Aunt Anna's Transition

This is September 21, 2011, approaching the one-month passing of my dear aunt.  So, now I'd like to celebrate transitions, to recognize that closing doors are indeed doors, portals to new experiences.  Aunt Anna passed away on Tuesday, August 23, at 5:05 pm, and Friday, August 26, the family began the formal process of saying farewell, remembering her life well-lived, as she touched ours so profoundly.

The funeral home's "visiting" room where we gathered was far larger than was needed, for most of those attending were family.  My aunt has outlived most of her friends from the garden club, church, and community.   It's been many years since Uncle Clayton sold his last boat and withdrew their membership from the yacht club.  During the visitation, the grown children of Aunt Anna, of her sisters and brother, my dad, were busily catching up since many of us live several states apart, and as usual, have busy lives with new retirement for some, grown children, and for many, a wallet full of pictures and stories of grandchildren.  We could hear around the room, "We have let so much time go by" and "It's so good to see you."

And, of course, we fondly reminisced.  One of my memories brought smiles:  Auntie Anna's mobility challenges of the most recent years had her spending most of her time whizzing around her house's first floor in a wheelchair.  Greg and I enjoyed watching her in her kitchen, sometimes from a vantage point in the tv room looking back through the door to see her busily foot-pulling her chair back and forth.  Greg and I agreed she brought to mind a carnival duck-shoot, and she was the duck, only she would be singing as she came in and out of view of the kitchen door on her way to the kitchen sink or back across to the laundry room.

As one of my dad's four sisters, she carried "the gene" as do I:  we love to eat out.  We look forward to it and we plan our day around it.   And for meals at home, she had enough of her old world shopping attitude from her parents to feel the need to visit Publix daily where the staff all knew her by name.  It was serious business to sniff the canteloupe, and closely eye the pork chops.  Once or twice she told me how to select eggplant by whether its bottom had a recessed dimple, indicating the female, or a flat end, the male (if I remember correctly, I believe the better one has the flat end because the eggplant has fewer seeds, and is therefore less bitter.  Although, it seems to me, that equating bitterness with being female is counterproductive.  So, let's just forget that for now . . .).  

Saturday at 2 pm we gathered once again, this time at Tampa's Christ the King Catholic Church in its sleekly modern chapel, where the early afternoon sunlight streamed through turquoise, blue, and green stained glass windows, and onto the pale blond pews.  Following the brief service, including Mass, we were led, with three police-car escorts, to the graveyard several miles away for our final farewell before Anna was interred in a third floor crypt.  At age 92, Uncle Clayton held up splendidly and joined us at his home for a traditional Lebanese feast provided by Byblos, a local restaurant.  The rest of the afternoon, into the early evening, we stayed together, holding each other in the combined love of family and funny stories, until exhaustion set us on our way.

Now I can feel Aunt Anna's warming presence, as I have often felt that of my two wonderful parents.  And even though I can't call her on the phone or visit with her in her kitchen, I know that her spirit is near, alive and well.

I Love Birthdays!

I love my birthdays!  I've given up getting bent out of shape over just how many I've celebrated.  That's a threshold I've crossed that has freed me.  On my birthdays, now, instead of moaning about my age, I say what I want to do and where I want to go.  And doing so ALWAYS involves restaurants.

I also use my birthday for all it's worth.  Most of my life I've chosen to yield to others' comfort and choices.  Not on my birthday, baby.  Nooo. I proclaim this day (September 9) to be mine mine mine.

But the best part is that I get phone calls and cards.  And sometimes they even start before the big day.  My friend, Sue, presented me with a beautiful card and a spoon rest that she saw perfectly matched the colors in our Florida kitchen. How thoughtful!  My next card was waiting on the kitchen bar when I went downstairs this morning.  Sweet professions of LOVE.  Yessiree.

The first call this morning came from my buddy, Mary Ida, at the university where I taught.  She took time from her hectic morning at her desk to tell me how much she's been thinking about me and gosh, we need to get together.

Not long after that call, my cell phone rang again:  this was my stepson, Chris, and daughter-in-law, Tisha, calling from Rwanda to sing across the ocean and two continents!  Holy cow!

Later, while Greg and I were out getting a haircut, my friend, Cindy, called from Florida to wish me a great day and weekend.  Best yet, she and her husband, Jim, are, in three days, flying in for a visit, their first time to West Virginia.  By the way, my hairdresser's birthday is today, too, and she is exactly half my age.  We won't go there right now.

