Elvis Headstone

The month of January has not been too kind to me throughout the last six years. I am hoping that this January I can be a bit more settled.  No snow. No cross-country moves. Just a bit of mourning for my mom and my beloved dog who both left this earth in a cold January day.

My mom was a huge Elvis fan. We listened to Elvis every Sunday morning. A month after my mom died I ended up in Memphis on a business trip. We took some time to visit Graceland. How could you not?  I did the trip in her honor and memory. On his headstone were white flowers: both red and white. I looked at that headstone and thought of what the world lost when he died so young. The same way I felt I about my mother. I looked at the white flowers and realized that from now on, I would pin a white flower to my being on Mother’s day. That is the tradition in Puerto Rico. I didn’t know that until the year before my mom died when I visited her on mother’s day for the last time.  She was wearing a white carnation to honor her mother. I looked at that flower and at her an hoped mightily I wouldn’t have to wear such a flower anytime soon. Sadly, my hopes didn’t pan out and that is when I learned that my memories of my mother would have to sustain me. However, I am still not very found of white flowers. I like them bright and orange. White flowers just scream out to me like the lambs in Clarice’s dream.

POSTSCRIPT

Woke up this morning to breaking news that David Bowie just died this January morning.  His music definitely spanned the generations whereby both my mom and I could love his music.  The master of reinvention.