"He said if I do not want to go to Germany with him then we can just go our separate ways," Mother was saying. "Jimmy is just determined to do this."
We were at Mother's and Daddy's home packing up their dishes into storage boxes and there were tears welling up in Mother's woeful eyes. She did not want to go. Daddy had taken a job with an insurance company in Mannheim, Germany, where the clientele consisted of military men and their families. Ever the adventurer, my father saw this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to travel through Europe. Mother saw it as loss - giving up her home and security in her sixties, leaving her children behind. Perceiving herself to be without real choice, she had leased her new home to strangers and was reorganizing her life around her husband's desires and plans.
"Mother, it might be really fun!" I said as optimistically as possible. "And maybe Bill and I can visit you while you are there!"
Mother perked up at that possibility. Of course, I did not know at the time how difficult life was for my parents. I was shocked that he had given her an ultimatum, so unaware was I of the dynamics of their marriage. Also more daunting for Mother than Daddy was the cultural exchange. My father had a real knack for learning languages; Mother was frightened by the challenges of not being understood.
The day came, however, when we hugged our parents good-bye and sent them off to Germany to live. They leased a small two bedroom apartment near the base and settled in. Mother had a miniature washing machine that drained its excess water into the bath tub and a small kitchen not designed particularly for entertaining. Day by day she adjusted to the culture and found that many German merchants spoke a modicum of English. Often she would write that she and Daddy had taken a side trip to Paris or Rome. They were actually mugged in Rome, almost shattering Mother's resolve to stay in Europe. But she loved the travel and the shopping. Forced out of her safety zone, Mother seemed to relax into her surroundings and actually embrace her time in Europe. They found a church to attend that had military families who missed parents as much as Mother and Daddy missed their children. On the surface it looked as though all was well.
It was, however, from Europe that I received disturbing letters from my father in which he described the physical qualities of some of the men on base. The observations were sexual in nature. "The African-American men have those high firm hips." Could not understand why he said these kinds of things. I had only had one unnerving experience with my father in the past and I had chosen to excuse it. The occasion was an evening a few weeks before my wedding. Bill and I were going out for dinner, and I had worn a cut-off top and some low-slung bell-bottom pants exposing my tanned mid-section. As I walked across the room toward the ringing doorbell, my father stopped me for a moment then ran both his hands down the length of my abdomen from just below my breasts to my waist where the waistband of the bell-bottoms began.
"I just wanted to feel that," he said. The look on his face was not fatherly, and I did not say anything because I did not know what to say. It was a side of my father I had never seen.
In August of 1973, Bill and I boarded a plane for Munich, Germany, for a ten day visit with my parents. My mother was elated because I would be in Germany for my twenty-fifth birthday. After the long intercontinental flight, we were greeted lovingly by my parents and found ourselves in the back of their Audi heading toward Mannheim. There in our little bedroom awaiting me was a rose in a lovely crystal vase and a birthday card with the promise of Paris and Vienna written in my Mother's hand. Because my parents had already traveled Europe, they had planned a five day road trip to France, Austria, Switzerland and southern Italy, as well as stops in Heidelberg and Munich.
Many Europeans take vacation in August, so there were large crowds wherever we went; but, the experience was made so easy by Daddy's grasp of French and German and the fact we were touring in my parents' car. In Paris, we climbed L'Tour Eiffel and had our pictures taken under the Arch de Triomph on the Champs-Elysees, virtually ran through the Lourve, ate dinner in sidewalk cafes and breakfasted on hard rolls, unsalted butter and marmalade each morning. On the way out of Paris, on our way to Versailles, we stopped at a little market and picked up rotisserie chicken- which I still crave to this day- warm, crusty French bread, fruit and sweet fromage so that we could picnic near the palace. In Switzerland, we traveled up a long, narrow, treacherous road to an inn that had rooms with fluffy down comforters and cloud-soft feather pillows. From the window of our room we could see Interlaken, with its surrounding mountains.
In Austria, we stayed the first night in a bed and breakfast far up into the rolling emerald hills near Mittersill, and I kept wanted to run across the lush expansive steppes singing "The Hills Are Alive With the Sound of Music." When we woke the next morning and ventured outside, we were mesmerized by nature's wake-up call. Drifting slowly up the mountainside like immense white cotton balls were large clouds rising up to greet our day. We stood as they approached and then engulfed us on their way upward to the blue skies overhead. It was also at this inn that we had our first mouth-watering schnitzel with its crispy, salty crust and succulent veal center. Chicken fried steak German style.
The next day in Vienna, Bill and I rode the Reisenrad, the world's tallest ferris wheel. Perched atop the "stopped" amusement park ride two hundred feet in the air, my heart quaked a bit in fear because I am not wild about heights. Bill thought swinging the cage in which we sat back and forth would be hilarious. As he laughed at my trepidation, he pulled out his pocket Bible and quoted: "Perfect love casts out fear." All I could think about then was casting him out of the ferris wheel.
From the Riesenrad, we piled into the Audi and made our way to the Vienna Opera House. The intricate stone structure had been bombed in World War II and rebuilt by November of 1955, and "Fidelio" by Beethoven was conducted by Karl Bohm for the opening performance. As with so many of the almost unspeakably beautiful structures in Europe, we were awed as we toured the landmark's massive expanse of architectural genius.
By the time we left the Opera House it had begun to sprinkle. On the lawn of a nearby cathedral, a young bride and her groom stood with family and friends, seemingly oblivious to the dewy dampening of their nuptials. Daddy had parked the car many blocks away; and, as we stood gazing at the ceremony, the rain began to pick up noticeably. Bill, car keys in hand, decided to run on ahead of us to retrieve the car while Daddy, Mother and I ducked beneath a nearby overpass for safety. As we watched, the dripping wedding party eventually pulled their soggy skirts tightly around them and bustled into the confines of the church, leaving the solitary stands of flowers to drink in the steadily falling rain.
The downpour had erased our entertainment from before us, leaving the three of us to the barren, dirty visage of the underpass. As we were making small talk, I saw her coming our way. Her long dark hair was pulled tightly into a bun at the nape of her neck; her modest, mismatched shirt and blouse were almost hidden by the long, ancient sweater which seemed to swallow her up. Slowly she approached us. Ace bandages tightly circumvented her legs and the tap-tap of her cane echoed in the cascading rain. No umbrella protected her. The woman's water-laden clothes hung on her like seaweed on a beached mermaid, making her journey even more arduous.
"Can we give her a ride, Daddy?" His eyes followed mine to see her.
"We don't have room," was his response.
"Please, Daddy. Look. She is crippled and wet." I was near tears by then, so strong was my desire to save her. "I will wait here while you take her where she needs to go."
"You can't do that, Kay," my father replied. "That is not safe."
She was there then. Underneath the overpass with us as we discussed her. "She cannot live far away, Daddy. She could not walk far in her condition."
Daddy looked at her then - into her steady gaze. She looked like an actress waiting for her cue in order to speak her lines. "You speak German, Daddy. I don't. Could you at least just ask her if she needs a ride?"
Shrugging his shoulders, half-heartedly, he asked the tiny lady, in German, if she needed a ride just as we saw the Audi splashing toward us.
"No, I don't," she answered, in English! "But thank you very much for asking!"
Bill pulled up and jumped out, opening sedan doors, incognizant of our encounter. As Daddy closed the front passenger door behind himself, the crippled lady came to his window and leaned her body against it, her face to Daddy's. "Thank you so very much for asking," she was saying as we settled into the car. Her blue eyes were teary, so touched was she by his kindness, and her face seemed illuminated by her joy. Her radiant smile wiped itself across my window as the slowly moving car crept out of the underpass. Though the rain had eased, I turned to see her wizened little body once more, and she was gone!
"Stop the car a second, Bill!" I shouted as I opened the door.
In one incredulous moment I questioned the veracity of the past few minutes of my life. Stepping fully out of the car, I looked around trying to find her. North. South. East. West. I could see for blocks in every direction. Not there! No tapping of cane, no little form moving slowly away in any direction! I put my hands on the hood of the car and steadied myself as my head spun and my face flushed. Daddy was saying, "Get in the car, Kay," from some place far away. Suddenly, Bill was beside me. "What's wrong?"
"She's gone," was my bewildered reply.
I sat back down in the car, Bill closed the door, and we all rode in silence for a few minutes. A very confused Bill wanted to know what had happened. Daddy, also stunned, furnished the facts of the encounter while I was trying to process its meaning. God had tugged at our hearts and our consciences, perhaps challenging our carnal lives with a touch of eternity. Looking back at the opportunity to "entertain angels unaware," it seemed the perfect chance to reflect on the fact that God is aware of everything that goes on in our lives and is capable of intervening to nudge us into remembering He is present. Perhaps he wanted to whisper to Daddy's heart that He was watching.
We left Mother and Daddy after Bill and I took a short trip to Milan and Rome. Thankful to have such generous parents and grateful for the experience, we had no idea that Daddy was prowling even then for prey. He was just Daddy enjoying his experiences in Europe.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
1966
As I lifted the lid of Mother's lovely teak wood jewelry box, I could not have known it would forever change my perception of her. Piece by piece, I took the sleeping items from their resting place and turned them over in my hands. This was not the first time I had wandered through the unique gold and silver flowers, scrolls, ribbons, bows and crosses that had been placed in the box over twenty years before.
Aunt Rene had been married to a man named Hoyle, a jeweler who had designed and sold his creations in the 1930's and 1940's. Since gold was so rare during the war, most of the jewelry was fashioned from gold filled or vemeil silver. Rene had given Mother most of the necklaces, brooches, pins and bracelets during the years she was Hoyle's wife. He and Rene had never had children, so they doted on Florene, the youngest sister. It was Hoyle who introduced Rene's little sister to Mac.
Aunt Rene married again after her first husband died, and she and Uncle Buster had a daughter, Beverly, who was about ten years older than I, and the epitome of "cool" to my young mind. Many a summer afternoon was spent in Beverly's bedroom ogling her big girl stuff and generally annoying her. My cousin's hair was dark and thick and her teeth glistened silver with the bands and wires that promised a smile with straight even rows of pearly whites. Completing her perfection was a pair of cat-eye glasses edged in rhinestones perched upon her face. In her closet hung collared sweater sets in every imaginable color, and she had , in her top dresser drawer, the sweater guards to match each one. I do not think she necessarily wanted me under her wing, but I flew there anyway, hoping "hipness" was genetic or, at least, transferable.
My first trip to a drive-in burger joint was with Beverly. I suddenly became less of a nuisance and more of an excuse when she got her driver's license. Of course, I was oblivious to the fact that I was merely a decoy so she could meet up with high school boys, but I doubt I would have cared. Sitting beside Beverly, absorbing her "older woman" essence, made me feel like a bit actress in GREASE must have felt when the car hops on roller skates brought the burgers to the car windows and then everybody danced.
The little I knew about blue eye shadow and mascara at the time must be attributed to rifling through my cousin's seeming endless supply of make-up. Mother wore very little and Daddy did not want us to look like hussies; so, the world of blush and eyeliner was foreign territory I knew needed exploring if I was ever going to get a date. No natural beauty, I.
It was because of my preteen obsession with my cousin that Mother had failed to tell me about her previous life. Why I had never noticed the locket before, I cannot say; for, it had always been in her jewelry box, stored with the other pieces. Maybe it was that I had never opened the little gold heart; did not realize it was a locket. On the afternoon in late August when I was off-handedly playing with her jewelry as Mother and I talked together in her bedroom, I picked up the necklace and began toying with the latch. The conversation was about my going off to the University of Texas in a few days and all we needed to accomplish to be ready. Mundane. Mother-daughter talk. "Oh, I didn't know this opened, Mother."
Mother was hem-stitching a skirt of mine and looked up to see what I was talking about.
"Who is this?" The heart opened up to the face of a stranger. He was very handsome, with a massive amount of black hair. Somewhat disheveled, he looked as though he had been tossing a football with his friends and had stopped just long enough to allow himself to be captured in that manly moment. His jaw was square and strong and there was not even the hint of a smile on his face.
"That is Mac, my first husband." It was matter-of-fact. Clearly I was supposed to know there was a first husband, but I did not. My mind swirled as if I had just stepped, dizzy, from a Tilt-A-Whirl at the amusement park.
"What did you say?" There is a woman I do not know who took a picture of her husband and wore it around her neck.
"Mac," she repeated. "My first husband."
As I stared at Mac, my head began slowly to nod up and down, answering my own question. Mother was married before Daddy? The thought created this empty space in my stomach, like an arbitrary punch to my abdomen had knocked the wind out of me. "You were married before Daddy?"
Mother's hands rested atop the sewing in her lap as she met my gaze. "Yes."
"Why did you never tell me?"
"I thought Beverly told you a long time ago." Mother was stunned by my surprised reaction.
"Beverly?"
"Yes. Irene introduced me to Mac, so I assumed Beverly knew the story and told it to you."
"There is a story?" I wanted to cry, but I could not say why.
"Well, yes, there is." Mother reached for the locket and looked at the man, her husband, the stranger.
"Do my sisters know about this?"
"I told them." She told them but not me. I do not understand.
"Oh." I alone have yet to meet the woman who became my mother. "What happened?"
Though I often wondered as I was growing up why my mother married my father, that day I understood who she thought she was. The drama behind the tiny photo of the attractive man who had abused, beaten and left her revealed a woman I had seen glimpses of but never fully understood. Daddy may not have wanted her, but he did not beat her. Mac was hidden in her jewelry box, asleep behind a heart that had once gleamed bright upon her chest.
Aunt Rene had been married to a man named Hoyle, a jeweler who had designed and sold his creations in the 1930's and 1940's. Since gold was so rare during the war, most of the jewelry was fashioned from gold filled or vemeil silver. Rene had given Mother most of the necklaces, brooches, pins and bracelets during the years she was Hoyle's wife. He and Rene had never had children, so they doted on Florene, the youngest sister. It was Hoyle who introduced Rene's little sister to Mac.
Aunt Rene married again after her first husband died, and she and Uncle Buster had a daughter, Beverly, who was about ten years older than I, and the epitome of "cool" to my young mind. Many a summer afternoon was spent in Beverly's bedroom ogling her big girl stuff and generally annoying her. My cousin's hair was dark and thick and her teeth glistened silver with the bands and wires that promised a smile with straight even rows of pearly whites. Completing her perfection was a pair of cat-eye glasses edged in rhinestones perched upon her face. In her closet hung collared sweater sets in every imaginable color, and she had , in her top dresser drawer, the sweater guards to match each one. I do not think she necessarily wanted me under her wing, but I flew there anyway, hoping "hipness" was genetic or, at least, transferable.
My first trip to a drive-in burger joint was with Beverly. I suddenly became less of a nuisance and more of an excuse when she got her driver's license. Of course, I was oblivious to the fact that I was merely a decoy so she could meet up with high school boys, but I doubt I would have cared. Sitting beside Beverly, absorbing her "older woman" essence, made me feel like a bit actress in GREASE must have felt when the car hops on roller skates brought the burgers to the car windows and then everybody danced.
