hearts of glass

YES! This was the exasperated and emphatic last word I heard from my mother. To this day, which would have been her 86th birthday, I remember not only the singularity of that word, but how it can have more than one meaning. “Yes” can only be definitive when the circumstances allow it. The word “no” unquestionably has more finality.

MY MOTHER'S last word answered to something that is not quantifiable: “Mother, you do know how much I love you, don’t you?” I asked. The impatient way she answered let me know she was ready to move beyond this life. She had not spoken a word to anyone for several days. No one even knew if she could, but because I was hovering around her deathbed keeping vigil while she was probably moving in and out of this life, she mustered up the strength to speak. That single word in that moment expressed there was something incredible beyond our physical lives and she wanted to get on with it.

YES! PERIOD. That word will never be the same to me. I see it as endless possibility instead of limited admittance. No one is in physical control of the circumstances that allow it in the first place. The control lies within one's spirit and the unseen forces of the universe.

FOR A COUPLE of years before my mother died, I found glass hearts to tie on her Christmas gifts. I never thought then they would be the beginning of a posthumous collection by which to remember her. The two hearts in the upper left of this photo are the ones from gifts she received. The rest I’ve collected since her death. The pink-and-silver brooch in the photo was bought after I had a dream about her finding my Christmas gift for her. It is how I pictured it in the dream, which in turn, inspired how a tree was decorated for an earlier post. Maybe this blog has become a continual gift to her, even in spirit. I'm realizing how much soulful inspiration she still gives me by how often she appears here in what I write and create in photography.

ALL THE THINGS associated with Valentine's day have become resonant in holding these good memories. They are the lessons of the spirit. From the flowers that burst suddenly into bloom on important days (mother's day, her birthday and my birthday), the fragile heart made of glass, to the chocolates I always received on Christmas Eve from my parents when I was too old to believe in Santa. I emphatically  believe in the philosophy behind the line from the editorial so famously written (by Francis Pharcellus Church), which ran in the September 21, 1897 edition of the New York Sun: "Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus."

HER NAME, Lois Virginia Moland is engraved in everything I do and say. Today, the credit for giving me life, even in death remains the driving force of my creative spirit. The gift of life, the gift of caretaking and a spirit in touch with something larger; I can only repay by living this life in her honor. And I'll keep creating something from her continued inspiration, wherever it springs forth, whether it be a flower, a beautiful heart, or a piece of chocolate pie. Her love lives within me. Happy birthday mother!

FRAGILE HEARTS | (Top, right - clockwise from top, left): A red-gridded heart was tied on a special Christmas gift my mother received and is from Neiman Marcus, a pink antiqued mercury glass ornament is from Dillards, a red antiqued mercury glass ornament and a large silver gridded heart are from Macy's. The small silver heart is the oldest and was made by Inge Glas of Germany (denoted by the star-shaped hanger top). The velvet Valentine candy box is a current item from Lindt Chocolates. A painted box and brown box with red ribbon are both from past seasons at Target.

BLOOMING LOVE | (Above, left) This "clown" (red with white) amaryllis was a Christmas gift (as a bulb) that miraculously bloomed just in time for my mother's birthday (the photograph was taken this morning). The planter is from my collection of milk glass. Ivy has long been a symbol of friendship and is rooting in a glass lab container. The glass heart and white love ornament (a representation of the pop artist Robert Indiana's love sculpture) are both from Urban Outfitters. The unfinished white heart candy box is part of a Valentine kit from Martha Stewart Crafts, beautiful here without embellishment.

RESTING PLACE | (Right) The most permanent graphic design project I've ever assumed was designing the typographic layout for my parent's gravestone. I doubt if there are many gravestones using the font Mrs. Eaves. It is one of my favorite fonts and I've used it in a permanent way here and in the Man and Cat symbol tattoed on my arm. They are buried in East Gadsden, Alabama at Crestwood Memorial Cemetery.

