Pat Bean's blog

Aging My Way

“Memory… is the diary that we all carry about with us.” – Oscar Wilde

Twenty-eight years ago, on a Friday the 13^th, I held my mother’s hand as she took her last breath. Four days later, on a St. Patrick’s Day – like today – a small memorial for family and friends was held for her. Only her ashes, contained in a decorative urn and taking a prominent place in the room, were there with us.

Reliving that day in my mind, I see all of us present, at one time or another, throwing a kiss toward that urn. The symbolic action was started by the first speaker, one of her grandsons, who threw the kiss toward her contained ashes after ending his remarks.

My mother had green eyes and green was her favorite color, and in her honor, I wore a bright green blazer with a green skirt for the memorial. The memory of that day remains fresh in my mind, perhaps more colorful and fresher than it appeared to me when it was happening because back then my emotions were in charge of my brain.

Such, in the same way it seems to me, are so many other moments collected during my eight plus decades of life on this planet.

I’ll see a photo of an osprey, and suddenly I’m back beside the Snake River below Jackson Hole once again watching an osprey snatch a fish out of the water and fly up to a tall tree. It’s almost as if I can see details that I missed when it was happening.

Thankfully, most of the vivid memories that pop into my head are good ones. But even remembering my mother’s death and memorial isn’t so bad. I still miss her, but seeing her again, even if it’s only in my mind, gives me a sense of comfort. It’s like she has stopped in for a short visit.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion Scamp. She is an avid reader whose mind is always asking questions (many of which are unanswerable), an enthusiastic birder, staff writer for Story Circle Network’s Journal, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), and is always searching for life’s silver lining.