The little I knew about blue eye shadow and mascara at the time must be attributed to rifling through my cousin's seeming endless supply of make-up. Mother wore very little and Daddy did not want us to look like hussies; so, the world of blush and eyeliner was foreign territory I knew needed exploring if I was ever going to get a date. No natural beauty, I.
It was because of my preteen obsession with my cousin that Mother had failed to tell me about her previous life. Why I had never noticed the locket before, I cannot say; for, it had always been in her jewelry box, stored with the other pieces. Maybe it was that I had never opened the little gold heart; did not realize it was a locket. On the afternoon in late August when I was off-handedly playing with her jewelry as Mother and I talked together in her bedroom, I picked up the necklace and began toying with the latch. The conversation was about my going off to the University of Texas in a few days and all we needed to accomplish to be ready. Mundane. Mother-daughter talk. "Oh, I didn't know this opened, Mother."
Mother was hem-stitching a skirt of mine and looked up to see what I was talking about.
"Who is this?" The heart opened up to the face of a stranger. He was very handsome, with a massive amount of black hair. Somewhat disheveled, he looked as though he had been tossing a football with his friends and had stopped just long enough to allow himself to be captured in that manly moment. His jaw was square and strong and there was not even the hint of a smile on his face.
"That is Mac, my first husband." It was matter-of-fact. Clearly I was supposed to know there was a first husband, but I did not. My mind swirled as if I had just stepped, dizzy, from a Tilt-A-Whirl at the amusement park.
"What did you say?" There is a woman I do not know who took a picture of her husband and wore it around her neck.
"Mac," she repeated. "My first husband."
As I stared at Mac, my head began slowly to nod up and down, answering my own question. Mother was married before Daddy? The thought created this empty space in my stomach, like an arbitrary punch to my abdomen had knocked the wind out of me. "You were married before Daddy?"
Mother's hands rested atop the sewing in her lap as she met my gaze. "Yes."
"Why did you never tell me?"
"I thought Beverly told you a long time ago." Mother was stunned by my surprised reaction.
"Beverly?"
"Yes. Irene introduced me to Mac, so I assumed Beverly knew the story and told it to you."
"There is a story?" I wanted to cry, but I could not say why.
"Well, yes, there is." Mother reached for the locket and looked at the man, her husband, the stranger.
"Do my sisters know about this?"
"I told them." She told them but not me. I do not understand.
"Oh." I alone have yet to meet the woman who became my mother. "What happened?"
Though I often wondered as I was growing up why my mother married my father, that day I understood who she thought she was. The drama behind the tiny photo of the attractive man who had abused, beaten and left her revealed a woman I had seen glimpses of but never fully understood. Daddy may not have wanted her, but he did not beat her. Mac was hidden in her jewelry box, asleep behind a heart that had once gleamed bright upon her chest.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
1985
On a pleasant Sunday afternoon after church in late October, Bill and I donned running shoes and shorts and hit the pavement of our suburban neighborhood to jog three miles. Our daughters, eleven and nine years old, stayed home to be with a napping Will. Our usual jogging circuit took us past our home every eight minutes, and the girls were aware of this. We had not even been gone thirty minutes when we knocked lightly on the front door for the girls to let us in.
"Granddaddy came," Heather said.
"Yeah, took Will for a ride," chimed in Vanessa.
"What?" I screamed. I ran to Will's bedroom just to make certain I had heard correctly.
"He said he'd be back in a few minutes," Heather said, the look on her face betraying the fear that she had done something wrong.
I was hysterical - murderous, actually. My father lived two hours away and just showed up unannounced. Within an eight or nine minute span of time, he had entered our home, taken our son and run! Like a caged animal I paced and yelled. Bill was telling me to calm down, but that just was not possible! I grabbed my purse and ran out the door, got into my car and started driving. The town was not large; I began with parks nearby. Panic and anger melded into such an explosive concoction I could barely see the road. He has my son! How stupid is he? What is he doing with Will? I will kill my father! I hate this man, and I will kill him!
Tears and sweat coursed simultaneously onto my tee shirt as I came dangerously close to imploding. My father was no longer the doting grandfather of my precious children, but the sick neighborhood pedophile who could not be trusted with anybody's kids! Three parks. No Daddy. No baby boy! I wanted to run to where they were and grab my child and slap and slap and slap my father! But I did not know where to run. I had been gone for twenty minutes or so; maybe he had returned. With that thought, I raced home, my heart pounding with anticipation, arms eager to rescue and embrace the chubby little angel my father had stolen. When I approached the driveway and did not see Daddy's car, it felt as though my entire body began sinking into a massive dark hole that was looming in the floorboard of the car. Sinking, sinking to a flatness; a dark dread, a pervasive numbness in my stomach. All I could do was wail, "Oh,God! Where is Will?" My soul sank down through that opening and collapsed. I felt momentarily dead and hopeless, trapped in a surreal nightmare.
Suddenly, I came back to myself with the hopeful thought that perhaps he had come and gone while I had been away. I grabbed my purse and ran inside. "Did he bring Will back?" I shouted this, but no one answered. Three very grim and anxious faces mirrored my own despondency. By this time almost an hour had passed. Pacing and hating; hating and pacing. Where else can I go? Where else might he be? Venom escaped from me in hysterical hisses. All the hurt and bitter disasppointment, all the grief and lost sense of safety was boiling, churning, rising up and up in me ready to spew! When I saw him, I knew I would blow!
I was about to call the police when my father showed up with Will! I grabbed my baby and pushed my father hard, back against the entryway wall. "Where did you take my son?" I screamed. "Don't EVER take my child anywhere again!"
Crying, completely over-wrought, my hands moved all over the smooth sweet body of my boy as if they could heat-sense or somehow perceive any harm that might have been done to him. The moment froze; I was the only one moving. It was horrible. It was vomitous. Had I had a gun, it would have been deadly. I looked over at my father still penned to the wall where I put him and spit out the question again, "Where did you take my son?"
"To...the park."
Oh, God....the park...in his car. Rage rose up so fiercely I did not recognize my own heart. It was pumping black and making me tingle all over. "What park?" I seethed.
"By the lake. There were kids playing with toy airplanes, and we watched them." He spoke in monotone. Scared of me, reasonably.
"Did you hurt him?" I am certain Daddy saw the feral anger in my eyes.
"No.....I wouldn't."
"Never, EVER think you can take him or the girls anywhere alone again! NEVER, EVER, DO THIS AGAIN!" I was barely breathing. I backed away from him, giving him room. "You need to leave."
Daddy's body came away from the wall like moistened wallpaper falling slowing away from its surface, limp and lifeless. He tried to say something about meeting a woman because his psychiatrist said that would be good for him. Incredulous that he did not even now sense the urgency of the moment and the inappropriateness of his "outing," I opened the door so that he could slither out.
"Granddaddy came," Heather said.
"Yeah, took Will for a ride," chimed in Vanessa.
"What?" I screamed. I ran to Will's bedroom just to make certain I had heard correctly.
"He said he'd be back in a few minutes," Heather said, the look on her face betraying the fear that she had done something wrong.
I was hysterical - murderous, actually. My father lived two hours away and just showed up unannounced. Within an eight or nine minute span of time, he had entered our home, taken our son and run! Like a caged animal I paced and yelled. Bill was telling me to calm down, but that just was not possible! I grabbed my purse and ran out the door, got into my car and started driving. The town was not large; I began with parks nearby. Panic and anger melded into such an explosive concoction I could barely see the road. He has my son! How stupid is he? What is he doing with Will? I will kill my father! I hate this man, and I will kill him!
Tears and sweat coursed simultaneously onto my tee shirt as I came dangerously close to imploding. My father was no longer the doting grandfather of my precious children, but the sick neighborhood pedophile who could not be trusted with anybody's kids! Three parks. No Daddy. No baby boy! I wanted to run to where they were and grab my child and slap and slap and slap my father! But I did not know where to run. I had been gone for twenty minutes or so; maybe he had returned. With that thought, I raced home, my heart pounding with anticipation, arms eager to rescue and embrace the chubby little angel my father had stolen. When I approached the driveway and did not see Daddy's car, it felt as though my entire body began sinking into a massive dark hole that was looming in the floorboard of the car. Sinking, sinking to a flatness; a dark dread, a pervasive numbness in my stomach. All I could do was wail, "Oh,God! Where is Will?" My soul sank down through that opening and collapsed. I felt momentarily dead and hopeless, trapped in a surreal nightmare.
Suddenly, I came back to myself with the hopeful thought that perhaps he had come and gone while I had been away. I grabbed my purse and ran inside. "Did he bring Will back?" I shouted this, but no one answered. Three very grim and anxious faces mirrored my own despondency. By this time almost an hour had passed. Pacing and hating; hating and pacing. Where else can I go? Where else might he be? Venom escaped from me in hysterical hisses. All the hurt and bitter disasppointment, all the grief and lost sense of safety was boiling, churning, rising up and up in me ready to spew! When I saw him, I knew I would blow!
I was about to call the police when my father showed up with Will! I grabbed my baby and pushed my father hard, back against the entryway wall. "Where did you take my son?" I screamed. "Don't EVER take my child anywhere again!"
Crying, completely over-wrought, my hands moved all over the smooth sweet body of my boy as if they could heat-sense or somehow perceive any harm that might have been done to him. The moment froze; I was the only one moving. It was horrible. It was vomitous. Had I had a gun, it would have been deadly. I looked over at my father still penned to the wall where I put him and spit out the question again, "Where did you take my son?"
"To...the park."
Oh, God....the park...in his car. Rage rose up so fiercely I did not recognize my own heart. It was pumping black and making me tingle all over. "What park?" I seethed.
"By the lake. There were kids playing with toy airplanes, and we watched them." He spoke in monotone. Scared of me, reasonably.
"Did you hurt him?" I am certain Daddy saw the feral anger in my eyes.
"No.....I wouldn't."
"Never, EVER think you can take him or the girls anywhere alone again! NEVER, EVER, DO THIS AGAIN!" I was barely breathing. I backed away from him, giving him room. "You need to leave."
Daddy's body came away from the wall like moistened wallpaper falling slowing away from its surface, limp and lifeless. He tried to say something about meeting a woman because his psychiatrist said that would be good for him. Incredulous that he did not even now sense the urgency of the moment and the inappropriateness of his "outing," I opened the door so that he could slither out.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
1954
I was certain I would die on Saturday night. It was not a maudlin thought, as I was only six years old. Angels flapped their enormous wings, making great feathered shadows on luminous streets of gold, and I could almost hear them swooshing overhead as they heralded my entrance through the pearly gates and into heaven. The walls of heaven are encrusted with shiny jewels and there is thundering and lightning and an emerald rainbow pouring from God's throne. And, most importantly to me, a child newly aware of the death of Jesus for me, He is there. Who would not want to die? Growing up and getting old in order to experience death seemed, candidly, a waste to me. Besides, I really thought I was not going to wake up on planet Earth on Sunday morning. Just got that in my head.
This declaration to my parents on the Monday morning of my death week was cute. Must've heard about heaven in Sunday school. As I trotted off to first grade beside my big sister that day, I had no idea I had left behind the seed of a thought that would be my parents' anguish by Saturday morning. Miss Shaddock was my first grade teacher and also attended the same Baptist church to which our family went every week. Nice older lady. A rather looming figure to me at the time, she smelled of too much powder and her lipstick always ran in little rivers from her upper lip line toward her nostrils.
It was Christmas time and I still did not know my alphabet well enough to print all the letters, upper and lower case. Hh always wandered away about the time I needed them; D and P were heading the wrong direction as were b and d. So, I had simply smiled my way through September, October and November. As a result, it was Christmas before Miss Shaddock became concerned with the disappearing and nonconforming letters in my mind.
"She does not know her alphabet," my report card blabbed for all to see. If that were not exasperating enough, I was further castigated in the Comments section for "sometimes turning letters around." Well, duh! I did not even know them, so, of course I turned them around!
Mother and Daddy were concerned. It was evident from the furrowed brows and serious tone with which they addressed my alphabetic ignorance. I would, in the week of my impending death, spend thirty minutes a night writing the alphabet with extra focus on those tricky letters that spun around and the disappearing H's. By Tuesday evening, I'll have to say heaven was looking pretty good!
Each night before heading to bed that week, in my kindliest, most compassionate tone, I would assure my parents I would most certainly be playing a harp on Sunday morning while all the other kids had to be quiet and sit still in Sunday school. By Wednesday at bedtime, my prescient farewell was becoming at best annoying. "Okay, Kay," Mommy said. "Of course, you're not going to die Saturday. I don't know what put that thought into your little head." Then her eyes flickered a serious glint and she looked at me a half a second too long; Mommy was starting to believe me. My mother would be fine. I'd be gone. Neither one of us would have to worry about me and the old ABC's again!
Two weeks prior, I had been baptised on a Sunday evening in the big church sanctuary. I had to don a pair of shorts and a summer top in the middle of winter! Then we went up some steep stairs behind the pulpit to a deep square swimming pool, but we found out it was not a swimming pool at all. Little white robes that we pulled on over our heads were distributed to each of us so we really looked quite angelic. The pastor clomped in wearing a big long white robe and the most enormous, waist-high rubber boots I had ever seen. It almost blew the moment for me! I had seen baptisms while sitting with my parents in the congregation, but I had no idea my pastor was in that get-up!
As the large church pipe organ began to somberly deliver the first few notes of "Amazing Grace," the pastor stepped into the deep water and extended his hand to me. Standing on a high step in the baptismal, I folded my arms across my chest as I had been instructed. I felt the warmth of my pastor's right hand in the arch of my little back; and, as he raised his left hand to God, he asked me, "Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that He died on the cross for your sins?"
Some children may not have been as keenly aware as I of their "sins." His question made my heart pump faster and there was this queer catch in my throat. Unexpected tears filled my eyes as I looked up into his solemn face. "Yes," I whispered.
"According to your profession of faith in Him, I now baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen." In his raised left hand, Pastor had a white handkerchief that came racing pell-mell toward my face. I had no time to think before my nose was covered in the hankie and my entire body was immersed in the warm, clear ablution of the baptismal waters. Down then up. Dripping, smiling, saved and clean! I was definitely feeling it! Like the way my stomach can't sit still when I get just what I want for Christmas! It was that very joy that hinted to me that heaven must be a riot!
On Thursday before my awaited demise, I was escorted to the cloakroom for misbehaving. I really did not get it. All of us first graders were waiting patiently in our seats before the morning bell. Miss Shaddock was not there, yet. Through the door stepped the third grade teacher from across the hall. She could not help that her face was permanently pinched into a frown which left an easily reconstructed road map on her skin when her face was in repose. Her dry blond hair was styled in a most unattractive "Lord Fauntleroy" cut which accentuated the harshness of her demeanor. Our entire class was perpetually terrified of her. Even her smile looked like a sneer. So, we folded our hands on our desks as she purposefully strode to the chalkboard, picked up a new piece of chalk, and wrote "something" in enormous cursive letters across the board. Like the buzzing of bees, each of us was asking the other, "What is she doing snooping around in here?" Buzz. Buzz. "What is she writing?" We barely knew the alphabet - well, most of us -much less CURSIVE!
"Ask her, Kay! You should ask her!"
