My Mother
I didn't know ...
I didn’t know she liked cats.
That is to say, I knew she liked animals; we had cats growing up. But they were “our” cats—my brothers’ and mine—just like they were “my” horses and “my brother’s” dog. So it took me by surprise seeing her there on my couch, snuggling the new kitten I had just brought home for my kids. His little gray face nuzzling her seasoned one—a contented smile relaxing her features. She really enjoyed the little thing. And I just... I realized I didn’t know she liked cats.
And I didn’t know she was an artist.
I remember now the scribbles on the notepad as she talked on the phone or as a long sermon dragged on, but those were “just doodles,” as she’d say. And I remember the art classes she would pay for my brother and me. I remember the crafts and art us kids would do and the ribbons we won at the fair.
But I didn’t realize she was an artist until I saw her sitting with my four-year-old at the kids’ table. A final relent to the persistent preschooler’s demand to “paint with Mia.” So there they sat side by side: my daughter mixing the paints and smashing the paintbrush down with carefree delight, and my mother, looking at peace as she wielded the watercolors in front of her. And I thought, “It’s really quite good, those colors—she has an eye for these things.” Then I remembered all the little signs: the birthday decorations, the VBS crafts she would design, the booth she and my Meme would have at the craft fair—among other things. She would downplay these things; I don’t think she realizes it herself. I didn’t know she was an artist.
Even as I reflect on these things, I think of that poem—you know the one—where he talks about his dad getting up to light the fire in the cold house1. I get stuck on that line, the “lonely and austere offices.” Because I didn’t know why she cried behind a locked bathroom door—not until I found myself there too, many years later. I didn’t know why she looked so afraid standing, gripping the counter in the kitchen when she found out my secret—until I saw it in myself during a talk with my son.
So I ponder about the paint she never bought herself, the time she never found to just sit and pet the cat that was hers as much as ours. I think about the invisible weight she carried, the thoughts that were loud even as she was quiet.
It haunts me a little, contemplating these things. I just... I didn’t know she liked cats. And now I wonder: what else do I not know? What else does she not know about herself?
Robert Hayden, “Those Winter Sundays,”https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46461/those-winter-sundays
This is so sweet and touching. Thanks Amanda
Happy Mother’s Day. Beautiful message