The Passing of Identity

It’s been a while since I’ve felt motivated to write. Life presents us with anniversaries, birthdays, and milestones that naturally commemorate some of the happiest days of our lives. We mark these dates on the calendar and make plans to celebrate the occasion and create new memories to cherish. 

July 16th of 2023 my family was thrust into a grief that branded a date on the calendar that doesn’t need to be marked, the death of my youngest son Joshua. During the first year, this date taunted me as the 16th was a painful reminder of a day I wish I could forget. He died on a Sunday, and the feel of a Sunday has not been the same since. The second year isn’t much better, as the shock wears off and Joshua’s absence echoes through the house each day that passes. People stop saying his name, while I can’t go a single day without mentioning him in some way to remind myself he existed.

Today marks 32 months without my son. That hollow feeling grows and random memories creep in, sometimes with joy, other times with pain. Yet, I’ve recently become keenly aware of another facet of such a profound loss. I don’t dare call it hope, or recovery. It’s an unexpected awareness of what Joshua gave our family in the 33 years we had with him.

I’ve realized a subtle glimmer of Joshua in our daily interactions, like a gift handed off to each of us fortunate enough to really know him. There are days I catch my breath when Douglas walks in the door, and I look twice to register his presence. A new haircut, the more frequent donning of sunglasses, and attention to dressing in a more tidy way has given Douglas a quiet confidence that instantly reminds me of Joshua. The shift in Mike as he interacts with Leo reflects what Joshua valued most as a father, the gift of patience. I catch it when I hear Mike think out loud, “What would Joshua do?” The strength I’ve seen in Kate as she manages the tough decisions about Leo and his future, reminds me of Joshua’s resolution to make hard choices and follow through with all things Leo. Then there is Leo.

There are special memories a mother carries of each of her children. Memories of that short window of time where a parent is the most important part of a child’s life. A time when we are needed. A time when we are filled with hopes of what the future may hold for each little human we have created. Leo reminds me of the dreams I once held for Joshua in the time before addiction and the weight of adulthood set in. At times I see my snuggly 9-year-old Joshua looking back at me when Leo kisses my hand and says, “I love you.” While I know it’s Leo, and not truly Joshua, I have learned to embrace the reminders of being Joshua’s mom. I’m grateful that Leo can so easily give me these reminders without even trying, and surprised to discover that this joy can drown out some of the pain.

It’s been 32 months without a visit, a text, or a simple look from Joshua. I miss him at my core. Our family moves forward together, bonded in memories of Joshua. With his third angelversary around the bend in July, I’m tuning in to his influence as we continue to keep the best parts of Joshua shining brightly through us. I don’t think the tears will ever go away entirely, but I didn’t expect the influence Joshua would continue to have as he has become woven into the fabric of our individual identities.

Born in my heart, where I will keep you until my last breath. Wherever you are, I hope you know how much you are loved, Joshua.

Joshua in July

Last year on my birthday, July 11, 2023, I received this text from Joshua:

Happy birthday mom

Love you

I “hearted” the message, and five days later my world collapsed around me with the realization that this was the last communication we would ever have between us. My response felt insanely inadequate and not a day has gone by that I haven’t scripted what I would have said, if I’d only known. But I didn’t know. I couldn’t know. As the year has progressed, I’ve realized how grateful I am that “Love you” is his final sentiment shared with me. 

Joshua’s passion for music drove him to study virtually any instrument he encountered, and he poured his struggles and victories into music and lyric writing. On the day he died I announced his passing on social media with a video of him playing a gritty, hard-to-hear version of a song he wrote early in his struggle with addiction in this self-prophesied song titled, “Last Words.”  I had heard him perform this song for years, yet the words cut differently then to now.  

One of Joshua’s prized possessions was a thick old notebook in which he kept his songs, notes, letters, artwork and journalling from different periods of his life. This was one of the first things I gathered and stashed away for safe keeping, and I haven’t taken it out of the drawer or looked at it since. 