All right. "What are you doing snooping around in here?"
Oops. A less keen teacher would not have been able to zero in on just which snotty-nosed first grader smarty-pants asked such a precocious question. But, let's face it, by now the entire class was looking straight at me, and I was the only one without the sense to cover my mouth in shame. Like an armadillo in oncoming traffic, I just sat there smiling. When all else fails, smile.
"Young lady, I am going to tell Miss Shaddock what you just said," she seethed, and she and her Lord Fauntleroy hair stomped out of the classroom. Nervous, high-pitched laughter that only first graders are capable of producing slapped my face and head and heart and scared me to death! Heaven was indeed looking like my only refuge!
It was clear from her gait and her countenance when she rushed into the room, that Miss Shaddock was really mad. "I have just heard a bad report from Mrs. Crones. Who was it who asked her what she was doing snooping around in here?"
Suddenly a million fingers shot like bullets from little fists all pointing in my direction. My executioners were at the ready to back me up against the wall, and POW!, finger me to death. Betrayed. Embarrassed. Ashamed. I was only doing what my friends encouraged me to. Mother had not yet had the opportunity to ask the age-old "if your friends jumped off a cliff would you just jump over too?" question. Apparently, yes.
"Kay, I am ashamed of you. That is not very nice behavior for a young lady who was just baptized recently. Mrs. Crones wrote "MERRY CHRISTMAS" on the board!" How were we supposed to know that?
Well, there it was. Sinning again already. My baptism was not "taking" very well. "Come with me." An imperative from my kindly teacher. I was trying to smile, but embarrassed tears were at the ready. I followed her to the cloak room where all our coats and lunch boxes rested in their cubbies waiting for us to animate or eat them. It was musty and overly warm in the lonely little room where she left me to "wait" with the inanimate while she went back to teach the dang old ABC's to the living, sniggering perpetrators of my confinement.
Fortunately, Miss Shaddock loved me; so, she did not leave me in my ignominy for very long. Besides, I could not afford to miss much class. It seems I needed social skills just as much as I needed to learn to read! I could have just the let the whole thing go - let bygones be bygones. C'est la vie! But, Miss Shaddock felt it her civic duty to rat on me to my parents. If I had not been so near death, they might have been harder on me. They were, though, "very disappointed that I would say something so rude." I saw my Daddy laughing about it with Mother later. What a relief that was because I was beginning to think I was a hopeless sinner who would wind up falling off many treacherous cliffs behind every harebrained friend who beckoned me over the edge!
Friday evening bedtime was tough on my mother. Still insistent that I was on the brink of eternity and one day away from singing alto in the heavenly choir, I had convinced my mother that maybe God had told me I was going "home." She and Daddy prayed over me and I went blissfully off to sleep. No worries.
Mother did not sleep that night, and late Saturday evening there was a knock on the front door. It was the youth pastor from our church. Carrying a Bible, smelling of hair oil, and gazing down on me from behind thick horn-rimmed glasses, this local theological seminarian gave me a half-smile as if to ask, "Are you the little specimen?" Graciously he shook my parents' hands and spoke gravely with them for a moment in murmurings about which I was uninterested. They all sat pensively around the formica table in the kitchen and Gene, the pastor, opened his Bible on the table before him.
"Should we take her seriously?" There is real fear in Mother's voice.
"She really thinks she will die tonight." My father does not know what to make of me.
"Mmmmm," said Gene profoundly.
All week, no one had discussed with me the "actuality" of my homegoing. I had free rein in my imaginings to escape to floating clouds and pretty angels. Immortality was my presumption, and I am quite sure I had not really entertained the thought that one does not segue between heaven and earth at will. Death is final. I thought it was a vacation. As I climbed into bed that night all fresh from my evening bath, my parents knelt beside my bed and gave me back to God. Tears filled their eyes and choked their words of sacrifice and love, spilling out of hearts ready to relinquish their middle child into the hands of a loving heavenly Father if that was what He wanted. Then my father told me about death. To the degree I could, I understood its finality, and I know it made him scared for me. However, when the lights were out and I closed my eyes, in my heart of hearts, I knew I would never see them again on this earth.
So, imagine my surprise when I discovered that my bed in heaven looked much like the one I had left on earth. My sister was asleep in her bed beside me, and for a minute I thought she had died, too. The aroma of pancakes and bacon wafting into heaven from the kitchen and the vroom-vroom of the neighbor's lawn mower made me forget haloes and harps and run into my Daddy's waiting arms. He already knew I did not die! That was why Mother made pancakes!
This declaration to my parents on the Monday morning of my death week was cute. Must've heard about heaven in Sunday school. As I trotted off to first grade beside my big sister that day, I had no idea I had left behind the seed of a thought that would be my parents' anguish by Saturday morning. Miss Shaddock was my first grade teacher and also attended the same Baptist church to which our family went every week. Nice older lady. A rather looming figure to me at the time, she smelled of too much powder and her lipstick always ran in little rivers from her upper lip line toward her nostrils.
It was Christmas time and I still did not know my alphabet well enough to print all the letters, upper and lower case. Hh always wandered away about the time I needed them; D and P were heading the wrong direction as were b and d. So, I had simply smiled my way through September, October and November. As a result, it was Christmas before Miss Shaddock became concerned with the disappearing and nonconforming letters in my mind.
"She does not know her alphabet," my report card blabbed for all to see. If that were not exasperating enough, I was further castigated in the Comments section for "sometimes turning letters around." Well, duh! I did not even know them, so, of course I turned them around!
Mother and Daddy were concerned. It was evident from the furrowed brows and serious tone with which they addressed my alphabetic ignorance. I would, in the week of my impending death, spend thirty minutes a night writing the alphabet with extra focus on those tricky letters that spun around and the disappearing H's. By Tuesday evening, I'll have to say heaven was looking pretty good!
Each night before heading to bed that week, in my kindliest, most compassionate tone, I would assure my parents I would most certainly be playing a harp on Sunday morning while all the other kids had to be quiet and sit still in Sunday school. By Wednesday at bedtime, my prescient farewell was becoming at best annoying. "Okay, Kay," Mommy said. "Of course, you're not going to die Saturday. I don't know what put that thought into your little head." Then her eyes flickered a serious glint and she looked at me a half a second too long; Mommy was starting to believe me. My mother would be fine. I'd be gone. Neither one of us would have to worry about me and the old ABC's again!
Two weeks prior, I had been baptised on a Sunday evening in the big church sanctuary. I had to don a pair of shorts and a summer top in the middle of winter! Then we went up some steep stairs behind the pulpit to a deep square swimming pool, but we found out it was not a swimming pool at all. Little white robes that we pulled on over our heads were distributed to each of us so we really looked quite angelic. The pastor clomped in wearing a big long white robe and the most enormous, waist-high rubber boots I had ever seen. It almost blew the moment for me! I had seen baptisms while sitting with my parents in the congregation, but I had no idea my pastor was in that get-up!
As the large church pipe organ began to somberly deliver the first few notes of "Amazing Grace," the pastor stepped into the deep water and extended his hand to me. Standing on a high step in the baptismal, I folded my arms across my chest as I had been instructed. I felt the warmth of my pastor's right hand in the arch of my little back; and, as he raised his left hand to God, he asked me, "Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that He died on the cross for your sins?"
Some children may not have been as keenly aware as I of their "sins." His question made my heart pump faster and there was this queer catch in my throat. Unexpected tears filled my eyes as I looked up into his solemn face. "Yes," I whispered.
"According to your profession of faith in Him, I now baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen." In his raised left hand, Pastor had a white handkerchief that came racing pell-mell toward my face. I had no time to think before my nose was covered in the hankie and my entire body was immersed in the warm, clear ablution of the baptismal waters. Down then up. Dripping, smiling, saved and clean! I was definitely feeling it! Like the way my stomach can't sit still when I get just what I want for Christmas! It was that very joy that hinted to me that heaven must be a riot!
On Thursday before my awaited demise, I was escorted to the cloakroom for misbehaving. I really did not get it. All of us first graders were waiting patiently in our seats before the morning bell. Miss Shaddock was not there, yet. Through the door stepped the third grade teacher from across the hall. She could not help that her face was permanently pinched into a frown which left an easily reconstructed road map on her skin when her face was in repose. Her dry blond hair was styled in a most unattractive "Lord Fauntleroy" cut which accentuated the harshness of her demeanor. Our entire class was perpetually terrified of her. Even her smile looked like a sneer. So, we folded our hands on our desks as she purposefully strode to the chalkboard, picked up a new piece of chalk, and wrote "something" in enormous cursive letters across the board. Like the buzzing of bees, each of us was asking the other, "What is she doing snooping around in here?" Buzz. Buzz. "What is she writing?" We barely knew the alphabet - well, most of us -much less CURSIVE!
"Ask her, Kay! You should ask her!"
All right. "What are you doing snooping around in here?"
Oops. A less keen teacher would not have been able to zero in on just which snotty-nosed first grader smarty-pants asked such a precocious question. But, let's face it, by now the entire class was looking straight at me, and I was the only one without the sense to cover my mouth in shame. Like an armadillo in oncoming traffic, I just sat there smiling. When all else fails, smile.
"Young lady, I am going to tell Miss Shaddock what you just said," she seethed, and she and her Lord Fauntleroy hair stomped out of the classroom. Nervous, high-pitched laughter that only first graders are capable of producing slapped my face and head and heart and scared me to death! Heaven was indeed looking like my only refuge!
It was clear from her gait and her countenance when she rushed into the room, that Miss Shaddock was really mad. "I have just heard a bad report from Mrs. Crones. Who was it who asked her what she was doing snooping around in here?"
Suddenly a million fingers shot like bullets from little fists all pointing in my direction. My executioners were at the ready to back me up against the wall, and POW!, finger me to death. Betrayed. Embarrassed. Ashamed. I was only doing what my friends encouraged me to. Mother had not yet had the opportunity to ask the age-old "if your friends jumped off a cliff would you just jump over too?" question. Apparently, yes.
"Kay, I am ashamed of you. That is not very nice behavior for a young lady who was just baptized recently. Mrs. Crones wrote "MERRY CHRISTMAS" on the board!" How were we supposed to know that?
Well, there it was. Sinning again already. My baptism was not "taking" very well. "Come with me." An imperative from my kindly teacher. I was trying to smile, but embarrassed tears were at the ready. I followed her to the cloak room where all our coats and lunch boxes rested in their cubbies waiting for us to animate or eat them. It was musty and overly warm in the lonely little room where she left me to "wait" with the inanimate while she went back to teach the dang old ABC's to the living, sniggering perpetrators of my confinement.
Fortunately, Miss Shaddock loved me; so, she did not leave me in my ignominy for very long. Besides, I could not afford to miss much class. It seems I needed social skills just as much as I needed to learn to read! I could have just the let the whole thing go - let bygones be bygones. C'est la vie! But, Miss Shaddock felt it her civic duty to rat on me to my parents. If I had not been so near death, they might have been harder on me. They were, though, "very disappointed that I would say something so rude." I saw my Daddy laughing about it with Mother later. What a relief that was because I was beginning to think I was a hopeless sinner who would wind up falling off many treacherous cliffs behind every harebrained friend who beckoned me over the edge!
Friday evening bedtime was tough on my mother. Still insistent that I was on the brink of eternity and one day away from singing alto in the heavenly choir, I had convinced my mother that maybe God had told me I was going "home." She and Daddy prayed over me and I went blissfully off to sleep. No worries.
Mother did not sleep that night, and late Saturday evening there was a knock on the front door. It was the youth pastor from our church. Carrying a Bible, smelling of hair oil, and gazing down on me from behind thick horn-rimmed glasses, this local theological seminarian gave me a half-smile as if to ask, "Are you the little specimen?" Graciously he shook my parents' hands and spoke gravely with them for a moment in murmurings about which I was uninterested. They all sat pensively around the formica table in the kitchen and Gene, the pastor, opened his Bible on the table before him.
"Should we take her seriously?" There is real fear in Mother's voice.
"She really thinks she will die tonight." My father does not know what to make of me.
"Mmmmm," said Gene profoundly.
All week, no one had discussed with me the "actuality" of my homegoing. I had free rein in my imaginings to escape to floating clouds and pretty angels. Immortality was my presumption, and I am quite sure I had not really entertained the thought that one does not segue between heaven and earth at will. Death is final. I thought it was a vacation. As I climbed into bed that night all fresh from my evening bath, my parents knelt beside my bed and gave me back to God. Tears filled their eyes and choked their words of sacrifice and love, spilling out of hearts ready to relinquish their middle child into the hands of a loving heavenly Father if that was what He wanted. Then my father told me about death. To the degree I could, I understood its finality, and I know it made him scared for me. However, when the lights were out and I closed my eyes, in my heart of hearts, I knew I would never see them again on this earth.
So, imagine my surprise when I discovered that my bed in heaven looked much like the one I had left on earth. My sister was asleep in her bed beside me, and for a minute I thought she had died, too. The aroma of pancakes and bacon wafting into heaven from the kitchen and the vroom-vroom of the neighbor's lawn mower made me forget haloes and harps and run into my Daddy's waiting arms. He already knew I did not die! That was why Mother made pancakes!
Monday, October 19, 2009
1985
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It was upon me to keep my promise to Mother that I would be her morgue coiffeur. Mother's body was familiar to me: her hands, her toes, the scent of her skin, the feel of her silky hair, her breath, the set of her teeth in her mouth, the arch of her lips. I was familiar with her body in animation - with her inside of it. Imagining her body now void of its spirit, without thought, movement and emotion, was confounding. It was, however, the realization that she had departed that allowed me to keep my promise to Mother to make her as lovely to behold in death as she had been in life.
For me, looking at my father was still beyond difficult. My grief was most assuredly of a different ilk from his; so, there was not that deep resonating oneness customarily found in a family coming together as a tight unit to mourn the precious matriarch of its clan. The emotional separation from Daddy caused me to feel physically alone, too. We sisters abandoned our father to himself and he stayed his distance from us. His woman lay dead on a cold morgue table, her physical death preceded by the heart-stabbing, soul-robbing truth that she had not been his heart's desire. He was in love with a thirteen-year-old boy-- had sobbed more from that loss than this one. I did not see him cry at all for Mother.
Quite honestly, I did not cry, either. Ineffability can preclude tears. My grief encompassed so many sorrows that it went deeper than the fountain where tears originate. Maybe Daddy was feeling that, also. I will never know. I lost Mother and Daddy in 1985 - an emotional orphan at thirty-seven, and it just did not seem that tears adequately expressed the vacuum deeply enough. I would be sorry later that I shut off the flow; that stream can be healing. I also could not justify weeping for Mother because she had escaped finally into paradise, golden streets, the presence of God, and everlasting love. I was jealous, maybe, but not sad for her.
When I told my sisters Mother had requested my expertise with her hair, my "master's touch" is what she called it, they were quite reticent to join me in turning the morgue into a beauty salon. This was, of course, understandable and I was absolutely, stoically, willing to go by myself. My younger sister, however, changed her mind and came with me, much to my relief and delight. Emotionally, we did not know what to expect of ourselves.
