The Reveal, May 8, 2022

The long story short is that in 2013, I began writing my coming-of-age memoir, THE GIRL WITH THE BLACK AND BLUE DOLL, covering events from age 3 through 21.

For the past eight years, I’ve hidden my secret life—my memoir writing life—from my three younger siblings.

I had no way of knowing what their response would be, but five days ago, one year after Mummy’s death at 92, three of us were gathered at my youngest brother’s home in western Massachusetts, and I decided it was time to let them in on my secret.

To prepare for my reveal, I reminded myself of the inspiration and reassurance Cheryl Strayed’s words provided in my writer autograph journal in 2014.

“Dear Linda, I so enjoyed our conversation at my house. I hope you will always remember the spark that drove you the very first time you wrote with passion & delight. There are so many uncertainties in the literary business, but there is no doubt that what drives us forward as writers can’t be thwarted by anything. There is nothing that matters more than the truth you have to share on the page. Trust that above all. Good Luck! Cheryl Strayed“

By 2014, I had finished two drafts and began querying agents. BIG mistake.

Two drafts is at least four drafts too soon for querying. I received dozens of rejections. Most of them didn’t even send official rejections, they just let my query automatically age out of consideration at Querytracker’s 121 days. I did, however, receive one request for a full.

It was from a New York agent who said he loved it. “Talk soon!” he wrote. And then he ghosted me.

I learned my lesson.

After the fifth draft, I hired a developmental editor, who gave me brilliant, professional feedback. I wrote draft six and seven and sent off a handful of well-researched and personalized queries.

The next request for a full came from an agent I have tremendous respect for. She’s in Toronto and by then it was 2021.  She also rejected it. Note to self: Don’t ever think of any agent as “my dream agent”.

I haven’t queried in six months. During this time, I’ve taken four query classes from different writing teachers while further fine-tuning my manuscript. About ten days ago, I had a eureka moment that would dramatically improve the reading and comprehension of my story.

I made those changes, and in preparation for The Reveal, I had THE GIRL WITH THE BLACK AND BLUE DOLL printed and spiral bound for beta-reading. One copy for each of us siblings.

When I got to Gerry’s house, I carried in a tote bag bearing my secret life. I quickly tucked it in a corner of the dining room and joined two of my siblings and one sister-in-law with lots of hugs and kisses.

Frankly, I was a wreck. I wasn’t 100% convinced I’d be able to go through with it.

As soon as we were all settled at the dining room table, I said, “I have something to share with you, and I think this is a good time.”

Everyone looked a little shell-shocked, so I said, “Don’t worry. It’s nothing bad.”

Later in the afternoon, Sharon said her first thought had been “She can’t be pregnant!”

Right. I’m 72.

Gerry said his first thought was that I might be transitioning. Nope.

Over the next five hours, I shared when, how, and why I had finally become a writer. I mentioned that I’ve been encouraged in the last two years as awards, publications, and speaking engagements began to come in.

I was taking Lidia Yuknavitch’s The Body of the Book manuscript class in Portland OR when #MeToo gained traction following the exposure of widespread sexual-abuse allegations against Harvey Weinstein. I wrote my #MeToo chapter The Colombian that morning and read it to the class that night. It was published by Jennifer Pastiloff in The Manifest-Station.(Unfortunately, they misspelled “Colombian.” The typo: “Columbian.” I’ve made my share of typos, so I’ve ignored it.)

Some of my favorite experiences were being named 2021 Finalist for Best Unpublished Memoir by the Pacific Northwest Writers Association in Seattle, and being invited to address the Omaha Chapter, National League of American Pen Women at their March 2022 meeting.

I still don’t have an agent. I explained the query process to them and the much-desired “request for a full”.

As we were talking, frequently, Sharon would ask “Do you remember the time…?”

And I would respond, “YES, I have a chapter on that…  And wait— I’ll read it to you.”

