Tag Archives: Siblings

Christmas In 20/20 Hindsight. Our House Number Was 2020 and How Grand It Was.

Posted on by
9

Christmas Morning at 20/20 Grand

 

The house sat at the dead end of a street jammed with ten kids.  My mom could barely lace up the shoe.  Yet she worked hard to make this time of year special.  My wife has a tinge of sadness when I tell her we would get clothes for Christmas and one toy.  I keep forgetting to tell her the other stuff.

Like the mistletoe hung over archway right under the plaster “Last Supper”.

Like the strung popcorn and cranberries that twirled around the tinsel strewn tree.

Like new fireman pajamas.

Like the hand knit stockings with a jingle bell dangling in the middle…twelve of them strung across the sun porch windows…each one with a knitted name.

Like the smell of mince meat pie.

Like the early years heading off to midnight mass.

Like hot cocoa made from real whole milk and sugar and cocoa after being out in the cold.

Like the snow which formed long cotton balls of ice and slush were fused on the bottom of our snow pants.

Like the Ames Brothers and Bing caroling us in the background.

Like the Christmas bells that hung on our back door year round…They sometimes made me think of the magic of Christmas on a hot August night.

Like heading downtown to see the Nativity and being kinda scared of the eight foot shepherd that stared right at me.

Like when we would eat the un-yellow snow.

Like when Bob McDonald, Dennis Shields and I would comb the neighborhood and steal Christmas lights off of the bushes and throw them in the street to explode like firecrackers.  (Until we got caught trying to steal some off of a front door frame)

 

Then the waiting.  The twelve step waiting.  “My name is Jerry and I love Christmas morning.”

“Hi Jerry.”

Ten kids on twelve steps equal anticipation, impatience, giggling, flatuation, more giggles and squeezing for position on the lowest step.  We tried to be quiet and yet just enough noise was generated to rouse the sleeping Santa at the bottom of the steps to the right.  Said Santa just went to sleep a couple of hours ago (But we didn’t appreciate that).

A gurgled “not yet!” would waif itself around the corner…then more sleep breathing.

“Almost…”

ZZZZzzzz snarf schoogle smack smack

We could see the colored light seeping around the corner from the living room.  Our imaginations would be bouncing off each other like the little white dot that jumped a top of the sing along with Mitch songs on T.V.  We knew there would be underwear and socks and pajamas…but what of our “list” would be under the tree.  Which present of the urban sprawl under the tree would be ours?  No matter the lowest girth of the fern it could not contain the gifts.

And so we sat and she snored.

And so we fidgeted and she took cleansing sighs.

And so we creaked the steps with our buttocks and she swallowed the sugarplum fairy like a hair ball.

I imagine a committee meeting on the landing was held to appoint a scapegoat.  Someone had to directly ask the exhausted Merry Marilee (My mother Santa Clause) if we could descend.  Most likely it was Carol.  The baby.  The spoiled.  The cute.  The Cindy Lou Who of our who’s who.   Surely Mom would be sympathetic to her soft cry for freedom.  The stairs that imprisoned us all like Babes in Toyland held us.  The rail slats like iron bars on which we would drag our tin cups of impatience cuffed us.  Our bodies staggered on risers like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir…yet our voices(begging)didn’t evoke yuletide inspiration per se…more like pleading for parole or pardon.

Then we would hear a rustling and our fidgeting stopped and earwax melted to aid listening.  Out from the North Pole rose an elf in a nightie.  Red was her bed head hair as she passed.  Her cats eye glasses guiding her one eye to the coffee pot.  I could hear her flick open her cigarette lighter and flick her thumb twice.  The fridge opened and shut.  Cupboards knocked a few times.  Then she walked past again to her room to get her robe.  I swear I saw her smirk a little and a sleepy twinkle in her eyes.  We reverted to silent body language…eyes popping out…hands almost clapping…nudging…touching…scooting.

She once more came out of her den and fetched her coffee and sat in the living room.   She had a box-seat for the show.

“Alright, you can come see…”

We did see.  Not her face glowing, but lights, and sagging stockings, and sleds, and stuffed animals, and candy canes hanging on the branches.

We did see.  Not the whole picture of her thinking and choosing and remembering sizes.

We did see.  Not the exhaustion and sore muscles.

We did see…and now that we had seen from our box seats, we would all call her or stop by her north pole to appreciate the memories.  That gift is greater than any on our “list.”   Memories of the ambiance of what she created for us.  Each memory is a step on which to sit and wonder, like a child, how she did it.

This year the memories sit under each of our ten trees. All my siblings and I will miss talking to her and stopping by for pie in the evening. I wonder if there is mistletoe in heaven. I hope so. I hope she will be waiting there for us with some hanging over her head as she smirks and purses her lips. Merry Christmas mom.

 

 

 

Remains of a Day. Part Three of Three.

