This past weekend I had one of those strange cosmic karma kind of moments .
As the only daughter of an only child, all of my maternal family heirlooms are trickling down to me in dusty rivulets. The "good stuff" will only uncork after the eventual passing of my grandmother (who's 93 and feisty as hell), and I'm in no hurry . But in the meantime I keep receiving familial flotsam and jetsum in trunk-filling packages whenever I visit my mom-- basically every Sunday.
As I mentioned in one of my first posts, my mom recently retired after a 40+ year teaching career. And this "new-found" freedom (yeah, I know.. she's ALWAYS had her summers off) has catapulted her into a frenzy of cleaning and purging of possessions. Likewise, she's nudged Grandma (a Class A-1 packrat) to do the same. The result is the steady stream of effluvia that I have to find room for in my own nest. Much of it has found a new home in one of several different antique shops around town (I don't sell the personal / sentimental items), but the growing box of photographs and keepsakes is accumulating at an alarming rate.
On Friday night I stayed in, watching TV and attempting to polish the silver plated tableware that I hoped might appeal to one of the shop owners. Eventually I came to a large cardboard box marked "kitchen misc" containing a dozen silver serving dishes and utensils, apparently received on the occasion of my mother's parents 25th wedding anniversary, as well as a packet of greeting cards, also addressed to them. I sifted through the cards, noting that most bore little more than a signature at the bottom-- the givers choosing to let the printed sentiment do the talking. The last one was addressed to my grandmother alone, and it was signed "Love, Daddy." The words confused me at first, as I knew that her father had died when she was only six years old. And then I remembered my mother telling me that she had always called her parents "Mom & Daddy"-- that they had addressed each other as such in her presence-- only rarely calling each other "Catherine" and "Paul." The unbridled sentiment the verse expressed brought tears to my eyes, as it told of the daily joy, pride and wonder he felt over the gift of Grandma in his life. He had been nearing 40 when they married, and after 25 years he was still humbled to have found a woman who could make his dreams come true. Grandpa had been 12 years older than grandma, and in many ways he had filled the gap of father AND husband for her... They loved each other devotedly. So it was all the more bittersweet to realize, after reading the cards wishing them "Many years more of happiness!" and "a long life together!" that they had been parted a few months later by my grandfather's death.
Yesterday, as I worked in Mom's basement, dutifully sorting through several more boxes, I stumbled across a packet of family pictures. I recognized my dad's handwriting on the back of the first picture, a sweet shot of his mother and her beloved mutt, Butchie (more on him later). Further down the stack, I found a side view picture of my parents as they walked down the aisle after saying their wedding vows. In his precise Catholic-school penmanship, Dad had written, "The happiest day of my life: December 31, 1966." He had kept these pictures in a box along with other odds and ends, and after his death my mother had simply packed it inside of a larger box and left it unopened. The image itself was unremarkable, and most people would have been tempted to toss such a badly angled candid shot. But
he knew the importance of the moment that had been captured, and it spoke to him just as strongly as any posed, formal shot might have done. This symbolized the day he had started his life over, apart from his distant mother and recovered alcoholic father. He was entering a new and hopefully happier part of his life with a woman who loved him. His hand was resting gently at Mom's back, and his angular frame was turned protectively toward her. He was officially the man in Mom's life, a role left empty by the death of her father 5 years before. You can't see either of their faces in the picture, yet I was grateful because I'd like to think they only had eyes for each other and were blind to the congregation.
I don't know why these images came to me less than 48 hours apart, after never seeing either before. It left me wondering about how and why certain people come into our lives, both romantic and platonic relationships. Why we drift in and then out, grow close then apart. Why some relationships are a nightmare and others are beyond our wildest dreams. How the same person can be the love of our life and "my favorite damn disease." Some relationships seem pre-destined-- SOMEone knew to put my grand / parents together, while others defy explanation. When I try to figure out how in all that's unholy I ended up becoming friends with my neighbor, John, it baffles me completely. We've each lived in at least a 1/2 dozen different states and over two dozen homes respectively, yet we managed to run smack into each other. Had either of us made even one different life-decision we most likely wouldn't have even met, our lives having been so different. Yet here we are, our lives completely interwoven, without a clue why...
