Anna Bella - Timothy - Calvin - Sophie holding baby Joe - Parker and Ruby Tawas, Michigan August 2012 |
In the lapping of the waves I
hear her calling. Calling.
Sweetly calling. In from the depths of the darker water, in to the softer
sand, where the rhythmic repetition has ground the earth down to tiny grains,
soft and supple under their small browned-butter feet. I stand on the deck of
the cottage, overlooking Lake Huron, on the sunrise side, the laughter of my
grandchildren floating with the Huron breeze up from the beach, through the
trees, up to our summer home. I am renewed by the sound, and by the scent of
sunshine and sunscreen, mixed with a faint tint of mildew from down in the
dampness of the basement, and a waft of Michigan baked beans cooking in the
oven. It’s a sacred, holy moment, when the spirit says to me “Be Still”, and I
finally listen. I stand alone, the scents
and the sounds and the sunlight casting pure radiance on my posterity, all of
them down there on the beach.
They’ve assembled with a focus,
having planned and gathered everything necessary for a Kid’s Olympics; plastic
chairs for diving boards, Sophie’s small video game providing classic Olympic
type fanfare music; and my iPhone to record it all. I have very little memory left on my iPhone,
the bulk of it being taken up with that Kid’s Olympics recording. Every time I
attempt to sync it to my computer and erase it from my phone that same Spirit
says to me, leave it there on your phone (though I did put it on my computer
for safe keeping). Timo will sweetly ask
to borrow my phone every time he comes to visit. I know why.
He is not playing games, as most kids would. He is scrolling through my pictures and
replaying that blessed moment in time when he and his cousins are carefree and
completely safe in each others’ hearts, and they are being creative and being
funny and making delicious unbreakable memories with each other in a place that
is sacred to our family.
Dave’s mom built her own cottage
many years later, after both her parents were gone. She named it Huron Calling. She
and her four sisters had grown up visiting Tawas, up north from their hometown
of Saginaw MI. Grandpa Roy had, half a
century before, purchased lots along that beautiful beach, south of their lovely old white family
cottage. Five lots for five daughters. Helen finally built her dream
cottage; a charming, crisply fresh home designed for decades of family memories
for her, her kids, and her grand kids, and eventually great-grand kids. Heartbreakingly, Helen was killed in a car
accident on her way home to that cottage after she had dropped us off at the
airport, just a couple years after she had finished it. She never knew her great grand kids, or her youngest grandson, Ned. That was nearly twenty
years ago. It was painful at first to
return. We feel her there, in that place and that space. With time her
presence has made us feel safe and warm and the tears are not as overwhelming as
they used to be. I stood last summer on the deck looking down on my grandchildren, hearing their laughter, and
whispered, “Oh Helen, you would have loved this.” And she would have.
I suspect she does, in fact.
I wonder how much they see, these
women who gave birth to my husband and me.
I wonder if they think of us as much as we think of them.
A few weeks ago Dave and I went
over to John and Ashley’s house to drop something off. It was late and the kids were in bed. Parker came tiptoeing into the family room as
we grown ups chatted.
“Park, you’re going to be so
tired tomorrow. Back to bed, Buddy!”
But Park struggled to get to
sleep, his little feet kept padding across the floor. Finally, he ended up in his parents’
bed. I could hear him whimper. I slipped in to find him wrapped in their
down comforter.
“Hey buddy, what’s wrong?”
“I just can’t sleep. I just want to be where you and Gumpa are.”
“Do you want me to lie down with
you for a minute?” I asked.
“Will you?”
And so I lay down with my six
year old grandson. I stroked his
eyebrows with my thumb and fingertip; down past his temples, up under his eyes
and then over again.
“I used to do this to your daddy
when he was little, when he couldn’t sleep.”
“I know. My mom does it for me, too.”
We lay in the dark, my hand
circling his face, our breathing the only sound.
Suddenly I felt his eyebrows
tighten, and my thumb caught a drop of wetness falling from the corner of his
eye. I lifted my head from the pillow
and looked at him.
“What’s wrong, Buddy?”
“I just miss Gram.”
“I know. So do I.”
I kissed the stream of tears as
they trickled down his soft, warm cheek.
“She’s probably looking down on
us right now, thinking how much she loves us, too.” I said, in my most
comforting grandmotherly voice.
“Gummy,” he replied, “there’s
something people just don’t understand.
They don’t know that the spirit world is right here. Just right here, on this very earth! In fact, Gram is prolly snuggling wif us
right now!”
I pulled him closer to me, there
in that dark room, thinking I might be able to feel my mother between us.
In just a few minutes the clock will strike midnight and I will be officially one year older. I wonder if she sees me; my mother. I wonder if she knows I’m thinking of her,
writing about her, remembering her and loving the people who also remember
her. I always think of my mother on my
birthday. She and I both bore daughters
on March 5th. My Sarah came floating down from heaven on my 22nd
birthday. I feel a kind of karma-like peace in the symmetry of our situation,
me straddled by two strong women, having been born of one and having given
birth to the other on the cusp of spring.
This year, for the first time in
my life, I will not be kissing my mother on my birthday, thanking her for
giving me life. I will not feel her warm
lips against mine, or hear her softly whisper, “Happy Birthday, Doll.” But if I am very still, and I let the memories
rise like bubbles in cool water, I can almost hear it, somewhere deep inside,
deeper than the ear. It comes from all that repetition, the sound of her voice
saying she loves me. Like the lapping
waves on Huron sands. Maybe it’s the
memory. Or maybe it’s her, whispering
through the veil, right here, on this very earth. Stroking my head and calling over and over: I
love you…I love you…I love you.
If I tried to call you now I would not be able to talk through the quiet sobs. We all miss her so much and so very deeply. But heaven gave you to us through her. I will be forever grateful. Happy Birthday dear sister!!
ReplyDeleteWhat a tender memory for both of you.
ReplyDeletethis made me weep, oh that little boy does miss his gram. we all do. love you!
ReplyDelete