Tag Archives: childhood

Thinning the Past

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Most of us have décor in our homes: Tchotchkes, pictures, bits and baubles, generational curios, memory laden echoes of our time on earth. My house is full of them. They bring a smile of remembrance. Occasionally I endeavor to thin them out. Endeavor being the operative word in that sentence.

Why, oh why, do I need a 10” yellow ceramic duckling in my curio cabinet? Because it was once a treasured keepsake for my mother. It was given to her by a friend she loved and lost many, many years before Mom died. I remember that friend, and I remember how much my mother loved the duckling. How can I toss it? It is a piece of my mom.

Some of the artwork was given as gifts by friends and family. We have porcelain figurines by Lladro given to us by our niece in Spain that are dear to our hearts. There are carved wooden figurines that Mom brought back after our trip to Germany. We have crystal and glass that dates back to great-great-grandparents.

Most of my walls are filled with photos of friends and family from great-grandparents to our grandchild. I can go to any room and reconnect with those people. We love to take out-of-town visitors to Tombstone and have a photo taken in old west period clothes. Our visitors have endured our obsession. Those pictures reside in various rooms. I chuckle about the memories every time I look at them.

We have collected artwork over our sixty-plus years of marriage that has significance for us. We remember the why and where of each painting and print. A print of praying hands by Albrecht Düerer (1508) graced my great-grandparents living room from the time I remember as a small child. On the back is written 1896. I assume that was when they acquired it.

Among our eclectic collection, we have two prints by Michael Parks, a Salvador Dali, a Diego Rivera, a Renoir, an Edward Hopper, native American drawings, as well as original paintings by close friends who are amazing artists. NONE of which I would part with willingly. I love looking at them every day.

Is it living in the past? Well, maybe, but we have so much more past than future, why not? I’m willing to add new mementos as they arrive.

It is popular among my friends to talk about divesting themselves of those “things” that won’t mean anything to their children or grandchildren. Much of my wall art and shelf dwellers were acquired when our children still lived with us and may evoke a memory or two. I admit the things we collected have no monetary value and will probably not be passed along. They still bring me pleasure and will until I die or become catastrophically forgetful. I want to enjoy them for the remainder of my life, and then, I really don’t care what they choose to do. I will be on to bigger and better things.

One of my favorites is a print of The Juggler by Michael Parks that is on the wall of my office. Our writing critique group had a prompt to write about a piece of artwork or a photo in our house, and what it means to us. This is a poem about The Juggler.

The Innocence of Childhood

Believe.

Anything is possible.

She balances on the precipice of flight

Into the season of ripeness;

Into a world

That doesn’t remember the magic.

She watches once more,

In wonder, the magician

Blindfolded to reality.

He balances

On the tightrope of life.

Juggling

Three lessons of childhood:

Love without borders, authenticity, curiosity.

She will carry these throughout life.

The Juggler by Michael Parks

Death Nudged Me Today

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To Gerry 5/4/45 to 4/10/19

This poem was written six years ago after the death of a dear childhood friend. Years accumulated without contact between us. In her final months, she reached out to me, a tender reminder of the bond we formed over sixty years before as twelve-year-old girls. Our families both relocated to Bellevue, Washington the summer before our 7th grade year at school; hers from Oregon, mine from Kansas. We were the newbies so naturally clung to each other as we learned how to navigate a new school and integrate into a new community of teens. She will always be a happy memory. Today is her birthday – Happy Birthday, Gerry.

Death nudged me today.

Just to say, Remember

I will be your escort one day.

She was a friend of childhood,

A bosom buddy in a mutable time.

We were close, two coats of paint.

Teen dances at the gym

Girlhood angst

Secrets whispered and shared

A rambunctious orb of energy

Her infectious laugh

Reached the corners of my preteen world

She, the adventurer

I, the eager sidekick

Exploring adolescence together

A blueberry summer, picking for money

Her buckets overflowed, mine barely topped

She reaped a summer salary, I lasted two days

Blessed with natural athleticism,

She excelled in gymnastic maneuvers.

My feet refused to leave the ground.

