Settin' a Spell

One thing Mom and I really enjoyed in the last month, when she no longer felt up to getting out in the morning after breakfast. Instead, we started "settin' a spell".

I would raise the garage door and bring the dog out and fasten her to the front lamp post. I would bring Mom out in her wheelchair and then set up a chair beside her. She would drink coffee or tea as I drank my diet coke. And we would watch the cars go by and talk. About the trees, about the weather, about the things we could see from there, about the things we could see only in memory.

She told me about Uncle Chris and Aunt Lillie B, who "set a spell" on their from porch every day, and in fact, almost all day. About her Uncle Ed Edwards who she stayed with while she was going to Draughon's Business College in Paducah in her late teens or very early 20s when they too would "set a spell". I would remember those days that Mom and I used to take walks together in Limberg Forest (sp?) in Knoxville, Tennessee, when she was living on Taliwa Gardens there. What wonderful walks when we would talk and talk and talk. This we did all our lives wherever we lived. And when I read St Augustine and his talks with his own dear mother St Monica, I realize what wonderful, wonderful gifts such talks are. Settin a spell.

On the day of the funeral, yesterday, I set out front in the driveway her wheelchair and my chair and the little table between us with my diet coke and her coffee cup. The chairs are empty now. Never again in this world.

Oh Momma how I miss you and love you.

Charles Delacroix
Feast of St Augustine

St Augustine and St Monica, please pray for me and my Mom