Recently, while home alone in my memories, I felt the need to read his notebook. The pages were bumpy from being left in the rain at one time, and every page with Joshua’s handwriting. Some were almost undecipherable, with others embellished by elaborate artwork or lyrics written sideways and all over the page. I could sense if it was a good day or bad- all by the tidiness of the text. I thumbed through the pages, lingering on some more than others, and soon found where he’d drafted the lyrics I’d heard him perform many times. 

Among the warped pages, my eye caught some lyrics I didn’t know existed and I felt my face flush and my eyes begin to blur. On this, the morning of the first anniversary of the end of Joshua’s struggle, I’m sharing a page with words that remind me of days filled with hope. The good days when he felt well enough to write these words. Joshua suffered terribly with pain and addiction, but I refuse to let anyone label him an addict. He transcended the label, and within the past year I’m realizing that Joshua’s legacy extends further than I could have imagined in the lives of friends, family and especially his son, Leo. 

Choices

By Joshua R. Grant (1989-2023)

Have you ever woken up and have the

thought that you’re a failure, I have

I’ve been my own biggest rival, and

I’ve created my downfalls.

Lately I’ve been looking back on my life,

and I start to wonder, why I wasted all that

            time- I was sinking under.

And now I know, that it’s time for me to come up, 

rise up from the ashes of the old me set to fail.

Dedication for myself, killing off the weak,

‘Cuz I know strength will prevail.

Now you see the new me- see the passion,

and the words I speak are real.

Now I speak so freely, and my mind has finally

            begun to heal.

(chorus 2X)

Now I’m finally becoming the man that I wanna be

Now I’m finally becoming the change that I wanna see.

Branches and Baskets

By Lisa Grant

I spent a lot of time looking down at the ground during the second half of summer ’23. From the moment I stepped outside after getting the shattering news, I started finding feathers. The first was a crow’s feather over a foot long, like a sign from Joshua. As the week progressed, I started noticing feathers, seemingly placed directly in my path. Feathers of all shapes and sizes, from large, two-toned wild Turkey feathers to dainty, spotted, Red-bellied Woodpecker feathers. I gathered and kept them, like Valentines from beyond. 

            *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

            My “hanging branch” is shaped like an upside-down Y and balances precariously on a lone White Pine branch over my driveway, where it landed over 17 years ago. At least, that’s when I first noticed it. I was standing outside to catch my breath after the discovery of Joshua’s addiction. I remember observing the branch and wondering how long it would remain there, exposed to the extremes of the wind and weather. I wondered which would come crashing down first, the branch or Joshua? The fact that the branch hung for so long gave me hope that neither need fall.

            Last summer sitting on the front steps, holding the coroner’s business card, I became keenly aware of the branch hanging grey and brittle in the mid-morning sun. That instant I felt utterly defeated, as if “mother nature” could sustain life better than I. 

            I examined the White Pine more closely in the days and months since. I observed the differences in the size of the needles from the top to lower branches, and the range of needle colors from sun to shade. By September I was gathering needles from my yard and especially from, and around, the pine supporting my “hanging branch.” I plucked only the cleanest and longest needles in tidy clusters, then sorted once more before shifting them to a cardboard box in a ventilated, dark corner. 

            By January my first batch of needles were dry, and I was ready to attempt the basket-making process. I painted the wooden center of my first basket, then drilled small holes around the circumference. I selected the first bundle of needles and tucked them inside a cut drinking straw (as a size gage), fitting as many needles as I could before tying them together and connecting them to the wooden center piece with waxed thread. Slowly and carefully, I added needles to keep the straw fed as I coiled and tied the needles around and around the center. The basket took shape, and I grew bolder and more confident- trying different stitches and incorporating colors for varying effects. I could easily engage with what’s going on around me, while keeping my hands “busy” with pine needles and thread. 