An enthusiastic cheerleader, she leaped

My leaps fell short, I tried

My place in the bleachers assured

By high school, our paths diverged

Friendship, a shadow

Not gone, just faded

Our last summer together after school

She led the way, I followed

Clerks at an insurance agency

She married, I married

She had a baby, I had a baby

Then two, and one extra for me

Ambitious and motivated

She had her own business.

I focused on three children.

Our contact was sparse

Never completely closing the gap

To reclaim friendship

She moved, I moved

She divorced, I didn’t

The contours of our lives unaligned

She moved to the desert, Las Vegas

I moved to the desert, Tucson

No contact for decades.

She reached out

A year ago, email

Stage 4 cancer was the verdict.

I sent prayers, encouragement,

Cards and emails for months.

She died.

The phantom of our friendship

Rests in my heart.

I see her smile, her laugh an echo.

It will be my turn someday

To dance with death.

Again, she led the way.

The Spirit of a Boy

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Writers obtain inspiration from a variety of sources. Mine usually come in dreams, or as I’m waking in the morning. Sometimes a character talks to me while I’m walking or driving asking to have his/her story told. It can be said to be divine, or mystical, or even crazy but it is magical. This is the true story of a spirit who guided me to write a poem.

At the tender age of sixty-two I suddenly realized that I would never be a grandmother. It had been my highest ambition, having grown up with wonderful grandparents and great-grandparents. As Polonius said, “and it must follow as the night, the day….” (totally out of context) I believed it was the natural culmination of a life well lived. I made the bold statement to my three progeny at various times that my aim in having children was so I could eventually be a grandma. I think that may have been a step too far. In hindsight, probably not a great tactic in the parent/child relationship.

By April, 2008 none of them exhibited any interest in procreation. NONE. They were happily living the lives they designed without one thought to my hopes and desires. Oh me, oh my. For several years, I had pinned baby pictures of my friends’ grandchildren and even the children of my childrens’ friends on a wall in my office cubicle. Someday, I believed, the wall would contain a load of pictures of MY grandchildren. But now all my children had exceeded their fortieth birthday and no grandchildren on the horizon. Not even a hint, a whiff, a whisper, a sign.

That evening I sat with my journal and began to jot down a poem mourning the conscious loss of something I would never have. I wrote about the little granddaughter I wished for – all the things I envisioned doing with her.

The next day I went to my computer to transcribe that story to submit to my writers’ group. As I sat at my desk, I felt the strong presence of a little boy hovering over my left shoulder. I could hear his voice. He wanted me to bake a cake for his third birthday. His spirit was so vivid, that the story of my granddaughter morphed into a poem about my grandson. I read it to my writer’s group the next week with an air of sad resignation, a kind of mourning.

My Grandson at Three
A memoir of loss

A chubby bundle of verve
Dirty knees, killer smile
A charming packet of cuddles,
Blue eyes spark with wonder
That is my grandson

Innocence and childish wisdom
Life – a fish bowl of dashing delights
A bright idea swishes past
A clever observation
The world full of marvels

At three his every thought
Becomes action
Or question to be explored
Energy and curiosity
Cascade thru our day

From awakening
Til he is tucked away
Too tired to dream
My grandson to me is
Joy, delight, a miracle

Sweet arms surround my neck
“Read it again, gramma”
Good Night Moon redux
Snuggles in my lap
Affection, a two-way road, no tolls

I know it can’t last
This rapture of childhood
If love holds when he is grown
He’ll read to me
In the afterglow of remembrance

I wished a granddaughter
Tea parties and dress up
I wanted a granddaughter
To primp and pamper
I dreamed a grandson, the light of my life

I am the mother of three
None plan children of their own
Their choice, their path
Expectation denied
A loss I mourn

He will never be born to the world
In consolation of loss
My grandson is born to my heart
A luminous vibration of life
Forever tenderly just mine.

On Mother’s Day, May 11, 2008, I received a call from our eldest daughter who was living in Hawaii. “Hi Mom,” she said, “Happy Mother’s Day. You are going to be a grandma.” I was stunned. Excited, stunned, excited, over-the-moon, amazed. It was several days before I remembered the little boy who asked me to bake his birthday cake. My daughter declared that she was not going to find out the sex of her child until it was born. I had a hard time keeping the secret – I knew a little boy was on his way. He told me so about a month earlier.

