Been cleaning and purging and sorting through pictures and scrapbooks and albums and such. Found something that I wrote for the City Theater newsletter back in 95 or 96 or something. We were doing a play called If We Are Women, which takes its title from a Virginia Woolf quote: "we think back through our mothers, if we are women."  My ex-friend, ex-roommate Sara edited the newsletter, and, having lost her mother to cancer in her late 20's, really connected with the subject matter of the play. She enlisted me and some other staff members and actresses to write something about mothers and loss and history.  I wrote something based on stories that Sara had told me about her mother and family, growing up on a farm in Houston, PA with a twin and ten other siblings. Sara was WACK and we parted ways a while back. I had no idea at the time how powerfully my own words would affect me today when I found them. Here's what we both wrote for the newsletter.

Ella
by Sara D

The earliest memory that I can recall is of her hands. And the sunlight. How bright and warm the sun feels to me as I lay there -- aware of nothing but my connection with her.

I remember looking up at her and seeing her smile; I smiled too. And the sunlight-- so brilliant! Her hands were so delicate and lovely ...even now, I can see the traces of her blue veins.

We were all alone in her bedroom. Alone! No brothers, no sisters -- just her hads, the sun, her smile, and me.

Ella-- that's what her father called her -- short for her given name, Alice.  I've held on to this memory of my mother with both of my hands and all of my heart and I wonder if the sun will ever be that bright again.



Piece 
for Sara
by Erin Fleming

sitting on my mother's bed
she held my hand so small so small
scrape-kneed siblings and tractors 
cut into the air outside the door
but there was only us and the smell of quilt
and sun

when she lived
I broke my mother down in pieces
and small change that jingled in my pocket as I cut across yards and fields
photographs like this one stored in lockets 'round my neck
and this is how I thought I would remember her

sitting on my mother's bed so small so small
I held her hands
nurses and flourescent lights hummed about outside the door
but there was only us and the smell of sterile sheets

when she died
I laid my mother down in rivers and small streams
that flowed in like too much wine and out like so much sorrow
still lifes like this one
kept in boxes in my attic
and this is not how I remember her

sitting on my sister's bed I held his hands 
so small so small
another piece of our mother come back to us burping and gurgling and staining the blanket
she is everywhere around me now
my nephew's eyes
my niece's laugh
the way my sisters answer the phone
the way my brothers cut their food
the way my father wants his laundry folded

and I am an aunt again
I will hold on to this piece of my mother
so small
so small