TO CLARA ELIZABETH HILLE LANGLAND
April 21, 1884 – March 11, 1970
Mother of Mine
It’s time to write another letter to you.
It’s been too long:
Twenty-five years, in fact.
And today is your birthday.
When I was a child
We had a piece of sheet music on the piano,
“Hello, Central, give me Heaven,
for my mother’s there.”
I read and sang it with sorrow,
And with gratefulness that you were with us
And alive. I thought how awful
It would be if you weren’t.
I think I never told you that
And how in my backwards way
I knew how evenly you held us all
Together in cycles of foundation.
No matter the times I spunked or sassed you.
I remember how once you looked at me and said,
“I don’t know how you got to be so stubborn” --
And scarcely turning I answered,
“I don’t have to look very far
to see where I got it.”
You smiled in recognition
In spite of yourself and me.
I want to thank you now for your stubbornness,
And for your unswerving addiction to caring
In body, in mind, and in spirit
For all of us, and also for yourself -
wherever that might lead you.
I want to thank you also for laughing
When our father cracked jokes
Even if that was the last thing
You thought you wanted to do.
That was a moment to remember:
When you abandoned yourself to laughter.
I wrote of your addiction to caring.
To care can mean many things:
It can mean to feel trouble or anxiety
It can mean to feel interest or concern
It can mean to give care to or for
It can mean to have a liking, fondness,
Or taste for, to have an inclination:
It can mean all of these
As it surely did in and for you.
And it can mean economy, a lack of waste,
And it can engender a sense of grace
In those who yield to its power
To pace out the lines of their lives.
I saw and still see all of this in you.
It would be less than honest
To say I know where you are
After these twenty-five yeas.
But on this April 21, 1995,
I am sending you this letter.
I think it will find its way.
Lois Langland
April 21, 1995