The Ghost of Mother

I stood on the front porch one day and started calling "Kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty,........"
The word flew from my mouth in such high pitched quick succession that it sounded more like an indian woman's mournful keening than a house wife calling in her cat.
My kitty came tearing accross the lawn in anticipation of either love or food or both.
My husband looked at me so strangely as I picked up the cat.
Then he asked "how do you do that?".
"You mean the way I call the kitty?", I said.
"Yeah, I can't do that", he said as he gave it a try.
It came out sounding like a 14 year olds puperty voice breaking and changing pitch.
I figured it was sort of a unique talent after all.
I felt proud as I recalled where this talent came from.
My mother was also endowed with this talent among so many others.
How often had I heard her call this way from the front yard or front patio of our house for the many cats in our childhood?
Standing there, I felt I could be her.
A shadow. A variating replica.
The thought of it was spooky but I liked the idea that my mother does live on even after she leaves us someday.
I WILL carry on thus will my mother.

I have two daughters.
One seems more like me than the other.
Certainly they both resemble me in a pretty big way.
I cannot say that I thought much about whether they would carry on anything in my way but when I see similarities I am proud and pleased.
Certainly I am haunted by the difficulties that parallel mine.
I try to let them go in all ways to be their own person.
As they get older and time slips by the pain of "empty nest" seems to increase rather than decrease as it traditionally should.
No one told me it would be this hard to live without my "family".
Perhaps I wasn't listening with my heart.
But I come to understand what harbor there is in the community of family.
Doing without is like living on a desert island.
So, being just a few hours drive from 3 of my children I do take opportunity to see them as time permits.

My grandaughter just had her birthday.
My husband and I stayed at our daughters home.
It is a cute little place full of the warmth of an "Arends" person.
I tell her the same thing my daddy told me one day.
"Your home is very comfortable to me because it reminds me so much of the way your mother keeps her home."
(Some of the kindest words he ever spoke to me)
But my daughter does seem to emulate "home" as she knew it.
More than she means to, I am sure.
I never felt the hope of me and my mother living on so much I did on one particular morning at my daughters house.
I lay in her bed waking up from a warm and cozy night of sleep.
I stayed under the covers in a dreamy state just listening to the sounds of the morning while others were waking up in the household.
The floors squeaked from my daughters padding feet and I felt right at home.
From a place far away in my mind I heard the front door open and my young daughter
calling in high pitched, quick succession "Kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty......."
"Lord, I couldn't love her more than now."