Comfort Measures.

Mama Died…mama died…

I think if I keep saying it to myself I'll begin to believe it. So far, not so much.

Daddy said "Well, we're not rolling around on the floor moaning like I thought we'd be". This is true.

I was shopping for groceries for him and thank you notes for the outpouring at the new super Wal-Mart and decided to pick up a legal pad to help me organize some of the craziness.

There was standard yellow, pepto pink, and one with rainbow fading pastels. Decisions, decisions. But when I looked at the one with pale shades fading one into the other I thought, oh, THAT'S how I feel,….pastel. How simple…and silly.

People around me are all watching nervously…."she's gonna blow!", they must be thinking. Naw, not how the woman raised me.

I just see a heavy cloud in the distance. It's plum full of slow, steady rain. I think that's the sadness coming….it's gonna settle in, may pass on through, but I'll probably be under at least a corner of it's shade forever.

We're so blessed. My recent memories of her are vibrant, funny, loving…and she's still here. We laughed a lot…a whole lot. We still are laughing

Her guitar is hanging on the wall. Her pocket book with half sticks of gum, a wadded up paper towel, an Anacin, and a thin neat wallet that smells of Doublemint and Revlon lipstick. The wallet didn't have any money in it, of course. She didn't need any. She had daddy.

I found an alanon prayer card (that's the spousal support group for AA and dang, daddy hadn't drank in 27 years…). That surprised me.

Other places in the house there's just sad eyes with an occasional silent sob in between…a cat walking around meowing looking for his number one companion who used to verbalize his daily summation of activity as "It's all just a bunch of shit".

After the dust settled from the late night hillbilly funeral which we held on our front porch last Saturday, I was looking for a certain skillet to scramble myself an egg before diving to insurance and social security offices.

I rattled around in the cupbards but wasn't finding the small one I wanted. Then, SHE said "It's in the oven". Sure nuff…there it be.

I was able, in my major record deal days, to buy her a few little comforts. They still lived in a trailer but they had higher thread -count cotton sheets, good shoes, and I had got her a set of capholan pots and pans with glass lids that she loved.

I had fantasies of bricking-in their single-wide, knowing there was no way in hell she was EVER moving….I wanted to brick it in so she didn't feel scared when our homeland terrorists came on every spring with "STORM TRACKER 2000".

No more worries, mama. No more storms. I promise to eat and "get some rest". We'll stay on the Atlanta Braves and cuss Bobby Cox for ya from time to time.

I made a pot of snap beans with new potoatoes daddy harvested from the garden last night. Against my will, I sliced half a slab of smoked salt pork and threw it in the pot.

We stewed some fresh squash and onion in butter, and pulled some ham from the huge honey-baked one Traci, my friend and publicist brought us. It was all real good…but it wasn't mama's. Cause dammit, mama died.