My kids always said that I could control the weather because every time I went to Oklahoma to visit them there would be a tremendous change from the weather predicted.
They said I could bring on a heat wave or I could make one leave. During droughts, rain would arrive the same day that I did.
Out of season weather would show up. Storms, snow, ice, hail, rain, and tornadoes.
After the furious weather, there would always be stunning rainbows and gorgeous sunsets.
I never claimed that I could change the weather with my presence, but my kids insisted that I did and I started to believe them because it happened every time I visited.
The first three years I lived in Vermont, the sunsets wrapped around my entire house, every night, painting glorious colored clouds.
If I was driving up to the house, it looked like the sunset belonged to only me and my 2 acres.
I would run out after supper and roam my fields, capturing pictures from every side of the house. I even did walk around the house videos without losing sight of the sunset. I never understood the dynamics of why the sunsets surrounded my house, no matter where the sun went down.
My husband tried to teach me north, south east and west, again, but I wasn’t interested. In other words, I put my hands over my ears and sang Janis Joplin songs.
That’s when he drew a map on my fence post. I smile every time I see it because eventually he had to admit that the sunset surrounded our house every night, and it didn’t matter which direction it went down.
The sun has not colored my skies since my son died, April 18, 2023. I know because I peek out every night to see if there is any color in the sky.
I get a few streaks of pale orange now and then, that’s it. My wrap around the house sunsets are gone; and somehow, I feel responsible.
It’s as if my happiness attracted the yellow, gold, orange, red and pink cloud explosions and then, my grief sent all the colors away.
I don’t know if I will ever find my way back to the woman who chased the sun.
The one who spent hours taking pictures of corn fields, flowers and clouds as the sun went down, amazed as the sun’s rays changed everything they touched.
The woman who naively believed that she could fix her children’s addictions with her prayers, her love and her charge cards was forced to acknowledge that she could not save them.
She sits at her corner table in the laundry room, staring out the back window and she knows the sun is out there, not here, but somewhere.
She misses the sunset pictures her son used to send her when he was on the road. The sun loved him too.
She knows that she lost her connection to the sun the moment her son drew his last breath. She doesn’t know when she’ll be strong enough to attract the sun’s presence back into her life.
My pictures are a memory I can hold in my hand. My kids always said, “No more pictures Mom,” but I snapped away. As they have grown older, they too snap up every moment with their cell phones. I like to think that I taught them to capture moments. Today is slipping by fast, the hour glass never rests. Yesterday is gone, tomorrow…just a hope, but my pictures are forever and they will exist long after I’m gone. Every picture in this collection has a story. Collecting them for this post has inspired me to make each of my kids a scrapbook instead of leaving behind hundreds of discs. I thought the only thing that I would leave them was my writing. These pictures reminded me that my life has been full of joy and laughter, tears and traumas, but most of all love. That is what I shall leave them. Love. The proof is in the pictures.
Women Who Think Too Much by Jeanne Marie 
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