When
my older sister, Melissa, left home for the first time, went off to college at Illinois, our whole family packed up
in our van and drove her to Champaign.
Before we left I encountered my mother in my sister’s bedroom. I saw her
squatting down and slipping an envelope into one of Melissa's bags. I asked her
“What are you doing, Chickadee?” She didn’t know I was there, so it
startled her and she fell back on her ass. I helped her up and she said
“I’m just leaving a little note for your sister to find when she gets to
school. It’s what parents do.”
After
we dropped Melissa off, spent some time on campus, and said our good-byes, my
Dad said to me, “Maybe you should drive home.” He sat in the passenger
seat next to me and my Mom sat between my younger brother and sister in the
back. About halfway through the ride she fell asleep. My mother did
this, whenever she was stressed or sad. She had a tendency to sleep. One
time after a big rain she floated our Buick into a big puddle in the road and
instead of calling anyone, walked home and went to her bed. We always had
a saying in our house regarding my mother:, “When the going gets tough, the
tough take a nap.”
My
mother grew up in a good family but not always with a lot of resources. She
lived on farms and in a house without indoor plumbing that was owned by my
great-grandfather until she was twelve. Despite these circumstances, she did
well at school, was very popular, and with some help, was able to go to off to
Ball State Teacher’s College (as it was called in those days), which is where
she first met my father and thought he was an idiot, who she would have nothing
to do with but came around to.
She
studied art and teaching. When she first got out of school, while my dad was in
the army for a couple of years, she taught kindergarten in Elkhart,
Indiana. Dad persisted, wrote a lot of love letters from the Black Forest
of Germany, and after he came back, they were married. He did well and eventually she became a good corporate
wife. She was an excellent mother and neighbor but she never let go of her
art. She always had a space, usually in the laundry room, where she would
go to make things and watch old black and white Godzilla and monster
movies. She was so very talented. I would work hard to do a sketch
and she would slide a copy of People magazine over and do a drawing that
looked like it was a carbon copy of the cover in about ten minutes. Most
of her stuff was mixed media and you never knew what she would come up with,
but what you did know was that it would always have owls in it. I don’t
know why she liked owls so much, but she did. It figured into a lot of the
presents we gave her.
A
lot of people don't know how I got my nickname, T.S. They assume it is because
of my initials, which is in small part what it is about. Where it really came
from though is that when I was a kid. I used to carry around everywhere a book, The Collected Poems of T.S. Eliot.
My mother bought it for me and subsequently gave me that nickname. I still keep
the nickname and that book by my side always.
A
year after Melissa, I went down to Illinois. We played out the same routine we
had before with her only with a lot more stuff, because I wanted to bring all
of my books. After again spending some time on campus and having lunch, I
hugged my parents good-bye and went into my dorm to unpack. One of the first
things I did was look through my things to see where a letter from my mother
might be. There was none. Later on, when Melissa and I were having our
weekly lunch at the diner, I said something about it to her and she said, “I
wouldn’t take it personally. I was the first one out and I’m a girl.
Maybe she just felt like needed to give me some motherly advice.” That made
sense to me, so I let it go.
When
you go to college I think the three things that hit you are these. First,
for every great thing you did in high school there are just as many kids who
did the same thing. You might have been a big fish in a small pond at one
point, but now you’re in an ocean with a lot of big fish. Second, you
start to understand freedom and choices. I still remember the day it was
storming like crazy and I had to walk to class across campus. I went outside
with my umbrella and then thought to myself, “They don’t take attendance in
this lecture. I can read the book. I’m going back to bed.”
Retrospectively, it wasn’t a good choice. You learn how to pay for all the
choices you make like that. The third thing is the realization that you are on
your own. If something needs to get done, you’re going to have to do it
yourself. Your mom and dad aren't there to take care of things. I think
self-reliance is the best lesson we learn when we go out on our own. My mom and
dad were wise enough to let me learn these lessons on my own.
I
was in school for a time that was a bit longer than most kids. I was
working at the university and still studying as my friends all graduated. When
I was done learning, I came home. My girlfriend at the time, Karen, drove
down her parents’ station wagon and helped move me out of my apartment.
At the time we had just recently found out, while we are spring break in
Florida, that my mother had cancer. Mom did not make my graduation. When
we got to my parents’ house and started moving things back into my old room my
mother came down to where my brother, my girlfriend and I were carrying boxes
in from the car. She said, “What are you doing?” I said “I’m moving
my stuff into my room.” She said “Oh.” I asked, “Is that a
problem?” She said “No, T.S. it’s not a problem. I just thought you would
want to get your own place.” I said, “That is ultimately the plan but
until I get a job, I was kind of hoping I could hang out here for awhile.” She
smiled and said “That is perfectly fine…as long as it is not permanent.”
