We bought a sandwich today, to send off the threadbare week. I needed the break more than the food, and we picked a run of the mill place to sit for awhile.There were two women — sisters, I think — and one very young little boy seated between them across the room from us. What first attracted my attention to him was his head bobbing between the ample bodies of the two women. They talked to each other, but also to him as he ate his lunch, then dozed in the warm, sunny room, his head nodding first to one side, and then to the other. Somebody was always rubbing his neck, or patting him, and he had the look of a child who felt absolutely protected from whatever might lie beyond the window over the parking lot.After they finished their food and their conversation, they hoisted him up and wiped his face, then carried him still mostly asleep, draped over a shoulder. They stepped out into a world that needs more nice, big moms and aunts for little kids. And more sunny afternoons where nothing bad is going to happen to small children with such women to protect them.
We observed the holiday for two days this year — on Sunday and Monday. Joe was able to get home for the weekend, and we all spent time in the pool and sitting around talking and eating. It was an informal, virtually unplanned, and absolutely organic period of time.
I thought about Memorial Days when my sister and I were kids in Indiana, and the rituals we observed. When my mother’s mother was still alive, we drove the 40 or so miles west to her house early in the morning, and cut peonies which we put into glass jars. Buffy and I shared the responsibility for shaking getting the ants out of the peonies so we wouldn’t have extra passengers on the car ride to the cemetery.
Once we arrived at Forest Hills on the edge of Greencastle, the work began to clean up the family graves from the winter and early spring. We weeded and trimmed, and made sure everything was in good order. The faded Mother’s Day tributes were tossed, and the jars filled with peonies were placed on the graves, as close to the headstones as we could get. The little flags waved over the names of the veterans, and even as children we were aware of how many there were, even in a small town cemetery.
After we had driven the circular road through the cemetery and checked on the resting places of friends and neighbors, we headed for the network of countryroads that lurched through Putnam County. We’d find a place along a creek or the river, and we would stay for the day on blankets spread out in a shady spot, coolers and thermos bottles close at hand.
Buffy and I combed the creek beds for interesting rocks and crawdads, and we always stayed much later than we had intended. The ride home was filled with the smell of mud and leftover food. The grown-ups would talk, and my sister and I took it all in. Much of what I know about my family I learned pretending to be asleep, riding in the back seat of one sedan or the other.
Yesterday, I looked at my desert-raised adult children, and I knew that tipping rocks over in a creek is something that never became a ritual for them. And since most of our dead are in urns or graves on the other side of the country, trips to the cemetery here in Arizona are not a part of our usual routine.
But we still have a rhythm, a pattern of our own. It was Memorial Day, and much will be remembered.
I prefer small cafes and neighborhood diners to ”good” restaurants, and David knows this. So we celebrated Mother’s Day at a local place that is a short drive from where we live. It was a sunny day, and it was heating up fast.
On the bus stop in front of the cafe was an entire family, including adolescents. They held flowers, balloons, and assorted bags and bundles. The bobbing balloons said, “World’s Best Mom”, and “World’s Best Nana.” They were all on a mission somewhere, on the bus, approaching the heat of the day in the low desert.
I just sent out a small prayer that their bus wasn’t late, and that they all had a wonderful time, wherever they were going. Happy Mother’s Day.
When I started college in the 1960s, birth control was not available anywhere from anyone for any reason, unless you were married. Period. The pill had been released to the public, but the public needed to be in conventional unions sanctioned by society in general. And the pharmacist had to agree to fill the prescription, if one was brought to him. And believe me, it was almost always a him.
In my small college town, unplanned pregnancy was everybody’s worst nightmare — and it was a bad dream that became reality for many of my friends. Most of them married each other, and were plunged prematurely into relationships that often did not survive. Some did, of course. But they probably would have anyway.
One enterprising gas station in the neighborhood began stocking its men’s restroom with condoms, which were dispensed by a machine with a wheel that cranked down the purchase one at a time. I believe that each twist of the knob was a quarter. I do remember that the line outside the restroom at the Shell station on Friday night was long, and there were few cars at the pumps.
Eventually, when the student pregnancy rate become unwieldy enough, the campus physician stepped in and risked his job by making both the pill available through the student health center. Every one of us was diagnosed as having “problem periods” (they were especially problematic when they didn’t arrive on time). He also kept a supply of foam and condoms handy that were available on a “don’t ask, don’t tell” sort of basis. We were sort of left to our own devices over the summers, so we were sure to renew our prescriptions before we disappeared into our private lives for three months.
A few of us resorted to abortions. They became legal in New York during my junior year, and more times than I care to remember we drove a terrified coed to the airport to catch a flight east. We would also pick her up in the middle of the night when she returned home. It was a grisly ritual, and it claimed many victims — both already-born and unborn.
