Eulogy

I was about eight and it was the first warm day. Spring came late at the lake. My grandfather excitedly pulled a new bike out of the garage. By new, I mean something he had found at a Saturday morning yard sale and purchased alongside a pile of old board games, a broken radio, a few rusty old tools and the remains of someone else’s tackle box. And bargained the poor unsuspecting owner down to five dollars with his unrelenting gift of gab. The bike was too big for me and not at all stylish with its cushy seat and front basket. But that was the charm of the lake. The ground was soggy with late April snow and wet fallen leaves. I had eked an unusual permission to ride around the circular drive, out into the road and back into the yard, but no further, The path was well worn and too short and within a matter of minutes, I veered off course and onto the front lawn. The wheel caught the edge of a tiny tree stump, skidding the tire, sending me off the bike and the plummeting the handle bar straight into my chest. There was an intense pain as the wind was knocked out of me and a guttural moan escaped my lips. Within in instant my grandfather was at my side.

“Darn old stump,” he said. “Grampie never should have left that there.” I looked up and saw tears in his own eyes.

That scene was my grandfather. A passionate, sensitive man. He loved the outdoors. He loved a good bargain. He loved his life and he loved his family, feeling the joys and pains of each member as if they were his own.

Smell is said to be the sense most closely linked to memory. I find it to be true. My grandfather smelled of the outdoors. Wet wool socks and fresh cut wood. Gasoline and cold air. I still smell the damp dirt road and decomposing leaves of our long walks to the clearing by the lake. That certain densely organic, dankness along the planks to the dock. The scent of sun on water on a summer’s day and worms in a styrofoam container. The crispness of wood smoke on a cold winter’s night. These are the smells of my grandfather.

I see flannel shirts and suspenders. Off white socks. Work boots. A hat. A grey lunch pail. A nice warm coat. Heavy leather gloves. A toothpick in his mouth. A cup of coffee in his hand. Fishing poles and tackle boxes. Reclaimed piles of who-knows-what rescued from the dump.

I hear Box Car Willy on an eight track. Mr. Lincoln on the CB. And talk of a new car. A new tractor. A new four wheeler. Something new with wheels. The Channel 6 news, Lawrence Welk and Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. That certain sound from his mouth that only he could make. The peepers and the deafening snore at night. This, the sound track of my memories.

And what I feel is loved. What we all felt was loved. My grandfather loved his family, and whether we lived across the country or across the yard, we lived too far away from him. Whether it had been a year since our last visit or only a day, it had been too long, His beliefs were simple and straightforward. Love your family. Love the Lord. The rest would take care of itself.

He and my grandmother shared 70 years together facing the joys and challenges of life. She was the love of his life. Together they gave their four children magical childhoods on the farm. I am sure the work was hard, but the rewards were greater. The shared memories of these days has been the background music of my life – of slides down the grain elevator, of giggling at the dinner table, of bikes ridden down hallways, of afternoon naps, of old dogs and milking time and home cooked meals and snowfalls so grand they buried cars. The tellers of these tales always look content – the nostalgia bringing them back to a happy place in their minds – that space that they shared with my grandfather.

The evidence of happy times surrounded me as I grew up. My grandparents had so many good friends. Good friends they camped with and fished with and played laughter-filled games of cards with until late at night. I grew up with more “aunts” and “uncles” than I could count – their friends were our family too and a testament to their overwhelming love and generosity.

Grampie loved to talk and visit. A quick trip anywhere with him could last for hours and try the patience of any impatient child. I can remember standing by his side at yard sales or coffee shops, silently willing him forward as he talked, and chatted and reminisced and gossiped and gabbed and chatted some more with anyone who would stop long enough to listen. He loved people and people loved him right back.

He had a special place in his heart for his grandchildren. His boat, christened the Becky Lynn, sat in the yard. The grandkids would pile into the wagon of his tiny tractor for rides. He took us on his snow mobile, his four wheeler, for walks in the woods. We sat on his lap and punched at his newspaper, tickled him knowing we were in for an easy laugh, tried to catch the toothpick in his mouth before he sucked it back in, waited anxiously for him to come home from work so we could see what treat he had left in his lunchbox. He taught us how to fish and how to row a boat and how to catch a frog. With the patience of Job, he even taught me how to drive. Around and around the country roads we would travel, stories of fish caught with balls of bread and toys made from strings and life as he remembered it from when he was a boy.

