I don’t think Bananarama was singing about dead mothers in “Cruel Summer”, but I am. I want her all the time, but especially this summer. Sometimes I just don’t want to hear that I’ve got a lifetime to get used to her not being here.

You’ll learn to love summer again.” That’s what they say, but I don’t want to hear it. You’ve got to rejoin the land of the living. “You’ve got to press on and make memories for your own children. She won’t be there with her famous potato salad and baked beans and witty one-liners as she stands in the kitchen and slices the onion. I don’t want to tend to the garden. I find no real joy in that anymore. I don’t want to grill out. I don’t want to fill her old terracotta pots with flowers. The days drag on, hot and humid, and the sun takes forever to set on another day of grief and longing. The lounger where we shared laughs and deep talks and she decided on a whim to get up and go to the kitchen to make a lemon meringue pie. It’s summertime, a season for family, and my parents should be here.įor the first time in my life, I can barely stand the heat. The lounger next to me is empty- the lounger where we basked in the sun together and where she drank lemonade from her monogrammed tumbler. I feel like I’m too young not to have any parents. I’m angry their mother is helping them in their flower beds. I feel cheated when I see grandparents at the ball field rooting for that kid in the batter’s box. I’m jealous they are sharing a condo at Gulf Shores. I’m angry she isn’t here. Most of my friends still have their parents, and I’m jealous of that. I thought of all of that while humming Bananarama. I loved that they made so many summer memories with her. “Can we stay again tonight, Mama?” Of course I let them. And another. Mammy was going to take them to the farmer’s market. They’d call the next afternoon and ask if they could stay another night. My children would stay the night at her house often during the summer. She reminisced about the summers of her youth in Nashville. We’d talk about that last trip to Pensacola and those Po’ boys at Peg Leg Pete’s. She’d get out and lounge next to me, her blonde hair pulled into a pony tail and her tan toes shining with Silver City Pink polish. She raced my children from the shallow end to the deep. Something that I once delighted in, a treasured summertime hobby, has become painful. I wanted to kneel down in the mulch with her and pull weeds and plant impatiens like we’ve done hundreds of times before. I can’t even look at my garden this season without being overcome with grief. I wanted to walk around my yard and hear her comment on how beautiful my hydrangeas look. She knew so much about plants and we spent hours working in flower beds together. I wanted to phone her and ask her to come over. Yeah, I could Google it, but that isn’t the same. Last week I stood in my flower bed and cried because I couldn’t call her and ask what kind of fertilizer my azaleas need. This is the first summer without her, and I’m struggling. Summer has always represented freedom, the unplugging of alarm clocks, cookouts, weekends at the river, air-conditioned rooms with balconies overlooking the beach, crickets singing, fireworks, laughter, memories. I’ve never minded the heat, either. That can be relieved by a dip in the pool, a trip to the Gulf, a cute tank top and cold drink. I grew tall and tan during the summers of my youth. Sleepovers, swimming, road trips, Kool-Aid by the trough.Īs a teenager, I spent the nights riding around my small, southern town with friends and staying up late to write stories about young love. As a child, there was no greater feeling than throwing my back pack into the closet and hitting the neighborhood on my bike. Of all the songs in the world, I was dipping my feet into the water and humming Bananarama. I was sitting by my pool yesterday, while my children tortured a poor blow-up shark by doing cannonballs on top of it, and I found myself humming that song. What is that? A xylophone? I’ve never been sure. Anyway, the lyrics say, “It’s a cruel, cruel summer. Such a catchy little tune, isn’t it? Bum bum bum bum-bum bum bum. Oh, sweet Bananarama with your 80’s one-hit wonder.

Susannah flood legs and feet