It's been a weird day. I woke up early after a late night. All day I've had a nagging desire to skip over what has to get done and make a phone call. So much to get done, I really don't have time to go there.
I used to call every Saturday morning. Not because there was anything new to talk about but because it was a good way just to check in and make sure everything was okay.
I called Dan earlier than usual this morning. I woke him up. And chitchatting with him was a great. About nothing really: our schedules for the day, whether and what time we could talk tonight, a bit of politics and a bit of church talk: nothing of earth shattering importance. A good conversation nonetheless; but not really the one for which something deep inside of me is longing. Why? and Why today?
Every time I picked up the office phone, I considered twice the number to be dialed. I still remember the number -- how weird is that?! It was never my home phone number. These days calling someone is choosing an icon from the phones screen. But those 10 digits -- area code, town code, number -- still echo through my head. Numbers have always stuck in my head so that shouldn't surprise me; when I was just a puny 3 year old and was accidentally left at the lake, I was able to tell some tourist from New York City what my phone number was so she could call from the payphone and scold whomever answered the phone. 2269. Just 4 digits then.
0417. That's the number. 255 the town code. I wonder who would answer that phone number now. I see the number in my mind and my thoughts drift toward the wall phone in that kitchen. There were speakers plugged into it so everyone could hear every conversation, but most of all because the handset could never be loud enough. Big, lit numbers replaced an old dial, the pale beige phone attached to the end of the upper cabinet over the end of the snack bar that divided the kitchen between work and dining space. Inside the cabinet and under the back side of the phone jack was a warm spot over the florescent lights on the underside of the cabinet; every night that warm spot held hearing aids with the battery case open so those tiny batteries would not wear themselves down. Next to them, stacks of dishes -- unmatched and cracked -- that fed so many of us over the years. And plastic tumblers that held ice tea with a splash of diet cola. Memory is a curse sometimes.
I hadn't been clear about why this particular day this craziness popped into my head for the first time in a long time. Maybe because there's so much to do or maybe because it's a cool summer day. When I accidentally put the cursor for the mouse over the bottom of the computer screen, however, it all became clear. The date. Another curse: I cannot forget dates. Yes. It is August 6th. The first day of a long last 10 days.
It's been a long time since I've dialed those 10 digits and called. And longer since I was there. But it was on this date that I arrived for the last time. The long, sandy driveway covered in crushed oyster and quahog shells, the buoy and lobster pot markers hanging off the rail of the deck, the bristly Cape Cod grass under my bare feet, and the faint smell of musty, marshy saltwater bogs. Bikes were on the back of the minivan to keep two teenage boys occupied while I spent days cooking and caring. Those last days I spent with my dying mother.
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Don't ever believe that the pain of a loss leaves or heals; that is a lie. The pain is there forever; we just learn to live with it. With time we learn to jump over that hole, or walk around it in our travels. But it's always there, lurking and luring. But even now -- 13 years later -- I've fallen into it again today by just looking at a date on a tiny calendar in the corner of my computer screen.
So with stacks of paper and even more digital stuff piled on my desk and desktop, I've stopped to assess how deeply I've fallen into an old wound, and process a plan to climb over the memories, through the streams of thought and tears, and back onto the road of the living. And assess the real value of that stack of things to be done.
Perhaps it is time to leave the stacks where they are and go for a walk on this lovely August evening. It will all still be there in the morning, but the evening will pass. Yes. The evening is more important.
A novelty to me when I moved to the Midwest was the tradition within some German heritage congregations of Totenfest: the celebration of the the dead. Usually this is held either on the Sunday nearest All Saints Day, or the last Sunday of the liturgical year, often the Sunday after Thanksgiving -- just before the start of Advent. Call it a Memorial Day for the church, perhaps. In the New England congregations of my younger years, this was not part of my experience. Though I would not consider myself to be liturgical in a traditional way, this is a lovely tradition.
In this season between the traditional times of Totenfest, I find myself remembering my mother. Anyone who knew her well and knows me at all can see traits of hers in my being. Practicality, logic, ration, frugality, eccentricity are all words that could describe either of us. Can do and make do are attitudes I learned from her. Like her, I often forget where I've left my purse; and like her, I've taken to wearing it over my shoulder and across my chest so that it doesn't get away from me. (Unlike her, my purse is tiny and contains the bare necessities instead of anything that might possibly be needed.)
Over the 8+ years since my mother's death, the hole in my being where she lived has become a familiar part of who I am. Early on, I stumbled into it frequently and found myself shedding tears over my loss. That hole is still there: I still long to pick up the telephone and call her for a recipe or to share some good news (shouting it so she'd actually hear it, then explaining it so she'd understand its importance to me). I still miss her e-mail notes with daily itinerary and menus from her days since her last e-mail. When I open my cookbooks or photo albums and find a note with her handwriting -- a piece cut from old file folder turned into a post card with a recipe or an address she sent to me by request-- the vacuum is obvious to me. As my children have become young men with lives of their own, as my nieces and nephews have babies, as my life reaches numeric and chronological markers, I look into that hole and wonder -- even speculate -- what her response would be to these.
The hole has not filled in over time, but it has become familiar and less forbearing. As time has passed, it has even become the source of celebration, of joy, of moments of warmth and loveliness. That does not discount nor make nostalgic the less than happy memories: embarrassment, hurtful words exchanged, inexplicable actions. Those will always be part of the memory and, fortunately, part of the vacuum. Those memories have become markers and reminders of where I need to draw the line between her being and my being.
When I find myself doing or saying something particularly frugal, practical, rational, or otherwise "Evelynesque," I've been know to break out into song -- a particular song with an Easter melody:
She lives! She lives! Dear Evelyn lives today!
She walks with me and talks with me
Along life's rational (or practical or frugal) way!
She lives! She lives! Frugality none too terse
You ask me how I know she lives,
She lives within my purse!
Perhaps that could be seen as sacrilegious. That's not the intent. As with her, there's no malice in my actions here. To me it's a humorous way to honor one whose influence on my life is noticeable in everyday ways, to acknowledge that seed of who I have become and am becoming, and to celebrate the life of one important to me.
What do you do with regularity to lift up and honor the life of someone important to you? Where is his or her life reflected in your actions, attitudes, perspectives, or words? How does a sense of loss become a source of celebration in your everyday living?
