The Name on the Refrigerator Door

At home in Cheyenne, I scribble

“Mary Taylor” on a scrap of paper,

post it on my refrigerator door,

look at it often, feel a warmth only

family can give.   

It’s cold out here in the world, people

colliding with one another, hard

stares, sharp angles, words that drop on us

like stones.

Mary's refrigerator was a collage of names

and photos, a gallery of causes for prayers

that rose from her like a perfumed mist; she walks

among us, whispers “Go ahead and tell that story, you

know the one, the epic, the really long one that

encompasses your world and ours.”

So we do. Tales of football games and busted

dreams. “Remember the time?”….and you don’t

remember it quite that way so tell

your version – Mary said it was O.K.

We wake Mary with talk and food and drink. 

We look at old photos, faces from the past in Grandpa

Hett the Irishman who might have been a little bit

French; Terry Taylor, dead at 40, missed all

these years; Anna Hett my mom who became a

Shay and Mary Hett who became a Taylor

and is with us still.

The name on the refrigerator door is Mary Taylor,

she who delivers the healing prayers and now is

a target for ours. It is a reminder on this day to say

a prayer, remember your family, tell a story and make

it an epic so your children and grandchildren and all

their friends will remember you.  

--Michael Shay, April 2, 2005