Her Anniversary

My mother broke every plate in the house that day. It was an important day: her 30^th wedding anniversary. She had set a lovely candlelit dinner for two and had worked all day to make dad’s favorite food just how he liked it. An hour before he would be home, she went upstairs to her room and took a shower. She did her hair and make-up in his favorite style. It was minimal: brown eye-liner and nude pink lipstick. Dad always told her that her face was too beautiful to cover in artificial shades. Her hair was twirled into a top knot, held in place by a silver flower she had worn on her wedding day. She tenderly picked up the dress she had laid out on the bed: his favorite black dress. He had bought the dress for her a couple years back. Mom had been in a slump and he wanted to prove to her that she was still his pretty little woman. The dress fit her like a glove and brought out the young woman he had married. Her preparations finished, she stood before the mirror and twirled. She smiled with the joy of a little girl as the skirt swirled softly around her knees. At exactly six o’clock, mom descended the stairs and sat at the table to await the arrival someone she knew would not arrive. Her husband would never come home again. 

I arrived home and hour later to find my mother on her knees in the middle of the kitchen floor surrounded by the shattered pieces of her blue wedding china. Her hair was falling out of the knot and hanging limply down around her shoulders. Her eyeliner stained her cheeks and the hem of her skirt was torn. She didn't move as I walked in, her red eyes seeing the past.

“I told him not to go, Katherine." She was so quiet I almost didn't hear her, "There was so much ice. I would have been fine without the cold medicine, but he was always so stubborn…” Her broke off as silent weeping stole her voice. Carefully I sat next to her and wrapped my arms around her shaking frame, pulling her away from the memories.

“I miss him, too, mom.”