Training Wheels for the Cycle of Life

It is dawn and the first day of bow season.  Down by the pond next door a light is on outside the tiny trailer.  I know what that means.  My city girl roots are showing.

Last night I saw Mama and her two remaining babies down by the creek, munching in the neighbor’s clover patch and I wanted to scream, “Get out of there! If you do that tomorrow, he’ll kill you!”

Okay, I don’t know all the rules but I’m fairly certain he won’t kill the babies- Maybe not even the mama.  But I’ve watched over them since Spring.  I mourned when the trail camera caught the bobcat dragging the third baby away.  And don’t tell me it’s the cycle of life.  I work in a nursing home, remember?  So I’m down with the whole cycle of life business.

There are just some times when I wish I had a bit of control over the whole thing.  Instead, I am relegated to standing out on my back porch, shooting the moon.

 

Moving On...

We are in the apartment of the Eldest Unnamed One. It is the big, final Move In Day and the time has come to say goodbye. He sits in the swivel armchair he’s spent the morning assembling while I lean against the doorframe beside him.

“You know,” he says. “It’s weird. One minute you live at home and the next you’re in some apartment on your own.”

My heart snaps right in two. I can’t help myself. I reach over and pretend to flick a piece of dust from a lock of his hair. I won’t make this any harder than I know it already is- for both of us. After all, this is the brave boy who finally burst into tears on his fifth birthday after I’d said for the millionth time that day, “Now you’re Mama’s Big Boy.”

“I don’t want to be your Big Boy!” he’d sobbed. I want to be who I am!



I realize now it was my adjustment to make- my baby was no longer a toddler. It was time to let go of that phase and begin the next one. I was the one who had to remind myself of that, over and over again, until I could find some peace with losing my treasured baby to a more independent child- the child who marched up the steps of the Kindergarten bus and never once looked back.

I know now how hard that must have been for him, what inner strength my child uses to make those big transitions seem easy. Funny how we learn so much, often in retrospect, from our precious children.

Lately, more so than ever, I try and think what my own father would do- or did do- when faced with one of these life-altering situations. I summon up memory and try to respond as I imagine he would. This one is easy. We had so many goodbyes, so many times, and always he made the parting easy on me.

Once, after I’d moved 800 miles away to live in the South, I asked him how he stood the long times between our visits because I was so homesick.

“Oh,” he said. “I create my Nancy in my head and even when you’re not here, when I miss you, I just summon her up and there’s “my” Nancy. I store up our times together and play them back and it’s like you’re right here.”

I believed him then. I felt much less guilty about having chosen to run off to the far away south. I had more strength to live my new life.

Every single leave-taking was the same, even his dying. He always smiled but he always walked us out to our cars then stood watching until we were out of sight. The last image we would have in our rearview mirrors was always that of him standing there, smiling and waving goodbye.

Later, when the boys were teenagers and I knew how much our visits meant, I would drive around the bend in the road, stop and cry because it was always so hard to leave him.

He would always be sure, at some point in our visits to tell me how proud he was of us, how great it was to watch us becoming the people we were. Dad packed us full of confidence and unconditional love- the sent us back out into our worlds without one string attached.

And we always came back home.

“It’s weird. One minute you live at home and the next you’re in some apartment on your own,” he said.

“I know,” I answered. “It’s gotta feel a little strange but cool, huh? I mean, your first apartment. College. Wow! I am so proud of you. You guys are gonna be fine.”

“I know.”

“Besides,” I can’t help but add. “We’re only an hour away and you know how us moms are, always looking to feed you or maybe even pop in now and then, just to maybe bring you a casserole or something. It’s not like you can get rid of us so easily.”

The Wench Beloved, having just been through all of this with her mom, studies the screen of her laptop with fierce intensity, pretending not to be a part of this conversation but I know her by now. I see the quick blink of her eyes and feel the emotion that sits just on the edge of spilling over.



I stand up; look at the Youngest Unnamed One and Mertis and say, “Well, we’d better get on the road and let these two get settled in.”

“I’ll walk you out,” the Eldest said. There is so much of his grandfather in this child. I love him so very much.

We walk out to the parking lot and he watches us from the top of the fire escape. I remember suddenly all the times he’d ride off to school with his father and I would come running out at the last minute in my bunny slippers and bathrobe, my hair sticking out at all angles and cry, “Bye-bye, Honeycakes!”

“Wait!” I instruct. “Don’t move! I need a picture!” A picture just like every other first day of school, a picture to remember the passing of yet another year. A picture that doesn’t need to be taken because the memories are etched forever in my heart.

Pickup Trucks and Pennies From Heaven

We miss Dad.

My brother and I are standing outside in the dark beside our trucks, talking in low voices about our dreams of Dad.

"Yeah," my brother says. "The day I bought my banjo, that night, I dreamed Dad and Papa Lee were laughing and dancing. Dad was doing that thing he used to do, you know how he'd hunch his shoulders up and go in those circles?"

"Like Bill Cosby?"

"Yeah, I always thought he danced just like Bill Cosby."

We love Bill Cosby,too.

"I think he and Papa Lee were happy I got the banjo," my brother says.

That would be like them, I think. Dad's father, Papa Lee, had a banjo, used to play in Vaudeville theaters before my father was born and then continued to entertain his family by playing the ukulele. I could see him dancing with happiness that the musical gene has continued on through the generations.

I tell my brother the dream I had where Dad comes and hugs me. But I realize in the moment that he takes me into his arms, he's dead. This isn't real.

I say this and my brother begins to cry. I look at him and dissolve myself. We stand between our two pickup trucks, crying, our children clustered around us, awkwardly patting our backs.

"I'm sorry," I tell my son later. "I didn't mean to do that."

