The Little Angel


 My mom recently gave me a little figurine. Her mother had given it to her many years ago. 

"But that's yours!" I protested. 

"I want you to have it, and unless I give it to you now, I'll never know that you got it when I die."

This is the reality of life with an aging parent. Her mortality is the elephant in the room, so to speak, but rather than ignoring it, we're looking at it together. And we even talk about it.

I was graceful enough to simply accept the gift. When I was less mature and insightful (last year) I would have said, "No, it's yours. I'll be sure to get it later."

But last year, she was 83, and I was 60. With age comes experience.

"Ok, Mom, thank you," I said and accepted it.

This little ceramic figurine is at least 70 years old. Without a crack or chip, or even the tiniest speck of dust in any of the little crevices, despite its travels from Minnesota to various places in California, Arizona, Washington state, and now Mexico. 

Where could I put it? My household is wilder than my parents' ever was. Living in a beautiful but rather rustic cement home in the Central Highlands of Mexico, filled with five dogs, means anything breakable will likely get broken...oh yes! The china cabinet. Perfect!

So now the little figurine lives with my grandma's china set and crystal glasses in the black china cabinet my partner had built for my 50th birthday. She looks out at me through the glass. She'll probably get dusty there -- it's unavoidable in my home -- but I know she's safe.

As I put her in the cabinet, I noticed that she was a "Friday's Child" figurine. Googling it, I learned this comes from a nursery rhyme written in 1838. It goes like this:

Monday's child is fair of face,
Tuesday's child is full of grace.
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child has far to go.
Friday's child is loving and giving,
Saturday's child works hard for a living.
And the child born on the Sabbath day
Is bonny and blithe, good and gay.

And another realization hit me: Mom must have it because she too was born on a Friday. I looked it up, and yes, she was. I've always identified so much with my dad, and I knew he and I had both been born on a Friday. It never occurred to me to wonder on what day of the week my mom had been born.

So this angel now symbolizes for me the things that I don't yet know about my mom, the things that I'd never bothered to find out, and also, the fragility of her life -- our lives -- now.


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