I interviewed a spiritual advisor from Hospice once when I was writing a news story. He told me that at the end of life, all humans, no matter how they have lived, no matter what they believe, come to the same point as they face their own mortality. They want to know what their life has meant, that their life has mattered. I am sure Grampie struggled with this as he wrestled old age. We will never know what conclusions he came to, what peace and value he discovered in the examination of his own life. But I do know what his life has shown to me. Love your family. Have faith. Talk to people. Be loyal. Work hard. Make plenty of time for fun. Wear your heart on your sleeve.

Alex got a new fishing pole for his birthday this year. We set out for the lake with a Styrofoam container of worms. And the scene was the same. The peatiness of the soil. The scent of warm sun on the water. The catch of the breeze. I put my arm around Alex’s shoulders, took his hand in mine and taught him how to cast, and while I was now the teacher, I felt Grampie’s arm around me. It took only seconds for the first sunfish to bite, only seconds for the fantastic joy of a first catch to spread across Alex’s face. Only seconds for me to realize I had to get it off the hook and only seconds to wish more than anything Grampie were actually right beside me. And, somehow, he was. I took a breath. Held the fish in my hand, and set it free. I saw Alex’s relief as it swam away. The same relief I had as a child. So thrilled to catch something. So happy it could still swim home.

“Wow. That fish must be happy to be going back to his family,” he said. “Do you think he was scared?”

Of course, I cannot say. Life is a series of catching and releasing. Of holding something in our hand and of letting it go. I think this past week, Grampie taught us all how to do that with grace.

What he has left behind is like a tackle box of memories. Different layers that can be pulled out or folded back up. Tiny compartments filled with surprises. A few old, worn favorites that always work. Some so tucked away and forgotten that to discover them to find something new.

So it is with someone who loved so much, with someone we loved so much. Grampie has found his way back home, but so powerful a force was he in our lives that our time with him will go on. We will sense him in the wood smoke. Feel his hand in the warmth of a coffee cup. Hear his advice in a squeaky car belt. See his reflection in the faces of our children. Feel his love in a hug from another.

There is a famous quote that states: “Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.”

I lost my breath falling off that bike thirty years ago, but what I gained was a moment; a moment like so many I shared with my grandfather that simply took my breath away.

Breath of Life

My grandfather died today.

I was once told that the most powerful experiences are being present as someone enters this world and being present as someone leaves it.

Today I learned they are remarkably the same.

I sat with my grandfather the past two days and listened to him breathe.

Yesterday, it was a struggle, fraught with agitation that left him unable to rest. I held his hand in my hand, I tried to bring him comfort with touch, but there was no peace in his restless breathing, his restless body. I closed my own eyes for a moment and breathed deeply, the calming, "Feel the breath," mantras of so many yoga classes ringing in my ears as calm settled over me.

Breath. The essence of life. Never have I been more aware. It is breath we listen for when a baby is born. It is breath we listen for as we watch someone die. It is breath that calms us and breath our body will keep taking long after everything else seems to have slipped away.

In my own moment of peaceful breath, I remembered another particularly beautiful mantra from yoga, one whispered silently at the end of a meditation: "Inhale life. Exhale joy. Breathe in life. Breathe out joy." And so, as I sat with my grandfather, I closed my eyes again and placed my hand on his heart, a top his laboring chest. I imagined a power working through me, one that could take away his anxiety, take away his suffering, and leave him at peace, if only for a moment. I inhaled deeply of life, and exhaled joy and wished the same for him, knowing the life he inhaled was not of this world, that the joy was of the next. And while I cannot say that it calmed him, it did calm me. The life I breathed in was one of sunny days and laughter, the joy I exhaled, happy memories of the man who was my grandfather.

When I arrived at the nursing home today, his breathing had changed. Gone was the agitation. Gone the anxious fight. He was still. The breath still labored, but smoother. Except that it would stop. It would stop for long seconds. Almost a minute. His breath would stop and I would hold my own. Willing him to breathe again and wishing him the peace to not breathe again. Instinct dies hard. The body wants to breathe. We want the ones we love to breathe as much as we want their struggle to end. The breathing and not breathing went on for long hours as our family sat beside him. I thought of Alex, newly born. I could not close my eyes for weeks. I needed to watch him breathe. My eyes on his tiny chest would will his lungs to keep inhaling and exhaling. My eyes would guarantee that he would breathe. When my eyes could stay open no longer, it was my hand on his chest. I could feel it rise and fall. If my hand were there, he would breathe.

