Mel shared this quote with me last night, and I really liked it. Read it for yourself and then ask yourself this question: Who represents your roots?
"Some people are meant to come into your life for a lifetime, some for only a season and you got to know which is which. And you're always messing up when you mix those seasonal people up with lifetime expectations.
I put everybody that comes into my life in the category of a tree. Some people are like leaves on a tree. When the wind blows, they're over there... wind blow that way they over here... they're unstable. When the seasons change they wither and die, they're gone. That's alright. Most people are like that, they're not there to do anything but take from the tree and give shade every now and then. That's all they can do. But don't get mad at people like that, that's who they are. That's all they were put on this earth to be. A leaf.
Some people are like a branch on that tree. You have to be careful with those branches too, cause they'll fool you. They'll make you think they're a good friend and they're real strong but the minute you step out there on them, they'll break and leave you high and dry.
But if you find 2 or 3 people in your life that's like the roots at the bottom of that tree you are blessed. Those are the kind of people that aren't going nowhere. They aren't worried about being seen, nobody has to know that they know you, they don't have to know what they're doing for you but if those roots weren't there, that tree couldn't live.
A tree could have a hundred million branches but it only takes a few roots down at the bottom to make sure that tree gets everything it needs. When you get some roots, hold on to them but the rest of it... just let it go. Let folks go."
**Quote taken from Madea Goes to Jail
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Zebra stripes
**More fiction dug up among old computer files. This was written while I was an undergrad at Hamilton College.**
By Lisa A. Eramo
Sandra, my sister, had to cancel all of her patients today so we could get together, but I just made sure the VCR was set to tape reruns of MASH. It was mid-July, and we’d been waiting for a cool day to clean out the attic. After all, it’s been almost a month since Mom passed away. I was there when it happened. Sandra, of course, was saving another life. She never got to say good-bye, but I don’t think Mom knew the difference anyway. She was laying in one of those beds at the time. You know – the ones with the cold metal railings, her frail body barely making an imprint on the ghostly sheets. She kept raising her left hand slowly toward her mouth as if the cigarette were still there. It disgusted me. I ran right out of the room, wishing Dad were there with me so we could walk for miles and miles, and perhaps never return.
Mom lived fifteen years without him. She moved on after his death, but I don’t think I ever did. I swear I can still hear his voice lingering in the breeze. When I was a kid, he’d say, “Let’s go for a walk, Milly – along the canal. We can make pictures of the clouds.” On days like that, Sandra and mom would have been baking cookies or watering tulips in the garden. Dandelions were my favorite anyway. Never seemed to fit in – weeds that jutted up like lonely poles amongst thousands of blades of grass, waving like solitary hands.
Maybe it was because she was two years older than me, but Sandra and mom were like one. They’d buy the matching mother-daughter dresses, swap recipes for chicken cordon bleu, catch the attention of everyone in a room. Their soprano voices soared above the crowds, their jokes were always funny, and small talk just came naturally to them. Dad and I would fade into the background – sitting on the mall benches and people-watching while they shopped, or staring at one another from across the table while mom and Sandra lost themselves in conversation.
Yeah, having dad there would have made things a lot easier. Having his big arms wrapped around me would have drained all of the years of frustration away. The frustrating years of never meeting her expectations, of trying to be the daughter I never was. Dad never wanted me to be anything in particular. That was especially helpful on the day (during my junior year of college) when I told them I had a crush on one of my professors – a woman. A lesbian, in fact. And that no, it wasn’t a phase. I was attracted to women. And it was non-negotiable, so yes; they should deal with it. It wasn’t going to just go away. And neither was I.
“Milly, how could you?” My mother had sobbed, her arms submerged in a sink of dirty dishwater. “What will everyone say?”
My father had been sitting at the dinner table, and was chuckling at the time. I think he always knew. He was a strong man. He’d been in the Navy, and I used to call him Popeye. On rainy days, he’d plop me up on his shoulders, or we’d have wrestling matches in the living room. Dad would play board games with Sandra or attend her piano recitals. He was just different with her, as was mom with me.
“I don’t blame you Milly,” he said. “Women are beautiful.”
I don’t think Sandra was ever completely comfortable after I told her. We were so different to begin with, that this particular difference seemed to drive us even further apart. But Sandra also didn’t seem to mind the fact that in our devoutly Catholic family, her wedding would be the only wedding. Mom and Dad could invest lots in her special day. I would never really have such an occasion.
“Mom, can’t we have the reception at the Crystal Castle?” Sandra had begged. “I know it’s expensive, but it’s not like you’re ever going to have the chance to do this again.” She was right, but I hated her for saying it.
Sandra and I agreed to meet at the house at 1:00. As usual, I was running late. My apartment was such a mess I could barely make my way to the door. I ran outside in ripped jean shorts and a tank top, and slid into the car. It was a ten-minute drive. I sang with the radio to calm me down. I shouldn’t be nervous. I was going home, after all. Sandra was the one who had to make the four-hour drive. Someone had to stay with mom. She’d been sick, and it didn’t matter where I lived so long as there was an all night diner where I could pour coffee. So, I stayed. Sandra left.
Our old house was on the corner of Cemetery Hill and Anderson Ave. Yeah, we used to live right across the street from a cemetery. It was a pretty cemetery with lots of trees and rolling hills. I liked to wander around in there, putting dandelions on the graves that he been overgrown with weeds. I didn’t know anyone buried there, but some of the headstones were just beautiful – gray slabs of marble, some engraved with flowers and crosses, sketched with names like Angelica and Anne-Marie, long since forgotten and tucked aside, weathering away through the seasons. The cemetery was the one place that never changed. Its hills were always peaceful and dotted with marble slabs pushing up out of the earth - an unlikely beautiful garden of names. My bedroom window looked out onto those hills, and sometimes, I would stare out into the openness, finding comfort in the fact that some places never seemed to change.
I took the turn down our street. For some reason, I got the feeling like I was returning after some long voyage. That the neighborhood wasn’t mine. The welcome sign on our door was crooked, and I fixed it as I stepped inside. Sandra was already up in the attic, and didn’t hear me come in. I’m not sure why, but I took a look around. I had no idea what I was looking for. I felt the need to just walk through the rooms of the home that had once been my own. It was a trance-like walk in which I seemed to be numb, yet sensitive to everything at the same time.
The kitchen counters were cluttered with medicines and pills, and the refrigerator was covered with fruit magnets and drawings that Sandra’s kids had made. I continued through a small hallway to the living room. The smell of mom’s cigarette’s had seeped into the walls, and lingered in the air. Family pictures lined the walls – smiles upon smiles upon smiles - Sandra always in the front, and me, younger but tall and lanky, in the back. Dad’s old rocking chair faced the fireplace. How many times had I sat on Dad’s lap in his chair, falling asleep as we rocked back and forth? How many times had I since longed to hear that creak? And how many times had I returned here, only to feel very different? How odd it is to feel different in a room.
“Hey Mill? That you?”
