Memories of Mom fly in from all around

By Sue Carlton, Times columnist
In print: Saturday, May 10, 2008

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So I'm standing in the greeting card aisle looking at this amazing array of Mother's Day cards.

I see, besides the standard "mother," cards for moms and mamas, for grandmothers, daughters and daughters-in-law, for sisters and aunts and nieces and friends, for about-to-be mothers, new mothers, mothers-in-law and those who have been "like a mother." In case they missed someone, there is a category marked "for anyone." There is even, I am not making this up, Happy Mother's Day From the Dog, though no from-the-cat cards, and big surprise there.

Next to me, a young couple — newlyweds? — argues quietly. Apparently he wants Deeply Sincere while she prefers Light and Airy. "She's my mother," he says, three words he will hopefully never have the bad judgment to utter again, since their shopping trip seems to end at that point.

I have mothers in my life to buy cards for, but this is the first year I won't buy one for my own.

Probably I have been giving her Mother's Day cards since I could draw with a crayon, including one memorable year when I used my hand to trace the shape of a turkey (Mother's Day, Thanksgiving, whatever.)

When I got older, I sent Godiva chocolates. That gold box was a yearly connection between us, even in more difficult mother-daughter times.

Last year, a few months before she died, my mom finally admitted she didn't really like fancy Godivas, though she had always made a big fuss over getting them. Probably she would have preferred a Whitman's Sampler. My sister and I still laugh about that.

Funny, the details that bring someone back to you, the million small things that go into making up a whole person. Black licorice and Virginia Slims and somebody sipping a brown cocktail with a cherry in it. Putting Neosporin and a Band-Aid on a cut, my mother's tried-and-true cure since I was climbing trees. Huarache sandals and white headbands. And hummingbirds. When she and my stepfather moved to Arizona, she put up feeders and looked out for them all the time. Toward the end she watched them through her bedroom window.

The day after she died, my stepdad, my sister and I found ourselves wandering through a big beautiful park not far from their house called the Desert Museum. A guide came up and pointed us toward the aviary. Hurry, he said. It's something we've never seen before.

We walked in and the hummingbirds lighted on us. They would touch your shirt and fly off, then hover inches from your face like they wanted to look you in the eye. They swooped in so close to your ear you could hear the tiny engine of their beating wings. It was extraordinary. We stayed there a long time.

The aviary people said this uncharacteristic behavior might have something to do with the unusually humid weather they were having, or the gnats it brought, or the fact that people were sweating.

All I know is it was amazing, and I wished my mother was there.

At the store, I look through cards in Spanish, cards funny and borderline lewd. I consider cards dripping with pearls and fake flowers, and cards so stiff and formal you could only send them to a mother you never actually met.

Too many cards had hummingbirds on them. This year, I didn't buy any of those.