Tag Archives: Writing

Here I Am

29 Friday Oct 2010

Posted by in Home Restoration, Life at Home, Prayer, Soul Care, The Great Outdoors, Writing

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How is it that none of the month’s joys or sorrow have anchored the days?

So much has happened.  Engagement announcements, baby showers, my 55th birthday and last week’s unexpected short getaway to San Antonio.  And then there have been all the many mini-dramas and comedies which fill everyday life.  And though I touch upon it all in my off-line journal, it’s only here that I really work to get underneath the surface events — to explore and name my deepest feelings of the moment.

So its unfortunate (for me) that I have not written here this month.  Mostly, I have been uninspired to write here.  In part, the thought of trying to write beautiful sentences has exhausted me.  And if I’m being honest, maybe I just wanted to have a good pout — what my younger sister likes to call, the Pappas Pout —  where one goes off to sulk alone in a bedroom, after slamming a few doors to ensure everyone and the neighbors too, know that you’re mad and sad.

But today, as I sat in my favorite living room chair after writing three morning pages, I began to think that maybe I should just sit down and write a few lines of everyday sentences in my blog  — and not worry over making them their Sunday Best.

So.  Here I am.  And just writing these three little words — here I am — reminds me that the prophet Isaiah also spoke these words to God before God set his charred lips loose to say a few words on His behalf.

So what is it that causes me to sulk rather than write?  I can only point to my Aunt Jo’s death.  It doesn’t help to tell myself that she’s in a better place.  And all of this is mixed up with my own mortality, of course, as that older generation ahead of me falls one by one, like a row of dominoes, each one falling closer and closer to me.

But yesterday, I realized that this particular vintage of my favorite month is almost used up.  And on the most important level — the one which has me taking notice of glimpses of Reality —  the month has unfolded its goodness and truth and beauty without my notice.

I am sorry to have missed out on the the miracle of cool crisp nights and lovely fall foliage and the particular way the autumn sun causes my living room to glow and shimmer for a few minutes each October day.

This weekend, I will be in the cool sunshine days dipping a paintbrush into a bucket of paint at my sister’s house.  The plan is to finish what she and I began last April —  the restoration of her homestead inheritance.  And knowing myself as I do, knowing that I grieve best with a paintbrush in my hand, my plan is to finish with this grieving of Aunt Jo’s death.  Because I don’t wish to miss out on the deepest and best part of everyday life.

October, here I am.

Slices of Toast and Family

07 Thursday Oct 2010

Posted by in Life at Home, Prayer, Writing

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It felt good to sink into everyday life this morning.

With a beautiful candle lit, a cup of coffee nearby and three snoozing canines around me and my favorite chair, I picked up pencil and journal to write.  These days my journal is filled with short stories of ancestors — some told me by aunts and uncles, while others come from reading old newspaper articles.   At yesterday’s funeral, I invited my mother’s oldest brother to recount tales of his youth and memories of his grandparents; he seemed glad to share that which he could still recall.  Uncle Bob’s stories now fill two pages of my journal.

Having lunch with Aunt Jo — whose funeral we gathered at yesterday — has been hovering at the top of my list since Daddy died.  Just three weeks ago I told her, “I want to get together for lunch with you real soon.”    Unfortunately, I didn’t make it happen; and now the opportunity is gone.   But I’m grateful for the scraps of stories she spoke of Sunday evening, and those, of course, take up a page and a half of my journal.

All this gathering of family history has me realizing —  family is more than sharing common bloodlines.  Two weeks ago, I picked up the phone to talk to a second cousin who I didn’t know existed until running across him in research.  My Greek grandfather’s younger sister, Anna — who died three days after my father was born — left three children.  Neither my father nor grandfather ever mentioned them — but it certainly helps explain those trips my young parents took to Vermont, during their early days of marriage.

Amazingly, all three second cousins — born in the mid-1920s — are still alive.   I called the youngest one, John, who is now 85.  Once John recovered from his surprise, he invited me to send up a copy of my research, with a promise to answer whatever questions he could.   I’m still working on the package I promised to send him — hopefully, it will be gone by week’s end.

After finishing today’s morning pages, I made a slice of toast.   The smell of toast always reminds me of grandparents — either my Greek grandfather or my maternal grandmother.  Today it was both.

