Bliss and Rapture

I don't know why this photo of this flower brought to mind my mother and something I wrote a few years ago when working on a book I was calling THE MAMA VIGNETTES. It is long, but I am going with it. 

Thanks to Kendall for encouraging the writing back then...and always.  And thanks to BikerBear for the challenge.

Bliss and Rapture:

            My Mama had a true gift for joy. Considering all of the hardships endured throughout her life, I have never known anyone with such a talent for savoring and sharing those special moments. She even had a unique expression to let one know when she was having one, not that she wouldn’t have said the same thing had she been alone. With Mama it was usually nature that triggered this expression: I remember sitting with her on the evening pier, watching as the last burst of sunlight spread itself over the water’s surface. She seemed tired, but expectant, and when a lone dark bird approached, flying low and skimming the waves with its open beak, I heard a quick intake of breath, and then, “Bliss and rapture…” The words were a long happy sigh that followed the wake of the Skimmer.   

            She could be equally rapturous when lounging in the salty bath-warm waters of the Sound with her toes in the air. Her ability to float in effortless abandon on the wafting waves roused admiration and a touch of envy in her dancer daughter who sank like a stone when encouraged to experience this particular joy.  I knelt on the soft, rough sand and struggled to keep my balance against the water’s push and shove, while Mama drifted as easily as the drifting clouds that were sprinkled whitely across the hot blue heavens. Her gaze was drowsy, but I knew she was taking all of it in and receiving a generous helping of “Bliss and rapture”.  

Then there were Moonflowers and Night-blooming Cereus, opening only in the absence of the sun, bringing light to the darkest nights and releasing a scent so mysterious and delicate it could have been the breath of a passing angel. My Mama insisted we stay awake for the Cereus, which was very much slower than the short sweet popping of an evening moonflower. I would impatiently check the swollen buds – too often for Mama’s taste – eyeing its tip for the tiny drop of moisture that signaled an imminent opening. When slender petals at last unfurled - a multitudinous explosion of floral beauty - we watched it bob on its long tube-like umbilicus, and as one we leaned close to inhale the essence of its becoming. Mama’s face had that look and I knew what was coming; I said it with her.  

            I have said that for Mama it was mostly nature, but it could be a perfect cup of oyster soup, or homemade bread with butter thickly spread. It could be the antics of my cocker spaniel puppy that she had advised me not to bring home. More than once the face of a newborn would spark the ultimate response. Right now I am thinking of my own first child. Moira was born two weeks before my father died, not an easy time for my mother, and not for me. Yet something came to us through the baby’s large dark eyes. Those knowing eyes reminded us of life ongoing. They invited us to believe in mystery. And the soft fresh touch of her brought comfort of a fathomless sort. My mother, exhausted by the long drive home from New Orleans, and transported by the intimacy of sharing her husband’s last days, entered the house, scooped Moira up and sank into the rocker. Her head fell back and her words were a whispered prayer: Bliss and rapture…