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I was
incredibly lucky to be born to Mom and Dad. Let me tell you
about them.
Legacy
Soon after my Mother died, I found she'd written in the
margin of a book, "Love is a very agreeable passion, and
sometimes it is stronger than death." I'd like to believe
she wrote it for me to find. But it wasn't necessary
because…
Once, as we were walking home from kindergarten, I ran to
pick a flower blooming by a wall. She said "Wait." That’s
how she taught me the pleasure of leaving a beautiful thing
to grow and looking for it in the morning. And once, we
wanted to buy two ice cream cones for a nickel apiece at
Demar Drug Store. We hunted everywhere, but all the cash we
had in the world that day was nine cents. Somehow, she made
that seem funny. We laughed and laughed. She never hinted it
could be scary not to have money.
When I had something to tell her, Mom listened. I burst in
from my first day of school, shouting that I could read the
words, "I can run." She heard, and she understood that was
important. Years later, she heard when I told her I loved a
man, and again, when I told her love had ended. Each time
her arms opened wide.
Her heart was never closed to me, and her love imposed no
conditions.
Mom never dictated dreams. She looked when I pointed out the
star I'd chosen as my own and wished on it with me. Dad
wrote poetry and loved music. Mom said poetry was beyond her
understanding, and she sang off key when occasionally she
joined the hymns at the Baptist Temple. But she understood
that they were different and never tried to reshape Dad, to
make her life easier. She handled his dreams gently.
During the Depression, she sacked candy in a factory ten
hours a day, because that was the work available. At night,
she sewed for me and even created a delicate, lace-trimmed
wardrobe for my doll.
For years, Mother was a teacher. She was wise enough to know
her purpose wasn't to make children memorize dates and
facts. Rather, she opened their eyes to the incredible world
around them and helped them want to learn. She believed in
the value of hugs, and bestowed them generously. I'm sure
her students obeyed her, as I did, because disappointing her
would have been unthinkable. Mother worked until a few days
before she died. Children she had taught years before
brought their children to meet her.
These were things that pleased her: dogs, President
Roosevelt, the OU Sooners football team, a new dress,
chocolate pie, and reading. These were things that did not:
prejudice, tomatoes, bullies, high heels, malicious gossip
and the Notre Dame football team, (because they beat the
Sooners). Her love was the surest thing I've ever known, and
the truest thing I know today is this: "Love is a very
agreeable passion, and sometimes it is stronger than death."
-~~~
ACT OF ATONEMENT
The smallest, meanest thing I’ve ever done, I did to my
father. At twenty-one, though I still lived at home, I had
just landed my first “important” job. A couple of new
friends from work, sophisticated, successful women in my
eyes, invited me to lunch, and I wanted to make a good
impression.
Dad called the office after we left, and learned of our
plans. I felt sure that my companions’ fathers were
professional people. When I saw Dad peering through the
restaurant window that day, dressed in a working man’s clean
but well-worn clothing, I was ashamed of him. I hid behind a
pillar so I wouldn’t have to acknowledge him as my father.
One of the women asked if I knew that funny little man who
seemed to be trying to find someone, and I replied, “Of
course not.” He finally went away.
That evening Dad said he was sorry he’d missed the chance to
buy lunch for my friends and me. I pray that he never knew
the truth.
I'll be ashamed of what I did that day for the rest of my
life. It haunts me more than other, worse, mistakes I’ve
made, because the snub was so undeserved, and I was so wrong
about what mattered. It’s too late to go back and proudly
present him to my friends. The only act of atonement I know
how to make is to introduce you now to my father.
Dad was a gentle man who expected the best of each morning.
Simple things pleased him most: the coming of summer, when
he could smell the roses and taste the melons and tomatoes
he had planted in the earth; a rag-tag little dog named
Dusty, who was always within petting distance; and sitting
on a river bank, hoping to catch a fish.
When I was little and awoke from a bad dream, he’d hold me
on his lap and tell me a story, and I wasn’t afraid anymore.
If something was important to me, it mattered to him, too.
He shared my small victories, and his heart wept my tears.
Dad paid his bills, and kept his promises, and refused to
take the easy way if it compromised his principles. I still
recall his lovely laugh.
At times, I could have strangled him. When the “shortcuts”
he insisted on taking led ever farther from our destination,
he drove stubbornly on, refusing to stop for directions or
even to admit we were lost.
