I opened the dishcloth drawer for the sixth time, hoping the towels had magically appeared.

The new towels weren’t there yet, of course.

“What did mom do with them?” I wondered aloud.

He knew they had to be somewhere because he had given them to her for Christmas just a few months ago. Not that towels were that terribly important. It’s just that when you are waiting for guests, you wish everything looked good.

Okay, maybe I wasn’t going to find them. On the other hand, the guests would not arrive until tomorrow. Long time to worry about kitchen towels later.

On second thought, maybe I should forget about the towels altogether. My father’s niece and her husband didn’t seem like the type to leave angry because their host hadn’t brought out new kitchen towels.

Whats Next?

Maybe I better see if I can get my hands on Mom’s best tablecloth. A tablecloth had always been one of the things my mother insisted on when we had company.

I went to the drawer where Mom kept her tablecloths and, sure enough, there it was.

But when I pulled out the hand-embroidered tablecloth, the one that had taken him months to complete, I gasped. Right in the middle was a large stain. Now, how in the world did Mom’s best tablecloth end up with a stain?

Oh yeah, that’s correct. We had all been here for Christmas, and one of the kids had accidentally knocked over a soda glass. Seeing her grandson crying with remorse had been more important than the tablecloth, and Mom had said she was sure the pop would come out when she washed it.

Okay, it looked like I would have to forget about the tablecloth too. Maybe I better take care of the important things right now, anyway, like vacuuming.

Satisfied that I was finally going to make some progress, I pulled out the vacuum cleaner.

Except. . . Why did it sound so funny? And why wasn’t she picking up those scraps of paper on the living room rug?

I pulled out the accessory hose and flipped the switch again. Ah ha. That’s why. No suction. The hose was plugged.

Well of COURSE the hose was plugged. I couldn’t find the new tea towels. Mom’s best tablecloth had a big stain. Why wouldn’t the vacuum hose be plugged?

And at that very moment, I started crying. Now what was I going to do? Would a wire hanger work? Thirty minutes later, however, the vacuum cleaner was still plugged in.

Where was dad He knew he was out and that he was probably lounging in his garden, since it was the middle of April, but why wasn’t he here when he needed him? After being a farmer for 50 years, he could fix absolutely anything.

Just at that moment, my father entered the house.

“What happen?” he asked, noticing that she had been crying.

Even though it had been years since I called him “dad”, it escaped me and, along with it, came more tears.

“Oh Dad, I can’t find the new tea towels. The tablecloth has a big stain. The vacuum is clogged. And …”

I stopped and gulped.

“I miss my mother”.

There. I said so.

And in that instant, the whole world seemed to stop as Dad took a deep breath and slowly let it out.

“I know you do,” he said. “I also.”

You see, just three weeks earlier, my mother had been diagnosed with advanced gallbladder cancer. Mom died Saturday night and this was Monday. My father’s niece and her husband would drive 275 miles to attend the funeral and would stay at the house.

When Dad looked at me, I noticed how much he seemed to have aged in the last few weeks. And his face was covered in a silvery stubble. It was a weird morning where my father didn’t shave, but the last two days had been far from normal.

“And you know what?” Dad continued. “You will always miss your mother. In fact, she will never completely disappear. Not even when you’re as old as I am.”

Dad was 70 years old. I was 26 years old. I never met daddy’s mother. She had died before I was born.

Mom had contracted polio in 1942 when she was 26 years old and was paralyzed in both legs. At the time, the doctors had told her that she would never have any more children. I was born 16 years later.

After the funeral was over and my father’s relative went home, I found the tea towels. Mom had kept them in her dresser drawer. And with several washes, the stain finally came off the tablecloth. Dad had also been able to fix the vacuum cleaner.

But nothing could fix the fact that my mother was gone.

Mom died in 1985, and all these years later, I realize that Dad was right: I will always miss her.

But I also found out what else he was trying to tell me that April day so long ago: that missing my mother keeps her alive in my heart.

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