Uncle Donnie

Anya was known "The Incredible Velcro Baby". She would not go to anyone besides me and her dad. Not to ANYONE. When Greg and I wanted to go out, we would leave after putting Anya to bed and the babysitter would sit in petrified silence, hoping she would not wake up. (I love you, my brave sisters and nieces!) When we were at our playgroup, I had to sneak off to the bathroom, my friend trying to block the view so Anya would not notice that I had left. 

That's why, when we had a playgroup field trip to the firehouse, we caused a big stir. 

Anya would not go to anyone else besides her parents. Except, apparently, to her Uncle Donnie.

Uncle Donnie died unexpectedly last week. I can't get this picture out of my head. 

ceramic memories

I knew this day would come; dreaded it for some time. But this morning, when I saw that today was the day, I shrugged and smiled.

The chip on my coffee cup might not sound like a big deal to you, but this hasn’t always been my coffee cup. It was my father’s first. His little sister gave it to him for some occasion or another. I remember her smile, when he opened the gift. She said something about retirement not changing the fact that he was a bricklayer.

I honestly don’t know if my father ever actually drank coffee from this mug. There were plenty of mugs in the cabinet. But, when I was cleaning out those cabinets, that mug went in the box of things that I wanted. That mug was a part of my Dad.

For the past several years, I’ve alternated between this cup and the lovely Polish pottery I inherited from the previous occupant of a classroom I moved into. They are my favorites and no one else in the house ever takes them. Though my mother never owned, nor drank out of, the Polish pottery, I began to think of that as her mug and the construction worker one as Dad’s. I took turns thinking of them each as I poured the coffee. I felt their presence, I visited with a quick memory each time.

With such a weighty connection to a mug, I feared what would happen when one or the other finally succumbed to age and use, or to accident. I feared the grief that might well up.

But, this morning, as I unexpectedly caught my lip on the new chip in Dad’s cup, I was unprepared by how OK I was with it. Things change, things die, and life goes on.

Since my father died, my family changed in some fundamental ways. I will never be a part of the larger family the way I was when he was with us. I grieved over that loss for a long time. I think, in the past year as my little immediate family changes with growth of our girls, I have come very close to being at peace with the evolution of the larger family. I am loving the evolution of my immediate family.

So, the cup is chipped and I should no longer use it. It would slowly, or not so slowly fall apart and I should retire it before I cut my lip or swallow a ceramic fragment.

It feels wrong to just toss it in the trash, so I might find a garden spot to bury it in, or scatter the broken shards in with the border rocks, but I won’t cry the way I thought I would.

Thank you, Aunt Lee, for buying Dad the mug. Thanks for leaving it in the cabinet for me, Dad. I’ll still think of you both when I sit at the kitchen table with a hot cup of coffee.

dragonflies

When I was little, my Nana called them “sewing needles” for their long body shape. As kids we heard “needles” and thought “sting” so we splashed water to scare them away any time we saw them hovering around the pool.

But dragonflies don’t sting.

When my girls were little we had Judy Allen’s book Are You a Dragonfly? In our collection. I think it was with that book that my distrust of the flying sewing needles turned to love. By then I had a garden of my own that taught me to enjoy the buzz of bees and delight in the sight of worms in the dirt. Dragonflies became my late summer friends, more abundant than butterflies and, when you stopped splashing them so you could see, just as beautiful.

In my garden now, I leave the stalks of spent lilies because they turn into dragonfly flowers in August. Some afternoons you can see ten or more dragonflies perched on the top of the stalks, waiting for the hunt or basking in the sun or meeting up with a friend. The slow dance of wings as they sit could be a signal to another, or perhaps they are just stretching. They rest, fly up, then rest on another stalk. At the end of the summer, when thoughts are focused on the start of the new school year and the butterflies start fluttering through my stomach, the dragonflies are calming. Despite my neglected yet ever-growing to do list, I can sit for long stretches watching them play around the dead lilies.

This year, it seems there are not as many dragonflies. I’m worried that the same carelessness that is harming the bees in our world is getting to them. They do not appear on the endangered list for my state, but still, it’s different.

I miss them.

My Nana has been gone for 35 years but every time I see a dragonfly I think of her. And then I think of Judy Allen’s book and sitting in the garden with my little girls. They never called them sewing needles, never splashed water at them to scare them away. But when I leave the lily stalks in the garden I feel like I am connecting the thread between us all: grandmother, author, growing girls, dragonfly.

This is my Slice of Life.

It's blurry, but there is a dragonfly on top of the lily stalk. There were 3 others in the garden.

Where is home?

Unexpected questions can be difficult, even when we have an answer. I have stumbled more than hurtled in my life-time of answering questions. One that often gets me is "where are you from?" While out at a community event the other day, a local reporter asked my husband a version of this question. After Greg described Lowell as his home, even though we don't currently live there, the reporter asked him why. Greg stumbled in his answer as well.

Each time I stumble over an unexpected question, I spend days afterwards thinking of my best answer. Greg's stumble has given me the opportunity to reflect and prepare, should anyone confront me with the same question.

Why do I call Lowell home?