He loved a good cigar. Though liquor had no place in our
Baptist household, he and Mom would sometimes open a bottle
of Mogen David wine during the holidays and giggle at one
another like two naughty children.
The ability to trust others was one of Dad’s greatest
talents. His faith in people was so strong that they
sometimes surprised themselves by becoming what he’d always
believed them to be.
With all his heart he was a Christian, and remained
convinced throughout his lifetime that those who love God
and their fellow man can come to no lasting harm.
Holidays were his favorite time, to be celebrated with
unrestrained pleasure. He strung red bells and silver tinsel
all over the house at Christmas, and filled a tub with
apples for Halloween bobbing, and decorated each egg at
Easter as if it were a work of art.
His poetry praised the things he loved, the beauty of the
earth, music and my mother. Piano lessons were a luxury
beyond his reach, but his hands moved swiftly over the keys
of our old Steinway, playing by ear the songs he sang with
such gusto: Redwing, Turkey in the Straw, The Old Rugged
Cross. Sundays found him at his regular spot, in the tenor
section of our church choir.
Dad dreamed many dreams, but they rarely came true. Still,
the failure of one plan never touched his enthusiasm for the
next. His kindness was remarkable. To Mom’s dismay, the
barber who cut Dad’s hair butchered it. But Dad refused to
take his business elsewhere, because the old gentleman had
few remaining customers and needed the work.
It was Dad who taught me to waltz at the family dances held
in McKinley Park when I was twelve. He read to me until I
could read for myself. When my pet frog died, it was he who
helped me bury it beneath a pile of pure white pebbles.
The prettiest dress I ever owned was a rare, store-bought
gift from my father. To an objective observer that day, I
would have appeared gangly, an unformed fourteen year old.
But when I stepped tentatively from the store’s dressing
room in softest velvet, through Dad's eyes I first saw
myself as beautiful.
When Dad died, the church overflowed. It would have
astonished him to learn that so many people grieved.
The facts of his life are these: His mother, who had ten
children, died soon after his birth. At the age of seven, he
traveled with his father and brothers across Oklahoma in a
covered wagon, laying ties for the railroad. His family
couldn’t afford to send him to school after the eighth
grade, so his dream of becoming a minister died early. A
picture of him, taken during World War I, shows a
vulnerable-looking seventeen year old, with a crew-cut,
staring solemnly into the camera. His marriage to my Mother
lasted thirty-seven years and, after her death, I found
tender love notes he had written to her throughout his
lifetime. Most of his jobs were mundane ones - grocery
clerk, Pullman conductor - but he always gave his best. My
folks had their own grocery once, but they lost it during
the depression, when they wouldn’t withhold the food on
their shelves from hungry customers who couldn’t pay.
Forgive me, Dad, for that day so long ago when I denied that
I knew you. Today, you are the standard by which I measure
my life. Once you told me I was your life’s miracle; I know
now that having you as my father was mine.
~~~
DAD'S LOT IN CHANNING
Recently, I signed papers deeding Dad’s lot in Channing,
Texas to a stranger, leaving a lump in my throat and my eyes
teary. That surprised me, until I thought about it.
The last of ten children born to a sharecropper and his
wife, Dad lost his mother soon after his birth. His father
did his best, but money was scarce, and Dad’s education
ended with the eighth grade. By the 1920s, he was back from
service in World War I and working around the Texas
panhandle at one job or another, trying to make ends meet.
Not yet thirty, Dad was on his own and lonely, for Mom still
waited in his future. But he dreamed of the family he’d have
one day and how he could give them the financial security
he’d never known.
He got to talking to folks around Channing, a small town
about 100 miles outside of Amarillo. Everyone was excited.
The railroad was coming through town, they said, and the
price of land was going to climb out of sight. Dad thought
he was in luck. This could be the beginning of the nest egg
for his future family! He worked and saved enough to buy a
small lot in the heart of town.
A few years passed. He moved to Oklahoma, where he fell in
love with his niece's pretty school teacher and married her.
After a while, I was born. They bought a grocery store, but
lost it in the Great Depression. Times were hard for my
folks in those years, as they were for most people. The nest
egg never grew, but they held on to the lot in Channing.
