Meet my mother - Miss Mary Margaret Mobley...

Most mothers make muffins,

Mary Margaret makes messes.

Many mothers marry military men,

Ms. Mobley mocks monogamy.

My mother meets millionaires monthly,

makes money mysteriously materialize.

Mary Margaret Mobley mutilates morality.

My mother’s makeup meticulously masks

mountainous moles.

Maybe my mother must meditate,

Master mindfulness,

Meet my minister.

Maybe my mother made me malicious,

murdered my mild-mannered mentality.

My moodiness mirrors Ms. Mobley’s,

makes my mouth misbehave.

Mary Margaret’s mania mutated

Medicate me.

One hundred syllables of prose I must write,

One hundred syllables of prose...

I’ll take my time and clap it out,

for a hundred syllables of prose I must write.

One hundred syllables of prose I must write,

One hundred syllables of prose...

I’ll sing and I’ll count,

I’ll laugh and I’ll gloat

to the tune of the marvelous prose I just wrote!

Come sing with me, we’ll clap with glee,

To the tune of the marvelous prose I just wrote!

It stays quiet and glows when I put it in the corner.

It lights up a room with the touch of a button.

I need a ladder to place something on top of it.

An angel is a fitting accessory for it.

Cats love to climb it.

I store it in the attic 11 months out of the year.

Dance with me sweet girl,

Twirl and leap and smile.

Love your life dear child,

Grip it snug and tight.

Use the rain to cleanse

And the sun to shine,

For night will fall fast

And the end will come.

I suffer from night terrors. It is far more unsettling for those who have to bear witness to my midnight musings than it is for me, as I rarely have any recollection of these episodes.

I felt it important to let you in on that before I let you in on this: Hitler is currently perched on the edge of my bed. I jumped a little at this discovery. Sure I did. For I live alone, and any nighttime, foot-of-the-bed surprise guest would be unwelcome. Make it the apparition of a long-dead tyrant with the blood of millions on his hands and well... I’m going to need a minute.

And my bowels, you might ask?

Miraculously intact. He isn’t speaking, and for that I am grateful as “verruckt” and “scheissekopf” are the only two German words that have managed to shake off the three decades of dust since my last German class and join me here in this moment. Fitting as they are, they don’t make for great (or lengthy) conversation, so I, too, remain silent.

He is tall - much taller than I expected for someone among the likes of Mussolini, Stalin, and Napoleon.

I’ve always imagined those with unfathomable reserves of vile to be disproportionate in their stature causing spontaneous combustion and a flooding of evil across international boundaries.

“Wo bin ich?” he whispers, looking up.

Where is he. I almost laugh. It appears Herr Psycho has landed on the *wrong* duvet cover in tonight’s game of Musical Dimensions. I smile and reach for the lamp on my bedside table eager to illuminate both the Star of David tapestry hanging on the wall before him and his subsequent reaction.

Aside from a brief widening of the eyes, he does not flinch. His gaze drops to his lap and for the first time I notice he is clutching a copy of Mein Kampf in his trembling left hand. My Struggle. Hitler’s Struggle. *My* Struggle. I would imagine right now they are one and the same: he is in the bedroom of a menopausal Jewish woman.

“Ah, I see you brought a little light reading. Perhaps we should follow it up with a documentary on the Holocaust?”

“Heil Hitler!” he barks.

“GO to Hell, Hitler!” I exclaim.

Normally I don’t believe in hell. But right now, tonight, in the middle of this night terror/delusion/psychotic break I find myself in, I can’t imagine a more suitable place for this man than an eternal, fiery pit.

He gestures wildly toward a pen on my bedside table and I stare incredulously as he opens the front cover of his manifesto and begins to scribble an inscription. I’ve got Hitler, Hitler’s book, and a pen - it’s a book signing, folks. 2020 style.

The faster he writes, the more he begins to fade. I can practically see through him and I shut my eyes against the absurdity of it all. I feel the weight of the book beside me as I drift off to sleep and pray for the light of day.

Before I died, mommy was always telling me that children should be seen and not heard.

My proclivity for laughter and insatiable curiosity in the nine years leading up to my departure from the land of the living, prohibited this proverb from sprouting wings and becoming a reality in her day-to-day. But her dedication to the notion deserves an honorable mention, nonetheless.

The spirit is eternal. If you believe nothing else, believe that. My mortality gave up and ran out of steam two years ago next week, but my zest? It permeates the barrier between the living and the dead.

I inhabit mama on her bad days. I lift the weight of the world from her head and heart with a strength that only a nine-year-old spirit can muster.

Now, more than ever, I know she wishes she could hear my voice, my laugh, my relentless inquiries into the wonders of the world. When that longing liquifies and escapes her eyes,

I reach inside my toolbox of soul balms and lavish her as is fitting: a good night’s sleep, a tucked away memory, a snuggle or a kiss on the cheek.

I cradle her in the afterlife as she cradled me in life. In death, I have gained a true understanding of faith:

we do not have to be seen to be heard and we do not have to be heard to be felt.