It was So Much Fun and we all were so elated with our surprise afternoon’s entertainment.

Gerry said he was enlightened since my memoir includes a period of ten years before he was born.

Sharon said it was fascinating how each of us viewed same events from different perspectives.

Gerry added that he felt it’s great that I’ve reflected on my early life to consider if there’s been any influence on unfolding what he called The Life Experience.

My sister-in-law Robin said “I’m struggling with this. There are mixed emotions because I met your parents at a much later stage. It’s sad and weird for me because your story is a different experience.” Tears were shed.

Sharon added,  “As I read this, I’m just glad that you were able to write it down so eloquently.”

What I know now: My siblings are 100% supportive. That is, thus far, two out of three of them.

I realize my fears were totally unwarranted.

Sharon and I talked about things we’ve never spoken of.

It was the Best day Ever.

Immediately after all was said and done, and still with all of us at the dining room table, I checked my email.

Omigosh! There was an email from the author Paddy Eger, representing the EPIC Writers Group in Bellingham WA. I’m a member and she was asking me to call her at my earliest convenience. On a Sunday. On Mother’s Day!

 My fingers hit those numbers fast and furiously. She answered.

She wanted me to know that my Prose piece, Mr. Buchwald, which is Chapter 61 of THE GIRL WITH THE BLACK AND BLUE DOLL, had won the 2022 EPIC First Prize for Prose.

What timing!

This. In the dining room immediately after The Reveal. We were all mind-blown. What an affirmation.

Update: June 13, 2022

Gerry, Linda, Sharon
We laughed and laughed!

My other brother Richard (aka Dicky in the memoir) is now reading and approving of my story. He’s also been freaking us out with memories of his own!

Frank McCourt was my Inspiration

About once a year, I do a Google search for Noah Adams’ NPR interview with Frank McCourt so I can hear McCourt’s lovely Irish voice and once again, be inspired.

Why was is Frank McCourt my inspiration?

  1. Because it was after hearing NPR’s 2009 interview with Frank McCourt, that I knew I wanted to write my own memoir.
  2. Because when Frank McCourt published his first book, Angela’s Ashes, at the age of 66, I thought maybe I could still be considered an “emerging” writer at my age.
  3. Because I loved the way he managed to write the dreadful conditions of his childhood in a comic manner.  Wikipedia calls it a “tragicomic memoir of the misery and squalor of his childhood.”
  4. Because I had first-hand knowledge of a painful childhood.

No, I didn’t grow up in squalor. We lived on a 3-generation farm where we had plenty of food to eat, and a hundred acres to run around. Of course, the reason we had a hundred acres to run around was that my mother commonly locked us out of the house so she could watch “her stories” on television and smoke cigarettes. I was in charge of the younger kids and, for their entertainment, I led them over hill and dale, dodging cow patties, grazing on wild strawberries, and building stick forts until the cows came home.

When I heard the NPR interview, I was 59.  It took me more than a few years until I got started. I was naive enough to think that my memoir would be ready after two or three rounds of editing. Ha! It’s taken seven drafts to get it right.

But enough about me. My mother would always accuse me of “getting a big head” if I said anything positive about myself. 

I think I’ve managed to write some decent tragicomedy in my 371 pages of The Girl with the Black and Blue Doll. (McCourt’s has 369 pages. A coincidence.)

But I can’t match McCourt’s “we were so poor” story.

He told of how they were often without food.

One night he asked his uncle about food to eat and his uncle said there was none, so after the uncle went to bed, young Frank saw his uncle’s discarded fish and chip newspaper on the floor.  He retrieved it and began to lick the oil out of the newspaper pages.  Licking the obituaries and the sports pages and the headlines of World War II (and more!) until there was no more oil to lick.

I still think that fish and chip newspaper is the most tragicomic story I’ve ever read.  In my own memoir, the fish and chips were a bit more serious. Here’s the short version.

