We all look back on what we've accomplished, what we meant to do but didn't, and what we did but shouldn't have. With my sense of humor and belief in the good in everyone, I'll post the successes and failures I've experienced during my 75 years.
Postings will be on Tuesdays and Fridays with occasional meanderings when the mood allows.
Ship of Dreams was written shortly after my mother passed in 1996.
SHIP
OF DREAMS
I have come home to my
father’s house for the last time. My sisters and I are here to lay my mother to
rest. She followed my father several years after his passing, dying on their wedding
anniversary. There is a sense of regret that I did not have a chance to say
goodbye to either of them. As with my father, Mother was cremated. Ashes seem
such a poor representation of a person’s essence.
This is also my final
visit to the house that has been my companion for many years. My grandparents
owned the house until their deaths when it passed to my father. We moved to the
house when I was fifteen, but I remember the many trips from North Carolina to
Alabama where I spent every summer with my grandparents. My travels began when
I was seven. Mom and Dad would put me on a bus seated behind the driver, who
promised to watch me during the ten-hour trip. It was a great adventure.
As I walk into the house,
whispers of past events and motion picture memories overcome me. The front
hall, now devoid of its countless books, is covered with dust. The shelves are
a silent testament to lifetimes of preachers, teachers, and philosophers. Going
into my mother’s room brings instant tears. It is empty now, but I can still
see her lying on the long, yellow couch, frail and angry that she should be so.
Without her presence, the room, the house, seems lonely and forgotten.
There is a palatable
sense of loss in three generations of joy, sorrow, everyday events, and whispers
in the dark. I am surrounded by sounds of children running through the hall,
music from the upright piano in the living room, births and deaths and the old
ones who died when their time came. Mementos are gathered--books, an afghan I
made for Mom years ago, and other small bibelots. Only unwanted items remain
when it is time to leave. The house seems to be saying, “Don’t go. Stay a while
longer.”
My siblings and I gather
on the front porch, and our sister of the heart and a dear cousin are with us. Comfortable
rockers, worn by many sitters, hold us close. Ashtrays and plant stands are
friendly reminders of the countless evenings spent with family and friends and
the shared camaraderie. We remember evenings sitting silently in the darkness,
watching spiders spin their webs. Friends from across the street bring wine,
and we sing, talk, laugh, and cry far into the night.
Time passes, leaving bittersweet
memories. The house will always be a part of me, of my soul. All that I have
loved resided here at one time or another. It was a safe harbor for a ship of
dreams.
A
safe harbor? A ship of dreams? Yes, but I, the house, am also a keeper of
secrets held close in love. My walls have felt and absorbed your emotions and
your dreams. You have meant so much to me, all of you. Your goodbyes touched my
heart. Yes, a house can have a heart. Built of wood, brick, and mortar, it
comes to life when a family moves in with all its hopes and human frailties.
Sometimes, the house weeps, sometimes it rejoices, but it always revels in the
human condition.
How
can I respond to so many souls? Several generations of your family have lived
within me--the earliest during the depression, raising their children in a
simpler time, and the second, wildly passionate, finding humor and wonder in
their children, watching them grow in the same passionate manner.
A
life cut short, that of your sister, was the most sorrowful event in all my
years with you. A beautiful child, she was torn from her family by a drunk
driver trying to scare a little child by the side of the road. I can still see
each of you in your pain and grief, trying to comfort each other. Your memories
will remain with me forever--your mother who covered her child’s body so the
younger sisters could not see her, the father running down the middle of the
road toward his injured child, and the oldest daughter, in the days to follow, finding
herself giving comfort, tapping into an inner strength she did not know she
possessed.
I
remember fondly the mornings with you girls and any visiting friends piled on
your mother’s bed with cups full, brimming over with coffee and laced with the
previous night’s conversations. Also remembered are your parents, sometimes
driven by their own private hells, but always seeing their children as precious
and unique. They were willing to sacrifice everything for you. Those
sacrifices, given freely in love, negated any failings.
There
were the happy times, the simple enjoyment of a family being together--poker
games until the wee hours, discussions that covered everything, celebrations
with neighbors that centered on scintillating conversation, and music--the
father and oldest daughter providing the entertainment with their glorious
voices.
And
the funny things you did. One in particular comes to mind. Barbara, the oldest,
ever seeking to shock, but always looking for approval, brought home several
albums by Doug Clark and the Hot Nuts. The name of the group was kept from your
father. Your mother shuddered, but to her credit, listened with an open mind to
the crude jokes and sexual innuendos. She stood it as long as she could, and
one night, after several drinks, showed her true feelings by sailing one of the
records out the front door and into the bushes.
I
will always love each of you. I wept silently as you walked through my rooms
for the last time. I knew why you had to leave and watched your departure with
a breaking heart. Your sorrow was mine, and if I had wings, I would have
carried you back to happier times. You will always be the ideal by which all
others are measured. Never again will I experience that pure joy in your lives,
the love as I hold you close to myself.
Barbara,
you called me a safe harbor for a ship of dreams. I say to you, “You have
sailed your course, poorly at times, but always with a faith that has sustained
you. I love you past caring and will hold forever, the vision of a tall, proud
ship on its quest.”
Peace,
Barb
