She Wore a Cotton Day Dress

She wore a cotton day dress

all flowered and sensible

With her orthopedic shoes

            for her fallen arches

And a smile that lit up the room

She wore a smile to cover

            the secrets and the scandal

With her beautiful eyes

            and snow white hair

And those mints in the

            “be careful” glass jar

She wore costume jewelry

            and a corsage every Mother’s Day

With her clip-on earrings

            to hide that one earlobe

            longer than the other

And a heavy green coat that

            buttoned at the neck

She wore her title of Nurse

            proudly although she hadn’t

            worked in decades

With her sister Bea

And unspeakable memories

            too frightening to repeat

Sometimes I see her

            long after she’s been gone.

God’s gift to me. A reminder

            that she isn’t far.

She wears a cotton day dress

            all flowered and sensible

With her orthopedic shoes

            for her fallen arches

And a smile that lights up the room.

Sunshine and a Little Pink

There’s a wooden sign at a store in downtown Charlevoix that says, “Anything is possible with sunshine and a little pink.” I know that it’s meant to be hung up in a little girl’s room because it’s displayed in the baby section. However, when I saw that sign I wanted to buy it for myself; for totally different reasons. Last year I got my first motorcycle. It was matte black, which to me said “guy’s bike.” But we knew that our sons would want to ride it too, so I thought that would be a good place to start. What we didn’t know was that the boys would want to ride it, but would be vehemently against riding “Mom’s bike.” So this year, they both decided that they would buy their own motorcycles. Since Sammy rode mine the most, it really made more sense for him to buy it from me. Suddenly, I was on the hunt for a replacement. Tom came across one that was white with pink flames. I was in love. It screamed “Dawn’s Bike.” You see, when I was young I was a girly-girl, a bouncy curls and dresses girl, an “only boys wear jeans” girl. I thought Pinky Tuscadero, the motorcycle-riding girlfriend of Fonzie (remember Happy Days?) was so cool with her pink name and her pink scarf around her neck. Knowing that about me, you can see why I fell in love with this pearl white with pink flames and blingy rhinestone emblems bike. But the more I thought about it I wondered if that was maybe a little bit too “girly” for an all-grown-up woman. Would I get sick of it? Do I really want the attention that a Pinky Tuscadero ‘esque motorcycle would get? It would match my black with pink flames helmet though. Then Tom found another black motorcycle on Craigslist that had everything that this one had without being too “girly.” Maybe I should be safe and get that one instead? I wondered.  I flipped and I flopped, finally rationalizing that if I got sick of the pink, we could always repaint it. The decision was made. On the day I got the bike I stopped at the Secretary of State’s office. On my way out, two women walked past me as I was getting ready to leave. “That is the most beautiful motorcycle I have ever seen!” said one, and the other woman replied with “Yes, that is really pretty.” So I guess I did make the right choice after all. “Sunshine and pink?” you ask. “Yes,” I say. “Now anything is possible.”