She Scotch-taped them as they arrived.
The threshold couldn’t hold them all.
Between the living room and kitchen
the Christmas cards hung open like parted lips.
Postal employees carried double heavy loads then.
Stamps were less than a dime
and tongues licked each one.
They arrived all through December.
To me it was like any collectors dream.
I used to collect beer and pop bottle caps
and keep them in an old Maxwell house coffee tin.
On occasion they fell out and stood in ordered battalions.
The cards lined up too and I thought
my mother was a curator of sorts.
She put them up for display
and passersby would thumb them open.
Beyond the Currier and Ives images,
beyond the glittered Santa beards,
beyond the bright star over the Savior
were cursive words at the bottom inside.
Greetings from around town and around the country,
hand written in indelible ink from indelible friends.
Aunts and uncles too, grandma’s and grandpa’s
shaken scrawl etched in the lower corner.
She sent them out too,
Her cursive swirled inside like flurries.
Her words beautiful, quiet,
and ending always in ‘Love comma.’
This Christmas eve I pray for snow.
I pray that the God of ‘Nothing is Impossible’
would send me snowflakes in the wind
like my mother’s handwriting.
Gerald the Writer 
Love your metaphors and the memories it brought back.
Merry Christmas.
…snowflakes in the wind like my mother’s hand writing. Nice to picture.
Merry Christmas!
Beautiful! Merry Christmas, Jerry.
Merry Christmas!
It began to snow here tonight while my ‘Dad’ was on his way home. It’s very pretty.
Merry Christmas!
Reblogged this on Gerald the Writer and commented:
And feeling her absence again, but with a smile.
Beautiful memories painted with beautiful words.
Thanks Rose. Say hello to all the writers tomorrow if you make it!
The beauty of memories that don’t fade but have a way of moving us in different ways each time we relive them. Thanks for sharing.
Indeed. Merry Christmas Jasper!