Passed Along

The tiny sticker on the underside of the silver pitcher reads “15.”  Somewhere, in one of the bins and boxes from my parents’ home that have migrated to our attic, is the list of Mom and Dad’s wedding presents. If I wished, I could search out that list, flip through the pages, run my finger down to #15, and find the gift-giver. 

Mom gave me the pitcher just months before she felt sick.  For a while she’d been trying to whittle down the belongings accumulated over fifty-five years lived in the house.  She’d opened the kitchen cupboard and waved toward four pitchers on the shelf, saying,  “Take one if you want.”  Silver is not the usual in our rustic, 1782 home, but I really liked this graceful remnant from an elegant era. 

When I noticed the “15” on the bottom of the pitcher as it dried upside-down in the dish rack, my nose prickled in imagining the wrapped gift arriving at Mom’s childhood home, 12 Upper Ladue, sometime in the fall of 1951.  

Since Mom passed, I’ve come to know her young self far better through her letters.  My father was stationed in Germany and Mimi wrote to “My Dearest Darling Paul” every day. She was nineteen years old and missed her man fiercely.  She yearned for marriage and a time when they could be together, but everything was uncertain, threatened by the possibility of Paul’s deployment to Korea.  In letters to his father, Paul spoke of his loneliness and fear that “this troubled world” and deployment might prevent a future with Mimi.  

He was only twenty-two. A boy far from home at Christmas… and in reading his letters, my heart ached for that lonely, young guy who became my father.

Their handwriting, so familiar to me, appears fresh on the page. Despite sixty-five years stored in a cardboard box, the blue stationary has held its color.  I know how life turned out for Paul and Mimi: they married, had three (wonderful) daughters, four cherished grandchildren, lifelong friends, travels, careers, and collections.  And with their pitcher in my hand, my eyes fill to think that it all lay before them when first Mimi opened that package and unfolded the white tissue within.  

  

Now that my mother’s life has ended and I have moved into the matriarch phase she just left, I am acutely conscious of the passage of time, and each generation making way for the next.  As Dave and I decorated the house, changed bed sheets, put up the tree, and wrapped gifts, I recalled the aura of past Christmases at my grandparents’ homes: candles flickering, flaming plum pudding, stiff needlepoint chairs, fancy dress, and the expectation that kids keep a low profile.  

When my grandmother died and Mom took over, my grandmother’s candelabra found its place on my parents’ dining room table, and the needlepoint chairs, around it.   The plum pudding was dramatic, but never tasted as good as it promised to be, so my brother-in-law’s silky fudge and rum sauce over ice cream replaced it.  And the children?  Far from low profile, they became the focus. Still, those homes of the past made us feel cherished and safe; Dave and I hold the grandparent title now, and strive to embrace our kids and their families in those same ways… minus the plum pudding and finger-to-lips admonitions to behave.   

When my sisters and I divided the contents of my parents’ home, I did not clamor for the needlepoint chairs or the candelabra, and certainly, none of us wanted Mom’s white plastic kitchen chairs, but I really wanted the dry sink in the den. It was the first piece of furniture Mom and Dad bought together, and I loved its heavy, primitive look. Plus, it is scarred with a twisting groove that teenaged Lea idly carved with an ice pick while talking on the phone with friends.  

Since our marriage in 1975, Dave and I have been doing an every-other-year rotation between the  Sylvestros and Ingersolls for the holidays, and this would have been a year with Mom. When we discussed what the new plan might be, our new grand daughter Lexi was just weeks old and Eleanor was still afloat in Casey’s belly, so it made sense to hold Christmas at our house in Connecticut. My sisters, Rita and Francie, and their families, were willing to make the trip and stay minutes away at the humble, but reasonably comfortable, Hotel Hi-Ho. 

For years, the Hi-Ho, conveniently perched on a slope just above the Merritt Parkway, was rumored to have been a trysting destination, a pay-by-the-hour sort of spot.  While its huge, red, neon sign was easily visible to cars whizzing by, more often than not one, two, or three letters were out of order. So the “HO_EL HI- _O” was a local joke until recent renovations spruced it up.  Tucker, Lisa, Paul, and Lexi would stay with us, while Casey, PJ and Eleanor live nearby.  

In the week before Christmas, Dave and I attacked detailed To-Do lists each day.  As has been tradition since first we were married, Dave rolled out his homemade lasagna noodles, simmered the sauce, and assembled two huge casseroles. I baked “Happy Winter” fudge cakes and made crepes. We shopped for non-perishables on Monday the 18^thand perishables on the 22^nd. Mixed up artichoke dip and blanched crudité on the 23^rd.   Ordered window shades for the guest room and crossed our fingers they’d ship in time... They did not. 

The dishwasher was crammed with the detritus of those preparations.  Mixing bowls, plates, ladles, and spoons.  Measuring cups, spatulas, dishes, and mugs. 

“Hon?  Be sure to run the dishwasher before you come to bed, will you?” I said on the evening of the 22^nd. 

I was brushing my teeth when Dave entered the bathroom, grim of visage, and said, “The dishwasher’s not filling.”

