“The Final Word” for dVerse Poets, Feb 18, 2025

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“The Final Word”

Purchased before fur was vilified, Mother’s fur coat was well-used during South Dakota winters when snowbanks piled up to our second-story windows, but it found little use once they moved to Arizona the year I left home to go to college. It was 30 years later, after her death, that we found it in the back of her closet.  Along with her car, it was the one item that my mother had insisted should go to me. Ironic, I thought, as I had so often self-righteously railed against her possession of it. Attached to it was a copy of a poem I had written in college and sent to her, a line of which said, “I’ve lost the means to thaw my soul.”  Across the bottom of the poem pinned to the coat she had scrawled, “Make of it a parka for your soul”.

 

For dVerse poets, we are to write a prose poem containing this quote from an Alice Walker poem: “Make of it a parka for your soul”.

26 thoughts on ““The Final Word” for dVerse Poets, Feb 18, 2025”

  5. Kim of Glover Gardens's avatarKim of Glover Gardens

    Oh Judy, this is so beautiful and poignant, weaving in a mother’s lasting love for her daughter with the changing times that sometimes make it so hard for us to connect across generations sometimes. A posthumous and tactile message of love is so very meaningful.

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  6. Lisa or Li's avatarmsjadeli

    2nd try on comment (and forgot to save before hitting send, dammit) Love the photo of your mom. She resembles my grandma. I can see you were a poet even then. Your mom is a wise woman. Could it be our challenge on this life journey is to learn how to turn lemons into lemonade? What did you end up doing with the coat?

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    1. lifelessons's avatarlifelessons Post author

      That is not my mom’s original mink coat. I couldn’t find the photo I had of it. This is the one I wrote about a few months ago–Phyllis Diller’s fur coat that my husband-to-be bid on at an auction and gave her for Xmas. The story I wrote for this is fiction to go with the prompt. I don’t know what happened to my mother’s mink. My sister disposed of all of her stuff. The only thing I asked for was my grandpa and dad’s old hand-forget hammer, which I still have. My mother did say the car went to me, too, since she worried that we were driving an old one. We all inherited equally portions of whatever savings she had and money from the sale of her house.

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      1. Lisa or Li's avatarmsjadeli

        Your husband-to-be gave Phyllis Diller a mink coat? Just making sure. I’m sure that is an interesting story also. I’m glad you got something to remember them by. My mom gave me some knick-knacks before she passed on or I wouldn’t have gotten anything. Same thing with my grandma. It’s enough.

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          1. Lisa or Li's avatarmsjadeli

            Oh my goodness! That’s a neat piece of history. I thought he bought the coat for Phyllis but decided to give it to your mom instead. Any configuration is cool (except for the mink, of course.)

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        2. lifelessons's avatarlifelessons Post author

          I was working for Bob Hope at the time so had her phone number. I was also volunteering for the Venice Poetry Workshop and we were having a fundraising auction, so I asked her to donate something. She did–her fur coat. My mother was visiting and came to the auction and started bidding on the coat. Someone else kept bidding against her but we didn’t know who. Turned out it was my husband, who wrapped it up and gave it to her for Xmas. It certainly won her over. She had been so disappointed that she hadn’t won the bid!

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          2. Lisa or Li's avatarmsjadeli

            Oh that is amazing. Truth is ALWAYS stranger than fiction. You worked for Bob Hope. You asked Phyllis Diller to donate and she donated her coat. And the bidding war. Wish I would have read this before reading your other comment.

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  8. pinktoaddiaries's avatarPink

    i remember my grandma having a fur coat. she also had ceramic cats that had pink fur collars glued around their necks. ahhhh, the things we remember! thanks for the good memories that your story brought me today. xoxo, pink

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