Bared Souls

[strat-0]

Hoping for the best for you and yours, Maarts. Have a safe trip home when you do go, and godspeed. So sorry - wish I could say something that would help.

[Ayinger]

(an oldie of mine repeated from the old RS boards....'cause I can't seem to write any more)

THE TURKEY'S IN THE MAIL

It's a bit natural I suppose to be nostalgic over holidays. When I was little, I had a sister, two parents, two sets of grandparents, and an aunt. Thanksgiving and Christmas and birthdays (to a singular extent) were cause for a stage to be set in the house. A lot of activity in the air, mostly just centering on the meal itself. The extra center leaf was put in the dining room table, table cloths were used, linen napkins placed at each setting. The foods were put out on special platters (the "good" china) and cut glass serving dishes. And we had these dark thin green glass goblets which I can still see holding my milk.


And the cars would pull up, the relatives spilling out with baskets and foil covered dishes - each had their own certain contributions. My aunt and homemade applesauce, her sister and a loaf of dill bread, cookies & candies made from scratch from my other grandmother. My mom of course handled the center item: a ham speckled with cloves or a turkey that had been thawing in our steel sink from the day before.


All this in and out activity from room to room, the odors being unleased throughout the house causing it to warm just from the overpowering scents. Being young and underfoot, I would typically be trying to steal a taste here and there while items were making their journey from the kitchen to the table. Oh, I would always have a black olive or two smuggled into my mouth before the clan was called to take seats. My aunt was the watcher for this, ever ready to banish me from the area. I never failed though -- as if she didn't know.


And so we gathered. Plowed through all the offerings, making sure to get a little bit of everything, but knowing that there would always be seconds available on all. With all those people, it was indeed a circle about that table. We were all attached there in those communal meals; held by conversation, food, and the very setting laid out.


Today I made the 45 mile trek up to mom's. Other than my sister, the rest of that circle have since died ten years back or longer. And as the past number of holidays have been, it was just to be me and my mother; 71 years old, but active as ever as it's applied to one of her age. Normal health, clear mind and all - nothing to be worried about.


Parking in front of the house and walking up to the door was familiar as yesterday. The location pattern of the funiture inside hasn't changed for, well, it's never changed. The house is warm, and yes, amplified with the smell of the cooked food. The dining room table is there, but is covered entirely -- not with a meal, but books, letters, bill statements and other simular paper items. In the front room, one in front of her chair facing the TV and another before a rocker a short distance across, were set two TV trays. No longer a circle but two opposite stations from which to eat.


We loaded up plates in the kitchen right from the pots & pans still on the stove. A medium-sized breast of turkey was on a platter, still warm from its time in the oven. "I got that through the mail," said my mom. "This catalog had a special of a turkey breast, a roast, and a unique carving knife, all for $25."


Well, hey, it did taste like turkey.


With that, she went back to the final bits of readying everything there, making a couple trips out to the front room with stuff. I got into the fridge and poured some Juicey-Juice into a plastic tumbler for myself (she had some whole milk, but I only drink skim nowadays -- healthy, ya know).


I wandered about the downstairs rooms with my cup. Watered a plant there that I had left behind when I moved out, looked out the front door to the same houses across the street, tried to stir up the dog, but he just looked up at me with his hound eyes from where he layed on the couch.


The Bears were losing on the TV; I called the score out to her back in the kitchen. She kinda let out a disgruntled sigh that was audible from where I stood. I smiled to myself, reached down to a small dish set on her tray and popped an olive into my mouth.

[maarts]

Your story makes me homesick, mate.
I remember those gatherings myself. We don't have Thanksgiving where I come from but the Christmases when I was a child were magic. The unity of our tight-knit little family was the major part of that magic and we celebrated that fact throughout the 3 days (including Christmas Eve, in church first and then the special dinner afterwards. There was the divvying up between grandparents' houses where we would go first to be with the whole family on either side. I'd see all my nieces and nephews again and have fun with them. I remember the trees which were magnificent. The tables which were decorated splendidly. The weather which usually was wet and windy but we had some white Christmases as well. It was something to look forward to every year.

