Little things

Naomi at the Pink Roadhouse in Oodnadatta, South Australia.

We got her a very cool hat to protect her fair, facial skin from sunburn. She is wearing that hat in this photo. She posed for me so I could take the Aborigine man's photo in the background.

Aborigines sometimes have a phobia about being photographed. This man had been "playing" the guitar for our amusement, with no chords or melody.

We figured that his mode of playing was for money to be tossed into a "bush hat" while he pinched a cigarette between two forefingers of the same hand that rested on top of the guitar's neck. The other hand strummed that same aimless tune..."gadang, gadang, gadang, gadang," while he sang whatever words he wanted to.



Jason near a dry lake bed outside of Marree, South Australia. The white line in the background is salt. Lots of dry lake and riverbeds in Australia are salty. Up close, it looks like snow.


Jason and Naomi at Bell's Beach, Victoria. A world-wide famous surfing spot, the waves weren't very big on this day. Good thing...we didn't have time for Jason to surf. The little black dots to the left of Naomi are surfers.
......

It was too quiet when I slid open the big glass door, the back entrance to our home.

A vision of my son sitting on a bar stool, bent over his computer at the kitchen counter met me. But he wasn't there.

Small reminders of his and his wife's month-long visit to my home in Australia greeted me as I slowly walked around the house.

I savored each bit.

There was the flat, cardboard backing from his purchase of computer screen cleaner, and the bottle's cap on the beige, leather sofa.

 Four wine glasses with tiny pools of red nectar in the bottom curves waited near the sink.

Empty Tupperware containers sat nearby, draining, where Naomi had washed and left them to dry.

There was a coffee mug...handle broken...the memory of Jason's surprise at it's sudden demise when he held it made me chuckle.

Near where his laptop computer was stationed I found a tag taken from a hat he'd purchased in Coober Pedy, and my book that he'd been reading, Fatal Shore, a history of Australia.

The memory of his reading excerpts aloud reminded me he wasn't here anymore.

Oil from dinner the night before was splattered around the stove-top, and I reluctantly cleaned it up.

Jason and Naomi made a special goodbye meal of a Spanish potato and onion dish that I love...to go along with the roast lamb that I made because I know they like that. It was a mututal "love" dish, one could say.

It was also a belated Mother's Day gift, as we were camping Outback on that holiday. Naomi had also spent a lot of time making chocolate and oreo "truffles" as well. I have saved a few in the freezer to savor.

I started to clean up, because my niece-in-law and her husband were coming with their four-month-old baby girl to stay with us for the weekend, starting that night.

I put away bananas and cereal that Naomi enjoyed.

At the back of the house, in the room they stayed in, I gathered sheets they'd slept on and towels they'd used after showers. The bathroom fairly echoed with the absence of their things.

Near Jason's side of the bed I found two empty wine bottles he'd planned to take home as a remembrance of our time in the Barossa and Clare Valleys in South Australia. Reluctantly, I put them in the recycle bin, along with brochures he'd gathered about places we'd traveled in Australia.

I meandered to the front of the house and found on my bed a neatly folded winter scarf that I'd let Naomi borrow.

In the room opposite, on an old table, I came across a stack of books I'd recently purchased with Jason at "our" favorite bookstore in Ballarat. I fingered the pages and remembered coffee and congenial silences broken by sporadic comments on this or that author, and this or that topic over a few hours of bliss.

Jason told me he'd written something for me to read in a book I'd purchased...a treasure-book that he'd discarded because he was being frugal. I read the two pages he'd penned in the front of the book and wept. What wonderful things he wrote to me. I wish all mothers had a son as conscientious and loving as him.

As I puttered around the house, getting things ready for our newest set of family visiting, I heard echoes of laughter, the sound of my voice reading stories to Jason in front of the morning fire blazing away, and of my son reading prose and other stories to me.

His and Naomi's laughter is embedded in the walls of this house.

I can still feel my son's warm hugs, his kiss on my cheek as a child and as a man, and see him smiling at me, with his beloved wife by his side...their arms reaching high and hands forming the "I Love You" sign with thumb, forefinger, and pinky...as they left to board their Qantas flight back to a life they've formed together in Denver, Colorado.

I am content, for now, with what I had for a brief month.