I'm on a roll!  So, I says to Greg, "Let's head on down to the post office to get my cards."  On the way, my brother, Karl called to check in and to tell me he misses me  (He actually forgot it was my birthday, but something inspired him to call today --first time in a couple of weeks.  So there you go).    

At the post office, I picked up my cards from my other brother, Ronald, my local friends, Jack and Weezie, and a sweet friend named Stephanie and her son, Willie.  THEN, before you know it, my phone rang and Ronald, from his Pittsburgh-area office, cleared his throat and sang the opening bars of "Happy Birthday" very badly.  But beautifully.  If he only knew I had put him on "speaker."  While I was standing in Ben Franklin's parking lot listening to my song, a local friend stopped by with baby party gear -- pink balloon, plates, napkins, and streamers.  Seems it's her daughter's first birthday today.  It's ok, I'll share.  I'm just like that.

Then back home and Weezie called.  A bit later, my son, Nathan, called from the road, heading out for a weekend of hiking with his buddy, Ben.  Nathan sounded so good as he wished me happy birthday and told me he loves me!  Yessss!  We talked until he drove into a dead zone, but Mama's happy.

Early this evening, my stepson, Kevin, presented me with a beautiful card decorated with lavender and sentiments of sweet spiritual knowing.

While writing this I received yet another call -- this from my nephew, Jonathan, and his mother, my sister, Karen, and another horrible rendition of "Happy Birthday" -- our family has never been accused of having singing talent.

It's eight pm and I'm holding out for a call from my son, Michael.  He likes to keep me waiting.

Now, about the restaurant.  I've relaxed and enjoyed the attention so much, that I forgot to plan where to go for my birthday dinner!  And since it is eight pm, I suppose the best thing to do is to proclaim tomorrow to be Birthday, PART 2.  I'm thinking Olive Garden.

*At ten pm, I'm returning to this post, to let you know that I heard from another friend, Debbie, and then, lo and behold, Michael!  I never lost hope!

Thanks to all my wonderful family and friends, I know that I'm loved.  And it didn't take my birthday to show me.  But I sure do like it anyway.  My next birthday will be here before I know it.
Love and kisses to each and every one of you.
(OK, already, I'm 62.  Sheesh.)

Where it Started

Most of my blog covers travel reminiscences.  Here, I'm reaching way back to the beginning of my independent adventures . . .

Among the first, not with my family, is a trip to Europe with two college friends; actually, my adventures had started early in that I had been in college away from home for extended periods of time.  Although I had very little money--ok, no money--still I dreamed of the big world outside my dorm walls and schoolbooks.  Following my graduation, I was going to be a dedicated teacher, but before that I craved adventure!  Not too long into my college life, I felt wings, the tug of flying away to imagine myself into the great places I'd read about.  

Where does this wanderlust come from?  I don't know -- maybe from my father's, the Lebanese, side:  as a very young man, my grandfather came to America, by way of Ellis Island, to join his brother;  my grandmother's arrival from Beirut was as a child, as circumstance of a chronically ill mother, my great-grandmother, brought her across the ocean to live with an older brother.   On my mother's side were Scottish-Irish settlers to America: in 1770,  my great-great-great-great-grandparents died on the ship and were buried at sea somewhere between Dublin and New York.  Their son, my great-great-great-grandfather, who was taken in at the age of 12 by the ship's captain, left New York at 18 to eventually find a new home in the frontier of western Virginia after his service with a Pennsylvania detachment in the Revolutionary War.  Perhaps my wanderlust is honest, born of the genes.

It wasn't ever enough for me to view distant lands as an outsider.  I wanted much more than to simply observe.  I wanted to feel a part of the people, to become them,  to thrust myself into their place, their time, their history, to push my hand into the indentations of the worn tracks of cobbled roads and detect the vibrations of the wheels that put them there;  to sniff the cooking fires, and from the hearths, to see the houses, to feel the lives of those who lived far before me.  So, I approach travel this way.  I am the dreamer, and the adventure seeker.