©2010 DARRYL MOLAND | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
photography and styling by Darryl Moland

 

flowers for my mother

THE PINK ROSE has become a supernatural symbol of my mother since her death. I dug up my mother's favorite pale pink rosebush from my childhood yard before my siblings and I sold their house a few years ago. Planted in a large container now, it has bloomed only on mother's day and my birthday—literally, the first blossoms opened on those particular days in the last couple of years. Whatever blooms were set in bud those days were the only ones of the season. In another unexpected instance, eight unusual pink paper roses arrived unexplained in a small box within a larger box of other items I had mail-ordered. I distributed those eight paper roses between my siblings as a posthumous gift from my mother. I didn't dare inquire why, but I had a sense that my mother has something to do with those roses being packed in the box.

I TOOK a colorful vase of homegrown roses from my mother's hospital room that my parent's neighbor, Jo Aultman, had brought to her during her last days. I left the hospital after mother died and drove the short trip home—the place where I had grown up. I looked at the roses and the air became electric. It felt as though I was seeing the life energy of those roses vibrate in front of me. I felt this incredible energy enter through the top of my head and travel throughout my body, all the way to my toes. If this is what Nirvana feels like, I felt it. I had an incredible sense of giddy happiness and a sudden inexplicable peace wash over me. It was as if, once she had realized she had passed on, she wanted to touch me one last time—even though I was holding her hand at her bedside when she died.

I KNEW it was my mother's spirit. Nobody can tell me any differently. In talking to my brother Mal later, he had a similar experience. That confirmed it. I wasn't loosing my mind in grief. I knew my mother was free of her failed earthly body and in a happier, more peaceful place. I knew that everything would be alright. Beyond that, this experience was a coded knowledge—something was there that I still can't explain. I've held that feeling with me in low times. It must have been a taste of the freedom one's soul feels after death—a confirmation that our souls have a life beyond our physical selves. What a gift! 

I BROUGHT mother roses from that bush innumerable times when I was a child. She brings roses to me now as an adult. That pale pink rose is a symbol that she is gone, but has become more than that. An excerpt from "Calling All Angels," a song played at mother's funeral in July 2005 (that I had played for her after my father died) says it as only poetry can:  

. . . and every day you gaze upon the sunset
with such love and intensity why it’s...it’s almost as if
if you could only crack the code
then you’d finally understand what this all means 

but if you could...do you think you would
trade it in all the pain and suffering?
ah, but then you’d miss
the beauty of the light upon this earth
and the sweetness of the leaving . . .
                                                        —Jane Siberry

THIS LAST DAY of summer, I give my mother flowers once again, this time for all to see. This is a medium of light and energy, after all. I consider myself one of the lucky ones. She and my father gave me a life that continues to blossom. They are the bedrock my roots hold onto and draw nourishment from. As hard as it is sometimes to keep my head up, all I have to do is remember them and I bloom with the palest, most pure intent. They are still shining beacons of hope to me. And hope does die last.

SUMMER'S END | This collecton of mercury glass flower ornaments (above, top) spill from a pink container next to a preserved rose wreath I gave my mother for mother's day a couple of years before she died. The pink roses are German-made ornaments, the orchids and pansy ornaments are made Poland—all of which are from Martha Stewart's now defunct Martha by Mail catalog. The three amaryllis blossoms were bought at Kmart a few years back and were purchased from the Martha Stewart Everyday Christmas Luster collection. The yellow trumpet flower clip ornaments are painted glass made in Poland and were found at Saks Fifth Avenue in Phipps Plaza, Atlanta. 


FLYING HOME | The aforementioned paper roses (above, left) that arrived inexplicably in the mail after my mother's death. Two birdhouses are tiny ornamental representations of the homes of free spirits. Birds, of course, can build their own homes, but are practical enough to feather their nests in whatever shelter they find.

LOVEBIRDS | My parents, Hubert and Virginia Moland (right), in a giddy moment early in their long life together. Photographer unknown.

©2009 DARRYL MOLAND | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

collecting, photography and styling by Darryl Moland