Early May is a fine time to have a birthday. Warm with cool breezes, and usually the April showers have moved on by. You can tell a lot about the kind of summer you're going to have by the way early May behaves.
I got up and started to walk down the hall for breakfast, but mom's voice stopped me at the doorway to my parent's room. She started singing Happy Birthday, and said “come in here, come sit next to me, we're going to be served breakfast in bed.”
I ran in at full speed and leapt into a perfect swan dive, landing roughly on the folks' bed (this was the one day out of the year I'd get away with that...and I knew it). Mom just laughed and started back in on Happy Birthday. Clambering up the bed, I kicked my feet under the sheets and settled in.
This Mother's Day, the trees just outside the window had a full set of leaves but I could still see clear blue sky behind them. All around their trunks the tulips were just starting to wake up, and the sweet smell of lilacs under the window mixed with breakfast. Spring pajamas. Pillows propped up against the headboard, lounging in the cool, clean sheets. She held my hand and swiped her thumb slowly across my knuckles and cleared the matted rat's nest off my forehead, making way for her cheek.
I don't remember what we talked about, but I do remember wondering what those three guys were making for us...and how much longer it would be. Not long, evidently. It seemed like my thought willed their appearance. They brought in two TV trays loaded with pancakes and bacon, and not just syrup...my brother had made his special syrup/peanut butter mixture. He had the proportions down man, he says "you gotta hold your mouth just right." He slathered a healthy layer in between each pancake, with another layer on the top just in case. It takes about four times longer than normal to eat the syrup/peanut butter slathered stack because it feels like you never get all of it off your lips, so even after you've cleared the mouthful your tongue keeps going. You know what a dog looks like when it eats peanut butter? Yeah, imagine a little kid doing that, but with a pancake in there too. There was a tall glass of cold milk that I nearly drained after the first fork full. Damn, that's good.
Feels weird to be talking about breakfast with no coffee.
Anyway, presents for each of us followed right after we handed off our empty trays. I have no idea what I got, only that there were bits of wrapping paper and ribbon stuck to me, mom, and the bedpost. That mixture is tasty but it's like glue that never quite sets up. And I know I dropped the fork in the sheets at least once.
I miss her extra this time of year, when the tulips start to wake up.
Lois Ann, 1936-1994
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