My sister’s voice commanded. She had a voice that never faltered – one always sure of itself.
“Yeah, I’m comin’!” I shouted toward the steps that led to the attic.
The narrow little staircase was old, and cluttered with pots and pans. I had to step carefully on its rickety old steps, trying not to knock anything down. The wooden door at the top was slightly ajar, and as I opened it, a gush of hot air clung to my skin. I took a step in onto the creaking floorboards, and the overwhelming smell of mothballs and cedar filled my senses.
Sandra sat on the floor, surrounded by boxes.
“How’ve you been?” I said, not having seen or talked to her since the funeral last month.
“Oh, you know, I’ve been all right. Ron and I had the most lovely dinner last night for our anniversary.”
That wasn’t really the answer I was expecting, but I was glad she was doing ok. I looked around, trying to decide what to get into first. Mom had alphabetized everything in the attic, so when I wanted to look for her china dishes, I headed over toward the endless extra coffeepots.
I pulled out the box and took out a single glistening china. The china had been passed down from generation to generation in my family. It was an heirloom that practically had our last name invisibly engraved on it. The dishes had a pretty ivy and holly pattern around the edges. The Christmas table would always look so pretty when decorated with the china. Funny how the aching cracks in the wood never seemed to show on holidays when the dishes were out. They never showed, but I knew they were still there. Underneath the china and pine green table clothe they split the wood like a vein. “It’s amazing the things you can hide,” my mother had said, gleefully smoothing out a wrinkle in the cloth.
I remember the one Christmas I refused to wear a dress for our family pictures. I had wanted to wear my little blue jeans. I was eight or nine at the time. Mom had bought matching red velvet dresses for Sandra and I.
“Milly!” my mother had shouted at me. “You’re going to do this one thing for me whether you like it or not! Sandra likes her dress...why can’t you, Milly?” She had me cornered in my bedroom and was shoving one of my arms into the dress. My father stood outside my room, pounding on the door. “Ellen! Stop it! Just let her wear the pants!” I could hear my sister outside the door, too. “Just put it on Milly!” she pleaded.
As usual, my mother had prevailed. I ended up sitting at the dinner table sulking, trying to pretend I was happy and be pleasant to everyone else in the family. I wouldn’t talk to her, though, that entire day.
“Hey, mom left those dishes to me, Milly.”
“Oh, sorry. I didn’t know,” I said, gently setting the dish back into the box.
“It’s ok,” she said. “I just wanted you to be careful with ‘em.”
Sandra used to act the same with her toys when we were little. We had the same dolls, the same bed spreads, the same clothes, the same dressers. My parents even made us share a bedroom for twelve years until we built an addition to the house. It was a small room with little space to move around. After a while, my mother gave up, realizing that we were never going to be the same.
Sandra had begun packing up some of mom’s old dresses. She stood in front of the only window in the attic, the sunlight illuminating her strawberry hair and penetrating green eyes. She held one of the dresses up to her body, modeling it in a dusty mirror. It was made of long powder blue satin, with a lacey crème bodice. She twirled around in a circle, listening to the swish of the dress as it danced. I swear she looked just like mom.
“What do you think she was like when she was younger?” Sandra said, swaying gently back and forth like a little princess in a ball gown.
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said, piling up some empty cardboard boxes.
“I bet she was the most popular girl in the school,” Sandra said, giggling. “Poor dad. He was just the quiet, shy guy in love with the prettiest girl in town.”
“Maybe,” I said, watching her become lost in her little reverie.
“Hey, speaking of dad, why did she ever keep all that stuff?” She pointed to an oak dresser in the far corner. Even after dad passed away, mom still kept all of his shirts, pants, suit coats, and ties. “Maybe the Salvation Army’ll take it.”
“I’ll take care of that stuff Sandra, don’t worry.” There’s no way I’d just give his clothes away. Sandra could take whatever dresses she wanted, she could wear them, sell them, or cut them up into little pieces for all I cared, but she was not going to take dad’s clothes.
“Fine with me,” she said.
She tossed me a winter coat, motioning to the corner. We had piles of things to keep, piles of things to get rid of, and piles of things we had no idea what to do with. And each treasure we came across seemed to carry with it a set of unique associations. Of course, these memories were never remembered the same way, but like I said, Sandra and I never did agree on anything.
“Hey – you remember when mom and dad took us to the Bronx Zoo?” Sandra said. “It was the summer of ’63 or ‘64, I think.” She giggled, sifting through a small cigar box on the floor. “She saved the postcards. Can you believe that?”
“Yeah.” Of course I remembered. Sandra and mom had spent all day in the souvenir shops, while dad and I had walked around to look at the animals.
“Oh, we just want to take a quick look in this shop...you guys go on ahead.” Mom had taken Sandra’s hand, and they had disappeared into the store before my father could even respond. We spent practically that whole day together, just the two of us. He made up stories for each animal that we passed by. The zebras were my favorite and always have been.
“Zebras are the most like people,” he’d said.
“Why Dad?”
He’d taken my hand and put it up to the fence.
“Trace their stripes, honey. No two zebras have the same stripes.”
“Why Dad?” I’d said, mesmerized by the zigzagging lines.
“Just because. God made ‘em that way. Same way he made people. No two are the same.”
“So are we related to the zebra?” I’d said, confused, a swirl of blue cotton candy dangling at my side.
“No, but we’ve got stripes like the zebra. You just can’t see ‘em. But they’re there. Right inside you.”
I blew some dust off the postcard and held it to my chest, closing my eyes, imagining my father was there to make me strong again.
“You think she would have cleaned this place out a long time ago,” Sandra said. “Can you imagine how long it’s going to take to go through all this shit?”
I opened my eyes and watched her looking through some old magazines, gawking at the out of date hairstyles and clothes.
“Jesus Christ, Sandra!” I darted over to the china dishes, took one, and threw it down to the ground; its jagged pieces strewn all over floor. “It’s the least you could do. Who stayed with Mom while she was sick? You were supposed to be her goddam best friend. Not me.” I started to cry, and I turned my back to her, stepping out of the circle of broken glass around me.
Sandra was silent. Then a quiet voice arose.
“Milly, I’m not against your lifestyle, if that’s what you’re still bitter about,” she said.
“Sandra, I just want you stop looking at your goddam self for once.”
We continued to sift through things, but in silence. An uncomfortable silence. After what seemed like an eternity, she came over and stood about a foot away from me, watching me sort through a box of old stationary on the floor. I didn’t look up. She continued to stand there for a few minutes. Then she bent down, until I finally lifted my gaze. She had begun to cry and she quickly reached out for me.
“I miss Mom, Milly,” she said. “The same way you miss Dad. I should have been there with you.”
I looked at my sister, taking note of the dimple in both of our chins, our high cheekbones, our long eyelashes. All we had was one another, and we both knew it. We worked non-stop for the remainder of that afternoon, until almost everything had been cleaned out.
“Hey, you gotta come over here,” Sandra said, wiping the sweat off her brow.