For decades I have been a proponent of birth control on demand. And the demand should not have to be above a whisper. If the request is being made, clearly the need is already present. Sexual activity occurs whether we think the circumstances under which it occurs are proper, or not. Sex can result in pregnancy, and pregnancy is not something that should be forced on a female as a penalty for “doing it.”
There’s something else that birth control can prevent, besides pregnancy: abortions. An abortion is never a positive answer, but is almost always selected as a seemingly lesser of several evils. Regardless of which side of the debate a person takes, it cannot be argued that a deliberate choice of a death of some kind has been made. Even pulling a dandelion results in the demise of a living thing.
I was never able to complete a pregnancy, so my husband and I eventually adopted three children — all products of unplanned teen-aged pregnancies. They arrived in the world with many challenges, and even as adults their troubled beginnings pursue them throughout their lives. I raised them with love and hope, but now I think of the middle-aged women who are their birth mothers, and I wonder often how they have fared. I wonder why they didn’t use the contraception that they could have purchased easily, and why they chose to have their babies instead of terminating their pregnancies. I wonder, but I would never ask, even if I had the chance. Some questions simply have no black and white answers.
The other day, I stood in a checkout line at a department store with a pair of shoes in my hand. Across from me at the other register, two people waited their turns. One was a young man, muscular and tattooed. The other was a middle-aged woman who had cerebral palsy. She held a bright red shirt on a hanger. She turned to the young man and asked, “Do you think this color is good for me?”
I felt my breath catch, and I hoped that he would respond. He looked at the shirt, and said, “It’s a great color.”
The woman considered his answer and then asked, “You think I should buy it? It’s eight bucks.”
The young man paused, then asked, “Will you wear it and enjoy it?”
The woman said, “I will.”
The young man asked, “Do you like it a lot?”
She said, “I do.”
He said, “Then eight bucks is a great price for something you like and will enjoy. I think you should buy it.”
She thanked him, and he said, “You’re very welcome.”
I bought my shoes, and thanked him silently for giving me hope for the entire human race.
One of my only regrets is that I haven’t been able to travel more. The circumstances of my life have required me to stay for years at a time without leaving the southwest desert. I did manage to get to Great Britain and vicinity a few years ago, and I’ve gone to the Midwest too many times to attend one funeral or the other. But traveling for the pure love of it hasn’t been in the cards for me.
I mentioned all of this to David, as we sat in our chairs on our back porch, preparing to watch the evening floor show of birds going to bed and lizards heading towards home. We started talking about all of the animals we have seen from the vantage point of the east end of the porch, which required us walking less than 25 feet to enjoy.
Some visitors have been particularly memorable, like the juvenile hawk who came regularly for a few days while he was learning the ropes of being a raptor. We also hauled a coatimundi from the pool, who ran up a nearby eucalyptus tree and sulked. Bats have come and gone, including a fascinating one with a long snout just like a hummingbird. The bird parade is nightly, and is usually led by quail, myriad doves, hummingbirds, and cactus wrens. We have had a coyote or two, and some other serious wildlife.
However, the most startling visitors we had — the ones that actually startled me — were the feral mother cat and her tiny little kittens. They stayed for a day or so under our oleander bushes. I first became aware of them when I was working in the yard, and one of the kittens — about a third of the size of my fist — exploded out of the bush at my head, its claws extended and its tiny little hiss torqued up to rattlesnake volume. I literally rolled backwards out of the way of something that probably could be mailed for less than 50 cents.
He was all black, and his tongue was red. I didn’t have time to see whether or not he had teeth, but I am sure his eyes hadn’t been open for very many days. I went into the house and let the mother cat and her kittens have as much privacy as they wanted. To reduce the amount of hunting they would do during their visit, I did put water and food out where they could reach it conveniently.
I would still like to get out of town this summer. In the meantime, I’ll be on the porch.
no comfort knowing
that I am not the first,
nor millionth from the last,
just one beneath the cross,
as the son bled god
the mother, dreamless now,
flickering, a shadow
of a moth
around an ancient fire
aren’t you proud? and I say
I am frozen,
rigid with worship.
I have touched his uniform,
robe of a holy man,
yet beneath the cloth
I feel the boy
and know his face
in clouded light,
breathing sleep into the dark
I was there to look for an extra chair to pull up to the dinner table during the holidays. Although I am usually a little annoyed by people who sing mindlessly along with the recorded music playing in a store, I didn’t mind that she was singing along with the Christmas carols. Her voice was unforced, pure, and soft. She was completely engrossed in what she was doing, which was picking out gifts. Her cart was lined with her selections, which ranged from figurines to several spoons. She was completely and purely happy, and for a few minutes, she was safe.
