Happy Sunday morning and happy Easter! My mother was born on Easter day, 1920. She died during Holy Week, 2015. She was an Easter kind of person. Her almost always cheerful disposition belied the trauma that she lived through, having lost five children to one rare genetic disorder, her husband to another. She kept things lively and often chaotic, which wasn’t always easy for an intoverted child like me. She was loved by many and rightly so- she had a generous spirit. She was a giver. I’ve tried to write a poem about her since her death, but have found it impossible to find words that could encompass the complexity of her, the admiration and turmoil that coexisted in my feelings toward her. I finally landed on this small slice of experience that had a lasting effect. I choose to live with this story. This is a picture of the rocker that is now in my home.

Primal

My relationship with my mother,
now eight years gone,
was complicated,
full of contradictions
I never fully understood.

But I will always be grateful for this:
as a child,
I would lay in bed at night,
worry turning to fear,
turning to panic until,
lost in the dark forest of terror,
I would call out
into the darkness.

My mother would come,
lift me from the bed,
and take me to the rocker,
where she’d soothed
eleven babies,
and we’d rock.

Back and forth,
back and forth,
the vibration of her calm humming,
the rhythm of the creaky chair
would carry me back
to the land of safety.

I still wake sometimes
in the darkness
of old, old fear
and remember that gift
of primal comfort.

It lives
deep in the heart of me,
deeper than all
the complicated contradictions,
as deep as fear itself.
Shh.
Shh.
Shh.

By Maria Brady-Smith