Posted on by
4

After a prayer, it was time to set the cloth bag into the earth. Margie reached over and down as far as she could and released. The sound of air being displaced was like when someone fogs their eyeglasses to clean them. Then there was a thud followed by tubular bass echoes. Marge put her hand to her mouth and we all looked at one another in surprise. “Sorry Mom,” said Marge. Then laughter erupted and poured into the hole right on top of our mother. It was the most beautiful sacrilege.

I bent over in hysterics and felt jettisoned back to the dinner table when we were all a little silly. We sat on unmatched chairs and the window sill around a fully leafed table. Mom’s spot was always on the western end of the food deck.  We always sang the Johnny Appleseed song like the national anthem and some of us must have heard “Plaayyeeee Ballll!” Things would happen. Things always happened. We reached for and spilled the whole milk. We retched up and spewed the whole milk. Someone often would end up on the floor curled like a baby and wishing he or she had worn a diaper. My mother, like an umpire behind the plate, would make the calls with authority:

“Sit still!”

“Oh, straighten up!”

“Oh honestly!”

“Someone sop it up!”

Then we would sit still and straight and wait. We sat with elbows on the table, like Judas in the ceramic “Last Supper” that hung off kilter above us. Carly Simon’s “Anticipation” would hush our immaturity, for a moment. We looked at our plates. We held cottage cheese on a spoon in front of pursed lips. We smirked at each other as our peripheral vision looked on the west end of the food deck. There she was, bless her, mouth open to receive a shovel full of gruel, and…she swung and missed yet again and a blob would roll down her front. Then ten umpires would resist the urge to yell with authority…”Strike!” She would mumble a disappointment and we would relax, smirk, wink, and sign to each other that another traditional meal is in the books.

One hundred years from now sounds of laughter will still work its way out of this piece of earth.

We all picked up a shard of sycamore bark and tossed our piece into the hole like a rose. We took turns shoveling the moist earth in and on her ashes. Then Mike, my brother in law, served again as grave-master. He came back from the shed with a tamper. A tool with a long handle and on the end was a square foot of iron which was flat on the bottom. It was heavy and compressed the orange soil. We laughed again as the symbolism of a son-in-law interacting with a mother-in-law was displayed in a vignette of a two-handed pound down.

More dirt was layered, more tamped down, and more tampered with holy, happy moments of goodbyes. My mother’s “Sentimental Journey” had taken on a transcendent ambiance and all her children were thankful.

In a message threaded to all of us siblings my sister Marge said it aptly;

I would like to add we had a good, sharing time, and placed Mom “carefully” into her resting place. You were all there in spirit with us, and now we must move on and make Mom proud of her children.

Yes, and a hundred years from now we will be with her.

Remains of a Day. Part Two of Three

Posted on by
6

Throughout the day, April 27th 2012, my mother’s 83th birthday, a thread wove through an e-mail my brother Pete sent to his siblings. He attached some thoughtful words of a scene from the past. In it he recalls an interaction with our mother. In essence, he wrote that he basically wanted a “do over”. Many siblings chimed in with similar regrets, and I thought of many personal scenes I wish I could change as well. But Peter’s piece didn’t end in regret; in fact he spelled out what most of us realized as we stepped into parenthood and beyond. Our mother endured so much yet love kept coming on strong.

My sister Mary added a thread to his;

And with each passing event, it’s only natural for us feel the effects of what happens, sometimes to the very deepest core of our being. And each time, it changes us. It’s the process. God and His wisdom created it to be so. And for that, I (we) are thankful.
Mom’s ashes will be in a perfect spot. At that tree that all of us have seen, commented on. Ashes to nurture life, just like all those millions and millions of events that nurtured our souls.

Then more threads were added throughout the day:

 To know that she was always right there to pick up our pieces of heartache, when her heart was breaking too, was truly a blessing. Sister Pat.

 So many memories …Sister Ellen

One of the most impacting things to me is the times I would visit her and we would sit in silence and I always felt bad.  I felt like we should be talking it up!!  She would always say to me “it’s enough just being together”. Sister Carol

Rick and I had a Manhattan last night and made a toast to mom. Wish we could have been there in person. Sister Barb

I want to say I missed all of my siblings last night…I got called into work early, and so as I reflected on life, I was feeding the ungrateful and impatient masses. I miss Mom more than words can express, and I am very weary of losses and illness. Brother John

She wept when I wept and she smiled when I smiled.  Brother Peter

Yes, Happy Birthday Mom. And as you watch today from the Heavens, kiss each of our tears. We love you.  Sister Mary.

All my mother’s children are grown with grown children of their own. Generations now with her DNA tucked in their physiology walk around in space and time putting dents in the world around them. My parents started it all sixty some years ago and the photographer at the reunions has to stand farther and farther back to fit us into the frame. As my oldest brother Rob and I stood under the sycamore he put his arm around my shoulder and the weight of reunion rested there; it was like a paper weight of sorts, keeping us from blowing too far away from the shelter of family.

