Mother’s Day

Once I nursed a black swallowtail butterfly through the winter after it had hatched too early, one unseasonable, balmy February day.

I found it—a dark, fluttery thing—in the net cage I had raised the caterpillar in and then stored in our cool, dim, cellar to over-winter. The torn membrane of the chrysalis was still anchored to the cage cover.

We fed it sugar water and an occasional slice of apple—and it was interesting to watch it unfurl its slender proboscis to drink the droplets of water.

As Mother’s Day approaches, I remember that particular butterfly. It’s part of the piecemeal of images my mind holds when I think about this time of year. It happened to be Mother’s Day weekend when I released that butterfly after its winter visit—leaving it under our lilac bush that was just coming into bloom. That same day was also my son’s first communion, a sunny, warm day with photos and cake and everyone talking about the upcoming Sullivan West school board election. And, it was later that night when my sister called to say that our mother had just died.

My mother’s death wasn’t expected—despite the fact she was an 87-year-old woman with a heart condition. Even the caretakers at the veteran’s home where she was a resident were a little shaken. For me, there was grief and regret but also relief—a feeling of long, deep, new breaths.

All our relatives gathered to remember her. And, for several days we all learned new details both large and small about her life.

Like how she had cared for Holocaust survivors in Europe where she had served as a nurse during World War Two. Or, her expertise at extracting June bugs from the ears of children who spent their summers at local camps. Or, her love of silver lamé and sequins when she was young.

But, perhaps most telling was the revelation that our family had been much bigger than I had known.

I’d known that my parents had incompatible blood types (my mother was Rh negative), which was much more of an issue in pregnancy 60 years ago than it is now. Also, I knew my mother had lost a newborn child and had suffered miscarriages and stillbirths; I was unaware, though, that she had lost so many children until my sister started telling me their names: Joseph, Robert, Roberta, Michael and Shawn. There would have been nine of us altogether (including me and my three sisters.)

As the days and months went on, my family and I learned that a number of the children were buried on my parent’s farm in graves that had long fell to disrepair. At one time they had been marked with wooden crosses but these were gone, leaving just a small field with old, dying apple trees.

We decided to mark the babies’ plot by laying a stone and creating our own memorial. My husband, John, enclosed the gravesite with a homemade chain fence and he keeps it mowed.

I see the memorial as an overdue acknowledgement of these children, and testimony to my mother’s often overlooked grief and trauma and the things we never spoke of. It is a way also of finishing the things she couldn’t—of sorting through and cleaning up.

This month my mother will be dead four years and we will leave flowers not only at her grave, but also at the graves of her remembered children.

- Kristin Barron