After they paid their bills, Mom carefully stretched the few
remaining dollars for food. We never went hungry. Yet, I
might have been frightened by our lack of material
possessions, but for the love which surrounded me and that
one ever-present piece of tangible security, Dad’s lot in
West Texas. I didn’t see how anybody who was a landowner
could be really poor. It seemed to me if things got down to
the wire, we could always go live on that lot or sell it for
enough money to get by.
I don’t know when Dad realized that the railroad was never
going to come through Channing, and the lot was never going
to be worth much. Perhaps he never did.
In the six years that Mom lived after Dad died, she still
paid the taxes on his lot. They were next to nothing, but if
they had been higher, I don’t think it would have mattered.
She was simply keeping faith with his memory, for she never
laid eyes on that land, before Dad’s death or after. Neither
did I. Perhaps we didn't want reality to mar what had been
his dream.
After Mom died, over thirty years ago, I paid the annual
taxes, sometimes as little as a quarter, and finally as much
as a dollar. Once in a while, I’d have this crazy notion
that a bank was sitting on that land and it was worth a
fortune, after all. Then Dick and I would laugh and he’d
tell me, “You’re a dreamer, just like your dad,” and I’d
say, “Yep, and that’s a good thing to be.”
A friend who lives in Lubbock, a stone’s throw from Channing
as West Texas measures distance, said the next time he was
out that way he’d check on the land to satisfy my curiosity.
I couldn’t wait for his report.
He talked to folks in Channing, went by the courthouse, and
even took a picture of Dad’s lot. Afterward, he called and
said I shouldn’t plan to retire there or live off the
earnings from its sale. When the picture came, I saw what he
meant. Dad’s lot was just a forlorn, dusty scrap of prairie,
with scattered traces of brush.
My friend mentioned one problem. The man who now owns most
of the land around town fenced Dad’s lot along with the
others. I felt I had to defend that property, which had been
such an integral part of my life, so I wrote to ask him to
unfence it or buy it.
Mr. Hunnicutt called, and he seemed like a nice man. I
believed him when he said he wouldn’t want to claim land
that wasn’t his. He agreed to buy the lot for a hundred and
fifty dollars, the amount the appraiser said it was worth,
and that sounded fair. So I sent him a deed and he sent me a
check.
I felt a little sad, almost as if I were abandoning an old
friend. It may never have fulfilled Dad’s plan for it, but
that lot was a better investment than he knew. It told Mom
and me that he was thinking of us before he ever knew us. It
stood for hope when the going was rough. And it was a link
for me with the past, where, like my folk’s love, it was a
constant. But those ends had been met, and it was time to
move on.
A hundred and fifty dollars isn’t a lot of money, but in
this case, how I spent it mattered. I tried to think of a
way Dad’s land could continue to serve a useful purpose, and
I kept remembering how he could never pass an animal that
was hungry or hurt without stopping to help. So, when Mr.
Hunnicutt sent me his check, I passed it along to the Humane
Society. Maybe it’ll save a dog that will brighten
somebody’s life for years to come. Dad would like that.
~~~
SOL AND THE DREAM
Another major influence in my life was Solomon Jackson
Caudle, my grandfather and
my childhood idol.
Although he died when I was little, I remember trips with
Grandfather to Burbridge’s Ice Cream Parlor, the spot I
suspected was Heaven. Lifting me onto his shoulders, he
would carry me to the counter. We ordered double-dip cones,
licking them quickly before chocolate ran down the sides.
A slight, white-haired man with a gentle smile, he didn’t
look like a star among trial lawyers in Missouri, where we
lived, but he was. Mother had saved his letters, written
before I was born, and I re-read them so often as I grew up
that I knew them by heart. They revealed a warm, caring man.
When I asked Mother to describe what he had been like, she
hesitated. “Colorful,” she observed dryly.
She recalled one stifling August afternoon in the early
1900s, at the old stone courthouse across from his law
office in Warrensburg, Missouri. A flutter of fans and the
restless stir of the crowd overflowing the tiny courtroom
broke the charged silence when Sol began his final argument
in a murder trial. He alternately thundered and cooed at the
jurors, convincing them, as he was convinced, of his
client's innocence. Finally, he thrust a human skull high
above his head, invoking the judgment of God Almighty upon
the true perpetrator of the ghastly deed. The bedazzled
jurors returned a prompt acquittal.