With the passing of the years every Christmas afterwards never reached those dizzying heights ever again. All my grandparents died one by one. We all grew up and decided to stay more close with our own family. We lived that amazing Christmas spirit through the eyes of my sister's children than our own (I don't have kids). And now this Christmas our own family won't be complete ever again. My dad passed away last week. This year Christmas is going to hurt but, hopefully, celebrate that little miracle over 2000 years ago in the same tightlike family spirit one more time. I won't be home for Christmas as I haven't been for most of the 10 years I resided in Australia. This is one year I'd dearly love to be there but I've gone back to Holland three times this year and I can't do that no more. But I'll have a good one regardless- it's been a very tough year and i look forward to a better one in 2009. Because hope is one thing that Christmas always brings, regardless how down the chips really are.

[Ayinger]

Maarts,,,I am really sad to hear of your father's passing. I wasn't expecting to read that...and it was a bit of a crush when I did. I hope there was some sort of reward in your recent trip and that somehow it may have made this easier.

You and Doc both will be on my mind through these holidays.

[RocDoc]

both great warm recollections of beautiful times with family, which also brought out that 'time' (the avenger?) changes and whittles things into different shapes year after year...as loved ones and fond acquaintances drop out of view.

yeah, we've got a big empty spot to deal with this year.
my parents' house ALWAYS had the early thanksgiving christmas and easter settings before we'd go off to other gatherings later...and often, those would be so good that we'd decide 'you know, let's just stay here'.

and if i knew of anyone who didn't really have anywhere to go on those holidays (as the migrating-to-america lithuanians who i became friends with from 1987 on, usually didn't) they were all welcomed with open arms.

warm wonderful times.

now the house is sitting there empty, still with all their collections of their lives in all the rooms, the sweaters, jackets and hats that i saw them wear over and over and over...and it's just so fucking sad to think 'well, this is how it goes...'

ai.

[rockkid]

Oh how it changes.
The first Christmas after my dads passing I called home (as was long standing tradition ever since I’d grown up & moved out)
From childhood memories to “this number is no longer in service”
I don’t know why I chose to torture my self that day in that way.
Trying to reach back? Perhaps.

[RocDoc]

torture?

i dunno, traditions of that sort of nature, having to remember the folks you love i think are a necessity.

pretty much the only mention of my parents at dinner at my sister's house on friday night, was when i asked whether she had put 2 extra chairs out.
and she's like 'why?'
my wife clued her in pretty quickly (tho my sister must've known that tribute, c'mon) that it's 'more a european tradtion, maybe'...

and then we didn't bring any of it up again, even though i sat down in my dad's post-dinner sofa spot, and that's about all i could think of.

we did watch wizard of oz that hight for the first time with my son tho...that was cool.

i flashed to the telephone thing myself while dialing my sis's home number, which i useta constantly get mixed up with my folks (first 5 out of nine digits were the same) and i realized, 'hmmm, that's one number that'll never get answered again'....

[maarts]

Woke up in the middle of the night, right awake. Happened to me before last week. It's kinda freaking me out because I usually sleep pretty tight.
And it's not the result of a dream or nightmare. No apparitions. Just me being awakened by some noise (the lady next door letting her cats back inside her house in the middle of the night) and not being able to catch any more sleep. The bugger is that I know I need some sleep as these days I'm being run off my feet at work- Christmas had started as soon as I got back to work. I'm tired when I crawl on the train back home. Age perhaps creeping up on me? I don't know.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I feel like I haven't started mourning my dad either. I'm convinced I've said goodbye in the best way possible. There are moments when I watch movies that a father/son-interaction just chokes me up and I cannot listen to Wish You Were Here and Brothers In Arms as those two tunes were used at my dad's funeral. But I hear my mother struggling so much with life without dad. Even though she has been out and about by herself so often because my dad didn't want to go out visiting friends and family- she misses him completely, just him not being there. At times she gets confused with things like trying to send me an e-mail as that were things he used to do- she has trouble doing that but my sister is teaching her. In conversations she breaks up continously.
I don't have any of those feelings. It's like almost my daily routines have picked up where it left off before I went home last month. I don't dream about him (I rarely remember my dreams so I may still do), I don't have the same kind of disorientation that my family has...ever since his death I kept myself occupied, organising paperwork, the funeral service, the daily things that neede to be done. I sat down and had talks with my mom who poured her heart out. I felt that I needed to give her plenty of room to express herself, to the extent that I didn't think so much of my own feelings. In fact I feel more worried about my mother's state of mind than my own discomforts.

