Tombette

After my mother died, I began to bury things in small places. I folded her hand-written recipe for cornbread and oyster stuffing deep inside the oil-stained pages of my cookbook. I recorded old spiritual songs she used to sing in the strings of the out-of-tune piano in our front room. I tucked an empty glass bottle of Poison, her favorite perfume, in the corner of my sock drawer. But most of all I buried memories in my mind. Of baking Christmas cookies while the snow drifted down outside the kitchen window. Of running my hands through the rich black soil of the garden as we planted cucumber seeds. Of her fingers stroking my temples as I listened to her read the Harry Potter series out loud to me.

And when my heart begins to feel heavy, I pull out those things so I can experience them. I touch the reading glasses she used to use, the pair with the lose arm I had tried to fix so many times. And I sift through the memories to find the ones that make me smile. I laugh as I recall the first time she used a computer mouse. She struggled to get the hang of moving it and kept muttering under her breath. I now hold those tchotchkes and those memories so dear; they mean everything. And by bringing them from the safety of that special burial place, their tombettes, I can bring a little bit of my mother back to me.