            *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *

            Nine months. Nine months is the standard time it takes a mother to nurture new life within the womb before the life-changing moments of birth; the amount of time it takes a family to prepare their hearts and home for a whole new and exciting dynamic of relationships. Today is nine months without Joshua. Most who knew him have gotten on with their lives as if he were never here, or at least it feels that way. For me these months have been a version of carrying Joshua that echoes the pregnancy that brought him to us physically. Now, instead of brandishing a crochet needle and yarn to productively fill my anticipatory moments awaiting Joshua’s birth, I’m using different sorts of needles to weave my memories back to life while occupying my hands.

            Balancing on that pine branch over my driveway, the fallen branch from 17 years ago remains. Checking to see if it weathered the latest storm has become my obsession. In the beginning I was in awe of its balancing act. Years passed, the branch greyed and became brittle, and I thought surely, I would win my wager that the branch would fall long before Josh. Instead, the steadfast pine tree has held this branch as if nurturing a child. I’ve felt a range of emotions for their symbiotic relationship, even jealousy at times, but I think we’ve finally come to an understanding. My baskets honor the storms weathered together over the years, speckled with despair, forever sustained by a mother’s love. I shall weep the day my “hanging branch” falls, but I’ll rejoice the years we’ve weathered together.

Paradox of a New Year

The English language is inadequate for expressing how completely tired I have become of the grieving process; each second of each day pivots with the flash of a memory. 

It turns out that grief is multi-sensory, unpredictable, and has no expiration date. Nothing could have prepared me for the loss of my youngest son, the depths of regret, and the glaring void in our family now. Almost five months of grief have given me an awareness that I am not the same as other mothers anymore; my family structure has been irreversibly changed by outliving an adult child with a child of his own.

Simply getting into the car and going pretty much anywhere brings the recollections flooding back. Just about any direction I head is a route past a business where Josh worked or frequented. Conversations, good and bad, sparked when driving him to work or picking him up over the years, reverberate like a soundtrack on replay. I especially miss his commandeering my stereo to share his newest musical influence, accompanied by an explication of why it was so relevant.

Then there was the ungodly smell of Joshua’s clothes after a long shift in any given kitchen that necessitated a cold ride home with the windows down. A sort of grease, meets alfredo, meets sour milk kind of funk that still wafts from a random box brought down from the attic when we feel strong enough to inventory what needs saving and discarding. The odor is thick on the grease tones, which was evident when industrial dryers ignited on fire on more than one occasion from the drying of his chef pants. 

No specific food incites the memory of Joshua more than when it comes time to make “my gravy.” He loved “my gravy” and when we used to eat at my parent’s house, Joshua would beg me to make said gravy and bring it with us. I almost didn’t have the heart to tell him that it was powdered brown gravy mix from a packet. “It’s the way you cook it, Ma Dukes.” Then he’d plant a prickly-chinned sloppy, wet, kiss on my cheek before putting his headphones back on.

Preparing Thanksgiving dinner this year was a difficult and drawn out process. If I’m honest, grieving has slowed me down beyond belief. Emotions take time away from the most basic tasks. I often wonder if it’s a permanent change. I was grateful everyone arrived a tad bit behind schedule because it afforded me some privacy as I struggled to keep tears from spicing the powdered gravy on the stove.

Slowly the house started to fill up, and the pitter-pat of Leo’s happy, pacing feet echoed, and the sadness dissolved to make room for the new memories unfolding virtually against my will. We started new traditions, like a toast to Joshua and to us. The emptied “Josh” wine bottle from the toast was used to hold the candle to start our drip bottle for future gatherings. We included the candle bottle in the group “couch” photo. I know Joshua would have approved.

Joshua’s biggest honor is, of course, our dear Leo and Christmas is for the children. Watching Leo embrace the season, tree, Grinch, and Santa, has given our family the perfect distraction and counterbalance to our grief. There are moments I look at Leo and see Joshua, as if time has merged into its own space. I’m learning to embrace the distraction, and sometimes even enjoy the magic of it.

The new year is another story entirely. It’s been difficult to face the concept of Joshua stuck at age 33, now the idea of turning the calendar year over to 2024 feels like leaving him behind. Meanwhile, Leo keeps growing and exceeding our expectations as his daddy knew he would. I’m reminded that such growth is impossible without the experiences that come with time and healing. 

