A Mother's Birthday - On Legacies

They are there in the kitchen, Mom washing the dishes as Big Bro brings that last platter in from the dining room.  Dad is having a cup of coffee after dinner, then he will make sure the knives are sharpened and put away, the dishes dried. Dinner was steelhead trout, caught with Dad's own hands, there in a tireless morning of gossamer threads and mist.

There is much talking, the sound a steady hum, interspersed with the metallic clink of utensils together, like small machinery working away.  Outside it is dark; there is a war ongoing somewhere, there is crime, there is evil. It's all out there somewhere, as is the darkness, pressing against the house, like water does a dam, not with obvious movement, just that steady pressure that is the desire to break through. But inside, as children, we do not sense it, for us, there is only the light that seeps outward through the cracks between the curtains, so much of it here, it can be shared with the darkness.

We live in a world today where little is filtered, TV has no shame and outrageous behavior does not render public embarrassment, but someones 15 minutes of fame. It's a world where kids learn about sex acts from a current President, and bullying is the new normal. Textbooks push God out and welcome Islam in, as apparently, religious tolerance only applies to religions other than the ones our country was founded on. Prayers are best at home, in the dark where no one can see you. How different from generations ago, where we were raised.

But growing up in the generation I did, things were not perfect.  There were bullies then, as there are now, some of the girls being the worst.  But they would contain their own jealous insecurity to the school yard, it did not spill over into cyberspace. There were family hardships, there was illness, there were math tests and creamed  peas. There was that discontent of teen years when we wanted nothing more than to be free of this place, our parents stupidly insisting that the outside world was still too fierce for someone so small to pick up sword and shield. And then we were free, only to come back, if only for non-ramen noodle meals and laundry on the weekend, like the cat that begs to be let out and then wants to come right back in, wanting that freedom, but missing the warmth

But in looking at the world around me today, I am very thankful that I had the opportunity to grow up when I did, how I did, with the parents I did.  They gave us boundaries to behavior but no limits to our dreams. They were not afraid to tell us no. They opened our minds and challenged our senses, then had the grace to let us go when it was time, to make our own lives as they enjoyed the rest of theirs, knowing that the gossamer threads that held us together, were stronger than any chain.

We are shaped more by our parents then we know, their being both our guide and our protector as we explore the world around us. When I was back home with Dad this month, we talked of that, of our memories of my Mom; for not only was this week their anniversary, today, the 20th, was her birthday.  He told me of one year, when he combined both events into one gift. Apparently that did not go over well, he chuckled.

My parents marriage was like none other I had witnessed among my friends parents. It was not the bonded boredom that is the legal union of two shadows shackled together by the shadow of that restraint, but two independent people, best friends and lovers, who lived both intimately together and apart. Two unique lives, forming a bond that was unbreakable, even in its flexibility.

Even after decades of marriage, their adopting us in middle age, they were physically affectionate, that affection conveying something that at that young age, I didn't fully understand, but do now.  As practical as they were, with finances, with vocation, with their children, they were and always would be, romantics, dreamers of passionate dreams, of shared life with their shared hearts.

When Mom died, Dad was with her, as her hands grew colder and her ice blue eyes grew wider, as to encompass all seeing, all life, with the terrible, knowing glance of foreknowledge. He refused to leave her side in those last weeks, even as they insisted we go to class, to jobs, to try and keep up some semblance of a normal routine as she battled for her life.

She left us with a gentle sigh on an early summer day, as with a rumble of thunder, her soul fled its burden, the sky breaking open with rain, even as the sun continued to shine. Even though I was not with her, I heard it, that sound of thunder, and somehow knew, the rain falling on my face like tears.

By her wish, she was cremated, a stone with her name lying in the military cemetery where Dad would eventually lie. I understood Mom's wish for her body. Not for her to be encased in a steel cubicle that came with an expensive name that hinted at sunsets and rainbows. She was born of the earth, and returned to it, crossing the border between tame and the wild, brushed with fragrance, scattered with grace.

 

She would be returning without the ritual crowded ceremony of traditional internment, but the gathering of those that she loved, and the so many that loved her and my Dad. Family and friends, most of them descended from the Scandinavian settlers of this area, whose steel strong threads of family bear more weight than any pallbearer. People whose faith in God and and hard work ensured the next generation of survivors. We gathered in a room full of photos and her favorite flowers. There was no casket, but the room was not empty, filled with her presence like held breath.

All these years later, Dad still remains in that house, refusing to cut the line of remembering. He's outlived not just my Mom, but a wonderful second wife, a widow with whom he shared his later years, his hope, his losses, his love.  And so, every few months, I visit, using what vacation time I have, doing what I can to keep the darkness away from that home, just as he did for us as children.

The house hasn't changed much, fresh paint, new flowers. The marks of children raised here after they left Montana, a small playhouse out back, the marks on a door where we grew and grew. On the table in the dining room where we hold hands while saying grace, a photo, of a pair of blue eyes in which his whole world achieved its value by the response he could draw from them. This was a woman who was completely necessary to him, and will remain so even as her actual presence is but the sheen of an old sewing machine forever stilled, the rose petals in her garden, long since gone to dust.

But some things have changed, Dad moving slower each time I see him, my brothers once red hair, cut loose by the chemo, now growing back, standing up stiffly from his forehead like a thick iron crown. I sit down by the piano that was replaced by a side table, fingers tapping music upon it as if it could respond. Things will change, as much as we wish them to remain I think, as I play a tune upon soundless wood, of ambered wine, the fall of autumn leaves, and goodbyes that are like shapened knives.

Dad sits and has a cup of coffee, the platter of salmon put away. From there he will ease  into his recliner, where he will fall gently asleep as it grows dark.

Outside, the darkness laps at the house, but it is not truly dark, here on the river, a bright light bobs somewhere out on the water. It is more than a light for the river pilot, it's a beacon of safe harbor itself and all that remains to him of a difficult journey is the shortening space between that brilliant light and his own motion forward.

As my brother and I finish up the dishes, we cease our conversation, so Dad can sleep undisturbed. In his dreams, he is still a young man, setting up a home post WWII  with Mom, his high school sweetheart. It was a town full of music and dreams and tall hills covered with ceaseless timber, the rain, not a grey blanket but a sound, a rising and swelling with the gusts of emotion, and passion that was worth waiting for. That place is still alive for him, threads of silken light unwinding from whirring spools, the sound of his children laughing in an old house near the water, in dreams of steelhead trout that never grow old, never tire.

 - Brigid 10/20/13