To My Friend Jane on Mother’s Day

You would like Jane. She tells stories with a smooth-tipped pencil, one that had been used often and is in need of sharpening – or else I think she would had I seen her handwriting. She is my pen pal, or, as modern day would call it, my e-mail pal. She is old enough to be my mother, but we hardly talk that way. 

Jane and I have only known each other six weeks. We speak through typewritten words, sent electronically through cyber space. We talk about mothers and children and the lowcountry of South Carolina. She is my friend.

I think the root of friendship begins with a complimentary soil, a companion to the sun and the rain and the varied elements. We have a commonality – our mothers’ ashes are spread in the same waters in South Carolina. Her mother died after a full life, learning about nutrition and making copper-etched bowls and standing by as her husband and friends passed away before her. My mother’s story is different. She died young, just before she was able to enjoy life on that tiny island. Jane recognizes this irony. She and her husband call that same place home. They could have been my parents’ friends. But instead, she is mine.

And so, for this Mother’s Day, I am wishing my friend Jane – a mother and grandmother – well. I’m hoping the weather is calm on the island of Dataw, and she is able to step out on the dock there by The Bluffs, and listen to the pop-pop-popping of the clam shells and the buzzing of the cicadas. Maybe she’ll see a tree frog clinging to the edge of an old live oak draped in Spanish moss and startle a foraging heron. And if she does, maybe she’ll think about her mom and offer a silent prayer that maybe our mothers are up in heaven together, thankful that we found comfort in each other’s words.

Photo, Flickr, debaird