The easy answer is because I was born here, this is where my story started. My parents and my siblings were born here.

I grew up on the outer edges of the city, in South Lowell, near the towns of Tewksbury and North Billerica. The variety store where I bought cigarettes for my sister and Hershey bars for myself was actually in Tewksbury, though close enough for me to walk to on my own even in elementary school. I didn’t have to cross Woburn Street, so it was a safe walk. When we were very young it was called Ray’s and run by an Archie Bunker looking guy who always wore a white buttoned-up shirt and a black belt. He was gruff, and kept a close eye on us as we surveyed the candy counter, as if we would ever have considered taking a Charleston Chew without paying the coins for it. Later, Pete bought the place and he was much more welcoming and trusting. His bearded smile greeted us most days and he had no problem handing over the pack of Marlboro Lights my sister sent me in buy. It was clear I was not smoking them myself as I was always so absorbed in making the decision between something chocolate or something more sugary. (Lick-em sticks and candy cigarettes were cheaper than Hershey Bars so you could get twice as much, but some days, chocolate is what you need.)

The Variety Store on Woburn Street is completely different now. Truth be told, I’m not even sure its still there. But the mostly packed dirt sidewalk between my house and the store is a part of my home. That walk and those interactions with Ray and Pete helped to shape me. Ray’s suspicion confirmed the lessons of church and family that I should strive to be honest as I didn’t like being thought otherwise. Pete’s daily smile showed me the importance of such simple kindness as I could not continue to be mad at my brother in the face of such happiness. When Pete was in a sour mood, we all suffered.

Lowell is my home because we lived in a neighborhood with a variety store where people knew my name, or at least who my parents were. That straight path is mapped into my memory.

For some in Lowell, the city is divided into parishes. My parish was a bit mixed. In proximity, Saint Marie’s was our parish. The church was right down the street, an easy walk from the house in the opposite direction down Woburn Street from Pete’s. It was a walk I couldn’t make alone as early as I was allowed to wander down to Pete’s though. To go to St. Marie’s you had to walk across Christman Avenue where the 495 on-ramp is, under the highway bridges where sometimes teenagers hung out, and past the off-ramp. Even before the Dunkin Donuts opened at the gas station, this could be a busy road of drivers unconcerned with a nine-year-old’s spiritual journey. I didn’t walk to St. Marie’s much though, because we belonged to Sacred Heart.

Sacred Heart Church, and the accompanying school where I attended from grades 1 through 8, was on Gorham Street. It was walkable and my brothers and sister and I walked home from school plenty of times, but going to church at Sacred Heart meant we were with Dad, so we always went in the car. We passed that spot on Lawrence Street where for years the chain-linked fence was bent in where my brother drove his motorcycle nearly into the Concord River. It was kind of sad when they finally fixed that fence, but I still think of Bobby every time I cross that bridge. Most Sundays we went to the 9:00 mass which usually had the children’s choir since Dad liked the children’s choir better than the operatic voices of the adult choir. I even joined the choir for a little while, despite my Lamarre voice. Dad always loved to sing but he would never join the choir himself.

So much of my life was celebrated in that church. We were all baptized there, though of course I have no memory of any of that. I do have pictures of just about all of my sisters in white dresses my mother made for each of them, standing in front of the statue of Mary with the priest or the head nun or a grandmother after making First Communion. A few of my sisters were married there. Every Christmas and Easter and just about every Sunday of my life until college included church attendance. The priest knew us. The old ladies complimented our behavior in the pews, unattended when Dad was on the alter as a Eucharistic minister.

We buried my brother from that church, with Father Madigan calling him “Bob” and me wanting to stand up and shout at him that my brother was Bobby, my Dad is Bob so stop making it sound as if my father has died.

Lowell is my home because, even though the school building has been torn down and the church turned into condos I grew in spirit there. I journeyed from blind acceptance to determined adherence to angry rejection of the Catholic Church, landing now in a place without anger or acceptance (though I do like the tone of the current pope).

Lowell is my home because I sat at the counter in Woolworth’s to have lunch with my grandmother.

Lowell is my home because I took the city bus downtown to shop at Jordan Marsh.

Lowell is my home because I could tell the difference between the Aiken Street bridge and the Bridge Street bridge with my eyes shut because of the weird noise the metal grating of Aiken St made when you drove over it.

Lowell is my home because I know that you shopped at Saint Joseph’s shrine when you needed a first communion cross and that you could get a mass card for a funeral at the rectory at Sacred Heart, perhaps from my mother or my aunt if one of them was working there at the time.

Lowell is my home because I graduated from Lowell High School and can still sing the fight song, and so could my Dad right up to the day he died even though he didn’t graduate with his class but earned his GED there in 1978.

Lowell is my home because my grandparents and aunts and uncles and sister and niece are buried in St. Patrick’s Cemetery and my brother and parents are in the Lowell Cemetery just down from the lion who my daughters and I named Ezra.

Lowell is my home because I know where things are and how to get there and even though I have lived in Westford for over 10 years, I still don’t know the best route to take.

