Waiting for the boiler man.

It's 7:30 Monday morning, cold, yet the sun is brightly shinning.

I expect the oil company guy. That’s why I’m sitting by the window, so I can see his truck and greet him before he gets to the door. It’s time to clean the boiler, which I hope will keep trucking until I move from this house.

I’ve made some instant coffee.

I‘m in here, it’s what we call the library. If you look on the floor you will see pennies. When we first moved in, mom threw pennies in each room. It’s a sign of prosperity.

There is no hesitation to pick up a penny from the street. It means that mom is around.

A small room perhaps twelve by ten. Mom liked to sketch here because of the intense sun. As you enter, the wall on the left is a built-in bookcase and holds a few hundred books including the white and blue vinyl of my high school yearbooks, my wedding album, and a sadly worn leather bound tome of The Poetical Works of Longfellow, circa 1851, my father’s prized possession. Dad signed it in 1931.

Small prints piled on top of each other. They’re not valuable-just fragile, flimsy. My kid's drawings, a couple of mom’s-but she mainly painted in oil, Life Magazine’s issue commemorating JFK's life. A newspaper from 1934 that my mother had saved. I have read and reread that paper a hundred times and have not been able to fathom why she kept it. It was dated June 7.

She died June 7, 2000.

There are about seventy three-subject spirals-journals of my daily explorations into the I Ching, which I started before 1972. When I peruse them, I see the questions that I asked the oracle and say aloud “idiot why no date on this one? Why no name?" Ah! Self-recrimination –the delicious lifeblood of an Italian upbringing!

The I Ching had hinted at her impending death.

There are many psych books, which I really don’t need, as I had devoured the material long ago. It’s been only four years since I threw out my college notes. When I divulged this to some friends, they laughed and said it also took them a zillion years.

Thick collected works on ethics and world religions remind me of my professor who taught virtually all of the courses that comprised my undergraduate minor. He was a pompous ass. Nevertheless, he was endearing because he knew it. If you watched him carefully, you could perceive his internal struggle. The battle was whether to just teach the subject matter or wax endlessly on his vast knowledge and astute understanding of all that existed in the universe. He tried.

He had a daughter named Wilma May.

He morphed, humanized when he spoke of her. He would say things like, “Wilma May doesn’t understand this yet, but.”

Mom once said, “That’s a strange name for an Irish child.”

I got an A in all of his courses. I knew my stuff-I deserved my marks. At semesters’ end he said, “You deserve straight A’s just for putting up with me this whole year.”

On the eye-level shelf of the bookcase stands a tall ice-cream soda glass filled with cemented pink pebbles, fake whipped cream and a permanent protruding straw.

As my mother lay dying, she requested an ice-cream soda. I couldn’t get one in the hospital but was thrilled when I saw this tasty curiosity in the gift shop. I was so happy to have found this for her but was immediately shattered, when, upon its presentation, she looked at me with pained and confused eyes. “Why would you do this to me?” She said.

As you enter the library, you see across the street through the bay window. In the middle of the wood windowsill stands her exquisite two foot high, hand painted vase, which though chipped around the opening, suffers no loss of beauty or dignity.

A few dried sprigs gently emerge from it's mouth. Anything more would thwart it's splendor.

My mother taught me how to see a things innate beauty and allow it to become its own vehicle.

Two director’s chairs sit at the window. They are at least thirty years old if not more. Yet, I have not had to replace the canvas. They used to be a deep blue and have been washed into a faint sky. She used to move a chair close to the window lean her left arm on the sill while she drew with her right hand. My husband and I used those chairs all over the house. In the backyard. I used them in my office for a while. One of the kids periodically used one while the other sat listlessly waiting for some attention-the chair not the kid! Unfold me at least –just for a little while for Pete’s sake. Give me some attention!

To the right of the room is a captains’ bed covered with a duvet and a dozen throw pillows. It was my youngest daughters and has three draws below which house thousands of photos and small frames made from everything ranging from plastic to gold filigree. Things I have been planning to frame for years. There is a small desk with a useful lamp and one of her miniature oils.

I am afraid to move from here. I am afraid that I will forget the texture of the walls and the smell of the wood when it rains, the warmth of the radiators when I pass by the hall, the sound of the perpetual drip from the faucet.

I am afraid that if I trip that there will be no wall and the thing that I lost will not be miraculously retrievable from the back of the closet. I am afraid that I won’t be able to decorate a new home with the surety I did this one. In the past twenty years, I have painted the entire house three times.

When I look at new walls, will I be able to paint? Will I have pride in the fact that I have fixed toilet bowls, sanded door saddles, sealed window leaks, put down linoleum squares in the kitchen and had successfully found a way of greeting people without them ever knowing that the front doorbell has never worked: never-since I moved here?

And who will throw pennies on the floor?

The maintenance truck is coming up the driveway. That’s why I'am in this room, to greet him at the door.

Copyright © 2009 by m.m.sugar

simply good manners

My mother was quite concerned about good manners.

As a result, my sister and I grew up occasionally perusing the Emily Post Book of Etiquette.

No elbows on the table.

Patting you mouth with your napkin as opposed to wiping it. It helps to keep your lipstick in place.

No chipped nail polish.

A nod and a slight smile if not familiar with the artist or composer who is the current topic of conversation.

Standing tall, no slouched shoulders.

Never refuse a host’s offer.

Never waste food but leave just a drop on your dish.

Therefore, when in unknown territory I would ask myself, “What would my mother do?"

She remained sharp as a tack but in her last year of 87, her habits changed a bit, she became, let us say, a little eccentric.

Each week I would take her shopping and out to lunch.

My sister and I simultaneously shared that mom was acting strangely.

While in the restaurant, with sparkling eyes, she would cheerfully take extra napkins and put them in her bag. My sister revealed that mom was taking sugar packets and she did not even drink coffee!

When she started shoveling napkins, sugar and mayo packs into her pocketbook I would simply sit and smile and bring up a subject of interest to sway her attention from the new found hobby in which she took such glee. It became a game. The name of the game was: how to preserve mom’s dignity whilst preserving the inventory of the diner in which we were currently eating.

I knew that mom would turn a blind eye if a friend exhibited such behavior.

Simply good manners!

This Sunday my partner and I went out for breakfast. I have one cup of coffee each day with a little rice dream. However, it was such a celebratory morning that I ordered coffee with Half-and-Half.

When the waiter brought the coffee there was only one tiny creamer cup, you know, the kind that hardly holds a teaspoon? I asked for another.

When I returned from the ladies’ room, he had left three more on the table. Gee, what a waste, I thought, knowing that our state forbids anything to be returned to the kitchen if it had been served at the table.

The coffee was so good that I ordered another. However, I had neglected to tell him that I had enough Half-and-Half. It was a busy morning and the server was on the fly so now I was stuck with eight creamers!

We had a great meal and were about to leave. Yet, I felt guilty about wasting the creamers.

We had been talking about mom and her senior antics. I asked my partner, “What do you think mom would do?”

We caught each other's eye and simultaneously laughed.

I took the creamers, dumped them in my pocketbook, and am enjoying them in my coffee each morning along with a good laugh and memories of mom.