She had found about thirty boxes of mom’s shoes. Some of the last items to go through. All kinds of shoes. Black chunky heels, Velcro sneakers, white flats, red heels with diamonds lacing the strap around the ankle. As kids, we used to parade around in these shoes, pretending to be movie stars, or even mom. Sandra was always better – she could walk in heels without wobbling around. She took out a pair of dressy black heels, stepped out of her own sandals, and slipped her feet in. A perfect match. She looked pretty funny, wearing black heels with a pair of orange shorts and a shirt that said ‘Bermuda,’ but boy did they look good.
“I think I’ll be taking these home with me today,” she said. “They feel great!”
“They look good Sandy.”
“Here, you try these on,” She handed me another pair of heels. “For old time’s sake.”
“All right.”
Reluctantly, I slipped my feet in. I could barely even stand, they pinched my feet so much. My toes were scrunched up against the leather, suffocating in pain, rubbing and burning as I took a step forward.
“Try these Milly,” she said, handing me another pair of heels.
Those hurt even more. I stood there motionless, gazing down at my clumsy feet in mom’s tight red heels. Nothing could have looked more absurd. I yanked them off so my feet could finally breathe again. It felt great to be back in my own sandals. I told Sandra she could take them all home.
And she did. From time to time, I notice the shoes on her. I notice her elegant walk, her delicate poise, the grace with which she moves. I hear the click of her heel on the floor. I see my mother and all she stood for. And from time to time, if I look hard enough, I can see my father staring back at me in the mirror, reminding me of our field of zebras and the beauty of my own stripes.
By Lisa A. Eramo
Sandra, my sister, had to cancel all of her patients today so we could get together, but I just made sure the VCR was set to tape reruns of MASH. It was mid-July, and we’d been waiting for a cool day to clean out the attic. After all, it’s been almost a month since Mom passed away. I was there when it happened. Sandra, of course, was saving another life. She never got to say good-bye, but I don’t think Mom knew the difference anyway. She was laying in one of those beds at the time. You know – the ones with the cold metal railings, her frail body barely making an imprint on the ghostly sheets. She kept raising her left hand slowly toward her mouth as if the cigarette were still there. It disgusted me. I ran right out of the room, wishing Dad were there with me so we could walk for miles and miles, and perhaps never return.
Mom lived fifteen years without him. She moved on after his death, but I don’t think I ever did. I swear I can still hear his voice lingering in the breeze. When I was a kid, he’d say, “Let’s go for a walk, Milly – along the canal. We can make pictures of the clouds.” On days like that, Sandra and mom would have been baking cookies or watering tulips in the garden. Dandelions were my favorite anyway. Never seemed to fit in – weeds that jutted up like lonely poles amongst thousands of blades of grass, waving like solitary hands.
Maybe it was because she was two years older than me, but Sandra and mom were like one. They’d buy the matching mother-daughter dresses, swap recipes for chicken cordon bleu, catch the attention of everyone in a room. Their soprano voices soared above the crowds, their jokes were always funny, and small talk just came naturally to them. Dad and I would fade into the background – sitting on the mall benches and people-watching while they shopped, or staring at one another from across the table while mom and Sandra lost themselves in conversation.
Yeah, having dad there would have made things a lot easier. Having his big arms wrapped around me would have drained all of the years of frustration away. The frustrating years of never meeting her expectations, of trying to be the daughter I never was. Dad never wanted me to be anything in particular. That was especially helpful on the day (during my junior year of college) when I told them I had a crush on one of my professors – a woman. A lesbian, in fact. And that no, it wasn’t a phase. I was attracted to women. And it was non-negotiable, so yes; they should deal with it. It wasn’t going to just go away. And neither was I.
“Milly, how could you?” My mother had sobbed, her arms submerged in a sink of dirty dishwater. “What will everyone say?”
My father had been sitting at the dinner table, and was chuckling at the time. I think he always knew. He was a strong man. He’d been in the Navy, and I used to call him Popeye. On rainy days, he’d plop me up on his shoulders, or we’d have wrestling matches in the living room. Dad would play board games with Sandra or attend her piano recitals. He was just different with her, as was mom with me.
“I don’t blame you Milly,” he said. “Women are beautiful.”
I don’t think Sandra was ever completely comfortable after I told her. We were so different to begin with, that this particular difference seemed to drive us even further apart. But Sandra also didn’t seem to mind the fact that in our devoutly Catholic family, her wedding would be the only wedding. Mom and Dad could invest lots in her special day. I would never really have such an occasion.
“Mom, can’t we have the reception at the Crystal Castle?” Sandra had begged. “I know it’s expensive, but it’s not like you’re ever going to have the chance to do this again.” She was right, but I hated her for saying it.
Sandra and I agreed to meet at the house at 1:00. As usual, I was running late. My apartment was such a mess I could barely make my way to the door. I ran outside in ripped jean shorts and a tank top, and slid into the car. It was a ten-minute drive. I sang with the radio to calm me down. I shouldn’t be nervous. I was going home, after all. Sandra was the one who had to make the four-hour drive. Someone had to stay with mom. She’d been sick, and it didn’t matter where I lived so long as there was an all night diner where I could pour coffee. So, I stayed. Sandra left.
Our old house was on the corner of Cemetery Hill and Anderson Ave. Yeah, we used to live right across the street from a cemetery. It was a pretty cemetery with lots of trees and rolling hills. I liked to wander around in there, putting dandelions on the graves that he been overgrown with weeds. I didn’t know anyone buried there, but some of the headstones were just beautiful – gray slabs of marble, some engraved with flowers and crosses, sketched with names like Angelica and Anne-Marie, long since forgotten and tucked aside, weathering away through the seasons. The cemetery was the one place that never changed. Its hills were always peaceful and dotted with marble slabs pushing up out of the earth - an unlikely beautiful garden of names. My bedroom window looked out onto those hills, and sometimes, I would stare out into the openness, finding comfort in the fact that some places never seemed to change.
I took the turn down our street. For some reason, I got the feeling like I was returning after some long voyage. That the neighborhood wasn’t mine. The welcome sign on our door was crooked, and I fixed it as I stepped inside. Sandra was already up in the attic, and didn’t hear me come in. I’m not sure why, but I took a look around. I had no idea what I was looking for. I felt the need to just walk through the rooms of the home that had once been my own. It was a trance-like walk in which I seemed to be numb, yet sensitive to everything at the same time.
The kitchen counters were cluttered with medicines and pills, and the refrigerator was covered with fruit magnets and drawings that Sandra’s kids had made. I continued through a small hallway to the living room. The smell of mom’s cigarette’s had seeped into the walls, and lingered in the air. Family pictures lined the walls – smiles upon smiles upon smiles - Sandra always in the front, and me, younger but tall and lanky, in the back. Dad’s old rocking chair faced the fireplace. How many times had I sat on Dad’s lap in his chair, falling asleep as we rocked back and forth? How many times had I since longed to hear that creak? And how many times had I returned here, only to feel very different? How odd it is to feel different in a room.
