Lavender Daze

I tend to wear purple or lavender often in March.  Not so much for the coming-of-spring awareness, but because it was Mom’s favorite color in the last years of her life, and she left us in March.  Hard to believe it’s been three years.  I talk to her every day, and nowadays I remember less the traumatic confrontations we once had, and I recall more the amusing stories…

When we were teens and I was learning to play guitar, my sister and I would sit around and play and sing for hours, working on harmonies or chord patterns.  She was a patient teacher—thank heavens, because we would often go over the same song again and again until my fingers moved automatically to form the chords.

One bright summer morning when we were trying to think of something to play, Mom interjected, “Play the one about the heroes.”

“What?” we answered.

“You know, the one about the heroes.”

We were perplexed.  We’d never done a song about heroes together.

“We don’t know….”

Mom looked at us like we were idiots—not an uncommon occurrence—and started to sing the beginning of the song.  We burst out laughing.  And then we started singing, “He rose from the dead….”

It was never about the lyrics for Mom.  She was happy when her children were getting along, and she loved to hear Peg and I sing.  At her memorial service, we sang “The Rose” together.  Maybe we should have done that “heroes” song as well.