"That's all right," he says, hugging me. "It was bound to happen. Every time you get together with your brother or your sister, you guys wind up crying."

Yeah, true that.

It's bedtime. Tomorrow is a new day, I think. No more tears for the rest of the trip, I promise myself...but I feel like I could cry forever.

I reach into my bag for pajamas. There is a penny resting on top of the bag. Another penny from Heaven.

Life in Miniature at the K & W Cafeteria

The Eldest Unnamed One is drunk on being 18, in love and his impending high school graduation. He is brash and goofy, a know-it-all and a kid again...and it is only Tuesday.

We are in line at the K & W Cafeteria, trying to pretend we don't know each other. I ignore his silliness. He ignores Mertis's silent disapproval. I talk to the Youngest Unnamed One and wish the line wasn't so long.

It has been a hard day in Old People Land. The social worker at one place, one of the young, good ones, may not quit after all, but only because her heart's been broken by the new boyfriend. I am selfishly glad.

I am thinking about this when I hear a voice say, "You know, you keep chewin' on that pen and you'll wind up swallowing it. You don't want to write your name that way, now do you?"

I turn and catch my breath. Hell. A frail old man in an orange ball cap, his jeans loose and cinched tight around his waist with a canvas belt, a frayed hole in the back of his pants exposes his shirt tail. His smile is disarming, his eyes gray-blue and too happy for what I am sure is about to come.

He has taken on the Eldest, the one who is never wrong, facing off against the kid with a happy smile and the clear expectation that this is going to be a wonderful conversation.

The Eldest chuckles, sticks the pen in his pocket and says something I don't hear...but the Beloved smiles, so I know he can't have insulted the old man.

"She your sister?" the man asks.

The Eldest smiles indulgently while the Beloved explains, "Girlfriend."

"Girlfriend, eh?" He gives the Eldest a collegegial smile. "Well, you favor, that's why I asked."

"I graduated high school in 1947," I hear the old man say. Two women I take for his wife and daughter try to pretend they're not with him, turning their attention toward the cafeteria line and murmuring to themselves about what they'll have and what will disagree with their tricky stomachs.

The Old Guy is oblivious. "1947," he says. "That was probably before your time, huh?"

The Eldest chuckles. When the Old Guy asks where The Eldest will be going to school, he feigns mock indignation. He's a State grad.

"What was your major?" I hear the Eldest ask. He seems truly interested.

I decide maybe I won't disown him after all.

The Old Guy tells the Eldest every parable and bit of advice he can think of and fit into the ten minute trip down the food line...And all the while my son listens, nodding and commenting, smiling and agreeing...even when I'm fairly certain he doesn't truly agree.

I look at the Old Guy and do the math. He is my father's age...were he here. I think of the Eldest and my Dad, of the way my father loved that boy and of how the boy loved his grandfather.

I remember the dream I had the night before. I am in my father's parents' living room. Both my grandparents are there, sitting enjoying the cocktail hour just as they did every afternoon. Only, I know they are dead. I know they are dead and I know my father is dying. He is with me, following me into the room. In my dream, dad is much younger. He is the same age he was when I was five.

He walks into his parents' house, sees his father sitting in his favorite arm chair and Dad's knees buckle and give out as he sags against me. I am trying to hold my father up and he is crying. He knows his father is dead. He knows he is dying. But I think he cries because he is so glad to have him back.

I am standing in the line at the K & W, watching my son and the new friend who needs to pack every bit of his life into the Eldest's awareness before they come to the end of the line and there is no more time.

I am following the two of them, half-attending to Mertis and the Youngest Unnamed One, pretending I care what we eat when all I want is my dad.

The Eldest Unnamed One realizes none of this, surely doesn't know what a microcosm this cafeteria has become for our lives and probably would care less if he did know.

Some days I wonder how the world can keep spinning without Dad. Missing him takes my breath away.

And then I see him in the Eldest or in the Youngest and I realize he is here after all...Dad would've listened to the Old Guy. He would've smiled indulgently at the Eldest, found his way into the heart and soul of the Youngest and made Mertis laugh.

He would've understood life in miniature at the K & W on a Tuesday evening.

And the Circle It Goes Round and Round...

How's this for cool- My 16 year old went to march in Washington! I am so proud! The boy is taking after his old lady!

And damn it! My ex thought of the idea and so he got to take him! Man! I am twelve kinds of green! (By the way, why do people turn green with envy? Shouldn't it be black or something else rotten?)

Yep, The Youngest Unnamed One is doing what I did at his age. It's so strange! But cool, very, very cool!

Then I sent him to Georgetown to prowl around. Of course it's been years since I was there- strolling into the club where Roberta Flack (Killing Me Softly) made her start; visiting my first "Adult" store; sniffing incense in the Head shops...D.C is where my friend Harmonica Jack and I won an Open Mike night at the same club where Emmy Lou Harris used to play.

We rode down from West Chester, PA on his little maybe a Honda 350, on I-95! Me with a guitar strapped to the bike, the two of us singing and laughing like the young fools in love we were. The bike blew a gasket and my cousins rescued us, put us up and then celebrated with us when we actually won!

I have fond memories of D.C- of traveling down on Amtrak to stay with another cousin who was married to a very minor diplomat (who was probably really a spy anyway). We would dress in evening gowns and attend all the embassy parties. Free food, dancing, living like Cinderella for the weekend and staying in an apartment the size of a butter pat.

Running away with my girlfriend when we were still in high school to attend the big March on Washington, while unbeknown to us, her mother and my dad were also there, marching...Hell, we could've caught a ride...

Those were so the days...And now, it's his turn.

You go, boy! Make your old Mama proud!!