“Hey Mill? That you?”
My sister’s voice commanded. She had a voice that never faltered – one always sure of itself.
“Yeah, I’m comin’!” I shouted toward the steps that led to the attic.
The narrow little staircase was old, and cluttered with pots and pans. I had to step carefully on its rickety old steps, trying not to knock anything down. The wooden door at the top was slightly ajar, and as I opened it, a gush of hot air clung to my skin. I took a step in onto the creaking floorboards, and the overwhelming smell of mothballs and cedar filled my senses.
Sandra sat on the floor, surrounded by boxes.
“How’ve you been?” I said, not having seen or talked to her since the funeral last month.
“Oh, you know, I’ve been all right. Ron and I had the most lovely dinner last night for our anniversary.”
That wasn’t really the answer I was expecting, but I was glad she was doing ok. I looked around, trying to decide what to get into first. Mom had alphabetized everything in the attic, so when I wanted to look for her china dishes, I headed over toward the endless extra coffeepots.
I pulled out the box and took out a single glistening china. The china had been passed down from generation to generation in my family. It was an heirloom that practically had our last name invisibly engraved on it. The dishes had a pretty ivy and holly pattern around the edges. The Christmas table would always look so pretty when decorated with the china. Funny how the aching cracks in the wood never seemed to show on holidays when the dishes were out. They never showed, but I knew they were still there. Underneath the china and pine green table clothe they split the wood like a vein. “It’s amazing the things you can hide,” my mother had said, gleefully smoothing out a wrinkle in the cloth.
I remember the one Christmas I refused to wear a dress for our family pictures. I had wanted to wear my little blue jeans. I was eight or nine at the time. Mom had bought matching red velvet dresses for Sandra and I.
“Milly!” my mother had shouted at me. “You’re going to do this one thing for me whether you like it or not! Sandra likes her dress...why can’t you, Milly?” She had me cornered in my bedroom and was shoving one of my arms into the dress. My father stood outside my room, pounding on the door. “Ellen! Stop it! Just let her wear the pants!” I could hear my sister outside the door, too. “Just put it on Milly!” she pleaded.
As usual, my mother had prevailed. I ended up sitting at the dinner table sulking, trying to pretend I was happy and be pleasant to everyone else in the family. I wouldn’t talk to her, though, that entire day.
“Hey, mom left those dishes to me, Milly.”
“Oh, sorry. I didn’t know,” I said, gently setting the dish back into the box.
“It’s ok,” she said. “I just wanted you to be careful with ‘em.”
Sandra used to act the same with her toys when we were little. We had the same dolls, the same bed spreads, the same clothes, the same dressers. My parents even made us share a bedroom for twelve years until we built an addition to the house. It was a small room with little space to move around. After a while, my mother gave up, realizing that we were never going to be the same.
Sandra had begun packing up some of mom’s old dresses. She stood in front of the only window in the attic, the sunlight illuminating her strawberry hair and penetrating green eyes. She held one of the dresses up to her body, modeling it in a dusty mirror. It was made of long powder blue satin, with a lacey crème bodice. She twirled around in a circle, listening to the swish of the dress as it danced. I swear she looked just like mom.
“What do you think she was like when she was younger?” Sandra said, swaying gently back and forth like a little princess in a ball gown.
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said, piling up some empty cardboard boxes.
“I bet she was the most popular girl in the school,” Sandra said, giggling. “Poor dad. He was just the quiet, shy guy in love with the prettiest girl in town.”
“Maybe,” I said, watching her become lost in her little reverie.
“Hey, speaking of dad, why did she ever keep all that stuff?” She pointed to an oak dresser in the far corner. Even after dad passed away, mom still kept all of his shirts, pants, suit coats, and ties. “Maybe the Salvation Army’ll take it.”
“I’ll take care of that stuff Sandra, don’t worry.” There’s no way I’d just give his clothes away. Sandra could take whatever dresses she wanted, she could wear them, sell them, or cut them up into little pieces for all I cared, but she was not going to take dad’s clothes.
“Fine with me,” she said.
She tossed me a winter coat, motioning to the corner. We had piles of things to keep, piles of things to get rid of, and piles of things we had no idea what to do with. And each treasure we came across seemed to carry with it a set of unique associations. Of course, these memories were never remembered the same way, but like I said, Sandra and I never did agree on anything.
“Hey – you remember when mom and dad took us to the Bronx Zoo?” Sandra said. “It was the summer of ’63 or ‘64, I think.” She giggled, sifting through a small cigar box on the floor. “She saved the postcards. Can you believe that?”
“Yeah.” Of course I remembered. Sandra and mom had spent all day in the souvenir shops, while dad and I had walked around to look at the animals.
“Oh, we just want to take a quick look in this shop...you guys go on ahead.” Mom had taken Sandra’s hand, and they had disappeared into the store before my father could even respond. We spent practically that whole day together, just the two of us. He made up stories for each animal that we passed by. The zebras were my favorite and always have been.
“Zebras are the most like people,” he’d said.
“Why Dad?”
He’d taken my hand and put it up to the fence.
“Trace their stripes, honey. No two zebras have the same stripes.”
“Why Dad?” I’d said, mesmerized by the zigzagging lines.
“Just because. God made ‘em that way. Same way he made people. No two are the same.”
“So are we related to the zebra?” I’d said, confused, a swirl of blue cotton candy dangling at my side.
“No, but we’ve got stripes like the zebra. You just can’t see ‘em. But they’re there. Right inside you.”
I blew some dust off the postcard and held it to my chest, closing my eyes, imagining my father was there to make me strong again.
“You think she would have cleaned this place out a long time ago,” Sandra said. “Can you imagine how long it’s going to take to go through all this shit?”
I opened my eyes and watched her looking through some old magazines, gawking at the out of date hairstyles and clothes.
“Jesus Christ, Sandra!” I darted over to the china dishes, took one, and threw it down to the ground; its jagged pieces strewn all over floor. “It’s the least you could do. Who stayed with Mom while she was sick? You were supposed to be her goddam best friend. Not me.” I started to cry, and I turned my back to her, stepping out of the circle of broken glass around me.
Sandra was silent. Then a quiet voice arose.
“Milly, I’m not against your lifestyle, if that’s what you’re still bitter about,” she said.
“Sandra, I just want you stop looking at your goddam self for once.”
We continued to sift through things, but in silence. An uncomfortable silence. After what seemed like an eternity, she came over and stood about a foot away from me, watching me sort through a box of old stationary on the floor. I didn’t look up. She continued to stand there for a few minutes. Then she bent down, until I finally lifted my gaze. She had begun to cry and she quickly reached out for me.
“I miss Mom, Milly,” she said. “The same way you miss Dad. I should have been there with you.”
I looked at my sister, taking note of the dimple in both of our chins, our high cheekbones, our long eyelashes. All we had was one another, and we both knew it. We worked non-stop for the remainder of that afternoon, until almost everything had been cleaned out.