Like McCourt, we also were Catholics. One day when my mother had just put the Crisco on the stove to heat for the fish on Friday that she was going to cook, she got distracted. She heard the bread man toot his arrival in the driveway, and since Mummy was always very chatty, she and Norman always spoke at great length. The next thing she knew, Norman saw black smoke pouring out the screen door. A fire! The firetrucks, my baby brother being brought out to his carriage, my siblings and I running down the road from the school bus to discover the disaster. I saw my 10-year-old brother being flung horizontally from the front step by a fireman.

“Get outa here!” snarled the fireman.

“It’s my house!” screamed my brother.

That night as we sat around the kitchen table, my mother cried. Then, my father began to cry. I don’t know what we had for supper, but it wasn’t fish and chips.

And the next day? We went to school as usual. Dirty hair, smoky clothes. Sad.

I was in the girls’ room when I heard Sister Florentine’s voice, “Where’s Linda?”

That concerned me but I eventually came out of the stall and she ran to throw her arms around me. I remember her wooden cross pressing into my chest, her scratchy wool habit, and the feeling of being held like a baby.

It was my very first hug. I was in eighth grade.

Here’s a link to the NPR interview. Noah Adams reveals a great deal of the man in this 9-minute listen. Enjoy!

https://www.npr.org/1996/10/01/1045022/frank-mccourt-on-angelas-ashes

Christmases Past

Following is a chapter from my—as yet unpublished—memoir, THE GIRL WITH THE BLACK AND BLUE DOLL. At this time of year, I think we all are drawn back to memories of Christmases Past.

Chapter Thirty-Three
One Christmas Morning

In contrast to the festivities at Mémère’s cottage, Christmas was pretty much nonexistent downstairs at Babci and Dziadzia’s. No Christmas tree, no decorations, no presents. It was never discussed. It was just an accepted fact that Daddy’s parents didn’t celebrate Christmas.

If it wasn’t for Mummy, there’d have been no Christmas upstairs either. Mummy saved all her tip money from the beauty shop to make Christmas special for us, the way her mother had done for her. Mummy may have had her shortcomings, but Christmas wasn’t one of them.

The year I was eight, Mummy was particularly excited because she had bought Daddy the latest trendy gift for Christmas—a Kodak Brownie 8mm movie camera like her sisters had purchased for their husbands. The movie cameras had been advertised on TV for weeks as the it gift of the season. It was one of the few times I ever saw Mummy super excited. She bubbled over with happiness as she showed off the camera to us kids just before wrapping it up.

“Now Daddy will be able to take home movies of you, and when you grow up, you can show the movies to your kids!” she said with a smile as wide as wide could be.

It was going to be fun, she assured us. We watched as she attached a bow and a gift tag. “To John, From Doris.”

On Christmas morning, Daddy stayed in bed as usual while Mummy watched us open our presents and gathered up the wrapping-paper scraps. Daddy never participated in Christmas, but it never stopped Mummy from buying him a present. As soon as all of our gifts were open, we followed Mummy back to their bedroom where Daddy’s slumped form lay under the bedcovers facing the wall.

“Wait till Daddy sees what I got him!” Mummy whispered.

Mummy hurried to his side with the present held before her like the gift of the Magi. We stayed beyond the threshold in our pajamas and slippers, straining to look past the curtain and standing on tiptoes to see over the shoulder of her fuzzy chenille robe.

With a bit of coaxing, Daddy slowly emerged from the covers, mumbling something under his breath. He lifted up on one elbow. His hair was tousled, and he covered his bare chest with a corner of the blanket.

He tentatively pulled at the Scotch tape on one end of the present. We saw him rise up a little straighter and use both hands to finish the unwrapping, freeing the camera from its box. He remained expressionless. We watched as he cocked his arm back like a quarterback about to throw a football down the field.

