Connections

I glanced at my phone again and felt incredibly ridiculous.  What was I thinking?  How could I have been so delusional?  But for just one moment, one second in time, I had flipped back into the past.  I had slid out of the present moment and felt as if I was living ten or twelve or even twenty years before now.

I had actually just picked up my phone to call my mother.  Maybe I wanted to call my mother because I suddenly remembered that I still have her phone number programmed into my phone.  I know that I should probably delete it.  In fact, I should have erased it a long time ago.  But that action just seemed so final.

With all of my traveling and moving lately, I’ve lost or given away pictures, mementos, knick-knacks, and souvenirs.  Some of the items from the past have been packed away in places where I don’t have access to them every day.  So my mother’s phone number registered in my phone is my only constant reminder that she had been a part of this journey.

I haven’t dialed my mother’s number since the day she had moved to California from Kansas in August of 2009.  She spent the last nine months of her life with me in Palm Springs, so, of course, her phone had been disconnected the day she left Kansas.  Why did I keep the number even after she moved in with me?  Maybe I kept it because it was the same phone number that my family had when I was a child.  Maybe it is the number not only to my mother’s phone, but to my past as well.

I don’t know…Maybe it’s just laziness.  I don’t pay a lot of attention to my phone.  I don’t mess with it.  Maybe I just don’t worry about my phone because I just don’t care about technology.

But, for whatever reason, my mother’s number is still in my phone.

I wonder if the phone number has been recycled now.  I wonder who would answer if I suddenly got over my fear and anxiety and called my mother again.

I stared at my phone for a moment.  What if by some miracle, by some miraculous connection to heaven and by the pure grace of God, I would hear my mother’s voice again after the nine years she has been gone now?  If my mother answered the phone, what would I even say to her?  But, damn, wouldn’t that be amazing!

I stared at my phone again, so tempted to hit the call button.  But if I did how would I explain the reason I’m calling if someone other than my mother answered?

This is so hard…

Because, damn, I just really needed to talk to her today.

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