“Hey, you gotta come over here,” Sandra said, wiping the sweat off her brow.
She had found about thirty boxes of mom’s shoes. Some of the last items to go through. All kinds of shoes. Black chunky heels, Velcro sneakers, white flats, red heels with diamonds lacing the strap around the ankle. As kids, we used to parade around in these shoes, pretending to be movie stars, or even mom. Sandra was always better – she could walk in heels without wobbling around. She took out a pair of dressy black heels, stepped out of her own sandals, and slipped her feet in. A perfect match. She looked pretty funny, wearing black heels with a pair of orange shorts and a shirt that said ‘Bermuda,’ but boy did they look good.
“I think I’ll be taking these home with me today,” she said. “They feel great!”
“They look good Sandy.”
“Here, you try these on,” She handed me another pair of heels. “For old time’s sake.”
“All right.”
Reluctantly, I slipped my feet in. I could barely even stand, they pinched my feet so much. My toes were scrunched up against the leather, suffocating in pain, rubbing and burning as I took a step forward.
“Try these Milly,” she said, handing me another pair of heels.
Those hurt even more. I stood there motionless, gazing down at my clumsy feet in mom’s tight red heels. Nothing could have looked more absurd. I yanked them off so my feet could finally breathe again. It felt great to be back in my own sandals. I told Sandra she could take them all home.
And she did. From time to time, I notice the shoes on her. I notice her elegant walk, her delicate poise, the grace with which she moves. I hear the click of her heel on the floor. I see my mother and all she stood for. And from time to time, if I look hard enough, I can see my father staring back at me in the mirror, reminding me of our field of zebras and the beauty of my own stripes.
Somewhere, they’re embracing
**I wrote this piece several years ago in honor of my grandparents whose loving relationship continues to serve as the template for my own. It's part truth and part fiction but written entirely from the heart.**
By Lisa A. Eramo
As far back as my memory will allow, the cynara cardunculus is there, maturing in the cool mist of September’s morning, its stalky body jutting up alongside Oberle road, not far from the double wide my grandparents called home.
Most people don’t even know about the plant—it just grows and grows along the countryside, dividing the gradations of grassy greens. I never actually questioned how Nonny not only knew it existed, but also that if you cut, blanched, and cooked it properly, a cardoon, as it’s commonly known, becomes an edible treat.
“That which we often glance quickly past is most beautiful,” she’d say, carefully watching an ever-present spider weave a dew-dropped web on their front porch. “Keep your eyes and heart open. Nothing is insignificant, not even that ugly old weed.”
If it hadn’t been for this ugly old weed, Nonny and Poppy would have never met. Nonny had been picking cardoons a mile from her parents’ house on a Sunday afternoon when it started to rain. Poppy happened to be walking down the road and saw her in the distance—a rainbow of color, her hair curling in the humidity, her arms full of earthy plants. Their courting began that day as he held his jacket over her head the entire way home. Since hearing their creation story, I never doubted the existence of destiny.
I think about the cardoon as I drive down the narrow road that leads to their old house, now overgrown with weeds and scattered with stray Styrofoam cups. My sister Judy is getting married tomorrow, and I’ve left the art-infused Bostonian culture to return to the place where my grandparents loved, my parents love, and where my sister and her fiancé would settle and love—a small town in central New York where even the trees bear hearts and rent is cheap for newlyweds.
I park my Mustang in their driveway, and it looks out of place, like a Dahli painting—something surreal. I feel the neighbors staring at me as I get out of the car and walk around the perimeter of the house. One man across the street gets up out of his chair and walks to the edge of his porch to get a better look. Somewhere in the distance, wind chimes sing an unfamiliar tune.
Once Nonny discovered a patch of cardoon, she’d never forget it. She even managed to draw an elaborate map of telephone posts, foot paths, and distinguishing trees that helped guide her back to the same patches in the same fields every year. And on any given fall morning, you’d find them—Nonny and Poppy, map in hand—driving their shiny blue Cadillac in search of the elusive plant.
Within minutes of leaving the house, they’d start the rosary. “Hail Mary, full of grace,” they’d take turns saying. “Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.” It was their tradition to sing this sacred duet during any road trip longer than twenty minutes.
I’ve often wondered what it’s like to know that kind of interconnectedness. What is it like to be able to finish someone’s prayer, someone’s sentence, someone’s breathe?
My sister (Judy) and Derek met in college at a drunken fraternity party. She likes to tell the story of how they both reached for the keg at the same time and then stood there for what seemed like hours staring into one another’s eyes. She said she instantaneously knew that they would be together. And ever since then, they’ve been inseparable—best friends, drinking partners, soul mates. They’re the type of couple that makes you smile and sigh.
As young girls, Judy and I were often in the backseat during the cardoon-searching adventures, listening to the prayer’s counterpoint and playing with our Barbie dolls and Tonka trucks. Sometimes we looked out the window at the squares of hay or dilapidated farmhouses that seemed to fold in on themselves. There was one old house pained with stripes every color of the rainbow, all faded by the sun’s light. We called it the lifesaver house in honor of our favorite candies.
Nonny would spend hours meticulously picking cardoons, insisting that Poppy make sudden stops along the road when she spotted a patch or two. “Bianco ameliore”, “Italian dwarf,” “Large Smooth,” and “White Improved” were just a few of the varieties of these leafy treasures they, or I should say she, sought after.
To me, the names of each type of cardoon were poetic and silky and had a way of rolling off my tongue like a song. “Bianco,” I’d say, stressing the second syllable. “Ameliore,” I’d say, imitating some Italian operatic singers. The names of cardoons made me think of far-away places, countries I’d never visited, endless white sandy beaches, heaven.
“Over there! Over there, Paul. Pull over right there,” she’d say, her arm dangling out the window to wave hello to a small green cluster that seemed to bow to her.
“Ok Sal,” he’d grunt, shaking his head and slightly smiling at her excitement. “I’ve got somebody right behind me and I can’t just stop in the middle of the road!” Sal was Poppy’s nickname for her—short for her maiden name Salamone. Her real name was Rosemarie.
It was inevitable that he’d adjust his mirror to find an angry farmer in a big tractor wanting nothing more than to honk his horn and pass them by. Poppy would put his blinker on and pull off the road into the ditch, and we’d soon be left in a cloud of smoke from the tractor’s barreling off in the distance.
“That guy couldn’t wait two minutes,” he’d say. But before he could even turn his head, Nonny was out the door, running toward the cardoons with scissors and plastic bags in hand. Poppy would always follow after her, insisting that he needed to help her, even if it was just to hold the bag open so she could drop them in.
“Nonny, who lives here?” I’d shout after her, slightly unnerved by the perplexed housewife in the distance hanging clothes on a droopy line.
“Well, I don’t actually know them, but they won’t mind,” she’d say, throwing her hands into the air and laughing, her big horse teeth glistening in the sun. “We’ll only be here for a few minutes.”
