Webs of Memory

As I sort through the box of old pictures and papers in preparation for Mom's burial service on Saturday, my history takes shape like glorious and intricate spiders' webs revealed in bright sunlight. New images surface. Pictures appear that I would swear were not there before.  Or I'll see something in a familiar picture that weaves an entirely new connection.

There are contradictions and confusions. A last name spelled three different ways. Two different wedding books with two different dates and locations for one marriage. Evidence that the stories heard in childhood might not have been completely true.

Mom's mom, always more legend than human, reveals little of herself, even after a thorough focused search through the box.

Velma LaJene Conley Cain Williams. Mom used to tell us she'd died when Mom was eighteen months old, of alcoholism. In the childhood stories my grandmother Velma was half Cherokee, the daughter of royalty, a princess. Mysterious. Wild. Romantic. She and my grandfather Mahlon had loved each other deeply and he was devastated by her death. I used to stand and stare at her picture, hoping beyond hope that I might grow up to be that beautiful. Wishing beyond reason that she had lived, certain she would have been the one person who truly understood and loved me.

There is no information about Velma's family. No way to know for certain about her Cherokee heritage. No explanation for the fact that her last name has a number of different spellings, or why she had a second last name before she was married to my grandfather. No explanation for the two different wedding dates. And of course everyone who might be able to answer those questions is gone.

The fact that Velma was twenty-two when she died really hit me for the first time this week. Married at seventeen, mother to Mark at eighteen, mother to Joyce at twenty, and gone less than two years later. Twenty-two is so young, and seems too young to me for alcohol to have been the primary cause of her death.

I also noticed that there are many pictures of Velma with her first-born, her son, and I only have one of her with Mom. It's a haunting picture—she had to have died not too long after it was taken. What stands out even more is the gleeful grin on my mother's baby face. A smile none of us ever saw from the adult version of her, and that isn't evident in any of the pictures taken as she grew into womanhood.

I wonder at the webs of memory Mom wove to create a mother for herself. She wouldn't have remembered much beyond what her body held from a year and half of whatever love and attention Velma gave her. Any stories were told by her dad's family: the grandparents who raised her and the aunt who big-sistered her. A family who felt their son had married beneath his station. A family who did not approve of his half Indian wife.  It seems likely her best pictures of her mom would have been woven of imagination and longing.

I hope a circle has been fulfilled with Mom's death—that she's somehow with the mother she needed so badly and learned to live without. That she's bathed in the maternal love she spent her life convincing herself she didn't need. And maybe even that the two of them are caring for my daughter until it's my time to join them all.

Legacy of Love

The two men worked side by side in a state of perfectly synchronized concentration on the job before them.  Both in their fifties, their mirrored hairlines and mustaches marking them as brothers. I stood by as invisibly as possible, thrilled to be witness to their closeness and their ease with one another.

As we worked throughout the day setting up Mark's expanded antique space, I felt such gratitude for the relationships the four of us have forged in the last few years. Our older brother had been there helping the night before and would check in with us repeatedly throughout the day.

As adult siblings raised in a home where we rarely got beyond survival, the fact that we've grown so close is a blessing beyond belief. It's not always easy to find common ground, and our differences often create challenges that require a strong inclination to forgive. However, these three men, my younger brothers, are the people I love the most and feel the safest with (except for Walt). I know without doubt that they'd do anything for me, as I would for them.

Our mom died on Monday, two days after we set up Mark's space. She'd been in a nursing home for years, and just recently been placed in the care of Hospice. So her death wasn't unexpected, but neither were we prepared for it to be so soon.

In the hours after we were notified, I was amazed at the flurry of phone calls between us. Everyone talked to everyone else, and some of us talked a number of times. Through the physical shock of the first onset of grief I was aware and deeply grateful that we were reaching out to each other automatically.

As many of you know, I had a complicated relationship with my mom. One which I've spent most of my life reconciling, and one that I'd come to accept for what it was. I discovered in the last few years that I'd forgiven her to the point of loving her and feeling compassion for the difficult life she endured.

She was 79, and had been lost in the canyons of dementia for years. Before then she was reclusive, shy, and intensely private. Her childhood was a nightmare we only learned the barest bones about well after our own childhoods were distant memories. She was an equal partner in our dairy, kept books for other businesses, raised four children, and cared for her sick husband in his last months. She loved flowers and puzzles and little dogs. Giving gifts made her happier than just about anything else. She was a bad cook who still managed to create memorable meals that continue to speak comfort to us. She believed God would provide. She had beautiful hands, and when I was a girl I thought she looked just like a young Elizabeth Taylor.