So what is mourning really like? Is it being as emotional as my mother? Is it as rational as I feel like I'm being about it? Am I heading for a fall? At one stage I feared Christmas but now it's almost a non-event as it usually is for me (as I'm single and not at home with my family I haven't celebrated Christmas for a long time). The only thing I feel is an emptiness in knowing my dad is not there anymore. I have sat there seeing him wither away and was there when he said goodbye to each and everyone of his family. It's a moment I'll never forget, part6 of a time I'll never forget, as difficult as it sometimes was. So I'm not completely heartless. I don't feel frustrated or the need to talk about things, I don't feel traumatized. I just feel a bit numb. Hope the insomnia isn't some physical pressure to allow me this breathing space as my company and colleagues have been so grand in allowing me the time off to go home and I feel they deserve the best out of me.
If anyone recognises this, holler.

[Ayinger]

Post # 2 from RS "Bared Souls":


Don Pitcher 11:26 AM EST, 11/3/99 (Message #2 of 451)


4:13 AM
We just got back from Lafayette. Mom went right upstairs to try and sleep. I just felt like remaining downstairs for awhile. It's kinda cool out - just enough to want a jacket. Sky clear, of course a lot of stars; and it is still down here.

I'm thinking of him. It's too early to feel much of a change yet. A few minutes ago I was looking about the room and I noticed over by his chair, his cane leaning up against the wall. It's frozen there, as is the portable oxygen unit, with its pale green hose coiled on the floor beneath it. They stand there frozen, waiting; not knowing, as if somehow they should.

And then, on the other side of town, I hear a train whistle blow and shortly the rhythm of its wheels as it draws nearer. The whistle sounds its note again and again until I remember another time that I heard the same.

It was the first night that I ever spent in this house - 12 years ago, plus a week or two. Just my dad and I were up here. The reason being that I had to start school early; the rest of the family was coming the next week. We had no furniture in the place yet, not even any hot water.

Anyhow, we slept on two camping cots set upstairs in one of the bare bedrooms. And after awhile when we had turned out the light and we laid there falling asleep, a train came through town, sounding just like the one a few minutes ago. And my dad spoke in the dark from the other side of the room and asked if I ever cried at night. I can't recall exactly what I said, but being just fourteen, I probably didn't admit to much. And then he told me that when he was young and had just moved away from his hometown (this case being Chicago), sometimes he would hear a train whistle at night and it would make him cry. He always imagined that that train might be going to Chicago and if he could be on it, he would be home again.

My dad never told me many things that could be regarded as somewhat private and personnel as that was. And from time to time I'd think of how he shared that with me. He knew how I was feeling having to leave all the comfort, warmth and security of a town that had been a part of me all my life.

And now, 12 years later, I have a second drastic change in my life, a far greater security by all means. And yet, I find I can still sit here and feel comfort. It just came in the sound of a lone train passing in the night. Thanks Dad, thanks.

I found the above yesterday tucked away in a drawer - it'd been a while since I'd read those scraps of paper that I had written on that night. My father had just died about an hour beforehand. Years of smoking had left him with emphysema - a cruel and slow erosion. He was 57.

---

That's now been 21 years ago. I can't imagine what my dad would have been like at 78-years-old....gawd, the smoking had wasted him away so much by his mid-fifties. I can't imagine him old. But he was old to me when he died. Old and so frail. To think that now I am only ten years younger than that. 78? I can't even begin to think of him at that.

Does mourning necessarily mean crying every day for a period or can it be possible that keeping him in thought is in itself a sort of mourning? Thoughts of him, thoughts of the changes upon the family, the acts of adapting to those changes both for yourself and being there for your mother and others. Yeah,,,,to me I think it'd all fall under the idea of mourning, my friend.

You'll have moments,,,,times of certain realizations that come with no expectation. The holidays of course, but maybe too it'll be something like months from now you'll see that odd movie or program on TV and there'll some sort of relationship you'd had between it and your dad. Maybe it'll be when the leaves turn and start to fall. Maybe it'll be passing a stranger on a sidewalk and they'll have a familar face or gait. And maybe someday out of the blue you'll just hear that voice in your head....and you'll be surprised at how sure and of how well you recall it.

It's there I bet Maarts...all that. And you may already be aware that it is too.