The sun always seemed to be hottest on those days. Sweat would drip down my arms and back, reminding me of the heat my body could create. The grass was usually tall and would tickle and tease our legs as we’d run through it. Somewhere in the distance, a barrel would burn, and the smell of smoke would mix with sweet manure and pervade the air.
“Oh! Right here! Over here!” she’d say, startling us all as we wandered through the maze of grass.
Sure enough, there would be a patch of massive green leafy plants huddled together—the Holy Grail of her journey.
“You have to grab it by the stem and cut,” she’d say, as we—a captivated audience—all stood watching.
“Be careful with those scissors, Sal. In fact, why don’t you just let me do that?” Poppy would say, trying to finagle the scissors away from her.
“I’m all right. I’m all right,” she’d say, the cardoon finally breaking free from the ground. Next, she’d to hold it up and get a good look at it. You’d think she was inspecting a turkey for Thanksgiving. “This is a good one,” she’d say. “Yep, this one will be good.”
Perhaps it was those hazy mornings, the sun rising as if on cue to begin the day’s symphony and bring in the sounds of all things living. Perhaps it was the feeling as though we were meant to find those cardoons just like Nonny and Poppy were meant to find one another. All of it was and still is intriguing to me. How and why do certain people come into your life at the right time and place—no searching necessary? Their love story had a magical element more powerful than any Grimes fairytale they’d ever read to me.
A whistle from a nearby train briefly snaps me out of my reverie. I realize that I’ve been standing here for almost ten minutes. Judy must be putting the last minute touches on her wedding plans, making sure the photographer had the right address and the DJ would play right song. The neighbor across the street has gone back to reading his newspaper. I decide to take a seat on the lawn.
I think back to Nonny and how when she started to get out of breath from all the walking and cardoon picking, we knew it was time to go home. Poppy would tenderly wipe the sweat from her brow, kiss her on the lips, and convince her that the rest of the cardoons would wait until next time. On a good day, we would have visited two or three fields and at least two or three cemeteries. Nonny used to say that cemeteries always had cardoons. Usually we’d load up three or four bags in the cemeteries alone.
The drive home was usually pretty quiet. Nonny would fall asleep, leaving Poppy to say an entire string of rosaries by himself.
At home, hunched over the stove, Nonny would wash, blanch, bread, and fry a whole plateful of cardoons at a time. Poppy delighted in the smell of salt wafting through the air and would sit curling his toes in his bright red recliner.
“You’re so good to me, Sal,” he’d say, his head tilted toward her as she turned the cardoons around in the breading and flour.
“And don’t you forget it!” she’d laugh, winking at my sister and me as we sat on high stools watching her, mesmerized as the green leafy weeds were transformed into a crispy brown treat.
If it was during the week, Golden Girls would blare on the TV turned up way too loud, while a small radio on the counter boasted Frank Sinatra. The music seemed to make waves of steam from the stove sway and dance through the air. If it was a Sunday, Notre Dame football would sing through the entire house. The screaming crowds, shrilly whistles and blasting marching bands made it seem like one big party and that Poppy was the guest of honor.
Judy, who was usually buried in old photo albums by this time, would occasionally pull out black and white photographs, holding them up to the light to try and figure out which side of the family each person was on.
“Who’s this guy?” she’d say, her forehead crinkling up like a slinky. “And why does he have such funny clothes on?”
Nonny would pause her cardoon dipping and frying to squint her eyes and look at the picture from across the room. “That’s your great-grandmother’s brother, Freddy,” she’d say. “He was a dentist. That was my uncle, you know.”
“Hey, this is you and Poppy,” my sister would say, grabbing another picture, this one of my grandparents on their wedding day. “Tell us the story! Tell us the story!”
“Well,” Poppy would say, clearing his voice as if to begin a sermon. “When I knew that I wanted to marry your grandmother, I had to get permission from her father.”
“That’s how it was then,” Nonny would interject, pulling a cardoon from the oily pan and setting it down on a paper towel-lined plate next to another one that was already cool. “You needed permission.”
“So anyway,” Poppy would say, anxious to be in the spotlight again. “Once I had permission, I showed up at her house on a Sunday morning. You should have seen the look on her face!” He shook his head and closed his eyes, reveling in the memory of that day. “Her hair was all up in curlers. I think she was getting ready for church.”
“I was getting ready for my cousin’s baby shower!” By now, Nonny had usually spilled some of the breading all over the counter because she was paying more attention to Poppy and making sure he got his story straight. “All I had on was a bathrobe! Don’t you remember that, Paul?”
“Oh yes. That’s right. That pink one with the roses on it. Yes, I remember,” he’d say, rolling his eyes and winking at my sister and me. “Anyway, I showed up at her door holding a silver tray of Italian cookies—crème puffs, biscotti, cuccidati, pizzelles—with a diamond ring on top, and you know what I said?” His eyes were wide and his mouth open, and for a moment, I picture him at the age of twenty-two, a boy, hopelessly in love.
Of course we both knew the answer, but we liked to hear it from him. “Tell us! Tell us!” Judy would say. I was silent, paying close attention to the look on Poppy’s face as he said the words.
“I said, ‘Sal, I give you my life on a silver platter. Will you marry me?’” Poppy always had a habit of tearing up at this point. He usually cried like a baby over the small things—a beautiful sunset, a family picture, a good home-cooked meal. When Poppy cried, it usually meant he was happy, not sad.
“Girls, how could I resist that, right?” Nonny would say, beaming from behind a plateful of almost finished cardoons.
After the tale we both loved so much, Judy and I would usually go back to our pictures. Sometimes if the games weren’t on, Poppy would go up behind Nonny and tickle and nuzzle her like he did to my sister and me. Sometimes he would fall asleep to the crackling of the oil on the stove. Sometimes he would simply stare off into space, an ever so slight grin settling on his face.
You’d think that after years of city life away from home, I wouldn’t cry at the sight of the beauty that is the countryside or of the simple memories of the two people who probably had the single most significant impact on my life. But the memories and the beauty still affect me, even as I sit in the dust of their old driveway, surrounded by white dancing birch trees, a mailbox tilted to one side like an old man, a fence pregnant with concord grapes. Suddenly, I’m drawn to the fact that somewhere a cardoon is living. I bend to pick a piece of grass and blow on it to make a sound. The clouds keep turning and I think I catch a glimpse of their embrace, reminding me of faith.
By Lisa A. Eramo
As far back as my memory will allow, the cynara cardunculus is there, maturing in the cool mist of September’s morning, its stalky body jutting up alongside Oberle road, not far from the double wide my grandparents called home.
Most people don’t even know about the plant—it just grows and grows along the countryside, dividing the gradations of grassy greens. I never actually questioned how Nonny not only knew it existed, but also that if you cut, blanched, and cooked it properly, a cardoon, as it’s commonly known, becomes an edible treat.
“That which we often glance quickly past is most beautiful,” she’d say, carefully watching an ever-present spider weave a dew-dropped web on their front porch. “Keep your eyes and heart open. Nothing is insignificant, not even that ugly old weed.”