There weren't many calls to make, and there won't be a public memorial service or a funeral. There aren't many people for whom her death holds any meaning at all.

Except for her four children. We are her legacy, and I hope that she can finally enjoy what she created and shaped. We are resilient, productive and resourceful. We are creative, amazing problem-solvers, and easily generous. By a number of different measures, we are successful and contributing members of society. And we love each other.

As we've spoken in the last couple of days, it's clear we're all grieving. And that may be the greatest part of her legacy. That somehow, in spite of enduring all her wounding words and coldness and mercurial  moods, we emerged as adults who love. Somehow, in spite of the crooked brokenness with which she loved us, each of us has found a way to encircle her with love. Somehow, the love she felt for her babies, and lost hold of along the way, was enough for us to remember - was the seed from which a stronger softer love could grow in each of us.

The first picture of Mom as a mother.

Shooting Star

We arrived an hour early and discovered the parking lot to the high school was already full. By the time we parked at a church a block away and walked into the gym the chairs on the floor were full and the bleachers nearly packed. By the time the minister began speaking there wasn't an empty seat in the house.

I sat in the midst of those hundreds of people and wondered how it was possible for that much love and caring to miss the mark so completely when it might still have made a difference.

The 18 year old daughter of one of Walt's colleagues took her life on May 23. She was athletic, beautiful, and known to be a person who sought out ways to help others. Her radiant smile in the pictures of the slide show was its own form of sunshine beaming out into the darkened space. In many of the pictures she was surrounded by girls of equal grace and gorgeousness. She belonged and was treasured. She had a loving boyfriend whose speech at the service was heartbreaking. She was headed to college in the fall on a soccer scholarship. She was a hero, a role model and a young woman with everything to live for.

She also had an eating disorder, and deep wounds referred to but not identified as the minister worked to both celebrate her life and to help those sitting before him begin to mourn.

I thought I could see pain in her eyes in the most recent pictures, but wondered if I was projecting.

The minister called her a shooting star. Her time here so short, but every minute of it burning bright and leaving a trail of light that changed the lives of everyone she came into contact with.

Hers is the fifth suicide of a young person in our county in the last few months. It's the third in my life in the same amount of time. While I didn't know this young woman, I feel this loss as though it were my own. And maybe each death like this does belong to all of us just a little bit.

I find myself asking the same questions I asked when Kathleen's death was so fresh: How can a much loved person not feel that love? How is it possible for a person surrounded by people who love her, knowing everything about her, to still believe she's that alone? What makes one person able to walk through despair and another not? And where is God in all of this?

Still no answers. Only sadness.

At the end of the service, the minister asked the family to stay seated and just absorb the round of applause that was about to be offered to their daughter/sister/niece/cousin/granddaughter. In seconds every other person in the gym was standing, clapping, and focusing their love toward the front rows. It sounded like a heavy summer rain on a tin roof—cleansing, intense, enveloping.

The very last thing we saw as the service ended was the parents hugging. In itself not unusual except they've been divorced for years, and not amicably. Dad sat on one side of the aisle. Mom on the other. So even in her death, this shooting star managed to be a healing force.

And perhaps that's all we can do: Allow the pain of loss to soften our hearts. Enlarge our capacity to love in the soft soil of that new vulnerability. Seek ways to share the healing light born from that tender love.

Turbulent Air

I ripped the envelope open and scanned the letter for one particular phrase. When I found it, feelings collided with one another like two opposing weather fronts. I read through the entire letter then—slowly—and when I got to the phrase it had not changed:

Fifth Grade.

I'll be teaching fifth grade in the fall. There is nothing in that sentence that would be my choice. I don't want to return to public education. I don't want to spend the fall cooped up in a stale-aired building tied to a bell-driven schedule. I don't want to go back to fifth grade.

Of the twenty-two years I spent in the classroom before my leave two years ago, I spent all but six years teaching fifth graders in some form. When I switched to third grade for the last three years, it felt like I'd graduated somehow. Like I'd learned all I needed to with tweens and was ready for a new challenge. Third grade turned out to be a challenge for sure, but not the place for which my particular set of talents is best suited.

Last Thanksgiving when I made the decision that going back into the classroom was the most effective way to create income and still continue my writing career, middle school English seemed a good compromise choice. It would allow me to share my passion with a new age group, and to focus on one subject which would free up more energy for writing.

