Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Enduring Love


 
My parents have been married for more than 50 years. Together, they made and raised ten children.

This past Autumn, my mom had a fall. Though it didn't seem serious at first, it turned out that she shattered a good bit of one entire leg and ankle, and a good bit of the lower part of her other leg and ankle. She had to stay in a nursing home for several months while she recuperated. Since my parents were married, I don’t think they've ever been separated more than one or two nights—and those separations were mostly due to my mom being in the hospital after having one of us.

While my mom was in the nursing home, my parents had a routine: my dad would have breakfast at home, and then come in and take my mom down to the cafeteria for breakfast and keep her company while she ate. Then, they would keep each other company in her room until it was time for her morning physical therapy. My dad would go home and do laundry, get clean clothes for my mom, and do other little chores that needed doing. He would go back and take my mom down for lunch, and then they'd keep each other company in her room until it was time for her afternoon physical therapy. Because the afternoon session was shorter than the morning session, my dad would stay and go for a walk on the grounds. Later, when she only had one physical therapy session in the mornings, they would both go for walks in the afternoon—my dad pushing my mom in her wheelchair. After the afternoon, they'd have dinner together in the cafeteria, and then they'd watch TV until visiting hours were over, and my dad would go home. The door to my mom's room, of course, was always open, to allow the caregivers to keep watch, dispense medicine, and help my mom when she needed help.

"It works pretty well," I remember my dad saying over the phone, once things had settled down into this routine. "The meals are only a buck-thirty-five for me!," he'd say, proudly. "And they're not half-bad!" My father is a most generous person—but one of his mottos could easily be, "situations in life that do not warrant thrift are very few, if any."

When I was home a couple months ago, Beloved and I were talking with my parents about that time. I mentioned how it seemed they had such a nice routine, and were able to see so much of each other. "Oh gosh," my mom said, "we missed each other so much."

After a pause, while she looked at the ground, ruminating, she laughed, then said, "You wanna know something? When we'd get in the elevators to go to the cafeteria, and were alone, we would just kind of—go at it, I guess you would say—make out." She laughed and  shook her head in embarrassment and looked at my dad. He wore a bemused expression on his face, but was looking decidedly off into the middle distance. "Sometimes," she continued, laughing, "we'd have a real crisis of conscience, because there'd be this little old lady, or an old retired priest, you know, hobbling down the hall towards the elevator, trying to catch it. And we'd wanna say to each other, 'quick, hit the button to close the doors!'" She laughed even harder and said, "sometimes, I DID say it."

After we all laughed, she looked at my dad and said again, "we just missed each other so much."

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Trees



One of the things I love about my current neighborhood is all the mature trees. I love looking at them throughout the seasons; even in the winter, they are beautiful. This weekend, I didn't feel very well, so instead of tending to my to-do list, I lounged on our back deck and, in between napping and reading, I looked up at the trees and watched their branches swaying in the breeze—sometimes, it seemed from my vantage point, precipitously.

I also remembered from my childhood a large tree in our neighborhood. I could see it from the swing-set in our backyard. I was a huge swinger. I would swing every day during the summer, often for hours, singing to myself (and possibly—but not probably—for the benefit of any of my brothers and sisters and neighbor kids who were around). Looking straight ahead, I could see through the small, square, covered back porch of our long-suffering and always-patient neighbor Mrs. Roberts to the kitchen window of the Seidlemans' house. After breakfast and lunch, I would see Mrs. Seidelman at the sink, washing out their dishes. She would wave merrily to me, and I would wave back to her.

But if I looked to just a bit to the left, there was the huge, full, storybook tree, far off in the distance. I have no idea what kind of tree it was, but it looked like it was miles away (though it couldn't have been more than a few blocks), and magical. With my bat eyes, I could see the individual leaves rippling in the breezes, and I would imagine the lands that lay beyond. One of my favorite fantasies was of a meadow, green and beautiful, with birds, and butterflies, and dragonflies that didn't fly too close, and my mom with a picnic basket. She wasn't harried and hurried as she was so often taking care of the ten of us. She was sitting relaxed on the ground, her legs sort of side saddle. My dad was there, too, with a ball and bat, ready to play baseball.

We really did have picnics when I was growing up, along the banks of the Fox River. We really would play baseball, or Frisbee, and often, my dad would help us fish (anything we caught, we took home, froze, and ate during Lent). I don't really know how my parents were able to wrangle this…ten kids, a picnic, games..and make it fun? Because it was fun. Maybe like the trees, they understood how to sometimes let the breeze run through them playfully, and how to sway in the strong winds just so.