Dust To Dust

Out of nowhere, my Mama showed up with a new baby. She loved that little boy. She held him like he was the lamb of God. Mama’s face was peaceful, as if caught in a daydream. She was calm and looked through the baby, viewing the scene from another space. I was in a dream watching them dream.

Mama pulled out one large swollen breast from her white T-shirt made for a man. The little baby placed his lips around a large brown circle the size of a vanilla wafer. I watched her calm the baby as he pulled and tugged at Mama.

The entire room was flooded with specks of dust dancing in the boundaries of a great beam of light.

I wanted to touch her breasts.

I reached.

Mama said no.

My Daddy didn’t want me visiting my Mama with this new baby. He never wanted me to be alone with her. I begged.

An empty trailer rested sixty yards away from our front door. Placed in an abandoned field, weeds had claimed it, climbing up its sides in tangled tendrils. It appeared as though someone had anticipated Mama’s arrival, leaving behind an old mattress adorned with what seemed to be yellowish-brown pee stains. A metal wire had wriggled its way out from beneath the worn fabric. Little patches of wool were grabbing at the wires—they were already free.

Mama sat upon that dirty mattress holding the unknown baby.

I remember wanting to touch her breasts and see the milk squirt out. I needed to see how it exited her body. I didn’t understand how Mama was like our neighbor’s pet pig, all those tiny pink babies suckling on Orla.

His name was Michael Shawn. No one ever talked about his daddy and he didn’t seem to have a last name, just Michael Shawn.

Mama stayed for two weeks.

I never saw the baby again.

Years later, while reviewing documents from my stay in a Baptist Children’s Home, I learned about the unknown child.

A woman who knew my parents answered the phone when I called. She promised to send copies of my records. She spoke as if she remembered everything about me.

Her slow Oklahoma accent spilled into my ear.

She said my name like it ended in an endless string of e’s.

“Kimberleeeee… I remember you when you were a wee little thang. Y’all came here broken and needing care.”

She stopped there, like that was the whole story.

There were no questions.

I thanked her and waited for the papers to arrive.

When the documents came, my father’s children were listed clearly:

Siblings for Placement:

Tim

Kim

Donna

Randy

At the bottom of the intake form, in clean printed letters, was another line.

Other Siblings:

One child born out of wedlock.

Father unknown.

A patient at the Oklahoma State Mental Institution.

The information didn’t shock me.

My Mama had been in and out of the Oklahoma State Mental Institution my whole life.

Dad said Mama was sick.

He called it “Muscular Dystrophy of the mind.”

To me the place sounded like a hotel. The Dystrophy people checked in and out, but they stayed longer than someone on vacation.

I was never allowed to visit her there. Not once.

Looking at the papers now, I’m glad Mama found companionship inside those walls.

She was the kind of woman people drifted toward without knowing why.

Her eyes held both sorrow and invitation.

She had a crooked grin that widened and lit her whole face with a secret. When she smiled like that, I felt like I knew the secret too.

She stayed away for so long I had almost forgotten this part of her.

I returned the papers to the envelope.

I remembered my Mama showing up with Michael Shawn.

It was one of those feelings tied to an old reality.

Oh yes.

Of course.

I just hadn’t known about the father.

I met my brother once, in a beam of light.

When Mama ended her life, a stranger—her final husband—attended the funeral. Mama met him in the hospital as well, many years after Michael Shawn was born.

My Mama was a soul catcher.

The new husband appeared disheveled, his attire a mismatched joining of wrinkled khakis rising way past where his waist ended and a newly stained white shirt…coffee or perhaps a jelly donut. His expression, vacant.

Watching him, I don’t believe he thought Mama was dead.

He kept pressing her chest with four fingers welded together, like he was tapping on the door of life.

There was no answer.

He would press and release, like watching the foam of a pillow mold and reshape after each compression.

My sister and my Mama’s sisters were huddled on one side of the casket discussing which Bible Mama should be buried with. It mattered more to some than others. Someone needed to win. The discussion bounced off the walls and became background noise.

I stood silent alongside the casket right where Mama’s hands were overlapped resting on her waist.

An arched window in the distance had flowing sheer drapes with light brown tassels pulling apart an opening that made the room soft and shimmery.

The man with the blank expression stood at Mama’s head, arms reaching over her, his fingers on her heart.

Here with Mama lying in her open casket, legs permanently fixed—life slowed down to a speed almost the exact opposite of light, just shy of frozen while brightness and fine particles floated from the wide ray, bounced around and disappeared.

Breath danced and released as the women exchanged views.

I absorbed everything.

Mama’s husband attempting to resuscitate her.

The heated Bible discussion.

And me.

All of us each an ingredient.

A part of the whole.

The soup of time.

The sisters quoted scriptures as the man my mother left behind stayed committed to his task.

Press.

Wait.

Release.

Press.

Wait.

Release.

Press.

Wait.

Release.