I watched my grandfather like that today. I watched his chest rise and fall and stop. And then start again. I looked around the room at my aunt and uncles, cousins, mother, grandmother. I know we were all doing the same. We could talk and laugh, sit silently or cry, but we were really listening for that breath.

And it was my grandmother, his wife of 70 years, who first knew it would not come again. She sat with his hand in her hand and said, "He isn't breathing." My eyes met my mother's eyes over his body and knew his breath would come no more. So silent, a breath. So silent that last exhale. So loud the silence that followed even as it ushered in peace.

I am too tired tonight. Each of us who loved him will greet sleep with a different emotion - peace, sadness, relief, emptiness. I think of my grandmother falling asleep without him for the first time in 70 years. I think of my mother, my aunt, my uncles - their first night without a father. I think of me, of us, his grandchildren. And I think of him. I think of him and I simply can't do it without seeing a happy man - his legs free, his mood light, a fishing pole in his hand, a toothpick in the corner of his mouth, and a smile on his face.

I inhale life and exhale joy. And I know he does the same.

To My Beautiful Son at Seven

Dear Alex,

You turned seven this week. Seven. A lucky number. Seven lucky years ago the midwife laid your perfect little body in my arms and I never wanted to stop holding you, stop watching you, stop being amazed just to see your chest rise and fall and your eyes open and look out at your new world.

I still feel that way.

At seven, you exclaim, "Sweet!" when you like something. You have a quick temper that frequently lashes out at me. But when you are tired or when you are unsure, your strong, growing body still melts into mine and you whisper, "I love you" in the quietest of voices as I breathe in the scent of your hair - the smells of running and playing and sand and lake water and wild berries. The scent of the sun at its most blazing glory.

At seven, you love all things technology and that is your dad in you. But you also love all things nature. You can find herbs growing wild in the forest. You seem to have an instinct for edible berries. You declared the one cherry tomato that managed to survive our weed-choked garden the best food you have ever tasted. You are an inspiring chef who amazes us with your artistry with food, who can't help but conncocte something new if there is more than one ingredient around, who would rather mix his juice into his berries and stick them in the freezer to see what happens than eat his breakfast as it is.

At seven, you begged for a light saber. You want to be on the Dark Side, although it is clear your heart is all good. You bicker constantly with your sister but bring her special crafts from your summer program, - bandaids and bracelets constructed from beads. She smiles and thanks you with astonishment and sincerity that makes my heart skip a beat and you smile a funny little smile you save for her alone.

At seven your life is a constant treasure hunt. Our home is filled with special sticks and stones, pieces of pottery pulled from the lake, nuts and berries. They fill the shelves of your room. They fill the bay window. They fill ziplock bags in the bottom of my purse, in my glove compartment, my old coffee cup.

At seven, you are every bit the wonder you were to me the first moment I held you in my arms. I sit and watch your sun drenched golden head - bobbing just above the water at the lake after you have jumped into the deep, deep end, watch it as you dig and construct and engineer great "foam" factories in the sand with your friends, watch it as your pour over a new comic book, watch it as you chop fruit for your latest dessert creation. You look up and catch my gaze with your startling blue eyes and I thank God again for the miracle that you are mine.

Happy, happy birthday, my sweet, sweet boy.

Love,

Mom

Summer Solstice

I was in a debate recently about the point of art. The suggestion was that we are mere animals on a planet, causing mass destruction that should be exposed, through art, before we all die. My art is more about the tiny moments... the moments when, whether animal or not, destructive or not, we are truly alive, truly present. Both extremes are around us, all the time, every minute. They are two sides to the same coin. In many ways, one could not exist without the other. But as for me, and my moments...

I try to have a party every year on the summer solstice. Not only do I love the light and feel most alive with the summer sun beating down upon me and the days drawing long into the night, but in The Great Gatsby, Daisy makes the comment, "Do you always wait for the longest day of the year and then miss it?"

