The Morning

About 52 years ago, on a Saturday sometime in May, I woke early.

My parents were still asleep, as was my brother. No one was up but me. 

We lived in an old farmhouse at the time. It had a row of boxwoods across the front next to the road.

For whatever reason, when I rose, I decided I was going to trim the boxwoods. We did chores back in those days - maybe I had been told I was going to be doing that over the weekend. In any event, I was nine years old, and I was going to do a job. I dressed myself, ate a Pop Tart, found the hedge clippers, and went out front.

Snip. Snip. I vaguely remember the pile of greenery growing up around me as I trimmed. I recall it wasn't hot but a mild day, and the work was, if not fun, pleasurable. I was doing what needed to be done. I imagined that inside the boxwoods lived all manner of creatures - fairies, gnomes, talking rabbits. I carried on quite a conversation with my imaginary friends hidden in the greenery as I moved the clippers across the boxwoods, cutting away the excess growth.

I was so engrossed in my work that I never heard my parents calling for me inside the house. Nor did I hear my mother's calls out the back door.

It wasn't until she came around front calling my name that I stopped and looked up from my trimming of the hedge to see her worried face.

Her face changed from worry to shock as she stood there taking in the sight of me. I wasn't missing - I was working. And nearly finished, at that. I had been at it for well over an hour.

My mother has been gone for almost 25 years. Today is no special day; I have no reason for this memory. Sometimes, though, I forget what my mother's voice sounded like. It has been many years, after all, since I last heard her say something.

But when I call up this memory, when I hear her calling out my name as she rounds the corner of the house, concern echoing in the timbre of her shout, I remember every time.