Achieving his childhood dream of becoming a lawyer had been
difficult. Sol’s father, a Confederate veteran, died soon
after the Civil War. At eighteen, Sol made his way from
North Carolina to Missouri, where he got a job and saved his
money until he could afford to send for his mother. He
bought and farmed a small piece of land to support the two
of them. Eventually, he earned a teaching certificate and
was able, during his spare time, to study law in a local
attorney's office. At last, he passed the bar.
Grandfather hoped Mother would become a lawyer, too, a
shocking idea in the early 1900s. She firmly declined. My
birth rekindled his dream. If not his daughter, perhaps his
granddaughter might follow him into the legal profession.
Mother and Grandmother kept his image alive for me as I grew
up. I had no reason to suspect I didn’t know the whole truth
about my grandfather. Sol seemed better than Superman to me,
and I wanted to be just like
him. His dream for me evolved into my own.
Law school wasn’t easy, but when I felt too exhausted to
read another page, I thought of Sol. I remembered the
obstacles Grandfather had faced to become a lawyer, and
tried harder. The day I took my oath as an attorney, my
heart ached. Neither he nor my parents knew I had fulfilled
our dream. When I stood before my first jury, unsure and
afraid, I imagined I felt his soaring spirit within me. and
found the strength to fight and win.
Ten years later, I returned to Warrensburg to wander through
the building where his law office had been and the
courthouse where he had practiced. I dropped by the
Historical Society, hoping to find information about him.
The librarian helped me search.
The first newspaper clipping detailed his marriage to
Grandmother, “one of the county’s most charming young
ladies.” It also mentioned his appointment to the office of
public administrator, calling him, “one of our rising young
lawyers.”
When she found the next article, the librarian paused for a
moment, then handed the clipping to me. She looked away
while I read. “Caudle Pleads Guilty,” proclaimed the
headline of the December 18, 1903, Warrensburg Weekly
Standard Herald. My hands shook as I read. Sol had been
indicted for embezzlement. In what the article called a
“dramatic moment,” Grandfather rose in court and pled
guilty.
He had taken “small” amounts, totaling about four thousand
dollars, from fifty widows’ estates entrusted to him. He
received a two-year prison sentence, and that same day,
accompanied by a deputy, he left for prison in Jefferson
City.
The librarian handed me other articles. I read on in
disbelief, as the editorials referred to his shameful crimes
as "misdeeds." One asked, “Is Sol Caudle really a thief- a
bad man? “ The editor rushed to defend him, saying, “We
believe he is a criminal only because he committed what the
law designates as a crime!” He emphasized that Sol didn’t
“dissipate or gamble or speculate, but used the money to
take care of his wife, children and aged mother,” implying
that those facts somehow excused his actions!
I took a moment to fold away the remaining clippings that
the librarian had copied for me and managed to thank her,
struggling to keep my voice steady. She avoided my eyes.
Stunned, I headed to the cemetery, a quiet place atop a
hill. Birds sang, and flowers bloomed, and peace covered the
landscape like an early snowfall. All of them are buried
there --- Mother, Dad, Grandmother, and of course, Sol.
I sank to my knees at their graves. One moment I grieved for
something precious I had lost. Then I felt furious,
betrayed. They had let me build my dream around a lie, the
integrity and strength of my grandfather. They had even
encouraged me to become a lawyer, like him. I talked to
them. I had so many questions. Was he ever sorry? Did he
repay the money? Did Grandmother think of leaving him? How
did she feed her children during the long months of his
imprisonment? I covered my face with my hands and wept.
There would never be any answers.
Sol’s story didn’t end with prison. The next day, I found a
later headline, “Sol Caudle Returns!” The Governor pardoned
him, “at the solicitation of his many friends,” and restored
his full rights of citizenship. “Sol received a warm
greeting at the train from his devoted wife, friends and
family,” the story gushed. It went on to admonish readers
that, “He will find that his friends here are ready to
forget his error. .. No good citizen will throw a stone in
his way.” Ah, Grandfather, how did you inspire such loving
support?
I returned to my life in Houston, far from those graves on a
Missouri hilltop. Afterward, when I thought of Sol, I felt
disillusioned and sad. Weeks later, the mailman brought a
clipping the librarian had overlooked. The headline read,
“Sol Caudle Dies Friday Morning.” It outlined his life.
After prison, Grandfather resumed practice and became
successful in the following thirty years. He was City
Attorney for a time and developed into a legendary trial
attorney. The Baptist church overflowed at his funeral, and
the town's most prominent judges and attorneys were his
pall-bearers. The article concluded, “He was recognized by
the bench and bar as a lawyer of keen discrimination, with a
rare sense of justice and human nature.”
