At sixteen, they were sure they were meant to be together. It took them five years to realize their goal, but they married at twenty-one. She wore a blue dress with lace collar and cuffs that she made for herself on the family treadle sewing machine: He wore the best he had. They went into town and stood before the minister of the local church and vowed their vows. They went back to her Mom and Dad’s farm and her Mom had prepared a home-cooked meal and baked a cake—coconut. It was always her favorite. He helped his new father-in-law with the evening chores and, sometime, managed to pick a bouquet of wild flowers for the table. Later that evening, they walked back to their place--a house that was too old to repair properly with the means they had. The spaces between the boards of the siding and the holes in the roof occasionally afforded a view of the stars. He was not dashingly handsome nor was she ravishingly beautiful, but they knew love.
They shared a life together that encompassed most of life’s experiences: want and abundance; good times and bad; sickness and health. Fifty-one years later, he left her. She didn’t complain. She didn’t cry. She didn’t question why God had let this happen to her. Maybe I was the only one who noticed that the index finger and thumb of her right hand gripped the band of gold on her left hand as she sat quietly, in a blue dress, at the edge of his grave.
She had learned to sew as a young girl and made all of her clothes until her later years when her eyesight and manual coordination didn’t permit her to do so, and she always had a blue dress to wear to important functions or just to please him. His favorite color was red and she seemed to approve his choices. Almost every item in a house can be found in red, and he found them. Red wallpaper in the dining room, ok. Red furniture in the den, ok. Red, red, red. The only car they ever bought brand-new sported a white exterior and, yeah, a red interior. Maybe she did get tired of the color, just not of him. She had another twelve years without him and she filled them with all the things she couldn’t do with him or for him. She didn’t want to be a burden.
Eight years after he was gone, she turned eighty. I asked her if she would like a party and she got this little grin on her face and said she’d never had a party. I searched my memory and finally concluded that she was right. Through the years, we celebrated their anniversary and, also, her birthday in almost the same way each time—with a home-cooked meal and a coconut cake. Since we all enjoyed it so much (she did all the preparing), we didn’t think to change. After we three offspring married and had families of our own, we would have them and then, just her, to our homes for the same format. But a party, no. And so we started planning. At some point I asked her what her favorite color was and she said, “I don’t think I have one.” “Oh, c’mon, Mom, everyone has a favorite color.” “Well, your Dad’s was red and I always liked it too.” “So you want the color of your party to be red?” “Well, now that I think about it, I guess I do like purple.” “Well, ok, then, purple it shall be.”
It was fantastically fun to plan a party for someone who has never had one-- but who was more childlike than many children ever are. We invited the family and her very closest friends and I hoped I was up to the task of a party of this size on such short notice. We ordered a beautiful cake (that she didn’t have to bake) and had it sprayed with a lavender tint. We bought things for the house like towels and toss pillows and throw rugs and picture frames in all the shades of purple. We shopped for a new outfit for her that turned out to be a purple dress and a lilac sweater. She was pleased. And even more pleased that she had thought of a color that so delighted her.
Then, my husband and I had to take a long weekend trip all the way across the country to attend a family celebration for one of his family. It was a very emotional trip because he had not seen many of his family members for years. Memories and almost forgotten feelings abounded. On the plane trip home, I remember thinking, well, I am very tired, but at least most of the things are taken care of for Mom’s party next week.
The answer machine light was flashing when we got home and I thought it was broken from the number of calls it was registering. As I started listening, it became apparent that people were coming to the party that I didn’t know. Mom had used my absence to invite every group at her church in which she participated or ever had participated, and all the senior citizen groups at the community center and everyone in her neighborhood and at the grocery store and that did her hair and that delivered her mail and that read her utility meters and that mowed her lawn and anyone else that she happened to notice. They were all coming. I went over to her house. “Mom, do you know that you are going to have 2 plus people for every year of your life?” “Well, honey, won’t that be something?”
And something it was. In my memory’s eye and in the pictures of that day, everything is in a haze of purple. What color is love? In all my growing up years, it was blue and red. Is it just a coincidence that together…they make purple?
Posted by The Editor for Gigi.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Happy Birthday to Me
One year on my birthday, Hubs had not said a word about it being my birthday. I didn’t mention it, either, because I thought maybe he had a surprise planned. We worked together at the police department. We got up, got ready, went in in the morning, had lunch together, drove home together. Not a word. I think I made soup and cornbread muffins for dinner. Still, not a word. We watched TV while we ate dinner. There was a commercial about someone having a birthday. Even that was not enough to jog his memory. We went to bed early because he was tired.