“Not filling?” I said, or whatever garbled response might have emerged through the toothpaste. 

Yes.  The day before our loved ones arrived, the dishwasher broke down. When I spoke to the repairman’s rep the next day, hoping for a mercy visit given the circumstances, she laughed and said, “That’s how it always goes.” 

Ah well.  As my sister Rita said, plenty of bonding at the sink. Plus, she’s a party diva and after my desperate call, she arrived with bags of paper goods.  Would my grandmother have tolerated such a substitution? Maybe not, but Mom would have welcomed it. 

Were they there, Mom and Dad?  Beyond the toasts, tales, memories, and love?  Beyond their touch on the pitcher and wooden dry sink?  Beyond their names carried on in their great-grandchildren, Eleanor and Paul?  

After he died, Dad arranged a bounty of signs to let us know he was still around, while Mom kept her peace when she passed. But I have to think they could not have resisted a Christmas visit to see Jared and Campbell - now men in their twenties - on the floor playing cars with little Paul.  To see Tucker and Casey, holding each other’s babies. To see three elfin great-grandchildren in matching pajamas, and little Eleanor, already an activist, pumping her fist in the air.  To see Bill and Rita prancing in Santa and reindeer outfits.  To see my sisters, giggling all the way, smuggling in two of Mom’s sheet-shrouded white plastic kitchen chairs. 

Yeah, I have to think they showed up.  

Sleep Thieves

Default suggestions and corrections are often frustrating and sometimes humorous.  I supply plenty of material because I’m the worst typist ever. On my tiny IPhone, I have the excuse that my fingers are too big for that puny keypad.  “P” is too close to the edge and more often I hit “O” by mistake. And “M”?  Forget it.  It’s right next to the delete arrow, so that’s what usually happens.  In my enthusiasm, I admit I overuse the word “love,” but almost without fail, “live” is what I tap, turning a buoyant comment into an existential observation.  A chorus of audible grunts of disgust always accompanies my typing. 

On email, I can’t blame defaults, and I tend to overlook the warnings of green wavy underlines. Proofreading is a necessity to be approached with the keen scrutiny of Robert Mueller pursuing a lead. Recently, though, my typo gave birth to an incisive new word.  

My friend Otie and I had exchanged Christmas greetings and commented on the joys of visiting grandchildren. Otie wrote, “We have a houseful, and some of them get up early.”  

Leisurely mornings are my favorite retirement perk, but waking to grandson Paul’s sweet voice and dear little face still scrunched and adjusting to morning light is a gift. In my response to Otie, I told him how much I would miss that and added, “As you say thoughtcrimes, sleeping in will be good.” 

“Thoughtcrimes”?

I didn’t catch the typo and Otie made no mention of it in his next email. I happened to see it while reviewing the thread for a quick refresher before writing back a few days later.  I had no idea what I’d intended to say, and told him as much.

Otie has a philosopher’s soul and he did not take my finger-slip lightly. He mused about a conversation he’d had with our mutual friend, Moo, who’d said, “It’s not the end of the world, it’s just the middle of the night.”

Was this a commentary on our troubling times and a “this too shall pass” insight, or merely an insomniac’s lament? Otie pursued the quote with the persistence of one who has spent countless wakeful hours in the dark, a victim of thoughtcrimes and their not-so-stealthy theft of sleep.   “Problems are magnified by darkness and a little confusion, which leads to more sleep disruption, allowing time for more problems to try to take over our souls, and soon, dawn arrives.  But I have taken a certain comfort in Moo’s theory, and if I can remember to repeat it a few times, I can bore myself back to sleep.”

Ah, if only I could bore myself back to sleep! For me, “it’s not the end of the world” leaves plenty of room for post-apocalyptic scenarios that are not the end, but gruesome enough, so that mantra gives me no comfort. 

It’s usually around 1:16 that my eyes fly open.  I go to the bathroom for a quick pee and then snuggle back in bed praying slumber will re-find me. Ha!  As if. The hours tick by as I manufacture heated conversations with family, friends, Republican leaders, and Trump himself, working myself into an adrenalin-fueled fury that leaves no room for sleep. Or, hearing my beloved Dave snuffle and snore beside me, I begin with a smile and gratitude, then hustle myself along a spiraling path to tears and what would I do without him? To-Do lists can wrestle sleep to the mat with ease, and a quick mental reminder turns into an exercise in obsessive repetition to make sure I don’t forget whatever pressing task I’ve come up with. Guilt, too, is a rich well of sleeplessness.  I can dive in there and swim in that heavy muck for hours. Or, I think of warnings for my children after I’ve read the latest health scare in “The Week.” Thoughtcrimes!         

Dear Otie is more optimistic than me.  In so many words, he said that branding these ruminations “thoughtcrimes” offers the vigilant an opportunity to recognize the thief, seize him by the scruff of the neck, and banish him from the bedroom.  My friend closed with this comfort, “When I wake up early and start worrying about something that isn't going to happen and that I can't do anything about anyway, instead of the end of the world thing, I'll quickly dismiss my troubles with, "Thoughtcrimes. Sleeping in will be good." 

Thanks, Otie.