A Nearly Forgotten Memory

“How beautiful,” a lady seated behind me sighed. With her nose and hands pressed against the window, and a wide-eyed stare, her enthusiasm reminded me of a child outside of a shop window at Christmastime. “How stunning,” she added.

I turned to look. With one hand cupped over my eyes, I scanned the sky through the stretched-acrylic peephole, in search of the picturesque phenomenon which fascinated this woman. There in the distance, I saw it. In the eastern sky, slightly below us, was the shadow of our plane approaching a circular rainbow. It was beautiful. She was right. As the silhouette moved nearer to the spectacle, the cabin became brighter. I thought it odd at first, but ultimately concluded that the plane was turning sunward.

Suddenly, a reddish hue enveloped everything: the seats, the ceiling, the floor, the people…The people were all red. I was red! I looked to my right at the woman who had first seen the image in the clouds. In addition to being rose-colored, her features began to change; slightly at first, then rapidly. Before my eyes, her nose developed a distinctive hook. It was as if a bone abruptly grew, midpoint, above her nasal cavity, pushing it upward, and causing it to slope toward her upper lip. Her eyes softened. There was something familiar in the twinkle found there. Her cheeks fell. Strange, the change sparked a nearly forgotten memory.

My surroundings suddenly turned from red to bright orange. In that moment – and to my amazement – my mother sat where a stranger had been. I clenched my eyes shut and opened them again. It was her. But it can’t be, I told myself. It was impossible. She had passed away years ago. We had planned a trip to her homeland, Central America, that year. A trip I was now taking – alone.

It took me forever to pack. My recollections of her consumed every minute of the required task.

How many shoes should I take?

Did I pack the phone charger?

Will I need an iron?

And on, and on, and on.

Each step onto the plane had weighed heavily on my mind because she wasn’t with me. I had imagined her here – next to me – many times during the flight. My mind certainly played tricks on me this time.

But then, it spoke. It sounded like my mother!

“Meda mija,” she said watching the image in the sky, “Muy bonita. Very beautiful, no?”

“Mother!” I cried with tears falling down my cheeks and soaking my chin. “You’re dead!”

“No, no, mi amor. I’m right here,” she responded in that beautiful Spanish lilt that I missed so much. “You’re dreaming.”

I watched her every move. I listened to her every word as if sound itself was the oddity. Then, again, the interior of the plane color changed. A blinding yellow light swept through the entire cabin, cleansing it of the orange once there.

I was sobbing like a baby.

With a look of confusion, she added, “Don’t cry. I’m here. I’m not leaving you.”

“But you did leave me!” I argued. “You left, and I didn’t want you to go. I wanted you to stay with me always.”

She reached out to touch my cheek, and I felt it. She was real – flesh, bones, warmth…She brushed the wet strands of hair from my face as her palm slid over my temple. Her velvet touch was what I missed most; what I remembered most. Her fingers combing through my hair and around my ear had stilled my childhood’s tumultuous sea. It had been the light, which had shown me the way through puberty’s fog; the anchor I needed as a young adult. I never wanted it to end. I needed it to last forever.

“Nothing lasts forever, my angel,” she replied. “Life has but a few precious moments for us. But these end, and so do we.”

As everything around me started turning green, I finally realized that the rainbow caused this illusion. My mother was here – with me – because of the rainbow…because of the plane’s shadow…because of our route that day. It was my “perfect storm,” so to speak. Somehow, someway, it all brought her back to me. But for how long?

No one else seemed to notice any of it, however. No one else watched in awe as we became a flying color wheel. Perhaps I was merely mad. My screws had finally come loose. Yeah, that was it, I told myself. My cuckoo had cuckooed.

She hadn’t taken her eyes off me, nor I her. We were both anxious, but for very different reasons. She was in a state of confusion. I was in denial.

Before this flight, I had almost forgotten what she looked like. I had almost forgotten the sound of her voice. I hoped this trip to see her relatives would restore these treasured memories; would rebuild my crumbling past.

Everything turned blue.

“Not blue! Not yet!” I screamed.

My mother warily spoke: “Calm down, honey. What’s blue?”

“Don’t leave me,” I sobbed. “Don’t leave me, again.”

“I’m right here. Everything’s fine,” she comforted.

My time with her was distressingly brief. I knew it. And I panicked. Did I have enough time to tell her how much she had meant to me; how awful my life would have been without her, or how much I loved her? She saw the fear in my eyes as the dreaded indigo color arrived.

My voice trembled as I said, “I love you, mother. There’s so much I want to say.”

My tears fell as she answered, “I know. I’ve always known. Don’t be afraid. I’m always with you. And if you ever need me just look in the mirror, you’ll see me there.”

There was a ringing in my ears as everything turned violet. I could smell her perfume: Elizabeth Arden’s Blue Grass.

It was over.

The plane returned to normal. She was gone.

“Deary, you must’ve dropped this,” The woman, who was my mother a moment ago, stated as she handed me a necklace from behind the seat.

It had been my mother’s. She had always worn it. We had buried her with it around her neck.

As the woman placed it in my hand, I remembered what my mother had told me the first time I saw it. She had pulled it away from her neck, had dangled it in the air, and said, “You are my pot of gold at the end of every rainbow, mija.” With that, my mind’s treasury was full again.

I had forgotten.