As far as I know, Granny always had a piece of toast covered with jelly for breakfast.  ‘Toast and Jell,” she called it.   As a young school girl, it was what I often had myself — not because it was my favorite — but because it’s what my Greek grandfather could make me in a hurry before school.  The toast was always burnt around the edges but generous with butter.  Real butter not margarine —  so the bread was always a little smushed from Papa’s effort to spread cold butter over it.  Papa always served it to me with a cup of strong black coffee.  Greek-style, I suppose.

I don’t know if my new-found cousins from Vermont grew up with toast for breakfast or not.  And if they did, whether it was burnt around the edges or covered with jelly.  And it’s not important for me to know — it certainly won’t make my list of questions that my second cousin John so graciously offered to answer.  But possessing these unimportant facts is something one just owns about family.  And this morning, when my teeth crunched into a bit of crispy slightly black around the edges toast, slathered with soft yogurt margarine but no jell, I remembered my grandparents.  And gave thanks.

Sore Tributes

05 Tuesday Oct 2010

Posted by in Life at Home, Prayer, Soul Care, Writing

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My throat burns — my eyes water with unshed tears.  I’d  feel better if I let myself indulge in a good cry.  Or maybe an old-fashioned temper tantrum that would give any toddler a run for their money.

It began with Sunday afternoon’s phone call.  As usual, my husband answered, and yelled up the stairs:   “Christi’s on the phone.”  As I walked to the nightstand that holds the phone, I knew —  in a way I couldn’t really know  — that this would be no ordinary call — no ordinary how-are-you, let’s-catch-up chat.  I sensed the load of my sister’s bad news and with each step bringing me closer to true knowledge, I wondered:  Uncle Bob?  Or Aunt Jo?  Uncle Bob?  Or Aunt Jo? As my hand touched the receiver, the answer came:  It was Aunt Jo. Taking a deep breath, I cautiously answered my sister’s call, to hear Christi’s barely exhaled words.  In a voice scratchy with emotions spent and unspent, I heard,  “It’s Aunt Jo.”  All I could summon up was one word: “Damn.”

Sometimes I get angry with God about our apparent need to suffer and watch helplessly as loved ones slip through our fingers.  On Sunday evening, in spite of her brain bleed, Aunt Jo was mostly coherent and ever gracious.  She inquired about something she and I had talked about last Tuesday and in spite of a scary day spent in two ER’s, she talked about others who had made life meaningful:   Her Aunt Loudell, for one, who had taught her how to make cream pie filling — her worry about not being able to find that baby gifts she had put back for my daughter Kara — and her love of her daughter-in-law Judy, who meant more than words could express.

It was this latter point about Judy where she paused to ask for help.  In all of our long life shared together, I can’t recall my dear aunt ever asking me for help. But ask she did, by wondering if I would bring my son Kyle to visit her this week, because she really needed help gathering her thoughts to give Judy a written tribute.  “She means so much to me and our family,” she said.  “And I need help putting it all down in words.”

Assuring her that Kyle and I would come whenever she was ready to write, I left the hospital in peace.  I dropped my family a quick note expressing my relief that no surgery had been needed and that bleeding had apparently stopped.  But five hours later, peace shattered into pieces, as I rushed into the night to offer love and support where I could — to discover Aunt Jo now laboring toward death.  Thirteen hours later, it was over — as quick as it had begun — in the blink and fluttering of eyes.

Exhausted as I was, I was too agitated to sleep.   My mind bounced around, as I tried to focus on a television show, when the phone preempted everyday life again.  It was my sister, calling on behalf of Judy and the rest of Aunt’ Jo’s family — they wondered if I would help by writing Aunt Jo’s obituary?

Do I have to confess that I wanted to say no?  That I didn’t want this task, that I didn’t feel like I could.  But I agreed to give it my best.  And before going to bed, I expressed everything out and left it to simmer in the computer over night.   And this morning, after making a few edits — then a few more with the help of Jane, my sole maternal aunt — I released it to Judy.

Life holds many lessons.  Even in horrible situations, good shines through.  Maybe it would be more accurate to say God shines through, and  that love saturates our actions to carry the day.  I now understand so much more how Aunt Jo felt Sunday night when she asked for Kyle’s help, because the magnitude of love cannot be spelled on paper.  It’s too much.  I’m reduced with a wish to write gibberish:  No more Aunt Jo.  No more Porcupine Balls.  Or Snowballs.  Or perfect Pecan Pie.  No more of this staple in my life being on the other end of the phone to answer my latest call for help.

This writing down of tributes is work better left to poets and saints.  It is above and beyond me.  My spirit is sore —  my words weighted with sadness, with no hope to soar.  But this morning I let them go anyway.  May God bless my widow’s mite of words.