The split-second interaction between Mummy and Daddy that followed became a Kodak moment scorched on my brain forever. As Mummy stood with her mouth just barely open, Daddy hurled the camera across the room with a force that caused us all to jump back. The black body of the camera hit the wall with a crack.

“A piece of junk!” he spat, and he rolled away from us.

We kids scurried like rats before the camera even hit the floor.

Mummy picked up the camera from where it landed at the foot of the bed. She retreated quietly without a single word to dispute Daddy’s declaration. No tears, no pleading, no attempts at explanation, no nothing. Dicky and Sharon looked at me with eyes wide. We were dumbstruck.

We quietly followed Mummy through the kitchen and into the parlor where we returned to sit on the carpet with our presents. Mummy sat on the couch.

The worst of it was that we were forced to watch our cousins’ home movies for the next few months of Sundays at Mémère’s. Daddy didn’t care. He sipped his highball indifferently while Mummy and Mémère ignored him.

Veterans Day 2021

It’s Veterans Day, the federal holiday in the United States observed annually on November 11, to honor the military men and women who served in the United States Armed Forces.

I’ve been sitting here for 30 minutes, trying to find the words to begin. I’ve decided to share a radio script I wrote and recorded earlier this year for the April 30th, 2021 commemoration of 26 years since the end of the Vietnam War.

We recently left Vashon Island WA for good, and I do mean “for good”. Let me be clear. When I say “for good”, I mean that this move will enable me to get additional help for my 100% disabled Vietnam vet husband at the VA here and also to get additional help for me, the caregiver. My sons live in this city. We’re in this together.

I’ve also included links to the songs I selected to play between paragraphs during the Vietnam radio program. Music was a soldier’s connection with home, and hopefully, it offered some relief.

A Vietnam Story / A Vietnam Playlist

My husband spends most of his waking hours watching television upstairs. I remain below. It’s true I’ve never mentioned his existence before today. But it’s finally time to peel the onion and I get goosebumps just thinking about it.

This account could be any soldier’s story, but it happens to be my husband’s story, pieced together from the bits and pieces he has shared with me.

“For What It’s Worth,” Buffalo Springfield

On November 15, 1969, three years before we met, I was hitchhiking from Massachusetts to Washington D.C. to march in the Moratorium against the Vietnam War. At the time, he was in Basic Training at Fort Dix, New Jersey, assembling and dissembling his M16 on his bunk. Fort Polk, LA was next. For AIT. Advanced Infantry Training. It had its own simulated Vietnam village called Tiger Land, 3 or 4 acres where a Vietnam-bound soldier could experience foxholes, bamboo stake defenses, watch duty, tunnels, and booby traps.

“The War Drags On,” Donovan

On December 7th, 1969, the Army deployed my husband to a cold, mean war in the hot, hostile place where the environment could eat you alive.

7th Squadron, 17th Cavalry, 1st Aviation Brigade. Pleiku, Central Highlands, Vietnam. Ankhe, Chu Lai, Ban Mê Thuột.

Light ‘em up if you got ’em. If you don’t, see your buddy.

This was the first song he heard in-country.

“Fortunate Son,” Creedence Clearwater Revival

First month in, my husband fought the heat, the humidity, the insects. All brutal as the enemy.  His spanking new grenade carrier vest held a half-dozen.

Hooah!* An acronym for “Heard, Understood, Acknowledged.” The Army battle cry. It’s also Vietnamese. The word spelled V as in Victor, A as in alpha, N as in November, G as in Golf in Vietnamese translates to “yes,” but it’s pronounced “u-ah.” Some used Hooah as a substitute for “okay” or “yes”. Similar to announcing your agreement with “Amen.”

He was infantry. He and the others followed their Lieutenants, their Sergeants… their Chain of Command.

Some soldiers seized on “Chain of Fools” as a reference to the chain of command.