Over time, as I grew, I realized what courage it had taken
to return to those who had witnessed his disgrace and earn
their respect once more. Those he had hurt the most forgave
him, Mother, who adored him, and Grandmother, who never
spoke of him that her face did not soften in remembrance.
When he died, a whole town mourned. Could they have cared so
much had he not been, in the end, the man they always
believed him to be?
In Grandmother’s Bible, I found a typed quotation from an
Edwin Markham poem:
“Ah, great it is to believe the dream
When you stand in youth by the starry stream,
But a greater thing is to fight life through
And say at the end, the dream is true.”
Once again, I think of Sol with love. Not as my idol, for
idols permit no flaws, but as the man who overcame his past
and became the person I’m proud to call my grandfather. He
won his last case.
Grandfather Sol and Grandmother Addie
~~~
GRANDMOTHER’S DOLLAR
Today I had to empty Mother’s cedar chest, so that it can be
moved by the men who are coming to install new carpet. I
hadn’t gone through the chest’s contents in years, and it
wasn’t something I was eager to begin.
I was prepared for the rush of pleasure and pain memories of
lost loved ones bring. Or so I thought. As I picked up
Mother’s glasses, I pictured them sliding down her small
nose. Holding Dad’s pocket knife, I could see him eagerly
cutting the ribbon on Christmas packages. I read newspaper
clippings, fragile with age, and smiled at fifty-year-old
photographs that captured moments of our lives, and I was
doing fine. Then I stumbled onto Grandmother’s red leather
billfold.
A zipper runs around three sides of it, and on a whim, I
pulled the tab. Inside, I found two things, a picture of me
and a one dollar bill. What I saw was love.
Grandfather had been a successful lawyer, until the
depression hit, and clients stopped arriving at his office
door. He died in the mid-thirties, without insurance or
savings, and Grandmother came to live with Mom and Dad and
me. I was three.
Mom always worked, and when I rushed home from school to the
smell of chocolate cupcakes baking, it was Grandmother who
had them waiting for me. When I ran inside with a skinned
knee, she was always there with a Band-Aid and a soft lap to
crawl up on for comfort. She was a formidable opponent at
Tiddly Winks and Chinese Checkers. That single dollar bill,
which had been resting undiscovered in her billfold since
she died in 1950, reminded me of all of those things. But
most of all, it brought back memories of birthdays and
Christmases when I was little.
Grandmother had no money except for her monthly $12 Old Age
Assistance check. Yet on holidays she always hugged me and
handed me a card, with a dollar bill tucked inside. I
hurried off to the dime store, where it bought ribbons for
my hair, or a shiny metal bracelet, or a huge box of
crayons.
Here was one more present from my grandmother, a final
dollar that said, “I love you.” But what could I buy with a
dollar today? I wanted something I could keep, something
that would remain a visible symbol of her love. Dime stores
aren’t around any more, but away I drove to the Dollar
General Store.
For an hour, I browsed. I found colorful candles, but once
burned, they would be gone. A few paperback books were
available, but none seemed right for the occasion. Even
little ceramic figurines were two or three dollars, and I
was determined to spend no more than the dollar she had left
me.
Then I spotted a trivet with a white wooden border
surrounding a tile, on which was painted, “Happiness is home
made.” On the face of the tile were several pictures. One
was a pie, which reminded me of all the blackberry cobblers
she baked, and the peach pies, and the apple pies, because
she knew they were my favorites. I thought of how she used
to set aside strips of dough to sprinkle with cinnamon and
sugar and bake as my extra treat. I remembered the holiday
seasons when she stirred up luscious rolls of white divinity
candy, with pecans instead of walnuts, just for me.
Home made? Dainty doll clothes, sewn by hand, turned up
beneath the Christmas tree. I still have a peach satin
nightgown trimmed in lace, her creation for a doll named
Betty. Long ago, she made quilts with tiny, careful
stitches, to set aside for my hope chest.
I brought the trivet to the cash register, along with
several other items I needed to buy, and told the cashier I
wanted to pay for it separately. I showed him the dollar and
explained why it was special to me. He rang up the trivet,
took the worn bill, which had not been spent in over fifty
years, and didn’t even charge me tax.
