Beekeeper's Moms

My mother, dead now two years, knew nothing about bees- but I kept two hives at her house- and she asked about them when I visited. They sat in her garden- a smallish one- deep in the Northwest woods of Douglas Fir, and Hemlock, and a river lined with Big Leaf Maple. Not a lot of sun- but enough for a garden, and bees.

My father died, and then she did, and I had to move that hive down to a farm in town. I think it too, eventually went under. All my family is gone now- I just have bees and a cat.

I remember her watching me pull the hives apart to inspect- from a distance- with her walker and a sister or two beside her. Asking questions. A serious look, and a furrowed brow.

She had a good attitude- a love of people- and the odd things they choose to do.

A few pictures. Her and I in a heart to heart where she is telling me exactly what she thinks at a family gathering. Many years ago. Cake in her hand. A glass of wine not too far away.

And long long ago, the 1980s, a scan from a real picture, Mount Nehalem behind her- on the Oregon coast where we spent many vacations, and here she is, feeling life.  Weird, what one remembers. I don't know what she was thinking. I wish, of course, now, that I did.