Lowell is my home because I spent my teenage years traveling by LRTA and gratefully accepted some change to pay for my bus ride home when a stranger saw me crying at the public phone after realizing I had spent my bus fare calling my Mom to let her know I was running late.

Lowell is my home because I went to the teen health clinic that was run out of an old mill building where they would leave a message that “Susan called” so your parents wouldn’t know you were getting birth control pills.

Lowell is my home because that is what I instinctively answer every time someone asks me where I’m from.

differences of remembrance

At the end of a story remembering a scene from childhood, the author says that her father, now long dead, doesn't care how she remembers him. And I gasped. Doesn't he? Do you really think that?
And then, catching my breath, I agreed. Of course he doesn't. I don't really think that my Dad knows how I'm remembering him - well, maybe I sort of do but the point it, that's not what upsets me about memories of my parents. What upsets me is hearing how others remember them. When their memories don't match mine I'm riled, defensive. Not the details - we remember different details, experienced from different perspectives - but the tone, the "Dad would"s or the "Mom would never"s. 
Um. Wrong. Your memory is wrong. Your opinions of these people I loved, love, so dearly is wrong. 
And I can't change my mind about this. 
I feel bad for my sister who has a completely warped picture of my Dad. She's missing out on the more tolerant, forgiving, accepting father of my reality. But I'm also, let's be clear, pretty pissed at her for her claims that my father, my father, would agree with her intolerant rants. My Dad could disagree with your politics and still respect that you came to your conclusions the same way he did, through thoughtful reflection. My Dad loved my pro-choice, pro-equality, pro-environment self even as he cast a vote for representatives who were anti all of those things.
Maybe Dad doesn't care anymore about how we remember him, but I care how he is remembered.

word collector

I was walking out of my sister’s office this morning past several quotes printed in bright ink and mounted on matching cardstock. My nieces, who work there also, have scattered inspirational words all over the office and I thought, “We are a family of quoters”. And for the first time, and it’s weird that this was the first time (is it really the first time?), I thought of how it all started with our Dad.

I was at my parents’ house about once a week throughout my adult life, and more often as they got older. Several times a month there would be a clipping of a social commentary cartoon from the newspaper or some inspirational words from the church bulletin posted on the refrigerator or laid out on the table. He cut out things that made him laugh or seemed especially relevant to something going on in the family. A lot of times his clippings were personal, cut out specifically for me or one of my siblings. Given that there were so many of us, it was always amazing that he knew which words would speak to which child. When it came time to create photo boards for his funeral several of us naturally, without even talking about it, collected quotes that made us think of him and helped us to show our love and gratitude for his life.

I’ve been writing words I collect from my reading on the White Board outside my house for 5 years now and today was the first time I really connected that work to my Dad. He was the reason I started the board in the first place (the first word was simply “Hope” after his cancer diagnosis) but I didn’t give him the credit he really deserves. My Dad wasn’t a big reader (well, he did read 2 newspapers every day) but his word collection showed me the value, the power, of words strung thoughtfully together and shared.

And now that I’ve thought about it, I realize the tradition in strong all over my family. My sister has words to inspire relaxation posted around her beach house. My brother peppers his conversation with  poignant quotes remembered from his reading. 

And here is the wall of my daughter’s bedroom. Her grandfather would be proud.

So, here’s a clipping for you, Dad. I don’t need scissors to collect my words, but I’ll share them just like you.

burning stories

Burning Stories - Two Writing Teachers blog

I saw the above headline in the email newsfeed and my mind went immediately to the annual bonfire . . . not the image the writer here had intended.

A few years ago, my girls and I decided to burn the school year. I can’t now remember the inspiration. Did we all have a difficult year? Was it the year Thea had that horrible teacher who tore her homework up in front of her because it had no name on it? Was it the year I was laid off? I don’t know exactly why we started it, but we continue it because it has felt like the right thing to do. We gather all the notebooks and folders and scattered papers from the year and slowly add them to the fire. And as we do, stories are passed around. “Oh, I loved this project. I got to work with my friends and we laughed all through Science class. Best week of science all year.” trailing into a series of silly anecdotes. “I HATE Skill Drills. I’m going to save these for when the flames are really big so it kills off all the yuck.” followed by a recount of the painful evenings spent completing this dread weekly homework. The girls and I slowly rehash the year, laughing at ourselves and at the absurdity of homework. Thea remembers when she completed the same assignments as her sister and they compare notes on how it went. And as she shares the work of her year she prepares Anya for what is to come.

As they go through the pile, the girls inevitably find some pieces they want to keep – the short story written in response to reading about the Holocaust, the poem that earned high praise from her peers, the history paper that took hours of research and writing, the doodles on the edge of the agenda book that are now turning into a scene in her latest story.  

There are two reasons I love the annual Burning.

First, the ritual feels like clearing out the old and preparing for the new. It’s the Ash Wednesday to our Lenten summer; the ceremonial start of the season of cleansing and renewal.

But also, I love this ritual for the stories released by the flames. Instead of just stamping “The End” on the school year, we write an epilogue that wraps up the storylines and brings meaning to the chaotic action, connecting the otherwise random work.