Matthew Lyle Landsman

The cold pillow sets there next to me…the empty spot where she used to lay. The tired yard shoes, worn gloves, and ragged coat she wore to tend to garden and chore…she would leave them next to the washer, just inside that squeaky back door. Her keys hang there on a board with hooks and notes and paintings called tole.
She wasn’t a terrible driver, but she somehow seemed to get lost a lot…and on the way she’d go junkin’, especially Friday morn. I think she wandered and reminisced to songs of old, looking for yard sales and old friends to pass the time away…window shopping and chocolate dropping and being happy with things she had. She looked around and saw the half acre yards that others had to mow and knew she’d get tired of all that after a week or so. She was so much more than what others collect, polish and protect.
She was dry flowers and baby showers and dusty bottles of rainy day wine…clothes she wore when she could fit in them, and clothes she wore when she was happy just being who she was. God’s girl, whether she felt skinny or a little bit more.
She is still here…on the radio station that was hers. And those songs that would bring her cheek to mine on a worn spot there on our living room floor. She is here in the reflections in our coffee cups…I’ll keep hers next to the pot, on a napkin, upside down…just in case she happens around. Here…in the way the lid never quite got settled straight on the container of flour. I miss her baking…as will our children. She lives on in their smiles and mannerisms.
She had a way of sensing another’s tear about to form, and touching a cheek to capture that drop on its way down. She had a prayer in her fingertips, a reassuring song in the quiet look from those kind eyes. She could look out on a cloudy day and remind us all that sunshine through a mantle of green is only possible because of darker days and rains. She was all those things and much more.
But in quiet moments I will remember walking with her, and the sharing of dreams. Knowing which parts of her hurt a little more when the clouds were swelled with rain. How she would tear up a little when she heard a special song, or read something written in her grandma’s hand. I will recall her scent…that little bottle that reminds me of embraces and love that she sprayed just above her heart. Oh how it lingers still on the sweaters and coats she wore. I will keep them hanging there where they belong…and give them an occasional spray to refresh the hugs and love there.
But mostly, I will be grateful for the memory of her breathing there on the pillow next to mine, keeping her vows…making mornings worthwhile. I will recall midnight talks we had quietly after our kids were asleep. And I will feel her watching me sleep…on those nights she came to me late, after time spent pondering, folding clothes, and things she was always did to make ends meet. She was special like that.
And every day when I make the bed up, like she always did…I will fluff her pillow again…and hold it to my nose and breathe in her essence. And when I lay me down to sleep, I’ll look over there at the cold pillow setting next to mine…and I will give thanks and recall all those nights when her pillow was yet warm.
Matthew Landsman 03-2012