That dollar bought a lot. It bought long-buried memories,
and the certain sense that I’d just been given a warm hug.
Our kids will be coming to dinner soon. I’ll bake a pie
and set it on the trivet to place before them. It will
remind me that I was loved, and it will say to them that
love endures. Passed from one generation to the next, it
goes on forever.
~~~
CHRISTMAS ON FOURTEENTH STREET
Share with me a time remembered. Thanksgiving has passed,
and my favorite time of year has come. It’s early December
in the 1930s, and I am six.
The country is beginning
to stir and emerge from the Great Depression. Our radios,
crackling with static, bring us the ominous ranting of a
European madman, but Europe is far away, and Hitler is their
problem. We twist our dials to Fibber McGee and Molly or
Amos and Andy.
Home is the upper floor
of a frame house on Fourteenth Street in Oklahoma City. In
front is a porch where we sit on hot summer nights, watching
fireflies and talking, until a breeze stirs and we’re cool
enough to sleep. A tall oak stands in the yard, spreading
shade where I play. Out back is a pear tree that pours forth
fragrant showers of blossoms in the spring and later, more
pears than we can eat. We rent it from Miss Hostettler for
twenty-two dollars a month. Though it’s in a fading part of
town, the house is solid and well-kept.
When you enter, you see
a landing above, with the only stained glass I’ve seen
outside of church. As evening falls, the setting sun shining
through the glass casts soft rainbows on the stairs. I hurry
inside and climb through the rainbows when Mama calls. I go
to my special place, the walk-in closet for my toys, and
perch atop the rollaway bed stored there when I want to be
alone and dream. Our ceilings are high, and the kitchen has
space enough for cooking, eating and playing dominoes.
We have an attic, too,
filled with boxes, trunks and hints of mystery, where I
sometimes choose to play. Not always, because I must cross
its length to the light switch. More often now I’m brave
enough to walk through the dark and turn it on. Some rainy
afternoons, I look at boxes of pictures from years past or
crank up the Victrola and listen to scratchy records like
“Ida, Sweet as Apple Cider.”
Soon, it will be
Christmas. I ask Mama if it isn’t time to buy our tree. She
turns from her Saturday chores to hug me. We hug a lot. She
is round and soft and smells faintly of vanilla. Generous
with smiles, she is smiling now, and the excitement in her
blue eyes matches my own. Christmas is her favorite time of
year, too.
She says, “Well, if we
are going to put up our tree today, we’d better go find it”
Off I race, calling
Daddy and Grandma, urging them to hurry.
Daddy goes out to start the Chevy, which has been around
longer than I have and is slow to get going in this weather.
At last the engine turns over, and we are on our way.
The winter is bleak and
grey. Flatness stretches as far a s you can see, with
nothing to stop the sharp, uncompromising wind, as it
whistles all the way down form Canada. Our lungs ache when
we breathe, and our bones feel brittle with the cold.
At the Christmas tree
lot. Daddy stamps his feet and blows on his hands. His nose
and cheeks are turning pink, but his eyes are shining, hazel
eyes, the color of my own. A slight man, he seems tall to
me. His dark hair is thinning on top.
“Here’s a pretty tree,”
he says, “And it’s reasonable, too.” Grandma adds, “Just
look how full it is.”
But Mama and I want a
tree that will touch the ceiling. The same debate arises
each year. They want a tree that will cost less of our
carefully allotted money. But this is a matter of principle
to Mama and me. As always, they laugh and give in.
We carry our prize home,
tied to the top of our car, and carry the heavy, green pine
into the living room, where it fills the air with the
fragrance of Christmas. Mama makes steaming hot chocolate to
warm us.
Dusty, our little, brown dog, hops around sniffing the tree.
When we first found her at the SPCA, she was frightened and
shy. Secure now, she seems excited, too.
When I brought her home,
she walked with a limp and needed shots for her liver. She
ran straight under Grandma’s bed and wet the floor. It was
not a good beginning. Nevertheless, when my folks saw she
was the dog I wanted, rather than the cute, cuddly puppy
they had expected me to choose, they stretched our cramped
budget to pay for her medicine. Now she is part of our
family. She snuggles into Grandma’s lap, her soft brown eyes
following our every movement.
While Daddy strings the lights, we unwrap each familiar
bauble. Finding my favorites is like meeting old friends
after an absence.
“Oh, look. This pink one is broken,” I say.