I kissed her on the cheek. “Rest assured, chickadee, I have no intention
of living in my parents’ basement for the rest of my life.”
The
time I spent with my family after I left college went by very fast. It was fun
though. I strung together a bunch of part-time jobs as I tried to figure out
where I was going to start my career and spent a lot of time with my mother.
She was a different woman then from what she was when I was growing up. It used
to be that she would not leave the house unless she was wearing a tailored
suit, had done her hair, and put on lipstick. Now, she wore jeans and
even sometimes an old Japanese baseball shirt I bought at a resale shop that
shrunk in the wash.. She worked in her gardens. When she was working in
her laundry studio and there were no good episodes of “Chan-Holmes Theater” or
"Godzilla" on, she would listen to rock music. Some of her
favorites were songs by the Rolling Stones, “I Don’t Like Mondays” by the
Boomtown Rats, and Jim Croce’s “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown.” I don’t know why. I did,
however, like watching her dancing around to the music and singing along.
I
also liked being able to sit on the back porch with her, drinking wine spritzers,
and talking like adults. One night we got into a discussion about semantics. I
finished it by saying, "Mom, the thing you need to know about me is that I
am not an anti-semantic." She laughed hard and punched me in the arm. I always
liked drawing faces on eggs at night and making her laugh in the morning. My
father just shook his head and said, "What am I going to do with you two?
Get a job, Tom."
Six
months after I came home, I got engaged, a job at a publishing company, and
signed the lease on a small apartment near Wrigley Field in Chicago that would be our first home together.
Karen, my fiancé now, and all of my friends came to help me move in. When we
were done packing up the vans and cars, I went to look for my mom. She
was out back trimming the lilacs. I said “We’re going now.” She got up
off of her knees but wouldn’t look at me. She said, “Wow. You’re really
going away for good now, aren’t you, T.S.?” She started to cry. I pulled
her around and hugged her. I said “I’ll be back for visits, Chickadee, and you
and Dad will come visit me. Besides in another six months we’re gonna have a
wedding.” She said, "Yes, the gift you brought home to me." I nodded,
and said, "You have another daughter now, Chickadee." She kissed me
on the cheek and then I went away for good.
A
big part of my mother’s day was always writing lists, and notes, and letters to
her family in Indiana; to old friends. She was left-handed, used a fountain
pen, but never had a drop of ink on her arm. She did pattern-less crossword puzzles with a fountain pen. When you got correspondence
from Patra, you knew it was from her because she had such distinctive
handwriting. It almost looked like casual calligraphy. Even though I only lived 40 minutes away, she still always wrote me letters so I would have something nice in the mailbox at the end of the day.
When
Mom died, I was reading As I
Lay Dying by William
Faulkner. It was probably a poor reading choice at the time. I still can't
re-read it now or see the movie version of it. My mother’s time came suddenly
and swift. My Dad told told us on Sunday to be prepared by Wednesday. I
couldn't understand because she looked well, but that is exactly what happened. She took to her bed and on
Wednesday she left us. It broke my heart like nothing else had before. I still can't
look at lilacs anymore like I used to.
When
I worked in a bookstore in high school I bought on my employee discount a
beautiful copy of the collected works of Shakespeare. It was bound in
green leather and all the pages had gold gilded edges. The paper in the
book was very thin, and the thing was quite unwieldy so it wasn’t a practical
book to read or use for classes, but I loved it. I mostly just trucked it
around with me because it was part of what my grandmother used to refer to as
someone’s “precious plunder.” I still have it and it sits on the coffee
table in my living room.
When my oldest son, Ben, was in the early years of high school he
had to read “Hamlet.” He forgot his book at school and when I got home
from work one Friday he asked if he could try to use the big book to keep
reading over the weekend. I said “Sure.” I went out into the garage to
sit and do my usual thinking; to watch the rain. Despite my wife’s
protests, I always used my garage as a front porch. A few minutes
later Ben came out. He said, “Dad, when I opened your book a letter fell
out. Mom said I should give it to you.”
He handed it to me. It was a small sealed envelope that still smelled of
lavender. When I saw the handwriting on the outside that said, "For T.S.," I knew exactly who it was from. Ben went back in the house.
I opened it and started reading. “My dear T.S….it is hard to believe that you are going to college when
it seems like just yesterday you were my curious little boy. I am so proud of
you...” I looked out at the clouds and I smiled.
As you can imagine, when Ben went off to college there was a
secretly placed letter for him to find in his bag when he unpacked. Matt
bolted in such a strange way that I had to send his in a book he left behind
too, A Room of One’s Own. In around six months I have one more to write for
my youngest, Meredith
In later days I’m sure there will be more to come, for children
yet unnamed, from their grandfather.
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