I guess I have a fairly good imagination, enough to  cancel out the hum of power lines, the rumble of traffic, the cacophany of modern chatter, to listen for the echoes.  My first trip was not disappointing on that count because my companions, my college girlfriends, Carol and Becky, were just as enthusiastic, and they, therefore, tolerated, as well as encouraged, my excitement.  Carol, with her political science degree and her love of history, Becky with her art education degree and her artistic talent, and I with my love of literature, their tales, and all things exotic, received special dispensation from our dean at West Virginia University to miss our graduation ceremony to catch our flight.  So there I was,  four months before my 22nd birthday, plunging headlong into cultures so unlike that of my Appalachian roots.

In order to get the best deal possible, we had purchased the excursion fare with Icelandic Airlines which required an early May flight and our stay of 21 to 45 days before our return.  Imagine!  Requiring us to stay a minimum of 21 days!  Lucky for me, Becky and Carol were as happy as I to be abroad for the whole 45 days allowed.  And while we were there, Carol's sister, then living in Germany, booked our return flight for us.  On the 45th day we presented ourselves to the ticket counter in Luxemburg to return to America, and discovered an error had been made-- the flight wasn't available that day!  We were provided vouchers for a hotel room, cab fare and dinner, so, thanks to Icelandic, we had 46 days.

To finance my trip, I had gathered money from the bit of cash I received as graduation gifts;  the remainder I borrowed from a local bank in my small home town, with my father as co-signer.  By the end of the trip, I had spent somewhere near the astounding figure of 900 dollars, including my airfare and bus fares to and from New York City, as well as train fares, hotels, meals, and museum admissions in about seven countries.  People, we're talking quite a few years ago.  Frommer's book, Europe on $5 a Day, was our guide, and with it we traveled as the Europeans, locating family-run hotels down quiet residential streets and multi-floored walkups along busy thoroughfares.  In cities, we took subways and buses, or we walked.  And in the villages, of course, we strolled.  Our cost-savings were points of pride:  I remember one dinner in Rome, when I had spaghetti, salad, bread, and a glass of wine for the equivalent of $1.27.  Even in 1971 that was quite a deal.

One memorable room was in Paris, on the fifth floor -- with no elevator.  But we had an en suite bathroom and a window that opened onto a psuedo-balcony from which we could see the Pantheon, if we leaned out and craned our heads to the right.  An added bonus was that a police precinct was next door and each evening young officers in uniform congregated on the sidewalk below our window, waiting to receive prisoners from surrounding smaller stations unloading from police vans.  The officers would look up to our window and meow.  "Hellooo, beautiful! (meow) Hellooo, Pretty! (meow)."  We really liked that room.

Traveling can enrich us, entertain us, and educate us in any number of ways, including creative problem-solving.  Companions who must spend every minute together, as we did for so many weeks, eventually tested our ability to get along.  Not for me, however, as I had always been the peacemaker.  Toward the end of our trip while we were staying in a chilly London hotel, Becky was certain that Carol was wearing her pantihose, a claim which Carol stubbornly refused to consider.  When Carol finally relinquished the pantihose, I washed them so that Becky would see that they were completely restored to her.  In my enthusiastic efforts, I said, "See, Becky -- no problem.  They're washed."  At which point I hung them on a chair back near the gas-fired heater.  Except that I pushed the chair too close, and the legs of the pantihose melted together.  My horror at what I'd done to fix the problem was met with gleeful whoops from both Carol and Becky.  Thank goodness, peace was restored.  And it only took one pair of fused pantihose.  Whew.

Boxes

Her back nearly broken under the weight of the lessons of her mothers
an iron box big enough to hold the family balanced there.
Shifting her shoulders under the load, feeling the pinch and the blister,
adjusting and fitting against the pull of time and anguished prayer.

Loaded with values, shoulds, and the repeated "you must remember who you are."
Mother shifted it onto my shoulders, left me with this and to proclaim
"Remember where you come from,
and the fragile value in your name."

I saw in her eyes the strain of that box, and took it on, knowing it was my time.
Until I set it down to see what would happen.
No headlines appeared in the newspaper,
and no whispers reported my crime.

Before, it had threatened to topple and take me and the family to hell,
for every transgression and temptation I pondered.
It was something of which I'd been warned --
more times than I could tell.

She's gone now, and with her, the lost years of bowed head and pitiful care.
Now there's no need to tell her that the box, once opened,
released the rules
to float away in the air.

She speaks to me in whispers and shows me my path is clear,
and that the box was full of nothing
but expectations and shadows
of those things once counted so dear.