[wayved8]

Don:

maarts--my parents just disappeared out of all of our lives one day. I personally havent spoken to them since 1995 via telephone --last time I saw them was 1993. I thought that they just didnt like me. That was not the case. they just mutherfucking DISAPPEARED man. To everyone--my grandparents, their sisters and brothers, my grandamother on my dads side passed on--sweetest lady anyone could ever meet--and my father never showed up.I was there though for him cos I knew that would be the case--not that my being there meant anything to anyone. I just loved and respected my grandmother. my grandparents on my mothers side thought it was weird that I was so concerned. How do you write people off for dead that may still be alive? Im not gonna tell you how I mourned at first. Every day I do though alittle differently. This time of year is hard--cos I used to hear Christmas carols in a store and 5 years ago I just want to hide--go away and weep. I am older now and I thought that shit would go away but it does not. Still want to disappear but Im not going out like that!


maarts--I have an inkling yet no idea what you are going through. But from what you typed out in letters on the keyboard you are strong which is how you need to be. No one, for what its worth--this is my opinion--knows how to mourn. you are doing what you can do right now--it sounds like your being strong for your ma too which is crucial right now. She needs you. Now more than ever. You are also very good to your employees too-- This sounds totally lame, my friend, but I cant word it any other way. You are already mourning. There is no correct or incorrect way to do it. All you can do is stand up and do what you always do. I am of the mind that you are reborn every day. you start fresh every day. One day at a time my friend.

[strat-0]

The people and posts on this board are every bit as compelling and moving as they were 10 years ago in another world. I don't know what else to say right now, except please stay. You guys are important. (And come back here, Rockkid.)

Wishing everyone something good this holiday season...

[maarts]

Pft guys, that is a lot to take in. And I thank you for your responses!

Matt- you are spot on when you say about the differing responses between my mother and I. Because I didn't live with him day by day I am more detached from him than my mother ever was. In fact, because I live so far away you can increse that detachment tenfold as I missed most of the birthdays and Christmases from the last ten years too.
I also experienced different responses to the death of my grandparents- with some my family had great contact, with others less intense. especially the death on my grandmother on fathers' side had been harrowing as her sickness was very much the one that levelled my dad- our fear was that we didn't want dad to suffer in the same way my grandma did (she had a brain tumour and slipped into a coma that lasted 6 weeks before she mercifully died- our family nursed her throughout all that). I think we achieved a lot of closure in the way we said goodbye and that helped.

Don- I like that idea of the train passing by. There's always something that will automatically remind you of him that way. For me it's watching a soccer match (my dad and I could share an incredible amount of commentation between us) or watching music on telly.

Glen- I am trying to be strong but I'm a good 10.000 kilometres away! When my mother struggles with the computer to send me an e-mail and fears I didn't receive it so she panics and calls...what do I do? Life is filled with all sorts of incoveniences that emphasise how important my dad was in making sure everything was organised. Fortunately she has help. The only family in the vicinity is my sister and she is struggling herself with her health and her kids. So that causes me some anxiety too but since I have to dedicate a lot of time to my work I can't help out. But everyone in one way has to resume their lives. One step forward, four steps back, then it's three steps back the next time...

[RocDoc]

'a lot to take in'?

man, you're not kidding maarts!

don's painful remembrance and being unable to even imagine his dad being around now 21 years later, because of how his smoking did him in. ouch.

and then glen's heartbreaking story of his folks' abandonment/escape from god-knows-what sort of pressues they must've felt at the time...whoa, THAT's definitely one where anyone's gotta say 'wtf?WHY?'

my take is that 'mourning' is purely subjective and depends (like you've pretty much said there maarts) on the levels of interaction you've had with the person(s) now missing from your life.

my folks, for the past more-or-less 20 years, were sort of a background entity for me.
my 30s were spent hustling real estate, going to chiro school (and studying ridiculously long hours) and then partying pretty much the rest of the time to unwind.
i knew they were there, and as long as i wasn't needed to take them for drs' appointments or some such, i often wouldn't see them (sometimes not even talk to them) 2-3 weeks at a time.
which i know, kinda sucks...especially when i think about it now.

but i really identify with the feeling of being in this less-than-emotional vacuum regarding the full events to my mom and dad being gone, all in this past year.

some of this stuff was so horrible and painful and frustrating, i think my mind doesn't really WANT to wrap itself fully around it.

'coping' sometimes simply isn't fully in our willful hands, i firmly believe.

[wayved]

I am going to drink heavily now. See ya when I see YA!

[maarts]

I could use a drink after that myself.