Mrs.+Nobles

Susanne Nobles
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The old saying laments, "You don't know what you have until it's gone." It isn't quite so.

My mother knits for me the intricately cabled sweater of peach yarn we found together years ago and laughed about whether it would get knitted. It did, as she carefully balanced the needles and her constant cigarette.

My mother listens to me with shining eyes as I talk of high school graduations, graduations to many things, graduations from too many things, trembling with fear of moving on. "You will move on but not apart," she said with her smoky breath.

My mother serves me my favorite meal, fried pork chops with rice drenched in gravy made from burnt drippings in the pan, to celebrate my return from college as if we thought it might not happen. It did happen, and she savored the moment with her cigarette.

My mother sends me an Easter box to share the Cadbury eggs we both can’t stop eating, while spending apart a holiday we used to share, wondering if we will again. I called to thank her with pulls on her cigarette hissing in my ear.

 The old saying isn't quite so. It should lament, "You don't know what you have until you fear she will be gone .”

every single day By [|John Straley]
//(After Raymond Carver’s// Hummingbird//)// Suppose I said the word “springtime” and I wrote the words “king salmon” on a piece of paper and mailed it to you. When you opened it would you remember that afternoon we spent together in the yellow boat when the early whales were feeding and we caught our first fish of the year?

Or would you remember that time off Cape Flattery when you were a little girl: your father smoking, telling stories as he ran the boat, then the tug and zing of that very first fish spooling off into the gray-green world; you laughing and brushing back your hair before setting the hook?

I know I am hard to understand sometimes particularly when you are standing at the post office with only a piece of paper saying “king salmon” on it but just think of it as a promissary note and that electric tug, that thrill pulling your mind into deep water is how I feel about you every, single day.