The funeral director led us back to the holding area where the corpses are kept after they have been embalmed. Here the bodies are prepped for their caskets - clothed, groomed and beautified. Instinctively, my sister and I stopped in the doorway before entering the sterile space where Mother's body lay. She was naked and covered to her shoulders with a sheet. The obvious absence of living and breathing in the room actually calmed me. I heard a voice in my heart say: "She is not here. She is risen." We sisters looked at each other, inhaled deeply, and tenuously walked over to the slightly elevated slab on which our mother's body had been deposited. All trepidation vanished almost immediately when we saw Mother up close. Our response was almost comical because our first collective thought was: "Oh, my God, what have they done to Mother's face?" We just wanted to take a hot soapy rag and wash all the hideously applied make-up off her lovely skin!
"She would hate this!" my sister said, touching the too-red blush layered in large round circles on Mother's cheeks. It made her look like an aging cupie doll.
"Why don't you work on getting that crap off her face, and I'll fix her hair!" My sister had already begun the facial - did not need my direction as she began removing the blood-red rouge, the overly blue eyeshadow and the jet black eyebrows painted, clown-like, on the canvas of Mother's face. She had radiant skin and never wore much more than a dab of lipstick rubbed lightly into her cheeks and dark pink - red was for "hussies" - on her lips. We felt our mission from God that afternoon was to "un-hussy" Mother before her friends and family saw this funeral face. Mother must look like Mother again before we left her alone. The curling iron was a little too hot and dead hair actually reacts differently than living follicles; so, I singed it a little in the back and left a very tiny burn on Mother's forehead which I covered with her bangs. But, all in all, we were proud of our efforts and knew Mother would have been pleased that we rescued her visage for eternity.
One thing we noticed before we bade her body a last farewell was that all the wiping, cleaning and redoing of her make-up had opened her eyes up just enough to suggest that she was "playing possum"- pretending to be asleep, but peeking. Our best efforts at reclosing her eyes failed; they would not stay shut. The next day during her viewing at the mortuary, it looked as if she were watching the proceedings, clandestinely observing the mourners. In some esoteric way it made me feel like she was enjoying the funeral, spying to see who really gave a darn and who did not.
It was upon me to keep my promise to Mother that I would be her morgue coiffeur. Mother's body was familiar to me: her hands, her toes, the scent of her skin, the feel of her silky hair, her breath, the set of her teeth in her mouth, the arch of her lips. I was familiar with her body in animation - with her inside of it. Imagining her body now void of its spirit, without thought, movement and emotion, was confounding. It was, however, the realization that she had departed that allowed me to keep my promise to Mother to make her as lovely to behold in death as she had been in life.
For me, looking at my father was still beyond difficult. My grief was most assuredly of a different ilk from his; so, there was not that deep resonating oneness customarily found in a family coming together as a tight unit to mourn the precious matriarch of its clan. The emotional separation from Daddy caused me to feel physically alone, too. We sisters abandoned our father to himself and he stayed his distance from us. His woman lay dead on a cold morgue table, her physical death preceded by the heart-stabbing, soul-robbing truth that she had not been his heart's desire. He was in love with a thirteen-year-old boy-- had sobbed more from that loss than this one. I did not see him cry at all for Mother.
Quite honestly, I did not cry, either. Ineffability can preclude tears. My grief encompassed so many sorrows that it went deeper than the fountain where tears originate. Maybe Daddy was feeling that, also. I will never know. I lost Mother and Daddy in 1985 - an emotional orphan at thirty-seven, and it just did not seem that tears adequately expressed the vacuum deeply enough. I would be sorry later that I shut off the flow; that stream can be healing. I also could not justify weeping for Mother because she had escaped finally into paradise, golden streets, the presence of God, and everlasting love. I was jealous, maybe, but not sad for her.
When I told my sisters Mother had requested my expertise with her hair, my "master's touch" is what she called it, they were quite reticent to join me in turning the morgue into a beauty salon. This was, of course, understandable and I was absolutely, stoically, willing to go by myself. My younger sister, however, changed her mind and came with me, much to my relief and delight. Emotionally, we did not know what to expect of ourselves.
The funeral director led us back to the holding area where the corpses are kept after they have been embalmed. Here the bodies are prepped for their caskets - clothed, groomed and beautified. Instinctively, my sister and I stopped in the doorway before entering the sterile space where Mother's body lay. She was naked and covered to her shoulders with a sheet. The obvious absence of living and breathing in the room actually calmed me. I heard a voice in my heart say: "She is not here. She is risen." We sisters looked at each other, inhaled deeply, and tenuously walked over to the slightly elevated slab on which our mother's body had been deposited. All trepidation vanished almost immediately when we saw Mother up close. Our response was almost comical because our first collective thought was: "Oh, my God, what have they done to Mother's face?" We just wanted to take a hot soapy rag and wash all the hideously applied make-up off her lovely skin!
"She would hate this!" my sister said, touching the too-red blush layered in large round circles on Mother's cheeks. It made her look like an aging cupie doll.
"Why don't you work on getting that crap off her face, and I'll fix her hair!" My sister had already begun the facial - did not need my direction as she began removing the blood-red rouge, the overly blue eyeshadow and the jet black eyebrows painted, clown-like, on the canvas of Mother's face. She had radiant skin and never wore much more than a dab of lipstick rubbed lightly into her cheeks and dark pink - red was for "hussies" - on her lips. We felt our mission from God that afternoon was to "un-hussy" Mother before her friends and family saw this funeral face. Mother must look like Mother again before we left her alone. The curling iron was a little too hot and dead hair actually reacts differently than living follicles; so, I singed it a little in the back and left a very tiny burn on Mother's forehead which I covered with her bangs. But, all in all, we were proud of our efforts and knew Mother would have been pleased that we rescued her visage for eternity.
One thing we noticed before we bade her body a last farewell was that all the wiping, cleaning and redoing of her make-up had opened her eyes up just enough to suggest that she was "playing possum"- pretending to be asleep, but peeking. Our best efforts at reclosing her eyes failed; they would not stay shut. The next day during her viewing at the mortuary, it looked as if she were watching the proceedings, clandestinely observing the mourners. In some esoteric way it made me feel like she was enjoying the funeral, spying to see who really gave a darn and who did not.
Friday, October 16, 2009
1985
When I was thirteen, my mother's sister, Irene, died of cancer. In the process of the disease wasting her body and crippling her abilities, it fell to me to wash and set her hair once a week. I discovered the seeming knack for cutting, perming and styling hair out of the sheer desperation my sisters and I experienced at the hands of our mother's innate lack of ability in the hair styling arena. Our bangs were always too short and perpetually crooked, and Mother rolled our hair on permanent waving rods on Saturday afternoons! We all went to church looking like we had been electrocuted the evening before! In fourth grade, I looked in the mirror one morning and declared, " I know I can do better than this!" I may have been only slightly better; but, in our family, that was good enough!
Aunt Rene's house smelled of raw liver and carrot juice, a valiant concoction she drank faithfully in the hope of a cure. Impending death had made the house very quiet, and it caused me to be somewhat uncomfortable speaking out loud. Despite my reservations about being there, my aunt always seemed genuinely uplifted by my traveling hair salon, and I loved knowing I was making her feel better. When Aunt Rene died, my uncle asked me if I would do her hair for the funeral, in the morgue, on the slab. Mother was not sure I should, but my uncle really wanted me to; so, my Aunt Taulee and Mother decided we would all three go to the mortuary and get Irene ready. It honestly was not maudlin. To my teenage insensitivities, she seemed merely asleep. Mother and Aunt Taulee filed Irene's fingernails and in general straightened her up while I fixed her hair just the way I did when she had occupied the body now cold and lifeless. As the crowd of relatives and friends passed by her casket two days later, I was proud that I had had a part in making her look "so natural."
Twenty-four years later, the circumstances found me having to make the same decision about my mother. On one of my weekly visits, she asked me if I would help her get things ready for the funeral home. We were sitting on her back porch watching Will, my son, play in the back yard. It was June of 1985 and bees were humming, birds were chirping, and flowers were grinning at us from everywhere in the garden. Mother's thick green grass seemed to enjoy tripping my toddler's fat little feet as he waddled through the emerald blades. The sun was hot and the air heavy with the crossing scents of roses and lagustrum; jasmine and honeysuckle. Life was virtually teeming in Mother's yard; winter was left far behind as nature resurrected itself. But for Mother, there would be not resurrection to joy. This was her final season.
I was unaware that while I was sitting beside her enjoying the sparkling, lively day, she was speculating about what she would wear in her coffin. "Did you want me to do that today, Mother?"
"Yes, if you would help me. It's something I think about often and I would just like to have it done," she said, smiling a half-smile and looking at me tentatively. "Also, would you...do you think you could...fix..my ..hair? Like you did for Rene?"
Wow! I was not thirteen any more and this was my mother! The thought made me swallow hard with a certain unnamed trepidation. My mind was picturing her dead on the slab, and in that imagination all I could do was sob. I could not look objectively into that future circumstance and say with any certainty that I would be capable of the task. I sat down beside her on the redwood bench on her porch and wrapped my healthy robust arms around her frail jaundiced body. I held her as tightly as I dared for fear of snapping her in two. Tears trying to well up in my eyes made my lips quiver and my voice shaky. "Mother, I will try to do whatever you want me to do."
She cried then; starved for tenderness. We had not known. Left now more bereft than ever of the comfort she should have been able to expect after all those years with Daddy. "I will miss you, Kay. I will miss you more than you will miss me."
"How can you say that, Mother?" I was genuinely nonplussed.
"Well, I am going away all alone. I am a little afraid." Anxiety registered in her eyes. I wanted to protect her once more.
"Mother, Jesus will be there. You'll see your sisters, your brother, grandmother and granddaddy. It is you who will be so complete that you won't have time to miss us. Besides, I do not think time has much meaning in heaven. We could all live to be one hundred and still be there with you before you know it."
Almost before these words clambered from my lips, I realized that I was not saying what she needed to hear. Mother needed me to say how much I would miss her - how deeply I loved her. She wanted to say good-bye; she did not want my logical rendition of how life was going to be when her feet touched streets of gold. Mother wanted to know she had mattered on this planet, to this family.
"Mother, you are a remarkable woman. You are creative, intuitive, and organized. You have given me a Christian heritage and all your daughters possess your love of beauty and gift for hospitality. I will miss the sound of your voice. You are almost always the first person with whom I want to share the good things in my life. I remember when you took off work early on the day my boyfriend moved away because you knew I would be upset. You encouraged me and loved me, Mother. You can never be replaced or forgotten. I love you. You deserve to be loved."
Mother took in the words like parched drought-ridden land drinks in water, plumping her spirit, quenching her soul-thirst. "Thank you, precious," she managed through her tears. Her body relaxed in my embrace and her eyes brightened. "I still think I'll miss you more," she chuckled through her relief.
"Whatever, Mother," I replied, squeezing her gently.
With my son napping after lunch, Mother and I went into her bedroom and opened her closet. She had already prepared a box in which to place her funeral clothes. "I know it will be pink...whatever you have chosen is pink, right?" Mother smiled knowingly at me and pulled a pink silk suit out of its place of honor among the few hanging dresses. She was an excellent seamstress and had sewn this outfit a few years prior. Next she took her jewelry box down from its place on the dresser and collected the earrings and necklace she wanted to wear. No shoes - they don't show anyway. Mother lay down on her bed while I gently folded pink on pink layers of her last earthly apparel, wrapping it in tissue paper; then, I put it to bed in a box that would next be opened when she was not longer there.
Aunt Rene's house smelled of raw liver and carrot juice, a valiant concoction she drank faithfully in the hope of a cure. Impending death had made the house very quiet, and it caused me to be somewhat uncomfortable speaking out loud. Despite my reservations about being there, my aunt always seemed genuinely uplifted by my traveling hair salon, and I loved knowing I was making her feel better. When Aunt Rene died, my uncle asked me if I would do her hair for the funeral, in the morgue, on the slab. Mother was not sure I should, but my uncle really wanted me to; so, my Aunt Taulee and Mother decided we would all three go to the mortuary and get Irene ready. It honestly was not maudlin. To my teenage insensitivities, she seemed merely asleep. Mother and Aunt Taulee filed Irene's fingernails and in general straightened her up while I fixed her hair just the way I did when she had occupied the body now cold and lifeless. As the crowd of relatives and friends passed by her casket two days later, I was proud that I had had a part in making her look "so natural."
Twenty-four years later, the circumstances found me having to make the same decision about my mother. On one of my weekly visits, she asked me if I would help her get things ready for the funeral home. We were sitting on her back porch watching Will, my son, play in the back yard. It was June of 1985 and bees were humming, birds were chirping, and flowers were grinning at us from everywhere in the garden. Mother's thick green grass seemed to enjoy tripping my toddler's fat little feet as he waddled through the emerald blades. The sun was hot and the air heavy with the crossing scents of roses and lagustrum; jasmine and honeysuckle. Life was virtually teeming in Mother's yard; winter was left far behind as nature resurrected itself. But for Mother, there would be not resurrection to joy. This was her final season.
I was unaware that while I was sitting beside her enjoying the sparkling, lively day, she was speculating about what she would wear in her coffin. "Did you want me to do that today, Mother?"
"Yes, if you would help me. It's something I think about often and I would just like to have it done," she said, smiling a half-smile and looking at me tentatively. "Also, would you...do you think you could...fix..my ..hair? Like you did for Rene?"
Wow! I was not thirteen any more and this was my mother! The thought made me swallow hard with a certain unnamed trepidation. My mind was picturing her dead on the slab, and in that imagination all I could do was sob. I could not look objectively into that future circumstance and say with any certainty that I would be capable of the task. I sat down beside her on the redwood bench on her porch and wrapped my healthy robust arms around her frail jaundiced body. I held her as tightly as I dared for fear of snapping her in two. Tears trying to well up in my eyes made my lips quiver and my voice shaky. "Mother, I will try to do whatever you want me to do."
She cried then; starved for tenderness. We had not known. Left now more bereft than ever of the comfort she should have been able to expect after all those years with Daddy. "I will miss you, Kay. I will miss you more than you will miss me."
"How can you say that, Mother?" I was genuinely nonplussed.
"Well, I am going away all alone. I am a little afraid." Anxiety registered in her eyes. I wanted to protect her once more.
"Mother, Jesus will be there. You'll see your sisters, your brother, grandmother and granddaddy. It is you who will be so complete that you won't have time to miss us. Besides, I do not think time has much meaning in heaven. We could all live to be one hundred and still be there with you before you know it."
Almost before these words clambered from my lips, I realized that I was not saying what she needed to hear. Mother needed me to say how much I would miss her - how deeply I loved her. She wanted to say good-bye; she did not want my logical rendition of how life was going to be when her feet touched streets of gold. Mother wanted to know she had mattered on this planet, to this family.
"Mother, you are a remarkable woman. You are creative, intuitive, and organized. You have given me a Christian heritage and all your daughters possess your love of beauty and gift for hospitality. I will miss the sound of your voice. You are almost always the first person with whom I want to share the good things in my life. I remember when you took off work early on the day my boyfriend moved away because you knew I would be upset. You encouraged me and loved me, Mother. You can never be replaced or forgotten. I love you. You deserve to be loved."