“Chain of Fools,” Aretha Franklin

He was an Army grunt, driving a jeep in the dark with the headlights off. Stoned. An 18-year-old in search of the enemy with a 106mm M40 recoil-less rifle mounted on the jeep. That’s one mother of a gun. The jeep’s antenna snagged a low-hanging vine and a neon green bamboo viper dropped into the jeep. They had been warned it was a two-stepper. Two steps and you’re dead. Triangle head and you’re dead. Smoke-your-last-cigarette dead. No. Not true. Poisonous, but not necessarily The-End-Dead. That was a myth to keep the troops alert in the bush. Everyone promptly jumped out of the jeep.

Except my husband.

“Handsome Johnny,” Richie Havens

Mail came every other day, pretty much no matter where you were. Important to morale, it was the highlight of the day. He didn’t receive any “Dear John” letters.

“The Letter,” The Box Tops

My husband recalls sleeping on his back in the jungle during monsoon season wrapped in his mosquito net with his arms crossed on his chest under the cover of his poncho. Lying on the ground, he felt the torrents of rain pummeling the poncho as he listened to the noisy night where his sleep aid was exhaustion.

“Riders on the Storm,” The Doors

One night, a heavy creature landed on his chest with a thump, its bad breath in his face, four clawed footprints held tight to his chest, its long lizard tail, thick, hefty. Trailed down his thigh. My husband instinctively flung his arms wide and the creature jumped, landing a couple yards away, then scurried, smash, crash, branches rustling and snapping, it was gone. He was glad it was pitch black dark.

“We Gotta Get Out of This Place,” The Animals

Walking on patrol along the bottom of a ten-foot-deep trench. Looking out for Charlie. He held his breath as a Bengal tiger flew across the sky from one bank to the other above him, an elegant display of incongruous beauty in the midst of primeval fear.

“Time has Come Today,” The Chambers Brothers

In base camp, a cot, hot showers, deep sleep, a PX, Playboy magazines, beer, music, bags of the cleanest cannabis you ever saw. No twigs. Chopped. Ready to roll. Five bucks. Other stuff, too. Hanoi Hannah. Top 40s. You want it. You got it.

“Honky–Tonk Women,” The Rolling Stones

He saw his first tropical beach at Cam Ranh Bay. He recovered there for 30 days. Plasmodium falciparum. Malaria. He used to tell me how falciparum was dangerous—much worse than Plasmodium vivax—but if you beat it, you would never experience a relapse. True.

Till the Morning Comes

My husband realized his condition was perilous when he awoke to find that only his toes were visible before him. A priest in army fatigues with a purple stole draped around his neck was giving him the last rites. His entire body was packed in ice.

“May the Lord who frees you from sin,

save you and raise you up.”

He survived it.

“Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay,” Otis Redding

After recovering from falciparum, my husband was assigned to the skid of a Huey helicopter for the remaining six months of his tour. He rappelled into the jungle to clear LZs. Landing Zones. Breaking jungle with a machete eight hours a day. Fifteen days at a whack. Purple haze. Like the smoke bombs that guided helicopters into the LZs.

“Purple Haze,” Jimi Hendrix

Flying low over the jungle in the Huey, survival songs blasted M79 rocket-launch-loud. Heard easily over the pounding staccato of the rotor blades.

In Nam, the music provided a paradox of stimulation and relief. Hard-hitting and heavy, anti-war or not, it was volume to the max.  Always.

“Machine Gun,” Jimi Hendrix

After his year in Vietnam, my husband was stationed at Fort Benning, GA for the remainder of his duty. When he finally returned home, he saw no flag waving at the airport. No Welcome Home parades. Just Revolution. Everywhere. He threw away all his bars and medals. Overseas Bars, Vietnam Service Medals, Bronze Stars. Everything. Fuck it.

“Volunteers,” Jefferson Airplane

He grew his hair long. He drank too much. Dropped acid. Kept a tiny LSD notebook not much bigger than a matchbook with his trip notes. 50 trips. Dates, places, people.

