Memories
I answered the phone yesterday evening and it was Florence.
ìWhat day is it? Saturday or Sundayî?
When I brought her milk and Windex this afternoon, she told me that she waited for the school bus last Friday. Not to hop aboard but to hand out Halloween candy to all the children. She laughed as she said she would have to do it again, this Friday.
The problem, her dead transistor radio, rested on the kitchen table with the batteries exposed. I imagine her listening to the all news station that loops through the traffic, weather, date and time, endlessly. Work and the Boston Globe orient me.
A month ago, I was visiting with my neighbor, Mary, not as old as Florence but the victim of the same cruel joke that nature plays on women. Departed husband. Mary wanted to show me her new boiler, except that when we got to the basement, the rickety thing was still there, rust at the seams, but with a new pump. When we returned to her kitchen and as I was about to say goodbye, she asked me, ìDo you want to see my new boiler?î
On my way home from FloÃs I stopped at DollyÃs, MaryÃs next door neighbor. Dolly had called about her wobbly front porch railing and wanted it fixed before Halloween.
ìMatthew said he loved those orange drops.î
She spoke as if she had seen him last night.
I tried to express my concern about her friendÃs memory when she stopped me.
ìIÃm going to be a grandmother…or is it a great grandmother?î
ìWhoÃs having the baby?î
She thought for a moment, ìTory.î
Over the years I had heard many stories about Tory, her blonde grand daughter.
ìThat would make you a great grandmother.î
ìOhî
ìDolly, remind me, what is your daughterÃs name?î
ìItÃs…. Just a minute, I know it. Oh isnÃt this silly. ItÃs…letÃs see, Smitty…î
Smitty was her husband. He died when Matthew turned five, eleven years ago. I remember his funeral and how I slipped into the white church off Main St., after everyone was seated. I wasnÃt sure I should be there until Dolly smiled at me.
ìDebbie, thatÃs it, Debbie.î
Smitty, the illustrator, in plaid, with Dolly at his side. Tulum
watches Matt following me up the ladder.
A sure hand set down those lines, both the illustrated and the verbally depicted. And you are the curator of many lives, Michael, that you can come up with poignant and perfect gems like that drawing.
Your pose in the drawing surely speaks more to the artist’s impression of you than of any showiness you’ve ever literally exhibited, their own poses also figurative outward expressions of inner excitement and regard. Matthew’s position feels somewhere between eagerly scampering up to be like Dad, and content with his current achievement, from which vantage he can better admire Dad’s loft.
It is a gift to present such delicate and awkward topics as age, death, and memory in so gentle and objective ways. Just enough of your own emotion to include yourself, but no judgement or directing of attention, leaving the readers to involve themselves as they will. Thanks.
Comment by adam — October 28, 2003 @ 8:29 am
My stories bend reality , but so does Smitty’s illustration. I could stand like that, but not now, not then, maybe when I was sixteen and had more bounce in my falls.
Smitty didn’t reinterpret only my world, but his too.
Did you happen to listen to Dick Gordon’s interview of Peter Finlay on The Connection? First time author, winner of the Man Booker Prize, wrote the rough draft of Vernon God Little in five weeks, then spent eighteen months editing. But talk about someone with one view of reality perhaps not shared by others.
More commentary
Comment by Michael — October 29, 2003 @ 8:51 am
I found myself curiously and increasingly uncomfortable as I read this piece. It took me over night to figure out exactly why. Now that I have, I must warn you. If you ever lay out my frailties for public inspection, no matter how elequent or involving your description of them, I will have to kill you.
Did love the illustration, however.
Comment by Susan — October 29, 2003 @ 9:30 am
Me too. The author will stand forewarned of a potential conspiracy to kill him. That said, Smitty’s illustration warms the cockles.
Comment by metoo — October 29, 2003 @ 10:48 am
I write to extoll Henry’s virtues
No eight women or men could fill†her shoes
A reknown cook†and Tiler
And a great language styler
Jimmy’s fortune to have her just†improves
Comment by Lapdog — October 29, 2003 @ 6:10 pm