Mother took in the words like parched drought-ridden land drinks in water, plumping her spirit, quenching her soul-thirst. "Thank you, precious," she managed through her tears. Her body relaxed in my embrace and her eyes brightened. "I still think I'll miss you more," she chuckled through her relief.
"Whatever, Mother," I replied, squeezing her gently.
With my son napping after lunch, Mother and I went into her bedroom and opened her closet. She had already prepared a box in which to place her funeral clothes. "I know it will be pink...whatever you have chosen is pink, right?" Mother smiled knowingly at me and pulled a pink silk suit out of its place of honor among the few hanging dresses. She was an excellent seamstress and had sewn this outfit a few years prior. Next she took her jewelry box down from its place on the dresser and collected the earrings and necklace she wanted to wear. No shoes - they don't show anyway. Mother lay down on her bed while I gently folded pink on pink layers of her last earthly apparel, wrapping it in tissue paper; then, I put it to bed in a box that would next be opened when she was not longer there.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
1961
I cannot remember a time when I was not fascinated with driving. On my seventh birthday, I received my first big girl bike and got all bloodied up learning, by darn, how to ride the thing! It was the color of creamed peas and it had huge tube tires. Boys all over my neighborhood always rode up and down the sidewalks "driving" their bikes with one hand, like my daddy drove our car; so, that was my short term mission in life -to maneuver my bike, one-handed and confident, like Mario Andretti, up and down every sidewalk in my world.
Through the years I kept up with the makes and models of cars, also. I am from the '57 Chevy days and was in high school when Ford introduced the Mustang. Daddy used to let me sit on his lap and drive, and I was really pretty coordinated. By the time I was thirteen, I was able to stay on the road and even manipulate a standard transmission without breaking the necks of everyone in the car!
Daddy bought Mother a 1950 Chrysler as a second car in 1961. With its big rounded forest green body and large onimous headlights, it looked like one of those large green beetles that fly clumsily into your face in the summer. When I climbed into the seat I was perched high above the sleeker cars of the late 50's and early 60's. The steering wheel had so much play in it, I felt like I was turning a screw that had been stripped of its tread every time I rounded a corner. But, it became my "ride" at thirteen years old. Mother had such trouble with back pain that I drove it more than she did although I did not yet have a driver's license.
There was a dark period of time when Mother seemed always ill. At times she would stay in bed for some days and we girls tended to things. I really do not know what was wrong with her exactly. Her face was often etched with pain and there was little joy registered on it. I think now that much of what manifested in her body was the result of great soul-weariness and heartache seeping to the surface. Many doctors diagnosed her problems as "nerves." There was, however, much relief for her physical pain when she discovered Dr. Morris and chiropractic medicine. It was to his office that Mother had me drive one evening when Daddy was out of town. The nausea that accompanied her back and neck pain was just too much to bear; and, I was her only transportation to the doctor. My middle-child-make-everything-all-right mentality kicked in as I threw off my pajamas, hurriedly dressed, found the car keys, helped Mother out of bed and into her robe, and headed for the giant green bug parked outside. I remember feeling proud that I could take care of her; I felt capable because she felt I was. Carefully, I chauffered my mother to her doctor and delivered her unscathed into his healing hands. Relief poured over me like an anointing oil, beginning with my head and flowing over my shoulders and down to my churning stomach. I was part Wonder Woman - part taxi driver. I felt appointed to secure her safety for the rest of my life.
I watched as Dr. Morris manipulated her back and pulled her neck quickly taut, turning it first to the left and then to the right, feeling for some magic place on her neck with his fingers that signaled to him the precise moment to "adjust" her. At long last, when Mother had been pulled, pushed and cracked, Dr. Morris used his thumbs to press down and down, until she almost screamed, on pressure points in her neck and then release and brusquely rub the spot out with his hand. This treatment, however, did not shock me; I had been adjusted several times myself; the only part I hated was having to lie still in a quiet little room for what seemed hours afterward.
I waited in the darkened, night-time foyer for Mother to rest in her cubicle. Thirteen-year-old girls are notoriously self-absorbed, and I was no exception. Though I was concerned for my mother, I felt really grown up that evening. Mother had depended upon me in her time of need, and I had come through, brilliantly, it seemed. Daddy would be proud of me, though the Fort Worth police department might not have been so gracious should I have plowed into a licensed driver on the way home. Thankfully, a nausea-free, relaxed Mother was deposited back into her bedroom safe and sound; I returned to pajamas and homework.
Daddy was proud of me; but he sold insurance and knew what would happen if I were ever stopped for a traffic violation. Because Mother's health was so unstable, the FWPD issued me an emergency license after I passed the driver's test. The only thing I remember from the test was startling myself and the police officer by parallel parking correctly on my first and only try.
My premier outing with my brand new license resting tenuously in my purse was to transport my mother, my aunt and my grandmother to separate doctors' offices and then retrieve them when they were done. Mother was to go to the chiropractor and my aunt and grandmother to the oncologist. Grandmother, who was in her eighties, had a lump in her breast, and Aunt Taulee was accompanying her to the doctor's consultation convened after her biopsy. No one was confident the outcome would be positive, and my aunt did not want to drive home with devastating news riding shotgun.
Responsible -I needed to be responsible and make the news Grandmother Berrier would receive somehow bearable. I loved my grandmother with such a deep gratitude and respect. She had stayed with a difficult man several years her senior through the vicissitudes of life and somehow borne his daily accusations of infidelity during his declining, demented years with grace and mercy, though her heart ached with the injustice of his words. With patience and great love, Grandmother had spent many summer days teaching me to sew - iron the seams open an stitch down their edges; make certain when cutting the patterns the lines of the fabric match up perfectly; hem-stitch everything by hand, making sure to catch only a thread of the material so that the stitch cannot be detected on the front surface of the garment. I watched "Lawrence Welk" and "Days of Our Lives" with her, and she thought the soaps were real. Grandmother would have loved reality television.
I picked Mother up first then Grandmother and Aunt Taulee. Because of Grandmother's deep faith in Christ and her advanced age, she seemed to handle the news of her diagnosis with aplomb. Breast cancer had indeed invaded her body. The old green auto chugged along with all four of us in tow. The silence in the car belied the noisy talk clambering inside of our heads. We had all seen Aunt Rene die, long and slow, and the memory of the pungent odor of raw liver and carrot juice, with all its sensory connotations, penetrated my consciousness as a sickening reminder of her valiant efforts at defeating the cell-destroying enemy that finally conquered her. My view of the road blurred as I blinked back the evidence of my fears for my grandma. I do not remember who actually spoke first, but ultimately the two sisters and their mother talked of surgery and recovery; and, I kept my hands on a wobbling steering wheel and drove them home.
Perhaps it was because I was the driver that I felt responsible for the news, somehow. Or maybe it was because I was so periphery to the actual pain Grandmother must be feeling. I pulled the car into our driveway and Mother and I stepped out, took deep breaths, and went inside. Honestly, I felt as though I had hoed somebody's back forty, I was so tired. Emotionally spent, I headed to the kitchen to help Mother make dinner. The phone rang. Friends from church had a stranded son and wondered if I would go to the school, pick him up and take him home. Back in the car again. But the aura in the old Chrysler had remained trapped inside the locked car when we exited, and I felt once more the heaviness of the afternoon. I also had not had time to settle myself from rushing to and from doctor's offices trying to get everyone somewhere on time. Here I was again - Hurry up!! Don't be late! The school was not far away. The task, easy. I dropped the boy off at his house and went inside to greet his father for a moment. There were bags of groceries around the kitchen and backpacks on the floor. The family was leaving for the weekend. Sounded fun. Have a great time!
Back in the car. Turn on the engine. Roll down the window and shout farewell to the boy's waving father. "Drive carefully this weekend!" I was smiling as I roll out of the driveway. BAM! Tires squeal! The old car fish-tails slightly. I stomp mushy brakes. Metal bumper thuds against metal bumper. A lady is screaming as a car door slams. "My baby! My baby!" she is shouting. I am out of the car now and the man to whom I have just waved good-bye has ironically espied me driving "not so carefully" out of his driveway, and he is running toward me to assess the damage done to the car of this hysterical woman frantically checking out her bewildered three-year-old son. It appears I have scraped her bumper with mine. The boy is unhurt, but the mother is ready to kill me! "Why did you not look where you were going?" I dunno.....I was saying good-bye, telling him to drive safely...I dunno. "You could have killed me and my kid!" Stupid. I was really stupid. That had to be the best reason I could come up with, but I did not say anything to the woman because I did not know what to say.
I had tried so hard all day to keep a lid on my emotions. Stoically, I walked back into the house I had just exited and called my daddy. I did not know what to do with the angry woman standing at the end of this man's driveway. I wanted to be conscientious and do the correct thing, but I was thirteen and naive and, really, I just wanted to go home. Daddy was still at work. The phone rang there for such a long time, but I knew when he answered exactly what I would say: "Daddy, I have had a minor accident here at Johnny's house and the lady whose car I rolled into is very mad at me. What do I do?" However, when Daddy picked up, all I could do was cry. The sound of his voice was so comforting that I just wanted him to hug me and take care of this mess I made because I was in a hurry and my mind was full of too much business from the day.
Ultimately, I articulated through my blubbering exactly what had just happened. Daddy asked to speak with the mad mommy, and I went home. I felt like a stupid failure! Somehow the messes of the day were all my fault. I put that lie on like a dress and wore it for a while. When my father got home he just put his arms around me and said he was proud of all I had done that day. It was a busy, emotional day. Don't worry about the wreck. No one was hurt. Everything will be okay. Patting my back. Don't worry. I'll take care of this.
I believed Daddy. I never heard anything more about it.
Through the years I kept up with the makes and models of cars, also. I am from the '57 Chevy days and was in high school when Ford introduced the Mustang. Daddy used to let me sit on his lap and drive, and I was really pretty coordinated. By the time I was thirteen, I was able to stay on the road and even manipulate a standard transmission without breaking the necks of everyone in the car!
Daddy bought Mother a 1950 Chrysler as a second car in 1961. With its big rounded forest green body and large onimous headlights, it looked like one of those large green beetles that fly clumsily into your face in the summer. When I climbed into the seat I was perched high above the sleeker cars of the late 50's and early 60's. The steering wheel had so much play in it, I felt like I was turning a screw that had been stripped of its tread every time I rounded a corner. But, it became my "ride" at thirteen years old. Mother had such trouble with back pain that I drove it more than she did although I did not yet have a driver's license.
There was a dark period of time when Mother seemed always ill. At times she would stay in bed for some days and we girls tended to things. I really do not know what was wrong with her exactly. Her face was often etched with pain and there was little joy registered on it. I think now that much of what manifested in her body was the result of great soul-weariness and heartache seeping to the surface. Many doctors diagnosed her problems as "nerves." There was, however, much relief for her physical pain when she discovered Dr. Morris and chiropractic medicine. It was to his office that Mother had me drive one evening when Daddy was out of town. The nausea that accompanied her back and neck pain was just too much to bear; and, I was her only transportation to the doctor. My middle-child-make-everything-all-right mentality kicked in as I threw off my pajamas, hurriedly dressed, found the car keys, helped Mother out of bed and into her robe, and headed for the giant green bug parked outside. I remember feeling proud that I could take care of her; I felt capable because she felt I was. Carefully, I chauffered my mother to her doctor and delivered her unscathed into his healing hands. Relief poured over me like an anointing oil, beginning with my head and flowing over my shoulders and down to my churning stomach. I was part Wonder Woman - part taxi driver. I felt appointed to secure her safety for the rest of my life.
I watched as Dr. Morris manipulated her back and pulled her neck quickly taut, turning it first to the left and then to the right, feeling for some magic place on her neck with his fingers that signaled to him the precise moment to "adjust" her. At long last, when Mother had been pulled, pushed and cracked, Dr. Morris used his thumbs to press down and down, until she almost screamed, on pressure points in her neck and then release and brusquely rub the spot out with his hand. This treatment, however, did not shock me; I had been adjusted several times myself; the only part I hated was having to lie still in a quiet little room for what seemed hours afterward.
I waited in the darkened, night-time foyer for Mother to rest in her cubicle. Thirteen-year-old girls are notoriously self-absorbed, and I was no exception. Though I was concerned for my mother, I felt really grown up that evening. Mother had depended upon me in her time of need, and I had come through, brilliantly, it seemed. Daddy would be proud of me, though the Fort Worth police department might not have been so gracious should I have plowed into a licensed driver on the way home. Thankfully, a nausea-free, relaxed Mother was deposited back into her bedroom safe and sound; I returned to pajamas and homework.
Daddy was proud of me; but he sold insurance and knew what would happen if I were ever stopped for a traffic violation. Because Mother's health was so unstable, the FWPD issued me an emergency license after I passed the driver's test. The only thing I remember from the test was startling myself and the police officer by parallel parking correctly on my first and only try.
My premier outing with my brand new license resting tenuously in my purse was to transport my mother, my aunt and my grandmother to separate doctors' offices and then retrieve them when they were done. Mother was to go to the chiropractor and my aunt and grandmother to the oncologist. Grandmother, who was in her eighties, had a lump in her breast, and Aunt Taulee was accompanying her to the doctor's consultation convened after her biopsy. No one was confident the outcome would be positive, and my aunt did not want to drive home with devastating news riding shotgun.
Responsible -I needed to be responsible and make the news Grandmother Berrier would receive somehow bearable. I loved my grandmother with such a deep gratitude and respect. She had stayed with a difficult man several years her senior through the vicissitudes of life and somehow borne his daily accusations of infidelity during his declining, demented years with grace and mercy, though her heart ached with the injustice of his words. With patience and great love, Grandmother had spent many summer days teaching me to sew - iron the seams open an stitch down their edges; make certain when cutting the patterns the lines of the fabric match up perfectly; hem-stitch everything by hand, making sure to catch only a thread of the material so that the stitch cannot be detected on the front surface of the garment. I watched "Lawrence Welk" and "Days of Our Lives" with her, and she thought the soaps were real. Grandmother would have loved reality television.
I picked Mother up first then Grandmother and Aunt Taulee. Because of Grandmother's deep faith in Christ and her advanced age, she seemed to handle the news of her diagnosis with aplomb. Breast cancer had indeed invaded her body. The old green auto chugged along with all four of us in tow. The silence in the car belied the noisy talk clambering inside of our heads. We had all seen Aunt Rene die, long and slow, and the memory of the pungent odor of raw liver and carrot juice, with all its sensory connotations, penetrated my consciousness as a sickening reminder of her valiant efforts at defeating the cell-destroying enemy that finally conquered her. My view of the road blurred as I blinked back the evidence of my fears for my grandma. I do not remember who actually spoke first, but ultimately the two sisters and their mother talked of surgery and recovery; and, I kept my hands on a wobbling steering wheel and drove them home.