One hundred years from now when my parent’s genes have thinned out a bit there will be slices of all of us scattered putting dents in space and time.

“I feel so selfish.” A mother post.

Posted on by
10

“I feel so selfish.” I said it to two of my sisters outside of the assisted living home where my mother is spending her last few days of life.  I was so glad to hear my oldest sister say, “Me too.”

I remembered back to when my younger brother Peter was saying a very long goodbye to his first wife.  He had spent 20 years of his marriage going out on dates and such with a third wheel; cancer.  They were never alone.  She carried in her body an alien which reminded them constantly of the gift of life.  Near the final days he said to me, “It seems like the world should be stopping.”  Now I understand just a bit better what he meant.  I want to pick up a New York accent and yell at all the busy people, “Hey! Stop! Can’t you see my motha is dyin’ over heeah?”

My older brother John lost his first wife years back and I remember his words at a family reunion.  “Jerry, I am just so lonely.”  The Bible says that because of the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ death has lost its sting (1Corinthians chapter 15).  I get that, and yet that doesn’t mean it won’t hurt like a bugger.   Those who hold faith in these verses and the work of Jesus will mourn, but not without hope.

So I say again, “I feel so selfish.”

There is a tree on my delivery route whose wound is slowly healing up.  In the first few days of being a senior in high school, her car veered off the road and struck a tree not a quarter mile from her house.  That was several years ago.  The ribbons and teddy bears and flowers are long gone.  Soon the bark will seal up with only a linear scar left.  I see her father once in a great while with a package in hand.  He looks all healed up too and yet…

“I feel so selfish.”

Within a year I watched two mothers care for their medically fragile boys.  One was seven, the other younger still.  The devotion of a mother is like no other on earth.  Near the end of each of these short lives the mother’s exhaustion was evident.  Their love was not exhausted though.  Hearts were broken open and spilling all over the boys they loved.

“I feel…”

Sixty two years ago, Marilee Barrett, daughter, sister, and wife added on another essence of womanhood…mother.  She never looked back.  Mothers usually don’t.  Ten children later she hung her heart out on the line like cloth diapers.  Again and again her love ruffled in the wind of time like white linen under cobalt skies.  Then, yesterday all of her children, whether there in spirit or in time and space, gathered.  We all stood, kneeled, and sat around her basinet beholding her as she beheld us.  My older sister wrote an e-mail that describes it so well.

“About 3 p.m., Carol (my mother’s youngest child) was with Mom, and asked to hold Mom’s hand. Mom smiled and said yes, and they both agreed that it was comforting.  Carol then told her that she would be going home (to S. Carolina) tomorrow, and Carol started crying. Mom then said to her “Then we should probably get this show on the road” – which led to more tears, and then Mom started praying. “Lord, take me” – several times.  At that point, several of the sibs came into the room, and we gathered around her.  It was a “God-blessed” awesome moment.  Here are Barb, Rob, Pat, Mary, Margaret, Jerry, and Carol (seven of my mother’s ten children) all surrounding her with love, and tears, and she says “I’m just ready for it to be done.  But I don’t know how!”  And she was crying.  Jerry read from John 14, and then prayed with everything in his heart to God to give her mercy, to give her comfort, to give us comfort, and to help her through this transition. John, Ellen, and Pete, (my mother’s other 3 children, who were unable to be there) we know that your hearts were there with us, but oh, how I wish you could have seen the power of love happening in that moment.  Not just our love for her, and her love for us, but God’s love working all the way through that room.  We shared memories then, and just little tidbits of our relationship with her, and there was some levity in our conversation.  But most of all, I think God worked His peace into all our hearts – which we all hope that you feel as well.”

Just before that blessed time I had finished a poem. It was for my siblings that had been gestating in my heart over the past few weeks.  I was going to read it to them at a family meeting last night (which I ended up doing).  The words I had written were underlined around that bed before I uttered one of them.  God hovered over all of us.  Every kind of tear was shed.  Bitter-sweet ones, joy filled ones, sad ones, happy ones, silly ones, and pear shaped ones of love were falling like rain.  Even Jesus wept.  I couldn’t help but think we were in a birthing room.

 

Our cries separate us

as broken water.

So we draw closer,

like contractions.

 

We bear down in grief

and our labor pains

begin to push her

toward the light.

 

As she endured the pains

of childbirth, we will too.

All ten of us have come

to breathe a rhythm over her.

 

Oh, time will dilate

for her safe passage,

and our prayers

will carry her.

 

God knows when she

will birth from our womb.

For now, she floats in our love.

Suspended but for a moment.

 

 

“I feel so selfish, but not guilty.”

 

 

© Gerald Allen Barrett and parentheticallyspeakingin3d, 2012.