Page 7 of Sensing Selma
“Have you come to help me pack my things?”she said, turning her wheelchair away from the window entirely.
“I don’t want to rush you, but...yes.”
I wheeled her to the small elevator Father had put in and we met on the second floor where I wheeled her to her room.
I pushed open the door and was surprised to find that she’d already begun to take out items from the lower drawers of her dresser.
“So many memories,” she said on the verge of tears as she looked about her room. “My whole life. Your whole life. I don’t understand how you can be so calm and peaceful in this moment of turmoil.”
“Sometimes change is good, Mother,” I said, quietly realizing in that very moment that I was a little excited at the prospect of a new...a new life? A new beginning? I wasn’t sure what it was, but I felt none of the nostalgia and attachment to the big, old house that my mother and sister felt.
We spent the better part of the morning going through her things, Mother stopping to recount the story behind a particular dress or shirt and even a rather silly story behind a pair of underwear.
“I don’t know why I kept these,” she said with a bit of a silly grin on her face. “It was so embarrassing.”
“What was embarrassing?”
“Oh, it was all so long ago, when I was still able to walk without assistance.”
“What happened?”
“Henrietta, Yolanda and I had gone into town to have tea. I’d worn my cream-colored skirt with the matching jacket, and a white silk shirt...of course my two-inch cream pumps. I was so chic, so elegant. Henrietta and Yolanda even said as much.”
I remembered the outfit she described. It was, indeed, quite elegant.
“After tea, we went for a stroll. We passed by Bath Abbey, the baths, the Circus and Royal Crescent, and then...well the tea had worked its way through me, you understand. And, as luck would have it, it hit me at the very worst time...far from any public facilities.”
I smiled, imagining my elegant mother in such a bind.
“The situation grew dire. We’d reached a park where we all knew I could find relief. We’d hurried to the small building that housed the loo, but it was locked, closed for repairs. I could hold it no longer. Henrietta and Yolanda came with me behind the small building, just on the edge of the forest.” She looked at me and smiled, clearly amused by the memory. “Anyway, they helped me, you know, holding me steady while I... We were all laughing so much that Henrietta then had to do the same, and while we were at it, Yolanda decided to relieve herself as well. It was all so silly, but, oh boy, did we laugh. Three elegant, mature women doing their business right there in the open. It’s amazing no one saw us.”
She held the underwear, smiling. The item clearly held more amusement than embarrassment.
It was good to see her laugh, and it helped to make the process of packing her things a little easier. While it took considerably longer than I’d anticipated, it was worth the time. With every item that she decided to dispose of, she seemed to say goodbye to a pleasurable time that she would keep in her heart.
After the day, I felt better cleaning up and packing away some boxes.It was a start to what looked almost impossible.Mother was not as heartbroken as before, although she was still upset about losing our family home.I also think it was because she had so many memories of Father with the house as well as Holly and me growing up in the house.I’ve had fond memories of Father at the house, but I was so tired from all that had happened with his sudden death and then the shock of finding out someone else held the title to our house.But I needed to get away, to do something different.As sad as I was about moving, I couldn’t help feeling a bit excited about a new beginning starting with Keely Lee’s production ofSense and Sensibilityat Moon Manor.
Perhaps it was divine intervention.The timing couldn’t have been more perfect.The opportunity for me to start a new job in a more exciting industry and for Holly to get her chance to be an actual professional singer couldn’t have happened when we most needed it.