Perhaps it was because I was the driver that I felt responsible for the news, somehow. Or maybe it was because I was so periphery to the actual pain Grandmother must be feeling. I pulled the car into our driveway and Mother and I stepped out, took deep breaths, and went inside. Honestly, I felt as though I had hoed somebody's back forty, I was so tired. Emotionally spent, I headed to the kitchen to help Mother make dinner. The phone rang. Friends from church had a stranded son and wondered if I would go to the school, pick him up and take him home. Back in the car again. But the aura in the old Chrysler had remained trapped inside the locked car when we exited, and I felt once more the heaviness of the afternoon. I also had not had time to settle myself from rushing to and from doctor's offices trying to get everyone somewhere on time. Here I was again - Hurry up!! Don't be late! The school was not far away. The task, easy. I dropped the boy off at his house and went inside to greet his father for a moment. There were bags of groceries around the kitchen and backpacks on the floor. The family was leaving for the weekend. Sounded fun. Have a great time!
Back in the car. Turn on the engine. Roll down the window and shout farewell to the boy's waving father. "Drive carefully this weekend!" I was smiling as I roll out of the driveway. BAM! Tires squeal! The old car fish-tails slightly. I stomp mushy brakes. Metal bumper thuds against metal bumper. A lady is screaming as a car door slams. "My baby! My baby!" she is shouting. I am out of the car now and the man to whom I have just waved good-bye has ironically espied me driving "not so carefully" out of his driveway, and he is running toward me to assess the damage done to the car of this hysterical woman frantically checking out her bewildered three-year-old son. It appears I have scraped her bumper with mine. The boy is unhurt, but the mother is ready to kill me! "Why did you not look where you were going?" I dunno.....I was saying good-bye, telling him to drive safely...I dunno. "You could have killed me and my kid!" Stupid. I was really stupid. That had to be the best reason I could come up with, but I did not say anything to the woman because I did not know what to say.
I had tried so hard all day to keep a lid on my emotions. Stoically, I walked back into the house I had just exited and called my daddy. I did not know what to do with the angry woman standing at the end of this man's driveway. I wanted to be conscientious and do the correct thing, but I was thirteen and naive and, really, I just wanted to go home. Daddy was still at work. The phone rang there for such a long time, but I knew when he answered exactly what I would say: "Daddy, I have had a minor accident here at Johnny's house and the lady whose car I rolled into is very mad at me. What do I do?" However, when Daddy picked up, all I could do was cry. The sound of his voice was so comforting that I just wanted him to hug me and take care of this mess I made because I was in a hurry and my mind was full of too much business from the day.
Ultimately, I articulated through my blubbering exactly what had just happened. Daddy asked to speak with the mad mommy, and I went home. I felt like a stupid failure! Somehow the messes of the day were all my fault. I put that lie on like a dress and wore it for a while. When my father got home he just put his arms around me and said he was proud of all I had done that day. It was a busy, emotional day. Don't worry about the wreck. No one was hurt. Everything will be okay. Patting my back. Don't worry. I'll take care of this.
I believed Daddy. I never heard anything more about it.
Monday, October 12, 2009
1963
We had family friends, the Taylors, who had three boys close in age to us three girls. Once in a while the families would get together for barbecues and socializing. The mother, Jane, was a long time friend of Mother's who had known her before she married Daddy. Jane was, in fact, in their wedding. I remember eating watermelons in our backyard and playing on the swing set with the Taylor boys. They had a "weenie" dog that we loved to chase around when we went to their home. The son my age was Jerry. By the time we all were pre-teens, we did not get together much anymore. Life was busy with school and church, and Mother was not always well. We also lived on the other side of town from the Taylor clan - we in the more pedestrian neighborhood.
In the late fall of 1962 we moved to Wedgwood, a brand new home development in Fort Worth, Texas. Or house was a huge five bedroom mansion built on a hill, and Daddy paid $16,000 for it - thirty year fixed! We three girls had to leave the schools we had always attended and the friends we had made to go to this upper middle class neighborhood. Ninth grade was still junior high back then, and it was a hard year to start over making friends. The junior high school was newly opened, and the boy I liked from church went there; but, I literally knew no one else. By the middle of the school year every crew-socked fourteen-year-old girl had already chosen a "BFF." Drama class saved me; I garnered a major part in the ninth grade play and even got to wear red high heels! I did not, however, make a really good friend that year; so, I felt more displaced when I began my freshman year at Pascal High School.
I still have dreams in which I search the vast maze of the school's polished hallways attempting to find the elusive locker assigned to me. In 1963, we had homeroom before first period. The corralling of students first thing in the morning to take roll, pledge allegiance to the flag, hear the morning devotional, and listen to the day's announcements was the primary function of this early morning class. Jerry Taylor was in my homeroom, though it was clear I was not "cool" enough to be acknowledged as someone with whom he had spit watermelon seeds across the backyard. He would not even look me in the eye. It seemed to me there was something innately wrong with me. Day after day I entered homeroom feeling like anathema to the rest of the class. I knew no one there, except Jerry, and so always rather reticently took an open seat wherever I could find one. Of course, as fate would have it, most of the boys in class were on the football team and were gloriously, effortlessly blown up with themselves! Ninth grade letter jackets were flung over their shoulders in September Texas one hundred degree heat, and schools had no air conditioning then. These guys would rather shed their skin than their emblem of fame and prowess. It was a junior high jacket, for Pete's sake! Get over it!
Late in October I came early to homeroom. Two girls had arrived before me, their hair in perfect "flips" and their makeup just right. I chose not to sit near them. My hair was curly; couldn't get it to "flip" to save my life. Jerry Taylor was already there, too; so, fatefully, I sat near him and actually thought to say something scintillating like, "Hi." He turned his head, however, and I did not want my greeting bouncing off his skull and back to me, slapping me with the indignity of no response. Right before the bell rang, Donnie Hoover swaggered through the classroom door and eyed the room as if he were Caesar trying to locate his missing throne. Apparently, I had discovered it and was perched upon it in a grave breaching of royal decorum. With his eyes on the prize, Donnie, lathered from the sweat of bearing his letterman's jacket about in the dewy morning heat, approached my chair and stood there looking down on me.
"Make like a sewer and get the shit out of here." Matter of fact. Like women just did what he said.
Wow! What do you say to that? What does your good ole buddy, childhood friend of good ole watermelon days say to someone who says that to you? He laughs. It's funny, really! I mean, I was on Donnie's throne. (I think Donnie's first wife left him.) But, I moved. I can still feel my face burning and the squeezing of my heart into a really small lump. Jerry looked in my eyes for a moment as I was clutching my books to my chest in order to "make like a sewer" as fast as I could "get my shit" together. For a minute he felt sorry, embarrassed, I could tell. I never acknowledged his existence again. That day I ate my sack lunch in the restroom in a stall sitting on the commode with the seat down - actually, I ate my lunch in the restroom for many, many days after that. I was, after all, shit.
Something about me had changed at home. Usually I was talkative and at least trying to be funny; but, I just could not shake that awful cloak of disgrace that Donnie had thrown over me. I also hated myself for moving from that seat! Ultimately, my father took me aside one night when the dishes were done and everyone was settling in to do homework or watch television. "What is the matter with you, Kay?"
"What do you mean?"
"You are not yourself. Now, what's the matter?" Daddy, relentless.
How could I tell my father what Donnie had said? How could I take the chance that he might agree that I was worthless? Besides, I did not even know if I could say what Donnie had said. How could anyone say that to another human being? I would not have talked to an errant pet that way. I felt the humiliation of the moment filter once again through my veins and into my heart and up to my face. I could not tell Daddy what I had let someone say to me.
"Nothing, Daddy."
"I don't believe you, Kay." He pulled me to him in an embrace. "Now, what is wrong?"
It was the hug that was the killer. I would still be carrying Donnie's words around with me, but my father's warm strong arms made me suddenly vulnerable enough to spit out the toxic imperative. I just blubbered and blurted until Daddy heard the whole sordid story and his shirt was wet with tears and smeared with too much blue eye shadow.
Boy, was my Daddy mad! It almost made me laugh with relief, he was so mad! "What is this kids' name?" he thundered.
Oh, boy! Maybe should have let it ride. Quietly, almost inaudibly. "Donnie Hoover."
"Donnie Hoover, huh?" Daddy heard well back then. "Do you know where he lives?"
"No, Daddy."
"He will apologize to you or I will know the reason why!" Daddy was grabbing the phone book like a man possessed.
"What are you doing, Daddy?" Adrenaline surged, pumping my heart and making my armpits moist.
"Gonna call his dad!"
"What?" Oh, no!.....well, okay. Why not? Yeah! Call his dad!
My father called every Hoover in the yellow pages until he found the one with the kid named Donnie. "Donnie go to Pascal High School - tenth grade?" Pause. "Well, your Donnie owes my Kay an apology and she better get one tomorrow morning or I'll be coming over to talk to you personally!"
Way to go, Daddy!
"I'll tell you what he did!" Daddy regaled Donnie's dad with the story of my carnage even punctuating "certain" words for effect. "She will be expecting an apology in the morning, then. Thank you, sir." Click.
My dad was triumphant! My dad was Braveheart! My dad was my hero. My dad had "balls"!
I barely slept that night and got up early to make sure I looked as good as I possibly could. I guess I was trying to wipe the "shit" off before Donnie did, or I just wanted to feel good about myself so that when he was apologizing he would look at me and think, honestly, how wrong he had been to say something so "crappy" to someone so lovely. It would have been nice to think he had reconsidered because I deserved to be apologized to instead of saying he was sorry because if he didn't "someone's father" would just beat the crap out of him!
I was standing at my locker before homeroom, as I had become much more proficient at discerning its whereabouts, when Hal came up to me, red-faced and perspiring. He just stood there looking at me like he could not think where to begin. I looked around - I think I wanted to run. Finally, in true Neanderthal fashion, he said, "Your dad called my dad last night..and..I'm sorry for what I said to you." Donnie looked bewildered. Probably very unpracticed in the whole "please forgive me scenario."
"No big deal," I replied. Oh, my gosh! What am I saying? I am eating lunch on the pot! Of course words are a big deal!
I closed my locker and walked away and sat wherever I darn well pleased in homeroom!
Saturday, October 10, 2009
1931
The man in the red Chevrolet five-window coupe was wearing a charcoal gray suit, smoking a Lucky Strike cigarette, and had a new pork pie hat perched somewhat askew atop his head. Jim saw the bright new red automobile rolling up the street and stuck out his thumb hoping to catch a ride to his dad's house.
It had been six years since A.J. had left the dollar bill on the ironing board and walked out on Jim and Celestia. Jim, on crutches, had almost immediately begun selling magazine subscriptions door to door so that he and his mother could afford to live. Celestia took in ironing, but the mother and son just barely eked out an existence.
A.J. had remarried. Jim's new stepmom was the antithesis of Celestia. There was little or no room in her busy life as the wife of a top-notch salesman for an obese twelve-year-old from small-town Ashland. The few times Jim had been allowed into their home, he had had to find his own transportation there and back. The new Mrs. Strickling disdained her stepson's manners and made him wash his own handkerchiefs by hand as she did not want his filthy rags mixed with her good wash. Still, Jim went. He needed a dad, no matter how shabby the facsimile was to the real thing.
The first year after A.J. left, his boy often sat on the front porch waiting for his dad to return. His hopeful little heart ached for the smell of his dad, for a fatherly pat on the head, for protection, affirmation and love. Something must be wrong with him for Pop to have left so abruptly. Never spoken. Never reasoned. The thought was planted deeply into him that he was damaged goods unworthy of the kind of attention paid to his peers by their fathers. Though Jim had recovered full use of his leg by the time he was seven, simple activities like playing catch or going fishing were denied him because he had been abandoned. He longed to be loved by a man-to be wanted by a father. Ached to be touched by a dad who might kiss him good-night or hug him before he left for work each morning.
It became clear all too soon that A.J. was uninterested in returning and had left his youngest son with impunity. Celestia was quiet and acquiescent, leaving here son to his own thoughts and devices; so, he interpreted his world as clearly as a little child could and came up with conclusions that would ultimately sabotage his adult life.
Frank Smith found Celestia's fleshy, soft body and unassuming nature quite attractive. A hard working man, rough around the edges, he had met Celestia through her neighbors. Without much formal courting, they were married when Jim was nine years old. Frank moved mother and son into his home, and life began to normalize somewhat. Frank, however, was older and not much interested in Jim. Her new husband took good care of Celestia; Jim was her responsibility.
So it was on that Saturday morning in 1931 that the man in the shiny new Chevy pulled over and offered Jim a ride. Reaching across the passenger seat, the man opened the door for him from the inside.
"Need a ride, kid?" asked the man.
"Sure! Thanks!" said Jim. "This is a really nice car, sir!" He climbed into the passenger seat through the opened door.
The man took a big, long Lucky Strike puff and blew the smoke out slowly before he responded with, "Why, thank you, son! She is a beauty, isn't she?"
"Yes, sir."
"So, where are you off to?" asked the man as Jim closed the door and settled into the comfortable black seat.
"Gonna see my dad."
Once the pair in the car established directions to Pop's place and the stranger had shifted into DRIVE, the man questioned Jim about his dad and why Jim needed a ride to see him. With some coaxing, which substituted for genuine interest, Jim was encouraged to tell the nice man about how Pop had left him and about how Pop's new wife did not really like him all that much.
"That must've been quite a blow to a kid like you," said the man as he lifted his right arm and relaxed it over Jim's shoulders.
"Yeah, it was," said Jim, rather enjoying the full attention being paid him by this genial man. "But Mom has a new husband. And he's all right."
"Bet it's hard not having a dad around to play ball with and all..." The man's voice trailed off as his hand moved up to Jim's curly dark hair where his fingers began fiddling with the unruly locks that refused to behave on the crown of Jim's head.
Vague sensual pleasure mixed ominously with a sense of alarm in Jim as his body stiffened and he stared straight ahead at the oncoming traffic. Men did not touch him, yet there was a hand, smelling of stale nicotine, warm and large, massaging his hair lovingly.
"You gotta lot of hair, kid," said the man, breaking the awkward silence. "Yeah." Jim's pre-adolescent response.
The Chevy began to slow as the driver gingerly made his way down an unfamiliar neighborhood street. He steered the car to the curb and put it into PARK, leaving the motor running. Confused, Jim turned to look at the man whose face was covered in a light, shining layer of perspiration. An unfamiliar glint danced in the stranger's eyes and a quizzical smile slithered menacingly across his face.
"Don't be afraid, kid," the man all but whispered. "Everything will be okay."
The next moment, the man slipped his left hand from the steering wheel and placed it under the waistband of Jim's pants where it worked its way with horrifying warmth and swiftness to defile Jim's innocence. The man was still massaging Jim's curls as he fondled him, and Jim could smell tobacco and breakfast on the stranger's breath as the man panted lightly with pleasure.
Bursting awareness, crashing terror. High arousal, crushing shame. Wanting the man, hating the man; resisting retreat, needing to run.
