Laundry

 I remember playing amid the bed sheets hanging from Mom’s clothesline at seven years old, my sister briefly silhouetted by the morning sun, disappearing before I could tag her. Only the ghost of a giggle remained to prove she’d been there.                            

When I was 16, my mother worked on an inpatient psychiatric unit, a high school equivalency degree enough to quality her to monitor the residents. One day, when a colleague was on lunch break and late to return, my mom was left defenseless in the face and fists of a resident who tried to kill her. With blackened eyes, bruised throat and broken ribs she watched me hang our laundry under a dazzling sky,  me so desperate to help, so thankful that intervention came in time and she was returned to us intact, mostly. It was a gift to have her continued guidance as I moved into adulthood.

I put up a small  umbrella clothesline outside our duplex door in 1988 and hung my children’s clothes to dry throughout the summer when they were one and two-years old. Onesies, wee socks, sleepers, leggings, t-shirts and sweet teddy bear crib sheets cavorted in the breeze amidst my husband’s work shirts. These were meditative moments while toddlers napped, and the scent of line-dried sheets was a comforting welcome when it was time to sleep.

We bought our first house in 1991 and erected a sturdy clothesline behind our garage. It was the site of energy saving efficiency as well as fantasy borne of blankets slung over the lines to create forts for my little ones. We’d play beneath the woolly shade imagining we were dragons or pirates or royalty in a castle.

When we moved to our current home in 2014, we reverted to the umbrella style clothesline to make the most of a smaller back yard. One day when I was hanging shirts on the line, my little neighbor girl asked why I was putting my clothes on a tree. It saddened me to realize that she would never know the joy of hiding among the sheets or pretending beneath a blanket lovingly positioned by a parent. I explained that I was drying my clothes, that I loved the way they smelled when I brought them in, that I was saving energy by letting the sun and the breeze do the work that would otherwise fall to the dryer in the basement, that I enjoyed the excuse to spend a little more time outside. She simply nodded and trotted off to play with her brother.

February of 2024 was a strange month in Wisconsin, warm enough for me to hang laundry on the line above snow-free grass. Dormant plants were tricked by the spring-like weather and some began to sprout. I carried my laden clothes basket to the back yard, basking in the 50-degree temperatures and the brilliant sun. I thought of all the times my mom had hung the laundry to dry, and her mom, and her mom’s mom. My mom was prevalent in my thoughts that day… She was at her home dying of the cancer that had spread throughout her body and I was at my home for only a few hours… my sisters and I were caring for her around the clock and it was my turn for a brief respite. I thought of her welcoming smile and sparkling eyes as I retrieved each item from the basket and fixed it with wooden clothespins to the web shaped lines. My gratitude for all she taught me welled and overflowed as tears.

She left us a few days later and I’m thankful she’s no longer suffering. I imagine her watching me hang laundry from wherever she is, smiling.