Mama shows me how to hang it so only the good side shows,
and it is as beautiful as ever.
When we’re almost finished, Grandma says, “Wait, I’ll hang
the icicles.” She’s afraid we’ll just toss them on
willy-nilly.Traces of Grandma’s youthful beauty linger in the erect,
graceful way she moves and the delicate skin she still tints
with rouge.One by one, she picks the icicles from the paper where they
have lain pressed since last year. When she finishes, we
stand hushed and proud.
With lights ablaze and star touching
the ceiling, this is our finest tree ever.
Then Daddy moves to the piano. His hands know the keys,
though he never read a note of music. Rich sound floods the
room, and heads bent close, we sing, “Joy to the world, the
Lord is come!”
His tenor rings out, strong and clear, and he holds back
nothing. Mama tries, but laughs, “I couldn’t carry a tune in
a basket.” No matter, what she lacks in tone, she makes up
in enthusiasm.
If ever I have known a moment when life is perfect, it is
now. The love we feel for one another surrounds and cradles
us all.
However, there is much to do before Christmas. First, I must
think about presents. Dusty is easiest. Her gift is always a
huge bone from the butcher at the grocery where Daddy works.
My folks had their own grocery before the Depression. I saw
its picture once. They lost it when they wouldn’t deny food
on their shelves to hungry customers who couldn’t pay. Now,
Daddy is in charge of the produce department in his Uncle
John’s store, Freeman-Langston. Mama says we must be
grateful he has a job in hard times like these.
We make most of our presents. Using patterns cut from
newspapers, Mama turns flowered feed sacks into pretty
dresses for me, trimmed with rick rack and ruffles. Grandma
sews dainty doll clothes.
My gift for Mama is a recipe book, which I’m being careful
to paste , cut and color as well as I know how. I can’t wait
to see her face when she opens it.
Daddy gave me a quarter too, so I can buy her a present in
the dry goods section of Freeman Langston, the only store I
know.
Finding the perfect offering takes time. Finally, I
spot an organdy apron. It's blue, Mama’s favorite color. I
present my quarter to the saleswoman and point, “I’d like
that apron, please.” She tries to direct me to other
choices, but I’m unshakeable. I just keep stretching out my
hand with the quarter. Another saleswoman whispers with her
for a moment, then the exchange is made. Finally, I march
away, clutching that apron.
Years will pass before I learn that its price was a dollar,
and that the saleswoman refused Daddy’s attempt to pay the
difference when he learned what had happened. Long after
she’s gone, I'll find a faded blue apron among Mama’s
treasured keepsakes. I’ll press it to my face, suddenly wet
with tears, hoping to find the faint scent of vanilla.
Daddy’s present is a cigar box to hold things he tosses on
his dresser. Mama helps me paste paper over it, and then
magazine pictures on top, so the words “Dutch Master” won’t
show through.
I'm making sachets for Grandma, pressing
cloves into oranges tied with ribbon. She can hang them in
her closet so her clothes will smell nice.
The promising smells of baking fill the house. I stir a
batch of peanut butter cookies, and Mama shows me how to
press them down with a fork. She cuts sugar cookies into
star shapes, and we spread them with pink and green icing,
occasionally eating one before it reaches the cookie jar.
Daddy cracks pecans for Mama’s fudge and Grandma’s divinity
and whistles as the pile of nut meats grows higher. They
form the candy into long rolls and wrap it in waxed paper.
It never lasts until Christmas, but we still have the
colorful ribbon candy from the store.
We get into the car one evening and drive to Nichols Hills
to see the wealthy people’s homes, lighted and decorated for
the newpaper’s Christmas competition. Driving slowly through
the streets, gazing in amazement at the wonderland before
us, we feel no envy. Who could be happier then we? We have
one another.
On Christmas Eve, Daddy reads The Night Before Christmas,
and I'm off to bed. Should I go to sleep so tomorrow will
come sooner, or stay awake for a glimpse of Santa Claus?
He’s sure to come. The letter to him that I placed under the
rug disappeared ages ago, so he’s bound to know I’ve been
good this year. Pressing my feet to the heated brick Mama
wrapped in a towel to keep me warm, I listen for sleigh
bells as I drift into sleep.
Christmas morning starts early. The minutes crawl as I wait
in bed until Daddy lights the stove and Mama makes chocolate
and coffee. Dusty is hopping around in giddy anticipation,
never taking her eyes off her bone, which she has spotted on
the tree.