The store staff knew her, I was certainly no threat at all, and there was nobody else around to spoil her moment. Her physical handicaps, which were many, were not hampering her enjoyment. She said to me, “I have $20 to work with today. I think I can find something for everybody.”
I answered her, “I am sure you will.”
I found a chair, took it through the line, and paid the $4.98 that was printed on the tag. In back of me, I heard her singing softly to herself as she thought about the ones she loved, and picked out their gifts. “…all is calm, all is bright.”
Death is a fact of life, especially for those of us in middle age. Although a few of us may wrestle with the issues of mortality on a personal level, it is more likely that we are traveling final roads with parents. The past few years have been filled with goodbyes for both my extended and my nuclear family, and I have been to far too many funeral brunches held en absentia for friends.
Death produces is a major change in a relationship, and change often results in the necessity of dealing with “stuff.” Not stuff in the sense of philosophical issues, but stuff in the sense of items in boxes and storage sheds.
My own much loved parents have not been on this earth now for several years. When my father died, my sister and I redistributed or dispensed with the accoutrements of his daily life. Although he was an unusually tidy man and almost fanatically well organized and had himself streamlined his collection of earthly goods — there was still a goodly amount. I only recently had to buy a bottle of antacid again. He had enough stockpiled to stem off a cholera epidemic. My sister says she’s still got boxes of Kleenex left.
His cleaning rags became our cleaning rags, so I dust the furniture with my sheets from college or the towels he and Mom bought in the 70s when they wanted to pep up the basic beige bathroom. I clean the car windows with remnants of linens purchased when my parents were years younger than I am now. When a scrap gets too small or worn to wash safely in the washing machine, I whisper farewell and put it in the trash. Somebody witnessing me getting teary-eyed over half a hand towel with a faded paisley print would think I had lost my mind.
I am keenly aware that the twist ties around the screwdrivers were twisted by my dad’s fingers. And I know full well that the couple of handkerchiefs that my sister passed on to me were ironed by my mother before she had her stroke. My father couldn’t bear to use them and wash away the traces of her rare excursion into domesticity — and now neither can I. So added to the odd altar of memory are a couple of bleached and ironed squares of material with my dad’s initials in the corners.
What really puzzles me is my attachment to the address book that I have tucked away that is no longer accurate. I just can’t seem to part with it. In my perkiest handwriting in pre-computer days, I have written the numbers and addresses for friends long lost and family long dead. My parents are still there together in my careful cursive, their address and phone number giving no clue to the casual observer that dialing a few numbers wouldn’t conjure up my mother’s distinct voice.
I have put the address book away, wrapped in one of the handkerchiefs. I will leave them both for my puzzled children to dispose of on a quiet Sunday afternoon some day in the future.
He has been sober since late summer, a result of finally being jailed — not for drug use as we had all expected, but for excessive noise and property damage. The irony is that he was not under the influence when he finally lost it. He had just emerged from a haze that was years long.
I first heard his voice on my answering machine, calling me from booking. I had always said, “If you get arrested, I won’t bail you out. You will have to ride that train all the way to the station.”
So I left him to the system. And each day that passed, I heard myself say to the three-year old that he had been so long ago, “Mom will always be there.”
But I was there, all through those days when the heat in Arizona is not just a temperature, it’s an entity. I was there through the nights when the cement still held the rage of noon. I was there, middle aged and battered in the mirror at 3:00 a.m., when I couldn’t sleep and I knew he was awake in a bunk, wondering why I refused to take his calls.
Eventually, the system set him back on the street, and after he gathered what was left of his belongings — most of which I had supplied during my attempts to help him get basic survival accomplished with items like towels and silverware — I agreed to see him. My child of decades ago looked through the mask of a death camp survivor. His bones lay breathtakingly close to the surface of white skin. His teeth have been destroyed. His blue eyes, which once flashed and twinkled, burned through the gray of his face. I touched his hand, and traced the scars left by his pulling at the sensation of bugs crawling through the flesh of fingers. I pulled his six foot frame to me, and kissed him.
His voice was warm and relieved. “Mom,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
And so it began, the visits with me while his father kept vigil in the room nearby. His father, who had somehow always managed to love this boy despite what was hideous, what was heartbreaking. His father, who I had never realized was as savaged by his child’s destruction as any figure in the Pieta. His father, who had also held a front row seat to the crucifixion of the wife as well as the son.
The visits continue, one brief hour at a time, and their normalcy is fragile. Yet they survive the test of close proximity, and the small rituals have emerged again. He mows the lawn, I make supper, and we talk about the leak in the roof that defies repair.
It is mundane. It is sacred. It is what we have for now.