The next day he had to work but I did not. I decided that since my birthday was forgotten the day before that I would indulge myself by staying in bed a little later than usual. That was cut short, however, by the phone ringing. It was Hubs. He had a list of errands that he needed me to run. After giving me numerous chores to do, I snottily asked, “Is there anything else I can do for you?” Clueless, he said “No.” Then I asked, “Is there anything else you want to say to me?” And, of course, he started to get a little irritated with my attitude, so he said, “Like what?” in a rather snotty tone of his own. When I said, “Oh, I don’t know, like ‘Happy Birthday’ maybe?” he said, “I didn’t forget! I was going to do something—“ and I said, “Really? When? Because my birthday was yesterday!” (Crickets chirping…pins dropping…)
We laugh about it now, but ever since then he has been very careful to remember my birthday, on my actual birthday. I just had another one—the darn things seem to be a yearly occurrence!
(After a very long day of laundry, cleaning, kids, and making my own cake…) Hubs had arranged for his mom to come over to watch the girls, made dinner reservations, and even got me a gift.
I am the one who just turned one year older, but I think Hubs might be starting to grow up.
MIL brought me a cake. (I had made my own, of course, but if I hadn’t she wouldn’t have brought one.) Dinner was at Café Sevilla—anyone living in So.Cal or visiting HAS TO GO! It is fabulous!
And when I got home, Joy had fallen asleep on the couch with Grandma. I turned down the covers on her bed and Hubs carried her up to her room. Just as he was about to place her in her bed she sleepily opened her eyes. She smiled, clapped her hands twice, and said, “Oh, Mom! I didn’t know you were going to be home so soon!” Then she kissed me good-night and went to sleep. Now that’s a good birthday!
Posted by The Editor for Busy Body.
The next day he had to work but I did not. I decided that since my birthday was forgotten the day before that I would indulge myself by staying in bed a little later than usual. That was cut short, however, by the phone ringing. It was Hubs. He had a list of errands that he needed me to run. After giving me numerous chores to do, I snottily asked, “Is there anything else I can do for you?” Clueless, he said “No.” Then I asked, “Is there anything else you want to say to me?” And, of course, he started to get a little irritated with my attitude, so he said, “Like what?” in a rather snotty tone of his own. When I said, “Oh, I don’t know, like ‘Happy Birthday’ maybe?” he said, “I didn’t forget! I was going to do something—“ and I said, “Really? When? Because my birthday was yesterday!” (Crickets chirping…pins dropping…)
We laugh about it now, but ever since then he has been very careful to remember my birthday, on my actual birthday. I just had another one—the darn things seem to be a yearly occurrence!
(After a very long day of laundry, cleaning, kids, and making my own cake…) Hubs had arranged for his mom to come over to watch the girls, made dinner reservations, and even got me a gift.
I am the one who just turned one year older, but I think Hubs might be starting to grow up.
MIL brought me a cake. (I had made my own, of course, but if I hadn’t she wouldn’t have brought one.) Dinner was at Café Sevilla—anyone living in So.Cal or visiting HAS TO GO! It is fabulous!
And when I got home, Joy had fallen asleep on the couch with Grandma. I turned down the covers on her bed and Hubs carried her up to her room. Just as he was about to place her in her bed she sleepily opened her eyes. She smiled, clapped her hands twice, and said, “Oh, Mom! I didn’t know you were going to be home so soon!” Then she kissed me good-night and went to sleep. Now that’s a good birthday!
Posted by The Editor for Busy Body.
Monday, February 1, 2010
The British Invasion
When Joy was about 2 ½ she was looking at her naked little self in the mirror and she pointed to her chest and said, “Mommy what are these?” She caught me completely off guard. I hadn’t prepared myself for how I was going to answer these “human anatomy” questions. So, in that split second, I had to make a decision. And I decided that I was going to give her the correct word for “them” and I told her, “They are called breasts.” And in her sweet, little 2 ½ year old voice she said, “Mommy, I have ‘brits’ just like you.” I almost (stupidly) corrected her, but then I decided that her mispronunciation could possibly save me some embarrassment in the future, and so I let ‘brits’ stand.
Fast forward to a few months later when Marlo was born and I brought her home from the hospital: I sat down on the couch and began nursing her. Joy looked over at me, totally alarmed, and said, “Why are you letting that baby bite your brits?” (That baby? --like Marlo wasn’t our new baby, the one we had been waiting for for 9 months!) I had to explain nursing to Joy, who was a little indignant, but totally interested. And so the fascination with brits began.
