I found I had twenty dollars
That wasn’t especially spoke for. I was on my way to pay it extra the washer. But somehow– I came home with this big box.
Your father really gave it to me then. ‘Where you going to wear a thing like thar to–
Some opera or something?’
I’ve never, except in the store,
Put on tha dress. ”Oh Millie– I always thought if you take
Nothing for youeself in this world
You’d have it all in the next somehow
I don’t believe that anymore.
I thnk the Lord wants us to have something–
Here–and now. ”And I’m telling you, Millie, if some miracle
Could get me off this bed, you could look
For a different mother, ’cause I would one. Oh, I passed up my turn so long ago
I would hardly know to take it.
But Id learn, Millie. I would learn!”
It hung there in the closet
Where she was dying, Mother’s red dress,
Like a gash in the row
Of dark, old clothes
She had worn away her life in. Her last words to me were these:
”Do me the honor, Millie,
Of not following in my footsteps.
Promise me that.”
I promised. She caught her breath
Then Mother took her turn
In death. ~ Carol Lynn Pearson ~