If you see me around in 2024, be patient with me. I’m maneuvering how to live this new reality of embracing those with me in the present, while finding ways to come to terms with the devastation of 2023. I’m figuring out how to still be a wife, mom, and gamma, while keeping Joshua in my heart. I struggle with the sadness, but I’m slowly learning how to let the memories make me smile.

Milestones, Memories, and Losing Joshua

By Lisa D. Grant            

This one hurts. But I need to write it.

            I’ve always struggled to write. Can you imagine? I’m an English professor who doesn’t like to write anything but academic writing or creative feedback. I’ve tried to write; even started the process on a few occasions. Then I read something from someone who has just written the EXACT thing that I thought was so incredibly inventive and unique, and that’s it. I resign myself to the fact that “it’s all been said”- literally. The only thing that has changed, is the realization that they, other writers, never knew my son Joshua.

            Today marks one month since Joshua’s untimely death at the age of 33. He is the victim of the mental health and addiction crisis raging through our rural and suburban communities with no regard for wealth or class. Joshua is more than an addict, more than a statistic, more than a cliché. 

            On July 16^th, 2023, I received the news that my youngest son had succumbed to addiction and the details further than that are private, and frankly irrelevant. Since then, the world around me has been a blur, yet there are strange moments of clarity and even stranger moments of confirmation of the remarkable man my son became. 

            As his mother, I can tell you little about the first week without Joshua, although I confess the memory of physically seeing Joshua for the last time haunts and comforts me in varying waves of emotion. There were painful tasks I knew only I could do. Things like writing my son’s obituary, going through old photo albums to select the photos to be shared for his memorial, and even holding his baby blanket. The pain defies identification with words, and a friend insightfully informed me that IQ points are dramatically reduced in the days and months to come (thank you, Nancy). This is absolutely true in every way, including the ability and coordination to cook, plan or even eat a meal most days. Yet, where my brain-wires seem to have disconnected in some places, they are suddenly connected in unpredictable places. For example, an old broken clock that I’d all but discarded in frustration, I picked up and fixed within minutes! 

            The following weeks are a series of ebbs and flows of emotion. The messages of comfort started to dwindle with each day, as did the social media posts on Joshua’s page. Social media became a blessing and a curse to fuel my emotions. One moment I was comforted by the sharing of stories, and beyond grateful for the photos and videos, many I had never seen before.  The next I was reminded of Joshua’s raised eyebrow smirk, his prickly, wet kisses on my cheek, his mischievous nature in general, and the world would cave in all over again. Sleep is evasive and sometimes unpleasant, since it gives the brain time to think without boundaries, and even picking my blueberries has turned to torture. I still wake up thinking Joshua is a text, a call, or armlength away. I physically feel my heart drop as my brain chokes down the reality of his absence, the foreverness that I can’t change- no matter how hard I try.

            Still, there are little ironies, signs, and stories that give comfort in the pits of the grief. The memorial guitar picks that came in the mail one hour before Joshua’s memorial service, for example. The deer staring at us for over fifteen minutes on the rock ledge behind our house the day after Joshua’s death brought us to tears in the solemnity of the moment. Or the guitar string that sounded 5 seconds after I opened Joshua’s guitar case- without my hand being near it. Only to find a piece of paper tucked inside with music he’d written, and the words, “Time moves on but without me/ stuck forever In a memory” circled out in the folds of the page. Little whispers of the joy you brought the world, Joshua, and to remind us of the most beautiful sides of you.

            I knew I couldn’t say goodbye in a funeral home, and Joshua wouldn’t have wanted it anyway. So, we opted for the memorial service in our home- Joshua’s home. Almost immediately we were overwhelmed with friends reaching out to tell us how much Joshua influenced them to get clean, to get sober, to see their child(ren), to work at their marriage, to do the right thing no matter what they had done before. Then there were the folks from my parent’s church who pulled together with various friends, with the coordination of my mom, to provide food that Chef Joshua would have been incredibly proud to have served. Even his son, Leo, seemed to know the memorial service was a special day. We informed people of his autism quirks and prepared for him to shelter away from the crowd, but even he was particularly social with those in attendance. 