If it hadn’t been for this ugly old weed, Nonny and Poppy would have never met. Nonny had been picking cardoons a mile from her parents’ house on a Sunday afternoon when it started to rain. Poppy happened to be walking down the road and saw her in the distance—a rainbow of color, her hair curling in the humidity, her arms full of earthy plants. Their courting began that day as he held his jacket over her head the entire way home. Since hearing their creation story, I never doubted the existence of destiny.
I think about the cardoon as I drive down the narrow road that leads to their old house, now overgrown with weeds and scattered with stray Styrofoam cups. My sister Judy is getting married tomorrow, and I’ve left the art-infused Bostonian culture to return to the place where my grandparents loved, my parents love, and where my sister and her fiancé would settle and love—a small town in central New York where even the trees bear hearts and rent is cheap for newlyweds.
I park my Mustang in their driveway, and it looks out of place, like a Dahli painting—something surreal. I feel the neighbors staring at me as I get out of the car and walk around the perimeter of the house. One man across the street gets up out of his chair and walks to the edge of his porch to get a better look. Somewhere in the distance, wind chimes sing an unfamiliar tune.
Once Nonny discovered a patch of cardoon, she’d never forget it. She even managed to draw an elaborate map of telephone posts, foot paths, and distinguishing trees that helped guide her back to the same patches in the same fields every year. And on any given fall morning, you’d find them—Nonny and Poppy, map in hand—driving their shiny blue Cadillac in search of the elusive plant.
Within minutes of leaving the house, they’d start the rosary. “Hail Mary, full of grace,” they’d take turns saying. “Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.” It was their tradition to sing this sacred duet during any road trip longer than twenty minutes.
I’ve often wondered what it’s like to know that kind of interconnectedness. What is it like to be able to finish someone’s prayer, someone’s sentence, someone’s breathe?
My sister (Judy) and Derek met in college at a drunken fraternity party. She likes to tell the story of how they both reached for the keg at the same time and then stood there for what seemed like hours staring into one another’s eyes. She said she instantaneously knew that they would be together. And ever since then, they’ve been inseparable—best friends, drinking partners, soul mates. They’re the type of couple that makes you smile and sigh.
As young girls, Judy and I were often in the backseat during the cardoon-searching adventures, listening to the prayer’s counterpoint and playing with our Barbie dolls and Tonka trucks. Sometimes we looked out the window at the squares of hay or dilapidated farmhouses that seemed to fold in on themselves. There was one old house pained with stripes every color of the rainbow, all faded by the sun’s light. We called it the lifesaver house in honor of our favorite candies.
Nonny would spend hours meticulously picking cardoons, insisting that Poppy make sudden stops along the road when she spotted a patch or two. “Bianco ameliore”, “Italian dwarf,” “Large Smooth,” and “White Improved” were just a few of the varieties of these leafy treasures they, or I should say she, sought after.
To me, the names of each type of cardoon were poetic and silky and had a way of rolling off my tongue like a song. “Bianco,” I’d say, stressing the second syllable. “Ameliore,” I’d say, imitating some Italian operatic singers. The names of cardoons made me think of far-away places, countries I’d never visited, endless white sandy beaches, heaven.
“Over there! Over there, Paul. Pull over right there,” she’d say, her arm dangling out the window to wave hello to a small green cluster that seemed to bow to her.
“Ok Sal,” he’d grunt, shaking his head and slightly smiling at her excitement. “I’ve got somebody right behind me and I can’t just stop in the middle of the road!” Sal was Poppy’s nickname for her—short for her maiden name Salamone. Her real name was Rosemarie.
It was inevitable that he’d adjust his mirror to find an angry farmer in a big tractor wanting nothing more than to honk his horn and pass them by. Poppy would put his blinker on and pull off the road into the ditch, and we’d soon be left in a cloud of smoke from the tractor’s barreling off in the distance.
“That guy couldn’t wait two minutes,” he’d say. But before he could even turn his head, Nonny was out the door, running toward the cardoons with scissors and plastic bags in hand. Poppy would always follow after her, insisting that he needed to help her, even if it was just to hold the bag open so she could drop them in.
“Nonny, who lives here?” I’d shout after her, slightly unnerved by the perplexed housewife in the distance hanging clothes on a droopy line.
“Well, I don’t actually know them, but they won’t mind,” she’d say, throwing her hands into the air and laughing, her big horse teeth glistening in the sun. “We’ll only be here for a few minutes.”
The sun always seemed to be hottest on those days. Sweat would drip down my arms and back, reminding me of the heat my body could create. The grass was usually tall and would tickle and tease our legs as we’d run through it. Somewhere in the distance, a barrel would burn, and the smell of smoke would mix with sweet manure and pervade the air.
“Oh! Right here! Over here!” she’d say, startling us all as we wandered through the maze of grass.
Sure enough, there would be a patch of massive green leafy plants huddled together—the Holy Grail of her journey.
“You have to grab it by the stem and cut,” she’d say, as we—a captivated audience—all stood watching.
“Be careful with those scissors, Sal. In fact, why don’t you just let me do that?” Poppy would say, trying to finagle the scissors away from her.
“I’m all right. I’m all right,” she’d say, the cardoon finally breaking free from the ground. Next, she’d to hold it up and get a good look at it. You’d think she was inspecting a turkey for Thanksgiving. “This is a good one,” she’d say. “Yep, this one will be good.”
Perhaps it was those hazy mornings, the sun rising as if on cue to begin the day’s symphony and bring in the sounds of all things living. Perhaps it was the feeling as though we were meant to find those cardoons just like Nonny and Poppy were meant to find one another. All of it was and still is intriguing to me. How and why do certain people come into your life at the right time and place—no searching necessary? Their love story had a magical element more powerful than any Grimes fairytale they’d ever read to me.
A whistle from a nearby train briefly snaps me out of my reverie. I realize that I’ve been standing here for almost ten minutes. Judy must be putting the last minute touches on her wedding plans, making sure the photographer had the right address and the DJ would play right song. The neighbor across the street has gone back to reading his newspaper. I decide to take a seat on the lawn.
I think back to Nonny and how when she started to get out of breath from all the walking and cardoon picking, we knew it was time to go home. Poppy would tenderly wipe the sweat from her brow, kiss her on the lips, and convince her that the rest of the cardoons would wait until next time. On a good day, we would have visited two or three fields and at least two or three cemeteries. Nonny used to say that cemeteries always had cardoons. Usually we’d load up three or four bags in the cemeteries alone.
The drive home was usually pretty quiet. Nonny would fall asleep, leaving Poppy to say an entire string of rosaries by himself.
At home, hunched over the stove, Nonny would wash, blanch, bread, and fry a whole plateful of cardoons at a time. Poppy delighted in the smell of salt wafting through the air and would sit curling his toes in his bright red recliner.
“You’re so good to me, Sal,” he’d say, his head tilted toward her as she turned the cardoons around in the breading and flour.
