The morning is lovely, already 62°. The birds are at the feeders which were filled yesterday. The dogs scared away the spawn, and I moved its favorite feeder hoping to thwart its thievery. Every time I see that bushy spawn tail, I see red, okay grey but you know what I mean. I’m tired of being a spawn lunch counter.

When I was little, the nuns scared me even though I had an aunt who was a nun. We saw her only once a year, an obligatory visit, so we didn’t know her well. On every visit, we’d sit in the living room of the convent. I remember a nun would bring cookies and milk for us and ginger ale for my parents. It was always the stiffest visit. Her habit was off-putting. We’d sit quietly on the living room chairs. She’d asked about school, and that was the extent of our conversation. Every though it was only once a year, we dreaded the visit.

I can close my eyes and still see the living room in the duplex where we lived for so long. The house, the duplex, was on a hill on a hill. The picture window was centered. It looked out on our front yard, a grassy hill. From that window, you could also see three roads, the houses across the street, a mail box and a street light. My father always parked his car by the steps which led to the house. In the living room the couch faced the picture window. A desk was by the front door. We sat on it for professional pictures one year. My father’s chair was also by the window. The TV was in a corner, the same corner where the Christmas tree always stood. The room was small, but I never really noticed. It had everything we needed and more.

In my kitchen, I have an old school chair and desk. My microwave is on the desk and on top of it are some cookbooks, all with African recipes. Included is Ghana Chop, a cookbook from my Peace Corps days. Measurements are in cigarette tins, like two tins of sugar. I don’t have any tins so I guess. When I was in first grade, my desk and chair were exactly the same as the one in the kitchen. The space for my school books is underneath. I used to have pull out a couple of books to find the right one. I keep my kitchen towels there. I pull them out to find the right one.

Today is Mother’s Day. It is the day I honor my mother and my memories of her. I put my heart into this posting so every year I post basically this same entry with only a few little changes.

My mother was amazing. She was generous, fun to be with and was the perfect martyr when she needed to be, a skill I think most mothers have. It was her tone of voice so filled with pain that caused our guilt to well to the surface. “I’ll do it myself,” she’d say. We’d scurry to do whatever she wanted.

My sisters and I laugh often about the curses she inflicted on us: the love of everything Christmas and never thinking you have enough presents for everyone, giving Easter baskets overflowing with candy and fun toys and surprising people with a gift just because.

My mother had a generosity of spirit. She was funny and smart and the belle of every ball. She always had music going in the kitchen as she worked so she could sing along. She played Frank and Tony and Johnny and from her I learned the old songs. My mother drew all the relatives to her, and her house was filled. My cousins visited often. She was their favorite aunty. My mother loved to play Big Boggle, and we’d sit for hours at the kitchen table and play so many games we’d lose track of the time. Christmas was always amazing, and she passed this love to all of us. We traveled together, she and I, and my mother was game for anything. I remember Italy and my mother and me after dinner at the hotel bar where she’d enjoy her cognac. She never had it any other time, but we’re on vacation she said and anything goes. I talked to her just about every day, as did my sisters. I loved it when she came to visit. We’d shop, have dinner out then play games at night. I always waited on her when she was here. I figured it was the least I could do.

My mother loved extreme weather shows, TV judges and crime. She never missed Judge Judy. She also liked quiz shows and she and I used to play Jeopardy together on the phone at night. She always had a crossword puzzle book with a pen inside on the table beside her chair, and I used to try to fill in some of the blanks. On the dining room table was often a jigsaw puzzle, and we all stopped to add pieces on the way to the kitchen. My mother loved a good time.

She did get feisty, and I remember flying slippers aimed at my head when I was a kid and one time a dictionary, a big dictionary was thrown which luckily missed though the binding broke. I pointed that out to her and that made her madder. She expertly used mother’s guilt on us, her poor victims. We sometimes drove her crazy, and she let us know, none too quietly. We never argued over politics. She kept her opinions close. We sometimes argued over other things, but the arguments never lasted long.

Even after all this time, I still think to reach for the phone to call my mother when I see something interesting or have a question I know only she can answer, but then in a split second I remember. When I woke up this morning, my first thought was of her, and how much she is missed. No one ever told me how hard it would be.