The letter said fifth grade. It didn't say why, or explain the thinking behind my placement. It doesn't really matter. I don't believe the district is in charge of my future, or my life in any meaningful way. Nor do I believe it's an accident that I'm returning to such familiar territory. I'm still working on what it means exactly.

Without my searching, or even paying much attention (since I'm focused on absorbing and appreciating every minute of every day of my remaining time of leave), gifts have appeared like rare bird sightings in the last couple of weeks.

A surprise encounter with a former student, now a graduating senior, who has grown into a handsome, poised and accomplished young man. The warmth of his smile and hug. Remembering how I enjoyed the tender ten year old he was.

Running into a former parent at the grocery store and hearing that her daughter still talks about her third grade year with me all the time. A long and happy visit that left me radiating validation.

In Costco, bonding over field guides with the guy standing next to me, answering his "what do you do?" question with, "I teach fifth graders." And finding I didn't mind the taste of the words in my mouth.

My counselor saying she was glad I was returning to something I knew so well because it meant I wouldn't get caught up in the adventure and novelty of something new. That meant I'd have more energy to continue answering my soul's longings.

Here's what I know to be true: I love fifth graders, and always have. There's something about their being on the cusp of so much, and the resulting vulnerability, that brings the very best of me to the surface. At odd moments now I find myself remembering the fun, magical and transformative moments of previous years. I'm looking forward to creating more of those.

Here's what else I know to be true: I am a writer. Wings unfurled and strengthened in the last few years will not suddenly fall from my shoulders. The dreams I left the classroom to pursue, while still not accomplished, are no less compelling, and more sharply defined.

Although I wouldn't have chosen to either return to the classroom, or return to fifth grade, I am choosing to trust in gifts yet to be revealed in the wide blue sky of my life. I'm choosing to allow bubbles of excitement to the surface as I begin to let go of my picture of how this was going to go. There is loss here. But not of my dreams. Only the route to them. I choose to keep flying.

Picture from Google Images

Dancing in the Streets

She was on the sidewalk catercorner from me as I waited at the five lane stoplight, waiting to turn left. It's not unusual to see these kids on street corners, holding signs for various businesses, but she didn't fit the mold.

She wasn't wearing a drab and wilted Statue of Liberty costume and waving a sign offering help with taxes. She wasn't listlessly push-pulling a tall pole covered with bright signs inviting everyone to come to this open house or that blow-out car sale. She wasn't staring at the ground and flapping her sign as though it were stuck to her hand and she was trying to get it off.

This girl was dancing.

At first I reacted as I almost always do: with pity, and wondering about the circumstances that would bring someone to need money so badly they're willing to stand that exposed, and to do whatever is necessary to draw attention to themselves and the business they're representing.

My pity quickly turned to intrigued curiosity.

She seemed to be completely absorbed in her dance, and radiated a fierce clean energy. Petite, pale skin, dark unkempt hair. Clothes looking like they'd been picked blindly from the floor and thrown on without thought. Even with a knee brace (How, for someone that young?), she moved fluidly to a choreography clearly well-practiced. She dipped and bounced and spun and marched and pounded the air with her fist in perfect rhythm. She waved the sign (for pizza) as though it were an important prop, an integral part of the dance.

I found myself moving, just a little, to her rhythm, even without the beat of the music only she could hear.

This intersection is one of the busiest in our county. All too often, I find myself stuck at the light there. I'm usually taking deep conscious breaths well before green glows and traffic begins moving, especially if I'm at the back of a long line of cars. On this day, I was at the front, and wishing the red would stick. I didn't want to move away from her super-nova presence.

While I won't know the circumstances that brought my dancing girl to that street corner as a human billboard, I do trust in her ability to get herself eventually to the destination of her dreams. It's simply impossible, with that much dancing in her soul, for her to be stuck anywhere she doesn't choose to be.

Photo from Google Images

Value

At the auction preview both Mark and I noticed the miniature castle, complete with drawbridge, pennants in the turrets,  and dozens of tiny medieval figures. Although we usually don't buy toys, this one was tempting for its intricacy and for that Christmas morning feeling it evoked as we stood admiring it through the glass case. My fingers reached of their own accord for the little knights and I might have left a nose print in my efforts to get closer than the glass allowed.

