May 1: May Day, a day to pick Spring flowers and deliver them to neighbor's front doors. I'd ring the doorbells, run and hide, then watch for the look of surprise when they discovered a bundle of wildflowers on their doorstep. It brought a smile to my face every time.
May Day was also a day to give my mother a special bouquet of roses, not just because I loved her with all my heart and soul but because she was my safe place to stand.
Her skin was soft and velvety, much like the flowers I picked for her. She smelled like vanilla and cinnamon and looked like a beauty queen. I'd rest my confused heart and body against hers, and everything felt better. Her bare arms were silk handkerchiefs for my face, and she'd give me long hugs and let me twirl the doughy creases of her elbows between my fingertips. She tucked me in at night and never failed to climb the stairs again when I'd call out for her.
"Mahhh-mah! I neeeed one more huhhh-uhg!"
She brushed and cut my hair and made my new clothes from scratch, though they were mostly fancy dresses I hated wearing, attempting to make my older sister and I look like twins. Other than our matching outfits, we had nothing in common, with the exception of fear.
May Day was also my chance to thank my mother the way I wanted to thank her, with lots of roses. At age 8 and 9, I couldn't afford to buy roses so I'd pick them from our neighbors' yards, carefully pluck all the thorns off the stems, then run back down our hidden street to the dead end where our house sat. We didn’t have any rose bushes in our yard, because they were likely too expensive and my father was always trying to save money. I’d get up early so no one would know I was gone and dine on honeysuckle for breakfast. The only other souls up that early were the mourning doves, cooing on the branches of the Pepper Tree that sat on the empty lot. I'd climb up to my favorite branch, hear a flutter of wings scatter, and reach for the wad of honeysuckle I'd shoved into my pockets from the bush that nobody owned near the fire hydrant in the cul-de-sac. From my pepper branch, I'd scope out which rose bushes on the street were the ripest for my bouquet for Mama.
During those days, there were many things happening in my house that I didn’t understand: Why did my father get so angry? Why did he beat up my brothers? Make them scream so bad? Why did I barely see or know my older sisters? Why did I have to clean my closet and take “inventory” on Saturdays, the way they did in the army barracks where my father once lived? I'd dream of one day riding my bike all the way down to the beach on Saturday mornings to ride the waves.
My mother tried to protect us -- I know she did -- but there were many times when she couldn’t, days when she was teaching, doing errands, or at the grocery store, and my father would switch to the other man. I'd lock the door to my room so that man couldn’t get in, and I'd pray that he’d be too tired after he finished with my brothers to climb the stairs to my room. My “twin” sister, four years older, would disappear, hidden I suspected, in one of the many closets in our old house against the hills of Southern California. I’d listen to my father hitting my brothers and look at the phone in the connecting spare room, desperately wishing I could call my mother to come back home. When she eventually came through the door, no one ever wanted to tell her what had really happened while she was out, least of all, my father.
Seven years ago, when I'd written another draft of this piece, my mother was still alive. She would leave this world three days later, on May 4, the bouquet pictured below near her bedside.
[From May 1, 2015]
On May Day, I'll call the Japanese florist I always turn to in California to pick the colors and shapes for my bouquet. The owner will put them in a clear vase and deliver them for me. I will ask her if she has any honeysuckle this year, but I already know the answer.
“No,” she’ll say, “Just roses. Yes, many roses.”
It will never be enough, but it's all I have on May Day.
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