“Truckin’,” The Grateful Dead

I was still in college then. Safe. Kent State stole the headlines.

“Ohio,” Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young

Later, in 1973, as a young teacher, I wore a nickel-plated bracelet engraved with the name of a POW soldier. Worn to honor and increase awareness of POW/MIA soldiers. I wore it until the soldier came home. Names of returning POWs were published in the newspapers daily. Amazingly, my POW returned only two weeks after I began wearing the bracelet. It seems to me, I mailed the bracelet back to the supporting organization and they sent it on to him.

“War,” Edwin Starr

Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I hear my husband screaming. Nightmares. Fear. Anger. PTSD. This is new. In the forty-plus years that we shared a bed, I never heard a single nightmare.

“The Eve of Destruction,” Barry McGuire

These days bring visits to the VA Hospital, checking in at a kiosk on autopilot. Head-to-toe examinations, diagnoses, monitoring changes. His brothers are in the corridors, elevators, waiting rooms. White, black, red, yellow. Wheelchairs, missing limbs, prosthetics, tattoos. Young vets, old vets.

Mostly resigned to their fate. You can smell the sadness.

Just Dropped In

My husband survived Plasmodium Falciparum malaria. He survived jungle rot—where the skin on the bottom of your feet rots off and you eventually need to have the soles of your feet scraped. They used to call it Trench Foot.

Prevention is keeping your feet warm, dry, and clean. And changing socks three times a day.

In the bush? in monsoon season? Right.

He survived rain-drenched valleys soaked in blood.

He flew home—like a lot of soldiers didn’t.

His hometown buddy, the best man at our wedding, found heroin in Vietnam.

The Army dried him out in Hawaii on his way back to the States.

Another soldier, whose mother served them milk and cookies in her kitchen every day after school, has his name engraved on the Vietnam War Memorial in DC.

During the year after my husband returned home, the kid’s mother served my husband milk and cookies again. But now she was inconsolable. Crying with grief. Begging to know, “Why? Why my son?”

And my husband’s Very. Best. Army buddy?

The one who visited us umpteen times. The one who kept in touch with us for 42 years?

Tony.  He committed suicide ten years ago. I’ll never forget the sound of my husband’s wail when he got the call.

 “Hold On I’m Comin’,” Sam and Dave

Now my husband has Parkinson’s Disease from Agent Orange, the herbicide and defoliant used to reveal the enemy by stripping trees of their leaves. Dementia has arrived and it’s chasing him down.

I had to take away his car keys. Sometimes he experiences bouts of paranoia.

He says I took his VA ID card.

I remove his ID from his wallet and show him that the ID is there. Expiration, October 2024.

The ID photo shows him with short hair. It was before he grew his hair long again during COVID. Down to his breast pocket long.

I’ve been told to expect this sort of thing.

Ride My See–Saw

If I sometimes seem distracted, it’s the background noise of two lives crossing into unknown territory facing an unpredictable enemy.

I hike in the forest by myself. Lost. Not lost.

I escape. I travel to clear my head from time to time. Seeking sanity in wild places.

I love wild places. Correction. I respect and cherish wild places.

Now, that wild place is here.

“Find the Cost of Freedom,” Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Hooah = Army.   —   Oorah = Marines.   —   Hooyah = Navy & Coast Guard.

The Peace Train

Yesterday, in honor of International Peace Day, Yosef/Cat Stevens and Playing for Change, assembled a cast of musicians and singers from around the world.

If you haven’t watched it yet, prepare to be moved with Love and Hope.

  International Peace Day – Peace Train 2021

Time and Distance

It’s been a long summer of hot weather and hot heads. Hot tomatoes in the garden. Hot, crispy lawns that are fighting back to go green again.

And now, 9/11. I almost feel embarrassed to post my trivial experiences from that day and the days following, but it’s like the Kennedy Assassination. We know where we were at the time.