When that lot came up for sale, Joe, the auctioneer, mentioned it belonged to a ninety year old man who'd had the set since childhood. He was giving it up as part of his move to assisted living. I imagined him coming downstairs on a cold December morning eighty years before, exclaiming in joy that Santa had left the one thing he wanted more than anything. I imagined the endless pleasurable hours of play he enjoyed protecting his castle from marauding invaders. I imagined what it must have been like in adulthood for him to be able to reclaim those happiest of childhood memories whenever he looked at his treasure.

The bidding for the castle was intense and it sold for about the same price as a beautiful deco era wardrobe brought later in the auction. Clearly the old man wasn't the only one who found value in that toy.

I'd like to think that the love he had for the castle and its knights, the depth of his value for it, soaked into the set, and that was at least in part what made it so attractive to all of us there that night.

I often find myself wondering at these auctions what it is that makes an item valuable. Clearly it's not appraised value, since art work often goes for a small fraction of that. It's not size - I've seen a baby grand piano sell for less than an original Coca Cola tray. It's not even about aesthetics - WWII paraphernalia consistently brings far more than the most delicate crystal or most ornate silver.

For the original owner of the castle, I would guess there is no amount of money that can replace the value of his childhood toy. I wonder if he'll mourn the loss, or if he's refocused and found value in different things. Maybe both. I wonder if he got so much value from the castle during the time it was his, that he no longer needs its presence. As he approaches the end of his days, I wonder what does hold value for him - if it's memories, or his family, or the great mystery that awaits him.

Photo from Google Images

Swift Rescue

I'd heard the tell-tale rustling and chirping behind the mirror over the fireplace for several days in a row. The swifts were back and setting up housekeeping in our chimney. I don't remember the first year they discovered the brick nest at the top of our house, but they've claimed it as their own for long enough we no longer feel safe to use the fireplace in winter - even for emergencies.

That morning as I sat in my living room journaling my way into the still-dark morning, it dawned on me that the manic peeps I was hearing came from the fireplace itself. The only other time that's happened was with a baby who had fallen from the nest and couldn't yet fly. I figured this time, since it was far too early for babies, this was an adult who could go back up whatever opening it had descended through.

I just needed to give it time.

Several hours later, it was clear the swift was going nowhere on its own and would need rescuing. So I formed a plan and said a prayer and got to work: Put the dog out. Clear the hearth. Check the location of the cats (all three sleeping and uninterested). Open the living room windows as wide as possible.

Best case scenario, the bird would fly straight out a window. Worst case, the bird would fly frantically around my house breaking things until a cat awakened and decided to have some fun.

I cautiously tugged the fireplace doors open, expecting a flurry of feathers to come flying out. When nothing happened I stuck my head inside, a little bit at at time, and looked around. Nothing. I figured the bird had escaped back up the chimney to get away from the noise I'd created, but went to get a flashlight just to make sure.

And there it was, clinging to the sooty bricks, nearly invisible. It blinked at the light, but didn't move (allowing me to take pictures) until I reached for it. Then it flew out the window, just like that. I put everything away, satisfied at the successful rescue.

Shortly after, I heard a soft rustling in the fireplace. No chirping, just the faintest whisper of a sound. I convinced myself it was my imagination until one of the cats started knocking things over trying to get through the glass of the fireplace doors. So I repeated my earlier preparations, this time putting the now hyper-alert cat outside with Toby, hoping to get the bird out the window before the cat made her way back around the house.

There it was, on the opposite side, a mirror image of its partner. Except its eyes were closed.

This time the bird didn't move, even as I reached for it. I decided it must have been there all along - that both birds had found their way down the chimney together. After hours of no water or food, this bird was out of fight. When I wrapped my hand around its body, it came to life in a frantic flurry which I scooped toward the window. How it managed to fly through and past the returned cat waiting at the sill, I'll never know, but I was so grateful it did.

They haven't returned to the chimney, this pair, although I hear them as they swoop for food above the house. I wonder what they tell each other about their adventure. I wonder why they didn't just fly back up through the damper that had somehow come open over the winter. I wonder about the survival mechanism that made it a better thing to stay still and risk capture by a giant, over escaping in any way possible.

I think about how similar we humans are when faced with a fearful situation. How we'll freeze and take our chances with outcomes that hold the potential for far greater disaster than risking a push into the dark unknown. How even the threat of death is not enough to make us break through the fear. Still, with all of that - we, like the swifts, respond to a helping hand. It doesn't seem to matter whether we recognize the hand. Somehow the help of another being reaches past the barriers of fear to give our wings lift we can't find for ourselves.