Waiting for Wild Horses

I am healing in this most gracious Airbnb in Fernley, Nevada. My brother lives here, but we hadn’t seen each other in three years. I brought some of Mom’s ashes. Denny says they’ll be buried with him.

I’m not sure what kind of restoration I need, but I think I’m receiving it here. I haven’t wept yet, but I’ve wandered around in some sort of a brain fog for weeks, and sometimes I can see a black hole on the right side of my body. The hole travels with me when I’m walking.

Toni, my host, lives in this 1100-square-foot house on a tiny plot of land here in the desert, but she is a Master Gardener, so she has a front lawn and back and flowers everywhere. She offers her master bedroom as a rest for the weary, a quiet oasis where love abounds and healing is possible. She is a joyful provider of shortbread cookies, muffins, and so many goodies I can’t name them all. She runs a not-for-profit (a real one that makes no money) to feed about eighty seniors in this small town. She used to cast movies and videos with some big names, and I bet she was good at it, but she seems so happy with this life of hers that her grace is contagious.

The kitchen is a bright, cool place to be in the mornings. I open the back door for more light and (dry) air. The same little lizard suns on the privacy fence every day. There is a wide easement beyond that fence where wild horses and one donkey appear every morning. I haven’t seen them yet, but I’ve been watching. One time a few years ago, I saw some wild horses on the drive from Reno to Fernley.

So many familiar reminders have appeared since I arrived. I saw a woman in the grocery store with a huge windcatcher tattoo wrapped around her arm, just like one of the seven Mom attached to her walker handles. At Toni’s house, little things keep popping up: a small, decorative screen door like one I bought (and don’t know if I even still have it), the flour sack towels, a hat that is so much like one that Dad wore in the garden (it took my breath away), a bird print outdoor pillow that is the same fabric I have folded up in a drawer, the identical taupe checked fabric of my bedroom curtains on the dining chairs. The sunflowers.

Oh, there’s more. The one that made me laugh is the bubble gum machine. Jade and John had one. It was just like Toni’s except theirs was red. The story that goes with that one has to do with a certain twelve-year-old son renting out his Dad’s Playboys and stashing the money in the bottom of the bubble gum machine. I only found out about that about thirty years later.

My rental Nissan Rogue sports Tennessee plates. When I arrived at Toni’s house, she was watching the last Hallmark movie I watched with Mom. I didn’t notice the Tennessee license plates until Bev mentioned it. Toni later told me she thought, “Surely that woman did not drive here from Tennessee!” And in Wal-Mart in Fernley, NV, a shirt with Nashville on the front!

We’re having a family gathering tomorrow. Denny, Bev, their children Jim, Angie, Jena, and their grandchildren. I’m not sure who else might be invited, but it’s going to be a large occasion with Olive Garden food, music from the great-grands, and lots of stories! Jim’s wife and the greats will choose which pieces of Mom’s jewelry they would like from a large cache I brought with me, except for Angie–she gets Mom’s wedding rings. Bev got to choose last night.

Mom died peacefully in her sleep on June 24 after a one-month illness. Tomorrow marks one month out. It’s too soon to expect too much restoration on my part, but I feel something working.

I thought Toni said I should look for the horses between 6:00 and 9:00 a.m. (Huh. Duh. Brain fog.) This morning, when I told her I was still watching for them, she said no, it’s between 4:00 and 6:00.

We don’t have wild horses in Tennessee. I’ve set an alarm for tomorrow at 4:00 a.m. It’s almost 11:00 a.m., and my little lizard is still sunning and running from one rail to the other, and I need to shower and get to my brother’s house.

But tomorrow morning, I’ll be waiting for wild horses.