It's been a year since my family gathered in Huron for my mom's funeral. Needless to say, it was a tough day, and it's been a tough year. Since everyone seems to think I take after mom, they would naturally feel I have taken it hardest.
Time does dull the wounds, but it never really takes them away. It's sort of a bad collection of memories to go with the good ones. In my 58 years, I have accomplished many things, but one thing I never thought I would successfully deal with would be the death of loves ones like parents, grandparents, mothers, nephews, uncles and aunts. I dwell on these things more than most, and it doesn't help that I tend to cry at a good card trick! In other words, I'm a pretty soft touch.
I think it can safely say that for the most part I drove my parents crazy. My three siblings didn't --- at least to my knowledge --- take the chances that I did, nor did they give them as many challenges. I wasn't much of a partier in high school, but my mom pretty much had these words on her lips for the past 30 years: "You made up for lost time." She may have been referring specifically to a party I threw for my baseball-playing friends in the summer of 1970, after we had graduated. One of my friends, while carrying a beer from upstairs to downstairs, tumbled down the stairs --- and didn't spill a drop of beer on my mother's new carpet. But despite the whirlwind job of cleaning the house that we did, I was busted when mom found a full beer can under the couch, of all places.
Dad's favorite quote to me seemed to be, to my memory: "What the heck were you thinking?" He would then take a deep breath and head for the garage, where he went when we wanted to be alone. (In later years, when he decided to start the barbecue grill in the basement and nearly asphixiated everyone, I got my revenge: "Dad ... what were you thinking?") I am quite sure he never said, "What were you thinking" to anyone else but me. He had been raised as a tough German and just wasn't used to running into someone as idiotic as I could be. I would sometimes remind him that at least I wore my four-buckle overshoes through high school, when my older brother refused. Largely, however, I was the one who pushed. I was the one who broke into the wine while I was in junior high and couldn't figure out why I was so sick. I bought too many clothes, joined the Columbia Record Club when I was still in junior high --- forcing him to send the records back --- and pulled for the Yankees. I listened to some really weird music to him and tucked in my sweaters. When I bought those colored bell-bottoms, he just about lost it.
Mom seemed to be nowhere to be found when dad was trying to figure me out. I do remember her walking away from me counting to 10, for some reason.
I wouldn't be surprised if my younger brother and sister didn't have to answer for me as they made their less tumultuous way through school. I can just hear their teachers, "Ah yes, I remember HIM well." Until then, our name was held in high regard in the community. Then I came along and my siblings had to restore the good name. My parents were probably sitting up at night, wondering what life was going to be like once I had left home. That finally happened in the early 1970s, when I went away to the Army. But when I was smashed up in an accident in 1974, it was my parents who pulled me through. Dad even built a special bed for me to stay on during my recuperation for a broken neck, and I think the event changed all of us. I still had a lot of growing up to do, but mom and dad showed that, despite all my issues and mistakes, they would still be there to help, and that I had a place to stay. Through the pain I suffered then and now, I believe the pain they suffered --- not knowing whether I would survive or not for several hours --- was much worse.
I miss them. Our growing up days were filled with fun (in addition to my missteps). My siblings and I still chuckle about our next-door neighbor, who was known to throw rocks at us and swear at us under his breath as he scampered from his house to his garage. A bit of a wingnut before wingnuts were invented! We took some eventful trips, and especially had great holiday get-togethers. We had fun. Mom's last few years were filled with pain and sorrow, as she battled cancer. It has been very different not having her there to call, or to talk to. But life seems to be about transitions. It has taken me a long time to figure that out.
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