On September 11, 2001, I was in the driveway of my sister’s home on Long Island NY,  placing my suitcase in the trunk of her car. We were just about to leave for Islip airport and my return flight home.

Instead, my sister came outside to say that a friend called her and told her to put on the TV. The first tower had been hit. Chaos everywhere. Clouds of thick smoke, to be followed by unimaginable death, pain, and suffering.

We drove to Islip to see if we could learn anything about arranging future flights. As if there would even be future flights in the days immediately following the attack.

The airport was closed so we circled back and returned to stand in front of the TV, not knowing what to think. The who, what, and why.

For the next 10 days, I awoke at 3 AM to call American Airlines. Every night it was the same. Busy signals or long, long wait times. I didn’t mind waiting, but at 4 AM each morning, I hung up and went back to bed, my calls unanswered. Finally, I got through to ticketing.

Two weeks after 9/11, I returned home. As the plane descended towards my home airport, I experienced a brief event of confusion and fear. I looked out over the landscape and didn’t recognize where I was. Not even the expanse of the huge lake on which we lived.

The wheel wells opened, the tarmac flew up to meet us, and then, we were home. Safe.

I have never been able to remember the year that 9/11 took place. I google it every year. 9/11 will forever remain an event to be recalled with sadness for those who lost their lives and awe that such a thing could even take place.

To all the survivors, to all those left behind. May you find solace and even joy. Life goes on.

Night Falls

I confess. I love to read in the hot tub after dark. I put my Kindle in a quart-size zip lock bag, lie back, and rest my “Kindle bag” on one of those inflatable bathtub pillows. Not jets, no light. All I want is the sky and the sounds of the night.

I read as the night falls around me.

Precisely at sundown, daylight dims, the gulls are gone and the Canada geese come honking like New York City traffic. First they arrive in pairs.

As dark descends, there are fours and sixes, until finally a great flock circles wide where the creek feeds the harbor. They fly low, continuing to honk.

“Here we are! Make way!” they announce, until finally the entire squad cruises to bed down for the night along the shore line.

Then the barred owl arrives, landing high up in a Douglas fir about seventy-five feet away. I only know he’s there because of his melodious call in the pitch black.

“Who-cooks-for-you? Who-cooks-for-you?”

From somewhere around the Judd Creek bridge, I hear a muted response.

“Who-cooks-for-you?  Who-cooks-for-you?”

Next comes the moon, rising high against the velvet sky. I admire it through the silhouette of the blossoming cherry tree before me.

The tub is just hot enough to warm my weary bones and lull me to the edge of dozing off.

My dog Lily lies nearby on a cushion covered with her much-loved wool saddle blanket. She’s a Golden Retriever/Great Pyrenees mix, so the Pyrenees in her is here to love and protect. She’s never far from my side.

30 minutes later feels like an hour.

“C’mon Lily. Time to go in.”

She is as reluctant as I am.

Kindle in a quart bag.

RIP Mummy Mother Mom

Mummy died yesterday on Easter afternoon. Perhaps it’s somewhat symbolic given the nature of the holy day.

Most might say she “passed away,” but I have no issue with directness.

“Died” is direct. Flowers die. Trees die. They wither as their cells cease to receive nourishment from the earth and rain.

“Passed away” has religious origins as a way of expressing that the deceased has gone to the other side, and it often helps people soften the blow, or express death in words they feel are more respectful.

In my mother’s case, given how congested her hospice room was with dead people coming and going during her final month, I suspect she’s with those souls now—or on to her next life.

After the nursing home called one of my brothers with the news, he went to her side. As her body was cooling, as preparations were being made, he held her hand and wished her well on her next adventure.

Just a couple weeks ago, as Mom lay on her hospice bed, she expressed some misgivings about the embalming and burial ahead of her.

Mom: I don’t want to be in a box. I want to be in a jar.

My brother: And where will we put that jar?

