Ma'am Ophie

I complained to her once that she never smiled when I took her photos. By way of response, she just gave me this photo. She’s not smiling, is she? She wrote : "For dear dear Pat and Claude, my dear Parisian friends! See you in Paris! Love, Ophie"



And here we are, the last time I was home. She was making a big fuss about my cleavage. "What cleavage?" I said, "Ikaw, ma'am, ha, are you writing another erotic poem?" She just laughed. I notice I look like a giant beside her, like I was already enlarged by grief?



In autumn last year, just as when I was beginning to worry and fret and dread the dark days and long nights, I read of her death. I remember the blur and lips pursed with the pain of the saddest news. I couldn’t even tell C about it. Blur. Pain. Sorrow. Silence. I cried and cooked and ate and raked leaves.



Then I turned to literature, to poetry, to her poetry for consolation, if not for strength.



Today, Mother's Day, as I walk around my garden, I think of Ma’am Ophie. Not without sorrow, not without pain. But spring’s a prayer. I imagine she’s as pleased as I am to discover that, like me, some plants in my garden, have made it through the long and difficult winter.