“And don’t you forget it!” she’d laugh, winking at my sister and me as we sat on high stools watching her, mesmerized as the green leafy weeds were transformed into a crispy brown treat.
If it was during the week, Golden Girls would blare on the TV turned up way too loud, while a small radio on the counter boasted Frank Sinatra. The music seemed to make waves of steam from the stove sway and dance through the air. If it was a Sunday, Notre Dame football would sing through the entire house. The screaming crowds, shrilly whistles and blasting marching bands made it seem like one big party and that Poppy was the guest of honor.
Judy, who was usually buried in old photo albums by this time, would occasionally pull out black and white photographs, holding them up to the light to try and figure out which side of the family each person was on.
“Who’s this guy?” she’d say, her forehead crinkling up like a slinky. “And why does he have such funny clothes on?”
Nonny would pause her cardoon dipping and frying to squint her eyes and look at the picture from across the room. “That’s your great-grandmother’s brother, Freddy,” she’d say. “He was a dentist. That was my uncle, you know.”
“Hey, this is you and Poppy,” my sister would say, grabbing another picture, this one of my grandparents on their wedding day. “Tell us the story! Tell us the story!”
“Well,” Poppy would say, clearing his voice as if to begin a sermon. “When I knew that I wanted to marry your grandmother, I had to get permission from her father.”
“That’s how it was then,” Nonny would interject, pulling a cardoon from the oily pan and setting it down on a paper towel-lined plate next to another one that was already cool. “You needed permission.”
“So anyway,” Poppy would say, anxious to be in the spotlight again. “Once I had permission, I showed up at her house on a Sunday morning. You should have seen the look on her face!” He shook his head and closed his eyes, reveling in the memory of that day. “Her hair was all up in curlers. I think she was getting ready for church.”
“I was getting ready for my cousin’s baby shower!” By now, Nonny had usually spilled some of the breading all over the counter because she was paying more attention to Poppy and making sure he got his story straight. “All I had on was a bathrobe! Don’t you remember that, Paul?”
“Oh yes. That’s right. That pink one with the roses on it. Yes, I remember,” he’d say, rolling his eyes and winking at my sister and me. “Anyway, I showed up at her door holding a silver tray of Italian cookies—crème puffs, biscotti, cuccidati, pizzelles—with a diamond ring on top, and you know what I said?” His eyes were wide and his mouth open, and for a moment, I picture him at the age of twenty-two, a boy, hopelessly in love.
Of course we both knew the answer, but we liked to hear it from him. “Tell us! Tell us!” Judy would say. I was silent, paying close attention to the look on Poppy’s face as he said the words.
“I said, ‘Sal, I give you my life on a silver platter. Will you marry me?’” Poppy always had a habit of tearing up at this point. He usually cried like a baby over the small things—a beautiful sunset, a family picture, a good home-cooked meal. When Poppy cried, it usually meant he was happy, not sad.
“Girls, how could I resist that, right?” Nonny would say, beaming from behind a plateful of almost finished cardoons.
After the tale we both loved so much, Judy and I would usually go back to our pictures. Sometimes if the games weren’t on, Poppy would go up behind Nonny and tickle and nuzzle her like he did to my sister and me. Sometimes he would fall asleep to the crackling of the oil on the stove. Sometimes he would simply stare off into space, an ever so slight grin settling on his face.
You’d think that after years of city life away from home, I wouldn’t cry at the sight of the beauty that is the countryside or of the simple memories of the two people who probably had the single most significant impact on my life. But the memories and the beauty still affect me, even as I sit in the dust of their old driveway, surrounded by white dancing birch trees, a mailbox tilted to one side like an old man, a fence pregnant with concord grapes. Suddenly, I’m drawn to the fact that somewhere a cardoon is living. I bend to pick a piece of grass and blow on it to make a sound. The clouds keep turning and I think I catch a glimpse of their embrace, reminding me of faith.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
LGBT hospital visitation rights a step in the right direction
By Lisa A. EramoLast December, my partner spent 10 days in the hospital with multiple blood clots in her lungs--bilateral pulmonary emboli, to be exact. We're not exactly sure how or why they formed, but several specialists seem to think her birth control was a major factor. She has since given up the birth control (which she had been taking to prevent the formation of ovarian cysts) and is now on a blood thinner called Coumadin. We've been told she's lucky to be alive. The jury is still out in terms of whether or not the clots will come back.
While she was in the hospital, I spent the majority of my waking hours at her side. Becoming recently self-employed as a freelance writer allowed me the flexibility to make trips back and forth to the hospital, staying for hours at a time during the day.
She spent the first two days/nights in the ICU--an amazingly eerie place where machines seem to rule the environment with a disturbingly dictatorship-like dominance. Minutes and hours are punctuated by a symphony of oftentimes unwanted and ominous ringing, bleating, buzzing, and droning. It's a world in which there is no day and night. It's almost as though time stands still actually. People are fighting for their lives, and not much else seems to matter.
What struck me is that nurses and physicians working 12-hour (or more) shifts are oblivious to the sounds and oftentimes melancholy atmosphere in which they work. I can't tell you how many times a wide-eyed nurse came into my partner's room to check a vital sign, administer medication, or change an IV. They were often cheerful and kind, and for that, I am thankful.
I stayed overnight twice, propping myself up in a faded blue tattered chair borrowed from another floor. To say that I slept at all would have been a lie. Instead, I listened to the wheezing and moaning of the other patient in the room who was on a ventilator. I also watched my partner sleep and seemed to be completely mesmerized by the monitors that told the story of her heart and lungs. If I didn't watch her and keep an eye on the monitors, who would? Never mind the fact that the nurses could also monitor her progress from their station twenty feet down the hallway. I wanted to be alert and in control even though I was completely aware of the fact that I had absolutely no control at all.
When physicians made their rounds or came to talk to us about treatment options, my partner always introduced me as "Lisa, my partner." I shook every hand of every physician who entered the room. I asked questions and demanded answers. For the most part, physicians made eye contact with me and spoke to both of us. Nurses let me stay overnight in the ICU despite the fact that guests technically weren't allowed past a certain hour. The nurses and I got to know one another on a first-name basis. They'd give me updates regarding my partner's status when she was napping. They involved me in the decision-making process.
Although I am grateful for the treatment my partner received as a patient as well as the treatment we received as a same-sex couple, I know that not all same-sex couples have the same experience nationwide.
When I read that Obama requested that hospitals not deny visitation privileges to based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability, I was thrilled to say the least. I am relieved to know that hospitals in which same-sex partners are denied visitation rights will no longer be able to get away with this unfair practice. To read the complete memo issued April 15, visit http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/presidential-memorandum-hospital-visitation.
When I read the memo, I couldn't help but think of our most recent hospital experience. Not being able to be a part of my partner's experience and decision-making process would have been unjust and unfathomable. I'm thankful that Obama has taken this step. It's the first in what I hope will be many steps toward LGBT equality.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
