My mother is a falling star. Leaving all that is golden about her in her trail until she is nothing but blackness, or maybe a grey rock that crashes through a window and into someone's loft.

She was the bubbling youth, all the freshness of spring and attractiveness of summer molded into a human being. At least that's how I remember her. It's not how my siblings will. They might treasure memories of dinners and bed-time stories the way I treasure the memory of girl's night out with the daughter in tow.

I always found falling stars sad. Bleeding out all their glitter on the way down to rock hard ground. Going from something I always imagined to be a warm glow to something harder, more weathered, more enduring.

My mother wears rhinestones in her hair and silk blouses to work. As if they would lend her some of their shine, because she has lost all of hers. She has started receiving guests in a white jumper from eighty-two and orange trainers; the woman that raised me would never have.

She sits in a chair staring at the view. "The house is clean, the kids are fed and out, my husband is away. What should I do? " She no longer knows how to deal with silence, with peace. The first time she would really need Alanis is now, but the CD covers have a thick layer of dust. She hasn't listened to music in years.  

My mother is a fallen star. A rock in the back of someone's loft.

Maybe one day a child will go exploring the loft. It'll find old hats and ancient boxes of treasures, and maybe a rock. And the child, a smart one I suppose, will know that it's a meteor. And with a child's imagination the meteor will tell tales of life in the sky, and maybe, for just a little while, it will become a star again.