I want to be sure not to miss it.

This year it fell on Monday. I made strawberry jam in the morning of delicate berries that turned immediately to juice with one small gesture from a masher. The smell of berries and morning sun filled the kitchen until the pint jars sat satisfactorily side by side promising to ward off all threats of winter. We had a small party that night. Friends, fire, solstice lore about feminine energy and fire jumping and honey. I promised Alex he could eek out every hour of day light. We stayed up late- late enough for the fireflies to come out and work their magic. Long enough to create a glass jar filled with wonder and lightening.

I knew my children would wake up cranky beyond belief. I knew getting Alex off to school would be hell. But I didn't care. I heard his shouts from the field as he ran with his butterfly net through the dark. Felt his thrill as he raced toward me, his treasure in his hand until I lifted the foil cap and he released the bug inside the jar. I felt Cate hover closer to the fire as the damp chill of the darkened sky settled. I imagined sun freckled noses and band-aided knees. Watermelon, lemonade, icy plunges in the lake. Long evening watching the stars come out one by one.

Somewhere, in the gulf, oil spills continually, covering wildlife, threatening shorelines. BP's flawed publicity campaign assures us that the amount spilled in one day is equivalent only to what we Americans consume in four minutes. Four minutes. I am sure not one of us can claim innocence. I sit in Otsego County, surrounded by scenery most can only imagine. But there are plans to break into our hills and drill for natural gas, threatening not only the landscape, but our drinking water, our lake. We long to stop it, but everything I am presently touching is made from a petroleum based product, or run from electricity generated from petroleum. How do we begin?

And still the fields light with the magical lightening of mating bugs. The sky burns bright with stars. The moon waxes and wanes. Children laugh at night. They cry in the morning. They finish a year of preschool. They move up to second grade. Training wheels come off of bikes and tiny legs pump and pump to make swings fly higher and higher into the sky. We catch someone's eye for a moment and understand so much without words. We struggle to find words before a moment slips away. Before we catch our breaths, we will celebrate the dark as we celebrated the light.

And the earth spins and spins.

Hope is a Many Feathered Thing

There is no joy like an April garden. It grows great with optimism, sprouts with hope.

A few weeks ago we uncovered the fledgling mint - its tiny leaves pungent. Shoots of thyme dared poke out of the still cold earth and a brazen arm of lavender raised its greening limb to the sun. (Lavender, my truest plant love, has never survived a winter here. To see it alive and green in late March must be a beckoning to something magical that lies ahead).

These two rounds of June-like weather have deceived both our minds and the plants. The crocuses popped open in one afternoon - not quietly sneaking forth from the last piles of snow - but triumphantly bursting into full sunlight. The daffodils bloomed like an Easter parade just yesterday. But despite all this, I've given very little thought to our garden. Caught up in various dramas, I've made no plans, drawn no garden maps with Alex, perused no seed catalogs, read no gardening books, made no plans at all save asking for a tree blocking the sunlight to be removed.

But this afternoon I talked to a friend, a self proclaimed "avid gardener". It was supposed to be a conversation about resumes, but I could hardly hear over the wind rushing into the cell phone. He was in the garden planting the early spring plants.


"It's time already?" I asked.

"Almost too late," he said.

I should know these things. I planted peas and cabbage and spinach last year. But I am still a novice - and quite easily distracted. And so I let myself be distracted again. Seeing the top of the kitchen counter was not essential - at least not today. The halves of plastic eggs in the middle of the living room floor could stay there another night. I did have seeds and soil and little starting containers. I did have popsicle sticks and a pen. I pulled them all out. Cate and I waited for the bus. She flapped her arms, running up and down the driveway squawking like a bird until she heard the bus rumbling down the road. She then stood next to me, intermittently screaming, "Ally! Ally! and squawking like a bird. Alex emerged with the pleased and amused by his sister face, sprinted across the road and enthusiastically shouted, "Yes!" when asked if he wanted to plant some seeds.

The three of us worked together for the next hour or so, filling the tiny containers, pushing the seeds into the soil, labeling them carefully (an important lesson from last year), watering and finally singing the growing song penned by Alex at age two and sung to every seed ever planed here in Fly Creek. We planted pansies in pots, talked about the spot in the garden we will clear tomorrow and plant peas. And no memory of tomato blight or starving rabbits or waterlogged soil or voracious weeds took root. Only hope.