Suddenly, all of her play incorporated brits. We would be sitting there, Joy playing with her dolls, and out of the blue she’d pull her shirt up, put her baby to her chest, and say, “Bite it, baby!” Or I would look over and the doll would be under her shirt, she’d be tapping her foot impatiently, looking up to the sky, and then she’d tell me, one mother to another, “I have to feed my babies my brits, all the time!” This went on for weeks. (Luckily for her, she didn’t have any problems with the babies latching on or with her milk production—if she had she would have been in BIG trouble. She has a lot of babies!)
Finally it dawned on her one day—why was Marlo the only one who got to eat from my brits? So she started asking, “Mommy, can I try your brits?” And I have read the books and the websites and I know that the experts say you can let your toddler try nursing if they ask. I, however, am not one of those moms who is comfortable with that so I explained to her that when she was a baby she “ate my brits” too (for 19 months, in fact!). And that apparently appeased her.
Then Joy’s curiosity branched out…and the questions started up again. “Does that baby (Marlo again) eat Daddy’s brits, too?” “Do brits have different flavors?” “How come she only eats your brits?” “Do your brits ever run out of milk?”
One day we went in to the office. Marlo was getting fussy and a woman remarked that maybe she was hungry. Joy was sitting at Hubs’ desk. She stood up on the chair, put her palms on the desk, and said in her loudest, clearest voice, “Yeah, she’s hungry—that baby eats Mom’s brits!” (So much for not being embarrassed by Joy’s obsession with breasts!)
Marlo is now 16 months old. She only nurses once a day—the last feeding of the day, right before bed. I think it’s more of a security/comfort thing for her than anything else. One of these days she’ll just quietly let go and move on to nursing-free toddler-hood. And though I’ll be ready for it, it will be an end of an era…no more biting of the brits, no more babies in the house.
We move on, we grow, we change, we evolve. Joy will learn that brits are breasts. Marlo will go to sleep without nursing. My body will be my own again. And (sadly) the ‘brit-ish invasion will be a thing of the past…
Posted by The Editor for Busy Body.
Fast forward to a few months later when Marlo was born and I brought her home from the hospital: I sat down on the couch and began nursing her. Joy looked over at me, totally alarmed, and said, “Why are you letting that baby bite your brits?” (That baby? --like Marlo wasn’t our new baby, the one we had been waiting for for 9 months!) I had to explain nursing to Joy, who was a little indignant, but totally interested. And so the fascination with brits began.
Suddenly, all of her play incorporated brits. We would be sitting there, Joy playing with her dolls, and out of the blue she’d pull her shirt up, put her baby to her chest, and say, “Bite it, baby!” Or I would look over and the doll would be under her shirt, she’d be tapping her foot impatiently, looking up to the sky, and then she’d tell me, one mother to another, “I have to feed my babies my brits, all the time!” This went on for weeks. (Luckily for her, she didn’t have any problems with the babies latching on or with her milk production—if she had she would have been in BIG trouble. She has a lot of babies!)
Finally it dawned on her one day—why was Marlo the only one who got to eat from my brits? So she started asking, “Mommy, can I try your brits?” And I have read the books and the websites and I know that the experts say you can let your toddler try nursing if they ask. I, however, am not one of those moms who is comfortable with that so I explained to her that when she was a baby she “ate my brits” too (for 19 months, in fact!). And that apparently appeased her.
Then Joy’s curiosity branched out…and the questions started up again. “Does that baby (Marlo again) eat Daddy’s brits, too?” “Do brits have different flavors?” “How come she only eats your brits?” “Do your brits ever run out of milk?”
One day we went in to the office. Marlo was getting fussy and a woman remarked that maybe she was hungry. Joy was sitting at Hubs’ desk. She stood up on the chair, put her palms on the desk, and said in her loudest, clearest voice, “Yeah, she’s hungry—that baby eats Mom’s brits!” (So much for not being embarrassed by Joy’s obsession with breasts!)
Marlo is now 16 months old. She only nurses once a day—the last feeding of the day, right before bed. I think it’s more of a security/comfort thing for her than anything else. One of these days she’ll just quietly let go and move on to nursing-free toddler-hood. And though I’ll be ready for it, it will be an end of an era…no more biting of the brits, no more babies in the house.
We move on, we grow, we change, we evolve. Joy will learn that brits are breasts. Marlo will go to sleep without nursing. My body will be my own again. And (sadly) the ‘brit-ish invasion will be a thing of the past…
Posted by The Editor for Busy Body.
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