The moment became eternal as the twelve-year-old fought his way back into the present. It was as though he had to shake himself awake from this illusion in order to escape it. Bearing suddenly down upon Jim was the reality that he was alone in a car with a perfect stranger and he should be afraid. The dark green eyes of his attacker now seemed glazed, like a dead man's, and Jim felt himself being pulled down into their same inexplicable darkness. He decided to fight against the force and grabbed hold of the man's forearm, yanking it free from his body. Jim slapped away the hand that had continued to play with his hair; he reached for the door handle, opened the door, and ran! Ran like prey that knows it has been spotted by the hunter. Ran from the terror of titillation, from the savagery of shame, from the desperation of desolation. A pursuer he could not out-pace, this secret molestation required repetition to quiet it demons. Jim had no voice in the red Chevy. Just a kid no one listened to. The kernel was sown. Vanquished would become vanquisher.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
1969
The spring before we married, Bill traded his green 1963 Chevrolet Impala for a beautiful 1969 red Ford Mustang Mach I. Its louvered back window, black and yellow racing stripes, and latched hood only accentuated the drama of the idling engine's pulsating rhythm. The noise of a thousand cans beaten by a thousand drumsticks signaled we had stepped on the gas and were lurching forward at, mach 1, I suppose.
The car was really only big enough for the two of us; but, that was all there was at the time. We had not thought to buy a car the entire extended family could be taxied about in. We did not want the company of others, my mother surmised; so, unbeknownst to us, she hated our little Mustang. She saw it as a point of exclusion. We had purchased a small car because we were selfish enough to not want her riding in it!
In July of 1969, my little sister, who was still in high school when we married, was going to need a place to stay for the weekend because Mother and Daddy were going out of town. When Mother asked if my sister could stay with us, Bill mentioned that she would have to sleep on the couch because our apartment did not have much room. He did not say no, just that my sister might not be really comfortable. Mother stored that in her heart as yet another exclusion - we no longer loved her in our selfishness. I was surprised when my sister spent the weekend with a friend. I had not known we said no.
By mid-August, Bill was informed that the aerospace firm for which he worked would be sending us on loan to Lockheed Aircraft in Burbank, California, for three months. That prospect was exciting for us newlyweds. It meant that I would have to postpone my senior year of college and student teaching for a semester; but, Bill and I knew this was a wonderful opportunity and couldn't wait to go. We were at lunch the following Sunday with my parents when we had intended to tell them of our plans. Our wedding pictures had arrived at their home that week, so we were looking forward to seeing them for the first time. My second cousin had agreed to create our wedding portfolio for a hundred dollars. He was an amateur photographer, not a professional. Bill also dabbles in photography and had snapped wedding pictures for friends. I am certain all of these facts were circulating in Mother's mind when Bill's response to her question: "How do you like the wedding pictures, Bill?" came raw and unpolished from his stammering tongue. "They are good for cheap pictures."
Oh, my gosh! I could not believe he said that! All my mother heard was the word cheap. All I heard was the word cheap! The pictures were average and my mother knew it. She had been disappointed in them, too. But she needed her new son's approval. The next thing Bill and I heard was, "I know you thought the whole wedding was cheap, cheap, cheap!"
I wished I could have picked up all those words and stuffed them back into Bill's mouth then shut it tight! Of course, he did not think the wedding was cheap. What he could remember of it had been beautiful, but he was as dazed and amazed by the event as I had been. The wedding being the tawdry affair Bill had innocently proclaimed it to be opened some floodgate of bitterness in Mother that spilled forth from some deep reservoir. We were inundated with accusations of selfishness and hubris. We had purchased a car in which she could not ride; Bill did not want my sister in our home; nothing was good enough for us; our entire wedding was cheap and an utter failure! The deluge, depleted, soaked Bill and me in shame and incredulity. Selfishness had never been our intent, nor would Bill have ever wanted my parents to think the wedding was less than wonderful. Cheap also means inexpensive, and the photographs were inexpensive. Oh, well. No grabbing for the dribbled semantics that had now attached their own small meaning to my mother's heart and mind. She had ceased speaking and had exited the room. I had never seen her this way. Bill and I left their home, heavy-footed, clothed in condemnation; and, as we slogged to our little red Mustang, we turned to see my father standing in the doorway, deflated, slope-shouldered and beaten.
The next day, Mother announced through Daddy that Bill and I were the most selfish people she knew and she never wanted to speak to us again. At barely twenty-one, my little girl heart still beat with the need for my mother's love and approval, and I could not bear this unjust rejection. It did not occur to me that this overblown reaction to our marriage had its roots in deeper ground within Mother. Instead, there was no question that I was completely to blame for her distress and now forbidden to even try to make it right. I wrote her a letter - a long, emotional, over-wrought, "say-way-too-much" missive. Then, I was ignorant enough to mail it. Dropping the words into the mailbox gave me momentary closure. Mother had put her hand over my mouth with her angry silence, but I still blurted out my own immature thoughts and feelings for her to read. Then she would be sorry; maybe even understand.
Walking home from the mailbox and reciting to myself my self-righteous words of rebuttal, I noticed a rising panic building in my chest. I started to notice how many times I thought, I probably shouldn't have said that! From very far away, I turned to look at the ominous big, blue mailbox that held within it the letter that had floated down atop the hundreds of others that day, and my panic became full-blown terror! I could not retrieve the words. "Oh, God," I breathed, "please don't let her ever receive that letter!" Tears flowed as I finished the distance to our little apartment, went inside and closed the door.
My father knew we were going to move to California for three months. I assumed he had relayed that information to Mother. Heartsick and feeling helpless to ameliorate the situation, Daddy came to see me at our apartment one afternoon that week. I made him a light lunch which we ate while sitting at our little dinette. Exasperation and sorrow fixed our conversation over bologna sandwiches, pickles and chips. What to do. Mother locked in; the rest of us locked out. Daddy understood that newlyweds like time alone, that we loved my sister, that the wedding pictures were adequate, and that Bill loved Mother. We held hands and prayed that our heavenly Father would somehow break through. Daddy hugged me tightly when he left, promising it would be all right. That evening, Daddy called Bill and me and asked us to come over to their home the next evening. "Is that okay with Mother?"
"No."
"No."
Sleep that night never visited me. My mind was too full of possible scenarios: Mother would not even see us; maybe she had read my letter and hated me even more; Bill would say something that made it even worse! I tossed and turned in sync with my churning stomach, and finally faced the day too early and very emotionally depleted. Hour after hour crept past as I reached for the moment when we walked into my parents' home for our "high noon." When Bill and I finally eased into our little car, we filled it with desperate prayers for reconciliation and understanding. We were not ready for a fight; we were hoping for a healing.
Daddy met us at the door looking resolute and in charge. "Your mother is in the kitchen at the table. I have old her she cannot say ANYTHING until we have all take this to God first. I am asking you to do the same." He did not move from the doorway until we promised that before we spoke to anyone, we would speak to Jesus.
My first glimpse of Mother in a week shocked me. Sitting there in a ball of bitterness, teeth clenched, hair rather wild from neglect, she appeared wizened and small. Her eyes did not take us in. I shivered. Age and life experience had not yet taught me that reservoirs of pain, given almost any excuse, can rise up and masquerade themselves as all pain. It was not just our perceived rejection that had shriveled Mother's heart. She had allowed herself to feel completely rejected, and it covered her in a palpable darkness.
The scraping of the chairs on the linoleum floors as we sat down seemed over-loud. I was aware of my noisy swallowing and Bill kept clearing his throat. Mother started to say something and was pushing her chair back to leave. Daddy sternly reminded her that our conversation was first with God, and he bowed his head and asked the Lord to meet us at the kitchen table. Then Bill began to pray his broken heart over Mother's feelings of rejection; the words fell tear-soaked and terrifyingly real onto the landscape of our battlefield. "Please help Flossie know that I love her, Lord!"
There was really nothing left to say, for his love proclaimed watered the withering drought that had parched Mother's sense of self and melted the icy silence of the past week. She reached out her hand to Bill. "Please forgive me, Flossie. I never meant to hurt you."
Mother was crying then, asking why he had said those things.
"I am not a silver-tongued devil , Flossie. I don't always say things the way I mean them. If I say something you are offended by or don't understand, please promise me you will ask the question you just asked: 'What did you mean by that?' "
Daddy's hand magically delivered a box of tissues to the center of the table; and, as we wiped and blew away the evidence of contrition, there was created between Mother and Bill a special bond of love. She never questioned his words thereafter, even though I doubt he became more eloquent. It was not about words, but about love and acceptance; about crushing into family to find a place.
In the process of the conversation that continued that evening, Mother admitted to her perfectionism and confessed that she had been disappointed by the wedding cake and flowers and she had assumed these things bothered us, also. She always had enjoyed preparing for a party more than the actual party itself and usually had a litany of things that were not quite right after she had entertained. That perfectionism became a joke between Mother and Bill. She crafted him a lovely robe for Christmas a few years later (a robe he still lovingly wears) and when he unwrapped it and finished faithfully oohing and aahing over it, he asked with a gleeful smile: "So, Flossie. What's wrong with it?"
"Not a damn thing!" her happy response.
We left for California a couple of weeks later, but without the heaviness of heart we feared. And the letter I wrote? Only God knows what He did with it. Mother never received it.
Monday, October 5, 2009
1969
The irony of the night of June 27, 1969, is that on this evening before my long dreamt of wedding day, I got absolutely no sleep. Earlier on that Friday, Bill and I had rehearsed the words that on Saturday we would pronounce in earnest. Dressed in the cut off version of the hot pink bridesmaid dress I had worn in my best friend's wedding the month before, I had carried a ribbon bouquet, grasped my father's arm, and marched deliberately to the music down the aisle to play-like I was marrying Bill. Starry-eyed, my stomach astir with the motion of thousands of fluttering butterflies, I floated toward the altar in Cinderella fashion, hoping Bill thought me as beautiful as I wanted to be for him.
Fantasy swallowed up reality as I moved through the rehearsal believing the affair to be washed in sepia light, soft-focused, all our motions slowed to exaggerate the import of the moment. When I rewind the memories of my wedding, the hours glide from scene to scene without much attention to detail, capturing instead the essence of the last chapter of my virginal, solitary life.
Clinking crystal tea glasses, the piquant aroma of catered chicken swimming in caper sauce, the flickering glow of tall white candles, and the happy blooms of brightly colored flowers smiling at us from their decorative vases greeted Bill and me as we strode into the Ridglea Country Club for dinner. Like the currents run warm and cool during a summer swim in the lake, the voices pitched high then low as conversations swelled, peaked, waned then swelled again, punctuated by a high laugh or the clanking of dishes or the tinkle of silverware as it bumped against a china plate. I could not get over the surreal experience of marriage. So many gifts, so many friends, so much attention and love. There around us were all the people in the world who were most important to us, and I kept thinking I was dreaming.
Wakeful in the night, with my best friends sleeping soundly on all available surfaces in my parents' home, I tried to imagine the rest of my life. Starting with the new idea of having sex for the first time, I prepared a hundred meals from grocery lists a mile long. I tried to think of every recipe I knew of that might delight my husband. My mind blissfully wandered through our little apartment with its formica table and four brown and green plastic floral chairs, our double bed and dresser that we had refinished together in Mother's and Daddy's driveway, all the orange towels waiting for us after our baths, the blue dishes we had to eat from, our little television, and the old sofa my parents gave us. Then there was the honeymoon. It almost seemed to be in the way of participating in the joys of marriage. We could not get down to living until we came back from Mexico City. I looked forward into my childbearing years and wondered what our kids would look like - whether they would be girls or boys. What would we name them? Who would they grow up to be?
My mind had gotten out and wandered so far in the night that when it was time for everyone to greet the dawn of my wedding day, I was tired from all the cooking, shopping, childbearing and rearing, and wondering about all the things in the future that I necessarily had to wait for the future to actually bring! This day, however, was the day when I could get started with the being a wife part of my life! Mrs.! A second ring on my finger. Another person in my bed. A hand to always hold; lips that were mine to kiss. Washing someone else's laundry. Caring as much about another's existence as I had cared about my own. I could not get to the church quickly enough.
At 2:22 p.m., I was a "Mrs." My left hand sparkled with the proof of it and my heart sang with the joy of it. With my bouquet in my hands, my Father gave me away to claim another name and another family. My mind a wondrous blur, I had stood beside my man promising to always love him and respect him. I had heard that part, but do not recall much else except turing to greet two hundred people as the new "Mr. and Mrs."
Congratulated at the following reception by all our smiling friends, aunts, uncles, cousins, and some anonymous friends of our parents, we shook hands and smiled until I felt my face stuck in a permanent grin. People were genuinely happy for us. When the last handshake was loosed from our grip, we headed to the cake and fed each other our first bit of married food. I remember the frosting was a little crunchy, and that really bothered Mother afterward. Of course, we did not care. I had not tripped gliding down the aisle, the ring bearer made it to the front, we all said the right things at the right time - the knot had been duly tied. I threw the bouquet, which my cousin caught, then headed to the bride's room to change into my shiny pink going-away suit.
The stalwarts who stayed until the end threw rice at us as we headed toward my new brother-in-law's maroon GTO to make our getaway. Once inside the car, Bill showed me an envelope Daddy had slipped into his jacket pocket as we headed to the car. He turned it quizzically in his hand. "Should we open it now?" he asked.
"Sure!" my response.
Inside was a note from my father and a twenty dollar bill. The money was for our dinner at House of Gong, Bill's favorite restaurant, before we boarded our flight to Mexico. The note:
I have learned to be satisfied with everything I have and whatever happens. I know how to live when I am poor and when I have plenty. I have learned the secret of being happy at any time in everything that happens. When I have enough to eat and when I go hungry, when I have more than I need and when I do not have enough. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Philippians 4:11-13.
The thoughtfulness of the note and the provision for our first dinner together was not lost on us. My husband has never forgotten the feeling of love and acceptance from his new father-in-law that the pregnant envelope stirred in his heart.
Fantasy swallowed up reality as I moved through the rehearsal believing the affair to be washed in sepia light, soft-focused, all our motions slowed to exaggerate the import of the moment. When I rewind the memories of my wedding, the hours glide from scene to scene without much attention to detail, capturing instead the essence of the last chapter of my virginal, solitary life.
Clinking crystal tea glasses, the piquant aroma of catered chicken swimming in caper sauce, the flickering glow of tall white candles, and the happy blooms of brightly colored flowers smiling at us from their decorative vases greeted Bill and me as we strode into the Ridglea Country Club for dinner. Like the currents run warm and cool during a summer swim in the lake, the voices pitched high then low as conversations swelled, peaked, waned then swelled again, punctuated by a high laugh or the clanking of dishes or the tinkle of silverware as it bumped against a china plate. I could not get over the surreal experience of marriage. So many gifts, so many friends, so much attention and love. There around us were all the people in the world who were most important to us, and I kept thinking I was dreaming.
Wakeful in the night, with my best friends sleeping soundly on all available surfaces in my parents' home, I tried to imagine the rest of my life. Starting with the new idea of having sex for the first time, I prepared a hundred meals from grocery lists a mile long. I tried to think of every recipe I knew of that might delight my husband. My mind blissfully wandered through our little apartment with its formica table and four brown and green plastic floral chairs, our double bed and dresser that we had refinished together in Mother's and Daddy's driveway, all the orange towels waiting for us after our baths, the blue dishes we had to eat from, our little television, and the old sofa my parents gave us. Then there was the honeymoon. It almost seemed to be in the way of participating in the joys of marriage. We could not get down to living until we came back from Mexico City. I looked forward into my childbearing years and wondered what our kids would look like - whether they would be girls or boys. What would we name them? Who would they grow up to be?