Mom: On the bureau.

That’s so emblematic of my mother. Basic. Often humorous in her simplicity. It reminds me of a visit we had to a butterfly conservatory in Costa Rica.

My mother and I were sitting on a bench in the shade outside the conservatory when a female naturalist from our group joined us on the bench.

Naturalist to my mother: Did you enjoy the butterflies? What kinds did you see?

Mom: Oh yes, I did. There were lots of different kinds… red ones, blue ones, yellow ones.

The same with flowers. My mother never learned the names of the annual  flowers she planted every Spring. She went to the nursery and bought her favorites: pink ones and purple ones.

RIP Mummy, Mother, Mom. I’m glad I was able to spend time at your bedside with my siblings just a short while ago.

 *  *  *

In tribute: “Wolves” by Down Like Silver. One of my very favorite songs. It reflects my own feelings about death. I find it comforting.

Heaven

Mummy and Me, 3/30/2021

You might recall that my 92-year-old mother was diagnosed with Covid-19 in April 2020. She was quarantined on the Covid floor at her nursing home in Massachusetts for 30 days. She seemed to have a mild case and recovered completely.

That’s the Mummy we all know: the baby girl born prematurely in the third-floor walk-up at barely two and a half pounds and incubated in the kitchen oven. A survivor.

On February 17, 2021, my mother began having hallucinations—or whatever one calls visitors from the other side. She spoke with her mother and others long dead.

She refused to eat. We were told she had two days remaining at best, but she continues to prove everyone wrong. I was told that if I tried to get there from here, I probably wouldn’t make it in time.

But she continued to rally. One day she would sleep all day; the next, she’d be completely lucid. Up, down, up, down. No one knew what to think—least of all, the hospice nurses.

In mid-March, she was still hanging on. There were more sleepy days, she was very weak, but she was still waking up with clarity and bits of conversation. When my brothers visited, she would ask who was with them. More dead people.

I decided to book a last minute flight to Boston on March 19—without telling my siblings I was on my way—and betting against the odds that my mother would hang on at least until I got there. I stayed for a week. Mom didn’t recognize me until the third day. She said a weak “Hi.”

She still hasn’t had solid food. She sucks water from a sponge and sips small amounts of protein shakes.

Good grief—She’s playing tic-tac-toe with my sister today!

The day before yesterday one of my brothers was there and Mom was frantically waving and reaching out to dozens of dead people passing through her room. She said there was someone bringing fried chicken and biscuits. Curiouser and curiouser! She wanted to know: would she be having lunch today?

My siblings will continue with their time on watch. They’ll take turns, vigilant at her bedside, trying to keep her comfortable.

But all I want to know is: Does this mean there’s fried chicken and biscuits in heaven?

This Is Where It Began

This is The Farm. One-hundred acres of wild woods and domesticated fields. A couple dozen milk cows, two draft horses, two pigs, twelve+ rabbits, twelve-odd laying hens, twenty-four ducks, one billy goat, one barn cat named Jasper, and one mongrel dog named Skippy. And four barefoot kids.

“I have always loved wild places. I grew up on a hundred-acre farm where my siblings and I were put out to pasture at an early age. We crawled on our bellies in our stick forts, and grazed on wild strawberries till the cows came home.”

It’s all here—from the Bee Hives and the Vegetable Garden to the Big Barn, Silo, and Horse Barn, the Orchard, Pig Pen, Garage, Farm House, Tractor Barn, Tool Shed (my favorite), Corn Crib, Outhouse, Duck Coop, Chicken Coop, Pond, Woodpile, Uncle Joe’s Workshop, Hay Fields, Cow Pastures, Horse’s Hill, original owners’ Family Cemetery, The Dump, The Swamp, Woodlot, and The Back Forty.

“Later we scanned the skies above and chanted “Star light, star bright…” Fireflies blinked in response— but mosquitos showed us who’s boss.”