We finished the planting, placed the boxes in the windows and went to the backyard. Alex - a seasoned veteran on the swing - flew higher and higher into the air, and Cate, for the first time ever, coordinated her legs with her motion, propelling herself further and further off the ground to the great delight of her family. I weeded the herb garden as the swingers swang, the chives already tall and full, the mint beginning its crusade to take over the whole thing, the lavender taller and greener still.

I made dinner while the kids still played - thankful a brief conversation - inadvertently about peas - had set about a perfect afternoon together. Cate and Alex and Steve were back out after dinner, begging for more time and I hated to cut them short for homework and bed, especially on these rare, gorgeous nights before may flies and mosquitos.

I tucked Cate into bed. She begged for a chapter in the Tales Of Winnie the Pooh, a book we have owned for ages, but never read. It was fun to read aloud and she listened and I laughed and marveled as Pooh's head bumped, bumped, bumped down the stairs and he felt quite certain there must be another way - but then again, wasn't quite sure at all there was another way.

And when I came down to the silent kitchen, I heard the peepers for the first time and opened the door as wide as I could to hear them sing.

Alex Takes to the Stage

Alex made his stage debut last night at the first annual "Cooperstown's Got Talent" show held at the high school. A paper requesting acts came home from school a couple of weeks ago. Alex usually looks terrified in front of a crowd. His preschool concerts, kindergarten concerts and first grade concerts have revealed him as a boy with stage fright. His mouth hardly moves. He fidgets with his hands and generally looks like he wishs he could disappear. Even at home, he clams up immediately if we catch him singing to himself. So, it was really only for the sake of asking that I asked if he wanted to be in the talent show.

"Yes!" was his surprising and enthusiastic reply. "What am I talented at?" It seemed a silly question, until I had to admit to myself that even as an adult, I often rely on my own mother to tell me the same thing. Sometimes, we just need our mothers to point out what in the world we are good enough at to make it worth sharing with the rest of the world. At six, Alex has a slew of talent, but stage worthy talents?

"Science tricks," I answered. "You and Daddy can do science tricks." So quickly, Steve became a part of the act. And to my continued surprise and his credit, he agreed without any hesitation.

It is to my great fortune there was merely a week for the Sweet Scientists (dubbed by Alex) to prepare. The kitchen counter and outdoor deck bubbled and gurgled and erupted with foaming liquids and exploding eggs. All varieties of hydrogen peroxide starting arriving by UPS. "Safety goggles" I whispered over and over from the background... trying to remain supportive, encouraging and unmicromanaging of the affair. By week's end, Steve seemed nervous and Alex seemed to have lost interest.

Then, it was the day of the show. Two lab coats were generously supplied by my doctor friend... nicely pressed, official, just right for two scientists.

The show was staged in the high school auditorium. The atmosphere was casual and fun. We watched jump ropers, listened to singers and the jazz band. The first of a few items to be auctioned were handed off. Just before the act was about to begin, Alex popped out from behind the curtain. He needed water for the experiments. We raced into the hallway and found a bathroom. I filled the cup as he danced around. "Do you need to go potty? I asked. "No." "Are you sure?" "Yes."

Back we raced to the stage and Alex disappeared behind the curtain. The last of the auction items was up. Alex popped back from behind the curtain and raced to me. "I do have to go!" We ran at top speed and made it back to the auditorium just as the item was handed off to its new owner. (I later found out Steve had no idea where Alex had gone... he thought he had gotten a major case of stage fright and just run away).

Finally, the curtain opened. Alex introduced the act. Steve made a few jokes. They turned toward each other and put on their safety goggles and the audience clapped. The experiments went off as planned - the foaming liquid foamed and erupted. The egg was sucked into the milk bottle. Alex cheered. The supportive audience went wild and the act was over. A few minutes later, a beaming Alex came back to his seat.

The night was a wild success for the timid six-year-old. His teacher was in the audience and took time to congratulate him and ask if he and Steve might even do a couple of experiments for the class. Alex was thrilled. And he got to help his best friend's grandmother bid on and win a couple of auction items. As we left the show, he said, "I am so happy right now I feel like crying!"

I hope Steve has started thinking about next year's act.