To know my mother was almost like receiving a glimpse into heaven. She wasn’t famous or extreme, but she was beautiful in a way that not even words can explain.
She had the silkiest spool of blonde hair that when you ran your fingers through it, it would tickle the palm of your hand. Her color would never last long, however. Maybe it was because each color deserved to live on my mother. Each color wanted to share in her life, in the joy she created to those around her.
My father always used to think of my mother as a flower. Delicate and stunning yet when the wind soared and the petals flew, her independence would shine through. She was a mix of dependent yet strong, always wanting to help other people, but never wanting the help for herself. It never seemed to matter if she was happy. As long as we were, she would pride herself on that. Maybe that is why she became a psychiatrist. Because in the end it wasn’t about her … it was about everyone else.
There are things I couldn’t even begin to describe even if I tried my hardest and searched deep within my soul. She was a lover, a giver. She loved her children and her friends with all her heart, but it was my father who had taken her soul. Their story is like that of a fairy tale, mysterious and unique, yet utterly touching and so beautiful at the same time. In my own terms, I cannot possibly sum up what their life was like together, after all, I am only their daughter.
I cannot travel their hearts and their minds, all I can try to do is summarize what it was that I saw. A longing glance across the room was like a secret affair in which they divulged in. Their heads would simultaneously turn towards the other and their eyes would lock. A smile would form on their lips, lingering for a moment or two before reality would once again set in. They would go about what they were doing before yet the smile would still remain, as if all their thoughts were only on the other and nothing and no one else mattered.
I mean we mattered. She loved her children, but with him, with him it was so different. She was an angelic spirit to us all. A shoulder to cry on, an ear to listen … she was a beauty all on her own, a force so phenomenal one would not be able to picture unless they knew her.
As a child, it was as though my mother knew what to say and what to do to make us feel better. She would sit me down on the couch and allow me to cry, all the while clearing my tears and easing my heart. It wasn’t really what she said or even how she said it but it was the way her eyes looked when she stared. So much love and compassion, that somehow it would be all right. She was the courage in all of our lives, most especially my own and I loved her more than any single person in my lifetime.
In the years she has been gone, I have missed so many things. The fingers that held back my tears, the soft shoulder that cradled my head perfectly. I miss her face, her smile. But what I miss the most is the romance that would take over the household. The staring across the room, an aura of love so powerful, I almost wanted to blush every time I walked into my own front door. I miss the smile that would never cease from my father’s face while she was around. He hasn’t smiled the same way since … I guess we all know, he never will.
As the youngest daughter of Marlena and John Black, there are so many things, that not even I know. I was born four years into their marriage, a special anniversary gift that both my parents forever treasured. I wish I knew what it felt like to be in love the way they were … to be able to have someone who would look at me, they way they looked at each other … the way he still looks at her photos.
He sees her sometimes. He’ll never fully admit that to us, but we know. He’ll have a glow to him, that only she could radiate on him. She’s his angel, she’s all our angels.
When Mom died, she left each of us a letter. A letter filled with love, filled with the essence of who she was. And at the end of each letter, she finished with the same quote … a quote that will always be the essence of who and what Marlena Evans-Black stood for.
“The sun is going to shine and the rain is going to fall and in the end you might get burnt or wet, but that’s life. So dance in the puddles and bathe in the sun and at the end of the day, smile. Everything’s going to be all right.”
The Jarlena Journal 