From: Jan, unicorn(a)sun-spot.com
When You Can Almost Touch the Day (from the "Sunday Afternoon Rocking" series)
Sometimes I can reach hardly at all, and almost touch the day. I find
myself thinking, "Oh! I must call Aunt Kay and tell her this!" and for
just a moment I can hear her infectious laugh on the other end of the phone
line, hear her slow southern drawl telling me to "get myself down
there". It is so real I can almost touch the moment. And then I
remember. I think of Gin, and I can hear her soft whispery voice, can see
her spreading icing on a cake, can hear her bid me to get her a "Coke-Cola"
from the fridge. And though I suppose in a way I said goodbye to her long
ago, since for a number of years before her death, her mind had not been in
the present, it is so real I can almost touch the day she was herself.
They were my aunts. There were four of them, and three of them never with
children, and so I was their surrogate, and a surrogate for the other too,
when she lost her only daughter. I was the only daughter of their baby
brother, and he they lost first. Because there were so few of us, we were
entwined and close. My aunts, the two that are left, are as interested in
their great great nieces and nephews as if there were no "greats" in the
description. Indeed if they are reminded of it, they look startled, as if
they wonder when so many generations had a chance to "hatch". Our blood
family members we can count on the fingers of two hands, literally.
The sheer knowledge that there were so few of us was a part of the
closeness, and so was the tragedy of our lost legacy. For this family was
one of the many who lost the legacy of their ancestors, the home place of
generations to LBL. It was a scar that never quite healed, and I grew up
in the shadow of the knowledge of what it was. For those who were not
intimately involved, let it be known that the story will never be written
in books of scholarly and academic intent as it was, will never appear in
the public records of the sales and auctions as it affected a people. And
in my mind, I can go back, and swing on a front porch, walk down a dusty
road, and almost touch a place now a wilderness as it was when a people
lived and loved there.
They will be 90 and 91 this fall, these two who are all that are left of a
family. I hear from them most every day, and several times a month will
make the journey to see about them. In some ways they are not so different
as they must always have been. The sibling rivalry that began in 1911 is
clearly still in evidence, as one aunt clasps her "baby" protectively and
the other snorts and tells her that is the "ugliest doll she ever saw!" I
imagine that to be somewhat the same conversation they might have had in
1918. The spirit of fierce independence is still in evidence as one warns
the other that if she does not eat better "they will put that tube in your
belly!" The other reminds her quickly that permission must be granted for
tubes in a belly, and "they won't be getting it!" I imagine they must have
bickered in much the same way about getting one another in trouble with
Mama or Papa. The good humor is evident as they laugh and clap their hands
in time to the singing Santa Claus I decorate their rooms with at
Christmas. I remember a letter their own Mama wrote telling of them diving
like "greedy little pigs" over a package of sweets their Papa had sent at
Christmas time when he was away visiting his own mother in 1917. When I
read that letter, and others, I could almost touch the day, though it was
long before I was even thought of.
My aunts have lived long and they can tell stories of times and places and
people that no one living remembers. They can remember an uncle going away
to fight in the Great War, and never returning. They can remember
Prohibition and they can remember the Depression. Though they may falter
over what was their morning meal, they remember with startling clarity all
of the great events of the 20th century. And they remember all of the
smaller parts of history that had little to do with what was written in a
history book, but much to do with history of the common people. They can
tell you of their mama sitting to make a shroud for an aunt using her old
treadle sewing machine, and they can tell you of family gatherings in the
yard when the circuit rider came. One can tell you how it was to teach in
a one room school, to board with a family while doing so. She can tell how
she canoed her way to a school where she was not just the teacher but also
the fundraiser, the cook, the janitor, the stoker of fires, the nurse and
the counselor. One can tell you how it was to own and operate a corner
grocery store in the days of the Depression. She can tell you how it was
to extend credit to folks knowing they had no way to pay it back, but also
knowing one could not turn his or her back on neighbors. Hearing them
talk, I know that for them it does not seem so long ago really, and they
can almost touch the day.
Because I know the time is drawing nearer now when all I will have is
"almost touching the day", I store up their stories, listen carefully to
their words, study their faces and try to memorize their expressions. They
have been my family now for night on half a century, and they are the roots
that have held up my world for so long I cannot imagine standing without
those roots. But as long as I can "almost touch the day", I can make it
live for the "greats" my aunts are startled to realize are "greats", I
can
make it live for me, and I can foster the roots that held up my world, that
they will hold up the world for those yet to come in our family. As long
as there are stories, as long as there is a link, as long as there are ears
to hear and a heart to speak, we can "almost touch the day".
Just a thought,
jan
Copyright ©2001janPhilpot
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Thanks, jan)
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