Our daughter was divorced and moved to Tucson just before her baby was born. Ken and I were privileged to be part of his childhood.  I did bake his birthday cake for his third birthday, white cake with chocolate frosting and M&M’s. He is all that I dreamed. He does have blue eyes and a killer smile. He is a bundle of energy and light. He is a blessing beyond my imagining. He taught himself to play the piano by ear at age three. He learned to play the guitar from his mama. He played little league with his grandpa as a coach. He’s a scholar at school taking honors and AP courses. He is now over six feet tall, nearly as tall as grandpa, and very much his own person. He belongs to his high school mountain biking team. He has participated in El Tour de Tucson Bike Race every year since he was four starting with the fun run, then the five mile and so on. This year he challenged himself to ride the longest run – 105 miles that he completed in five hours. Oh, the bragging can go on and on for pages.

This past weekend we celebrated his 15th birthday. I baked a German Chocolate birthday cake for him.

And at nap time when he was little, we did read Goodnight Moon – many times.

Granpa and Henry
El Tour de Tucson 2023

It Isn’t Lost !

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I have volumes of stories about my children and some of their friends as they encountered life in their first years. One of my favorites is about our middle child, our second daughter, the quiet one.

Shari attended morning kindergarten at the elementary school around the corner from our house. Our backyard abutted the playfield. After school she would come home for lunch and tell about her day. Several times a week my husband came home for lunch also. His office was not far from our house and he liked to spend lunchtime with Shari, our three-year-old son Casey, and me. On this particular day in October, Shari’s class went to a pumpkin patch. Each child was to bring a quarter to buy a pumpkin to bring home. Shari arrived home without a pumpkin. Ken arrived at the same time, and this was their exchange.

“Hey Shar, did you have fun at the pumpkin patch?”

“Yes Daddy, I saw lots and lots of biiiiiig punkins.”

“Did you bring one home?”

“Nope. I didn’t have my quarter.”

Ken made sure she had a quarter before he left for work that morning.

“You lost your quarter?”

“No. I didn’t have it.”

“I gave you a quarter this morning.”

“I know Daddy, but I didn’t have it to buy the punkin.”

“You lost your quarter,” he said.

“No.”

“If I gave you a quarter and you didn’t have it, you lost it.”

“No, I DIDN’T lose it.” she said with emphasis.

“Do you still have it?”

“No.”

“Then it is lost.”

“It isn’t lost. I know ‘xactly where it is. It fell between the bus seat and the bus wall. I know where it is, but I can’t get it. It ISN’T lost.”

Case closed. No quarter, no pumpkin but the quarter is NOT lost. I was sure she would grow up to be Clarence Darrow. Her logic was flawless; her argument, decisive. Even her daddy could not shake her. She knew what lost meant and she didn’t waiver.

I am entranced by little people. Any child between birth and eight years old, I find enchanting. I can spend hours watching and talking with them. At one time I wanted to be a second-grade teacher like Miss Jones, with whom I felt a special rapport. Instead, I became a mother. Although those years between birth and eight didn’t last as long with my own children as they would have with year after year of new students in school, I thoroughly enjoyed those times. After the age of eight, children are lured into our larger social structure through school and activities, and they lose that innocent view of the world. Much of the awe is exchanged for a comfort with the reality around them.

I am so privileged to have been a stay-at-home mom. I was able to experience the day-to-day wonder as each child began their journey. Now I think it is a rare privilege. It seems that mothers these days are required to work outside the home for financial reasons or choose to do so because of career choices.

My own mother was a working mom, through choice as much as necessity. I resented that for many years even though I know what she sacrificed to keep both sides of her life humming along. I wanted her to be home with me as all the other kids had their moms at home. My parents did their very best to provide in-home daycare for me. I never went to an outside babysitter or daycare center. Even though I had terrific nannies who I remember with fondness, it still wasn’t Mom. My husband and I agreed that when we had children, I would be home with them. He often worked two jobs to make sure we could provide that lifestyle. Thus, I was able to be a part of those special moments in each child’s life. Many I recorded in journals and many more I have probably forgotten but the echo of that special time remains.