Santa Claus has come while we slept! We unwrap our presents,
one at a time, to make the fun last longer, saving what
ribbons and paper we can for next year. I’m proud of the
packages I placed beneath the tree. I've put two bows on
some, to show extra love, and I always paste on lots of
Christmas seals, sure that more is better. After the last
hugs and thanks are given, I carry my presents to the big
walk-in closet, sit atop the roll-away bed and savor them.
Dusty slips in too, carrying her bone.
Mama and Grandma begin a flurry of activity in the kitchen.
There’s a knock at the door, and it’s Mr. Beck, who joins us
every year for Christmas dinner. He’s a raw-boned, jovial
man, with the weathered face and hands of a farmer, which he
is. Daddy met him at the Public Market when he was buying
produce for the store and Mr. Beck was selling his crop. He
has no family, and my folks can’t bear to see anyone alone
and lonely at Christmas. Whatever we have, they say, there’s
plenty to share with a friend.
Mr. Beck presses a silver dollar into my hand with a smile
and a “Merry Christmas!”
Only on special occasions does Grandma still set the table
with the elegant china and fragile pink crystal now before
us. These are remnants of a far more prosperous time, when
she and my Grandfather, an attorney, entertained many
prominent people, including Harry Truman, at gracious dinner
parties.
Daddy says the blessing, and I’m relieved that it is short.
The smell of turkey and dressing whets our appetites as we
sit down to eat. I spoon giblet gravy over a heaping mound
of mashed potatoes. Bright red cranberry sauce and stuffed
green celery add Christmas color.
We laugh and talk, and when we’ve finished Grandma’s pumpkin
pie, he opens the Book.
“We mustn't forget,” he says, “The meaning of Christmas is
love, God’s love for us and our love for each other. That
love goes on forever. It never ends.”
He reads words I know by heart, about the birth of a Baby,
then closes the Book with, “God bless us, every one.”
Grandma’s clock strikes. It's growing late, later than I
know. The hours strike away, become months, then years.
Grandma catches a cold, which becomes pneumonia. Soon, she’s
gone. Gone, too, is my childhood. I’m seventeen.
Dad is next. His heart attack comes without warning, without
even a moment for good-bye. I am thirty.
Incredibly, when I am thirty-six, a Christmas comes
without Mother. I don’t put up a tree. I find myself
shopping for dresses she'd like and hurry away, tears
stinging my eyes.
Decades pass, and time helps, but Christmas brings no joy. I
have carefully packed away everything that reminds me of
those happy times
On a December day, I stand outside our house on Fourteenth
Street. The oak I loved is gone. The house needs paint and
repairs. Only the merciless wind is the same. My loneliness
is as gnawing and unyielding as the cold. Then, without
voices or visions, but perhaps through some wisdom they
nurtured in me long ago, I feel them near.
“Come away. We aren’t there. Reach into your heart and you
will find us. Soon it will be Christmas. Remember its
meaning?”
I search the past, recalling forgotten words, “For God so
loved the world…."
Suddenly, I know what Dad said that Christmas years ago is
true. Our love for one another, like God's own love, will
endure forever, as warm and real as when we were together on
Fourteenth Street. That is God’s gift with Christmas.
Years and miles from Fourteenth Street, it’s Christmas once
again, and happiness fills my heart. Beloved faces surround
me. Husband, children, grandchildren.
Now I’m the one who reads, “Fear not, for behold, I bring
you good tidings of great joy....” The words are familiar,
and they fill my heart with peace.
Closing the Book Dad held, I seem to hear a gentle whisper,
“God bless us, every one.”
~~~
I have only a couple
of cousins left now, and I wrote this poem to express my
feelings of loss.
SOLE SURVIVOR
Oh my family, my people!
So many tales to tell
Of funny things and brave things
You did. I know them well.
And who will tell you story
After me, after me?
Will it be then that forever
All you were will cease to be?
Only I am left to mourn you.
Only I still speak your names.
After me, there will be no one
Who remembers whence we came.
I bore no child to follow,
To grow up warm and true,
No child who might continue
The love passed down from you.
There's no building I can build you,
No monument to last,
All I have is this brief moment
And the hope, before it's past,
My life may touch some other,
As your lives molded mine.
Perhaps then what was best in you
May live to challenge time.
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