My mind had gotten out and wandered so far in the night that when it was time for everyone to greet the dawn of my wedding day, I was tired from all the cooking, shopping, childbearing and rearing, and wondering about all the things in the future that I necessarily had to wait for the future to actually bring! This day, however, was the day when I could get started with the being a wife part of my life! Mrs.! A second ring on my finger. Another person in my bed. A hand to always hold; lips that were mine to kiss. Washing someone else's laundry. Caring as much about another's existence as I had cared about my own. I could not get to the church quickly enough.
At 2:22 p.m., I was a "Mrs." My left hand sparkled with the proof of it and my heart sang with the joy of it. With my bouquet in my hands, my Father gave me away to claim another name and another family. My mind a wondrous blur, I had stood beside my man promising to always love him and respect him. I had heard that part, but do not recall much else except turing to greet two hundred people as the new "Mr. and Mrs."
Congratulated at the following reception by all our smiling friends, aunts, uncles, cousins, and some anonymous friends of our parents, we shook hands and smiled until I felt my face stuck in a permanent grin. People were genuinely happy for us. When the last handshake was loosed from our grip, we headed to the cake and fed each other our first bit of married food. I remember the frosting was a little crunchy, and that really bothered Mother afterward. Of course, we did not care. I had not tripped gliding down the aisle, the ring bearer made it to the front, we all said the right things at the right time - the knot had been duly tied. I threw the bouquet, which my cousin caught, then headed to the bride's room to change into my shiny pink going-away suit.
The stalwarts who stayed until the end threw rice at us as we headed toward my new brother-in-law's maroon GTO to make our getaway. Once inside the car, Bill showed me an envelope Daddy had slipped into his jacket pocket as we headed to the car. He turned it quizzically in his hand. "Should we open it now?" he asked.
"Sure!" my response.
Inside was a note from my father and a twenty dollar bill. The money was for our dinner at House of Gong, Bill's favorite restaurant, before we boarded our flight to Mexico. The note:
I have learned to be satisfied with everything I have and whatever happens. I know how to live when I am poor and when I have plenty. I have learned the secret of being happy at any time in everything that happens. When I have enough to eat and when I go hungry, when I have more than I need and when I do not have enough. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Philippians 4:11-13.
The thoughtfulness of the note and the provision for our first dinner together was not lost on us. My husband has never forgotten the feeling of love and acceptance from his new father-in-law that the pregnant envelope stirred in his heart.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
1948
In August of 1948, Harry Truman was the president of the United States. On May 14, the state of Israel was proclaimed. That summer, LBJ celebrated his fortieth birthday and became a United States senator the next day. A brand new Cadillac cost $5000.00 that year, and a gallon of gas was twenty-five cents. For two hundred fifty dollars you could buy a ten-inch television set and for twenty-one cents you could smoke a pack of cigarettes while you watched it. 1948 was the year Porsche was introduced, and the U.S. Supreme Court ended religious instruction in public schools. U.S. News and World Report began publication and the Cleveland Indians won the World Series. The game Scrabble was copyrighted. An engineer named Georg de Mestral was walking through the woods with his dog and became fascinated by the way burrs stuck to his wool suit. Then and there he conceived the idea of velcro.
A young mother and her husband had also conceived a daughter who made her debut in August of 1948. Jim and Florene lived at 648 Keen Avenue in Ashland, Ohio. Jim was the associate sales manager for Western and Southern Life Insurance Company. He was a twenty-nine year old veteran of World War II who had returned from North Africa to marry Florene after D-Day. Florene was thirty-four years old that year. Dr. Paul Kellogg had delivered her first daughter eighteen months prior to August 3; so, he was there for the delivery of this seven pound, four and half ounce baby girl. Florene, or Flossie, as she was affectionately nicknamed, had been pregnant for nine and a half months and she was in labor for three hours before Kay Kimberly Strickling arrived red and hollering at Samaritan Hospital.
"You made my whole being; You formed me in my mother's body. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. You saw my bones being formed as I took shape in my mother's body. When I was put together there, You saw my body as it was formed. All the days planned for me were written in Your Book before I was one day old." Psalm 139
A young mother and her husband had also conceived a daughter who made her debut in August of 1948. Jim and Florene lived at 648 Keen Avenue in Ashland, Ohio. Jim was the associate sales manager for Western and Southern Life Insurance Company. He was a twenty-nine year old veteran of World War II who had returned from North Africa to marry Florene after D-Day. Florene was thirty-four years old that year. Dr. Paul Kellogg had delivered her first daughter eighteen months prior to August 3; so, he was there for the delivery of this seven pound, four and half ounce baby girl. Florene, or Flossie, as she was affectionately nicknamed, had been pregnant for nine and a half months and she was in labor for three hours before Kay Kimberly Strickling arrived red and hollering at Samaritan Hospital.
"You made my whole being; You formed me in my mother's body. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. You saw my bones being formed as I took shape in my mother's body. When I was put together there, You saw my body as it was formed. All the days planned for me were written in Your Book before I was one day old." Psalm 139
Friday, October 2, 2009
1970
Mother, wearing the pink shantung suit she had donned for my wedding the previous summer, walked down the aisle to the strains of the old love song The Twelfth of Never. Lyrical words of love and romance accompanied her. You ask how long I need you, must I explain? I need you, oh, my darling, like roses need rain. You ask how long I'll love you, I'll tell you true. Until the twelfth of never, I'll still be loving you.
Waiting for her at the altar, all suited out for the occasion, was Daddy. Hold me close! Never let me go! Hold me close. Melt my heart like April snow. Mother made her way to the front before the song was finished; she and Daddy stood looking at each other until the last yearning note of the song dissipated into the air.
It had been our father's idea to surprise Mother on their twenty-fifth anniversary with a renewal of vows and a silver anniversary shindig. I had accompanied him to the jeweler to create a ring for Mother to replace the small set she had worn for all those years. I was very disappointed at the finished product as it only somewhat resembled the one I had helped design; but, Daddy thought it lovely. Long time friends and close family had gathered to fete the couple; but, Mother seemed uncharacteristically subdued during the ceremony and later at the house where we three children had prepared a reception we hoped worthy of Mother's usual parties.
October 27, 1945, marked the beginning of a new life for Mr. and Mrs. James A. Strickling. A year earlier, Florene had seen Jimmy off to war with a promise to write to him. The couple had only a few days to get to know each other before Jim shipped out with the army. Letters would prove to be their real connection. Florene was conflicted about her feelings for Dan and Jim, finally telling God she would marry the one who came back first. It was Jim. With Rita and Bud attending them, the two repeated their vows that October day and set up house in Fort Worth.
There was, again, no honeymoon; but, there was, of course, a first night together. Florene had been married before and understood sexual pleasure. As they lay together for the first time, her new husband seemed uncomfortable with her body and could not seem to coax his own to respond. Florene was by nature not aggressive and certainly had not been schooled in the art of lovemaking. Her experience with Mac was void of arousal difficulties, and he was the only comparison she could make as she struggled silently in their conjugal bed to please Jim. She did not know what to do to help her new husband consummate their relationship. Rolling over onto his back, frustrated and somewhat embarrassed, Jim took Florene's hand and confessed: "I am slow to arouse." Then he drifted off to sleep, leaving both he and Florene lonely and unfulfilled.
Wrapped safely in her covers, wide awake, Florene lay there swallowed up in her inadequacy once again. It was the first of many, many times over the next forty years that she would wonder if she had married the wrong soldier. Fluttering feelings of anxiety stirred up some of those same emotions Florene was always fighting when she was with Mac. Not married twenty-four hours and already her body was incapable of arousing her sleeping husband to heights of pleasure that both deserved after all the waiting and hoping of the last year. Tears of disappointment burned her eyes then escaped, silently soaking the pillow beneath her head. Hope was a fragile commodity to Florene, but that night it was all she had to hold. Surely tomorrow would be better.
Over the years, and especially after their three daughters were born, Jim turned less and less to Florene for physical oneness. He allowed her to believe that she was flawed in the process; and, if she was responding to his signals and treatment, she probably was inadequate. She was, after all, a woman; she could not have guessed he preferred men. By the time Jim planned the anniversary affair, he had not had sex with his wife for eleven years - since 1959! Frustrated over his own impotence with her, he had suggested to his bride: "Let's just live as companions."
Friends do not sing The Twelfth of Never to each other nor look lovingly into each other's eyes as a minister renews vows previously unkept. Desiccated passion and proclamations of inadequacy taken to the altar in a sham recital of love unexpressed ignited a deep indignation in Mother. It would be fifteen years before I understood the set of her face that day in October of 1970.
While others admired her new ring and told her she deserved it, her eyes barely glanced at it. As she opened her many silver gifts and thanked each person profusely, she looked to me more like a hospital patient who has just discovered she has an incurable disease and is smiling at her visitors through the great pain of her ordeal, gaze away, thoughts unengaged, soul wishing to be alone and away from the onslaught of well-wishers.
She actually hated the ring, she confided to me weeks later. She would have much preferred a daintier one - even a solitaire - to the big gaudy spangle Daddy had purchased. It was then that she mentioned "that song" to me. Anger beneath the surface of her comments kept me from asking questions. An eruption of some sort gurgling and roiling just out of sight might be more than my twenty-two years of life had prepared me to witness. The diamonds sparkling in three rows from the ring on her hand must have been too garish a reminder of all that was not so lovely in her life with Daddy. The ostentatious bauble and the pretense of exchanged vows frustrated the truth that Mother would have preferred left between her and her husband - he did not love her. The ceremony had been a perpetration of the fantasy Daddy wished the world, and maybe even himself, to believe - they had a wonderful marriage and he was such a thoughtful husband.
A disconnect existed between this man and wife. Planning a surprise anniversary party for Mother could have come from a sincere motive because Daddy had no real ability to discern how she felt about her life with him. He was happy with their arrangement - "just being friends." She had certainly not made an issue of it for eleven years; it must be all right with her. Deeply established by now in Mother was a sense that she was flawed; therefore, she had no voice. Passivity offered her some protection; rage, however, suppressed and contained, would ultimately ravage her, for somewhere, buried and long forgotten, was her sense of worth and dignity.
Waiting for her at the altar, all suited out for the occasion, was Daddy. Hold me close! Never let me go! Hold me close. Melt my heart like April snow. Mother made her way to the front before the song was finished; she and Daddy stood looking at each other until the last yearning note of the song dissipated into the air.
It had been our father's idea to surprise Mother on their twenty-fifth anniversary with a renewal of vows and a silver anniversary shindig. I had accompanied him to the jeweler to create a ring for Mother to replace the small set she had worn for all those years. I was very disappointed at the finished product as it only somewhat resembled the one I had helped design; but, Daddy thought it lovely. Long time friends and close family had gathered to fete the couple; but, Mother seemed uncharacteristically subdued during the ceremony and later at the house where we three children had prepared a reception we hoped worthy of Mother's usual parties.
October 27, 1945, marked the beginning of a new life for Mr. and Mrs. James A. Strickling. A year earlier, Florene had seen Jimmy off to war with a promise to write to him. The couple had only a few days to get to know each other before Jim shipped out with the army. Letters would prove to be their real connection. Florene was conflicted about her feelings for Dan and Jim, finally telling God she would marry the one who came back first. It was Jim. With Rita and Bud attending them, the two repeated their vows that October day and set up house in Fort Worth.
There was, again, no honeymoon; but, there was, of course, a first night together. Florene had been married before and understood sexual pleasure. As they lay together for the first time, her new husband seemed uncomfortable with her body and could not seem to coax his own to respond. Florene was by nature not aggressive and certainly had not been schooled in the art of lovemaking. Her experience with Mac was void of arousal difficulties, and he was the only comparison she could make as she struggled silently in their conjugal bed to please Jim. She did not know what to do to help her new husband consummate their relationship. Rolling over onto his back, frustrated and somewhat embarrassed, Jim took Florene's hand and confessed: "I am slow to arouse." Then he drifted off to sleep, leaving both he and Florene lonely and unfulfilled.
Wrapped safely in her covers, wide awake, Florene lay there swallowed up in her inadequacy once again. It was the first of many, many times over the next forty years that she would wonder if she had married the wrong soldier. Fluttering feelings of anxiety stirred up some of those same emotions Florene was always fighting when she was with Mac. Not married twenty-four hours and already her body was incapable of arousing her sleeping husband to heights of pleasure that both deserved after all the waiting and hoping of the last year. Tears of disappointment burned her eyes then escaped, silently soaking the pillow beneath her head. Hope was a fragile commodity to Florene, but that night it was all she had to hold. Surely tomorrow would be better.
Over the years, and especially after their three daughters were born, Jim turned less and less to Florene for physical oneness. He allowed her to believe that she was flawed in the process; and, if she was responding to his signals and treatment, she probably was inadequate. She was, after all, a woman; she could not have guessed he preferred men. By the time Jim planned the anniversary affair, he had not had sex with his wife for eleven years - since 1959! Frustrated over his own impotence with her, he had suggested to his bride: "Let's just live as companions."
Friends do not sing The Twelfth of Never to each other nor look lovingly into each other's eyes as a minister renews vows previously unkept. Desiccated passion and proclamations of inadequacy taken to the altar in a sham recital of love unexpressed ignited a deep indignation in Mother. It would be fifteen years before I understood the set of her face that day in October of 1970.
While others admired her new ring and told her she deserved it, her eyes barely glanced at it. As she opened her many silver gifts and thanked each person profusely, she looked to me more like a hospital patient who has just discovered she has an incurable disease and is smiling at her visitors through the great pain of her ordeal, gaze away, thoughts unengaged, soul wishing to be alone and away from the onslaught of well-wishers.
She actually hated the ring, she confided to me weeks later. She would have much preferred a daintier one - even a solitaire - to the big gaudy spangle Daddy had purchased. It was then that she mentioned "that song" to me. Anger beneath the surface of her comments kept me from asking questions. An eruption of some sort gurgling and roiling just out of sight might be more than my twenty-two years of life had prepared me to witness. The diamonds sparkling in three rows from the ring on her hand must have been too garish a reminder of all that was not so lovely in her life with Daddy. The ostentatious bauble and the pretense of exchanged vows frustrated the truth that Mother would have preferred left between her and her husband - he did not love her. The ceremony had been a perpetration of the fantasy Daddy wished the world, and maybe even himself, to believe - they had a wonderful marriage and he was such a thoughtful husband.
A disconnect existed between this man and wife. Planning a surprise anniversary party for Mother could have come from a sincere motive because Daddy had no real ability to discern how she felt about her life with him. He was happy with their arrangement - "just being friends." She had certainly not made an issue of it for eleven years; it must be all right with her. Deeply established by now in Mother was a sense that she was flawed; therefore, she had no voice. Passivity offered her some protection; rage, however, suppressed and contained, would ultimately ravage her, for somewhere, buried and long forgotten, was her sense of worth and dignity.
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