always did - everything would be okay. She wouldn't have it any other way.

As a parent, I have a better understanding of how incredibly difficult it must have been for my mother to see me or any of her babies endure pain of any kind. What we felt, she felt; she just learned to hold her feelings close inside herself, a lot better than we ever could.

My mom was a complicated woman. At least, that's what I thought when I was younger. It wasn't until she was lost to us forever that I fully felt a bit of understanding for the woman she was, well, as much as I ever will I think. She wasn't just a mom, she was a person; a very private person who kept her deepest feelings to herself for the most part. She was incredibly stubborn, loyal, protective, fierce in her beliefs, had an extremely brilliant mind with a strength of will that made even her adult kids behave when she gave "the look." Anything she did she did well, and what's more, she thought I could do anything and everything I set my mind to. She tried very hard to get me to feel that way about myself. She passed away during this season of translucent color and winter chaos; my most favorite seasons.

There are days when I feel as if I've experienced some kind of paradigm shift from what was to what is and nothing seems quite right anymore. It's such a painful place to be. The color of fall is here, and if I close my eyes I can see mom in the yard raking leaves with that dorky straw hat on her head. I can smell the crispness of winter as it strokes the air - everything is in it's place like always - except the familiarity of a smile, the sound of a chuckle, and a face so precious that this world without her feels incomplete somehow. I don't know if these feelings I have are normal, but for now they belong to me so I'll own up to them and deal with them in my own way as they continue to wash over me.