Lost in the landmine

January 18, 2008

This picture was taken at a centennial celebration of the 20th Century Literary Club to which Mama and I both belonged for a number of years. At the end of last year (we meet from October - May) Mama tendered her resignation, citing my father's health and her fear that he might have even greater need of her tender care when meetings resumed this year.

The first meeting of the new year was on October 21, on what would have been her 84th birthday, just three days after her death. I am the recording secretary for the club this year, and a thoughtful fellow member came by to pick up the recording book. She had called me to offer her condolences, and I remembered that this task needed to be done, and she obliged. 

Today was our second meeting of the year, on the one-month anniversary of her death. I tried not to think about it too much, because I was also the scheduled speaker for the month, giving essentially the same program I gave last week to another literary club without so much as a sniffle.

I don't know that it was -- I suspect it was sitting at the little round table in the back where she and I always huddled, usually with Joyce and her daughter Emelie, or Bonnie and her daughter Linda, or Jule and her daughter Carol, or Frances and her daughter Virginia -- that made something shift on its axis, but as I launched into leading the club in our collect, I was overcome and unable to recover sufficiently to continue.  As it happens, I was sitting with Virginia and her Mama, and Virginia moved over, placed her arm around my shoulder, and finished this beautiful prayer for me, the one we hear read every month at our meetings: 

"Keep us, oh God, from pettiness;

Let us be large in thought, in word, in deed.

Let us be done with fault-finding, and leave off self-seeking.

May we put away all pretense

And meet each other face to face -- without self-pity and without prejudice.

May we always be generous and never hasty in judgment.

Let us take time for all things.

Make us grow calm, serene, gentle.

Teach us to put into action our better impulses,

straightforwardly and unafraid.

Grant that we may realize it is the little things that create differences;

that in the big things of life we are as one.

And may we strive to touch and to know the great common woman's heart of us all.

And, oh Lord God,

Let us not forget to be kind."

~ Mary Stewart~ 1904

I was able to pull myself together finally, and presented the program, enjoyed a lovely lunch with the ladies, and went straight back to work. 

I do very well at keeping my vulnerability under wraps, of holding things together in order to reassure others that I am, if not fine, at least all right.  It was a very hard thing to cope with that wall falling away so unexpectedly today. It was bound to happen somewhere, sometime, and I am grateful that it happened in the company of others whom I know miss her, too.

Laughing in the Pew

My brothers and sister and I all have corporate memories of Mama, the ones that we will tell and share together, and recognize with just a few words, and which will elicit much joy in the retelling around the table for all the years to come.

But it's the private ones -- the ones I am sure each of us have that don't involve the others -- that have become like little gifts in shiny boxes for me.

Mama and I always sat together, flanked by Daddy (on her right, closest to the aisle) and my husband (on my left), on Sunday mornings in our pew at First United Methodist Church, two rows back from  the 50-yard line, pulpit side, and we loved singing harmonies together. We'd tap each other's arms when we'd sing a favorite, roll our eyes at some of the newfangled ones, or old ones that have been reworked to be gender inclusive or otherwise made more politically correct. "Sing this at my funeral," we often said to one another, "and sing all the verses." Our deepest connection was music, always music, and much of that was the music of our faith.

You should know here that my mother was not especially well-behaved in church, which is why my sons enjoyed sitting with her when they were little. She'd pass notes up and down the pew, and she and our youngest son played so many games of Tic-Tac-Toe on orders of worship over the years that I feel certain they were folded them into his own personal liturgy of faith.

Anyway, you know what an eye rhyme is, right?  Eye rhymes happen when two words look like they should rhyme but don't. The Methodist hymnal is full of them, probably not unlike any other denomination's hymnals. 

This past Sunday one of these hymns was the final one in the service -- Take My Life, and Let It Be -- and it had one of these things in it. She and I stood shoulder to shoulder more than once singing it in harmony (well, as much harmony as two women of decidedly questionable voice could muster), and it was inevitable that when the eye rhyme was approaching that she would lean over, and sing loudly in my ear, forcing the rhyme....

"Take my hands and let them move

At the impulse of Thy looooooooove..."

When I got to that part this week, I braced myself for a landmine, and it came, just as I knew it would, but not in tears. I giggled a little. The tears came later -- but just then -- nothing but sweet, happy memory.

Trade last!

There's an old tradition in our family, one Mama elevated to art form, called the trade last. Those who were at her funeral heard the preacher reference this custom, but for the uninformed, here's how it works.

You hear something nice about me, so you call me and say, "Trade last!"

In order for me to hear the accolade I must first tell you something lovely I've heard about you. You Trade Last, you see.

It is always a devilment to be on the receiving end of one of these, because the universe seldom conspires that we each should hear something nice about the other in a convenient time frame, so one is often left wanting for something with which to trade first.  


Of course, Mama had a way of making it always work out for her: if she hadn't actually heard anything complimentary, she'd say "Tidge says....."  followed by whatever bit of puffery she could make up in order to extract your tidbit.  (It must be said here that she didn't always use "Tidge," but that's the phantom friend I heard from most often.)

But, oh, what a wonderful thing it was to know that someone might have said something kind when you weren't around to hear it! Trade lasts, on a much more meaningful level, meant that we never held back on sharing compliments or praise we'd heard about one another. Knowing how delighted Mama would be to hear something nice about us created an environment in which we strove to be the best we could at something, because we knew it would get reported back. She had more fun giving a trade last than getting a trade first.

**

I frequently give book chats to literary groups. I can't say I'm the world's most polished public speaker, but I do think I get folks to laugh pretty well sometimes, and that makes me happy. As it happens, there is almost always somebody in one of these groups who would call Mama shortly afterwards, and dole out some praise.

I know this, because without fail, I could always count on the phone ringing around suppertime after one of these chats, and hearing her say, "Trade last!"


This afternoon, three weeks to the day after her death, I spoke to the Jr. 20th Century Literary Club. I got 'em laughing a few times, and some of the women had awfully nice things to say. I know at least four of them who might have gone home and picked up the phone to call Mama to report on how I did. I think I did okay, and I think someone might have been complimentary.

But the phone won't ring tonight.

The only cries of "Trade last!" I'm likely to hear again in my lifetime will be the ones I spring on my sons (who hate the game as much as I did when I was their age), and on my granddaughter.

I hope Tidge is out there, ready to help them out when they hear it.

Worth a Thousand Words

Early on the morning of August 26, my younger son packed as many of his earthly goods as he could into his car and headed out for Columbus, Ohio to work for a year. As a person who loves having her "chicks" where she can get her arms around them in a hurry, this was a hard change for me, but he was so excited at the opportunity I wouldn't have stopped his going even if I could have.

He had lots of things to do before he left, lots of people he needed to see, and that included his Pap and Granny. His Granny always asked Thomas when he'd head out on one of his adventures, "Don't you need me to go with you?"  It was a running joke with them, and I have no doubt but that she asked that question on the evening of August 25, at around 7:03 p.m., right about when this picture was taken.

That's my son Thomas there, with his Pap. His Granny was the photographer.

I discovered this on her digital camera on October 21, which happened to be her 84th birthday. It was the last picture she took on her camera. Finding it was another little landmine.

I wish so much someone had thought to snap a picture of Thomas and his Granny that night, but I don't think Daddy has ever even picked up the digital camera, and it was just the three of them there.

That was my initial wish, anyway. On further reflection, she is as fully present in this photograph as if she'd been on the other side of the lens, maybe more so. These two people represent what mattered most to Mama, and they both reflect their love for her in the smiles directed her way.

Finding it on her birthday was like finding a gift she had left just for me.

Thank you, Mama.