            Now we are at the stage where we start to notice the milestones without Joshua. Yesterday was Leo’s 7^th birthday and next month we celebrate what would have been Joshua’s 34^th birthday. Today marks the first month without a son, grandson, brother, father, and friend. I’m proud that I never once excluded Joshua from a family gathering; not during his victories and certainly not during his struggles, so every holiday and celebration will be missing Joshua’s larger than life personality. The essence of Joshua was that he cared more for those around him than he did for himself, and if you didn’t know that- you didn’t know Joshua.

August 31^st is International Overdose Awareness Day. If you are like me, you probably only know this because of campaigns highlighted by musicians and famous people. We pay attention when the world loses someone famous to addiction, but we look away when it’s our neighbors, friends, and family. If you are addicted to any substance and you have read this through, I want you to know that you are not alone. If you have a loved one suffering from mental health issues or addiction, you are not alone. In Joshua’s memory, I’m finding my own ways to be the resource that is needed in our communities. I hope you do too.

Sentenced to English 101 in 2022

Being a college English instructor means that some semesters are predictable, while others take me places I could not have anticipated. After all, English 101 is English 101, right? 

Spring semester 2022 began with a Covid delay, as positive cases surged throughout the community. In-person classes were replaced with weekly newsletters and handouts to facilitate the earliest directives; three weeks went by before we could meet as a class. 

Almost a month into the semester, we were able to get into a groove with homework paragraphs to practice paragraphing, metacognition exercises, homework expectations, and essay development. Students became more comfortable asking questions and monitoring their grade progress. I heard standard 101 inquiries like: “Do I have to write the WHOLE thing for my shitty first draft?” “What’s a Dental Draft?” “We have to attach HOW MANY drafts with our final essay?!” “Does the Works Cited page count for pages?” Over the years, I’ve come to anticipate these questions and concerns.

So what makes this English 101 class so unique? 

In addition to the Covid delay, this class could utilize no technology directly. You read that correctly. No spell check. No Google searches. No Blackboard posts. No typed essays. Everything these students handed in for work, including a research paper, was written out the old fashioned way- by hand. All four class essays were handwritten to accommodate a specific word count, with three drafts attached to the final essay. 

Another universal English 101 question, “Will there be extra credit?” resounded from this class like no other. There is usually considerable interest, but only a small handful of students actually follow through to submit the work, and I expected no different this semester. Imagine my surprise when receiving extra credit work from all 20 students, again handwritten! One student even asked if they could submit their essay a week early.

For lack of volunteers, I’ve gotten used to having to select students to read out loud in English 101. This semester there are so many volunteers that students are disappointed when they aren’t picked and hugely disappointed when I read. Sadly, I’m used to students tuning out when I read. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that my reading out loud seems to trigger a nap-time reflex established in grade school, no matter how interesting I try to make the process. 

This semester we are reading Ray Bradbury’s short story, “There Will Come Soft Rains.” Within the story is an actual poem with the same title, written by Sara Teasdale in 1918. The students were disappointed when I told them that Iwould read this one. Being one of my favorite poems, I read slowly and precisely:

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,

And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,

And wild plum trees in tremulous white,

Robins will wear their feathery fire

Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one

Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree

If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,

Would scarcely know that we were gone.

I finished reading and looked up to 20 faces at full attention. A hand went up. For the first time since I’ve taught 101, I heard, “Will you read that again?” 

The longer I teach, the more the years and students blur together into a hazy memory of routine and predictability. That is, until this semester. Not one student in twenty is on a cell phone. Class attendance is almost 100%. Virtually every assignment is handwritten and submitted on time, and the students have connected with the material in ways completely unexpected. I modified English 101 when classrooms transitioned to Zoom during Covid, I’ve adapted class to accommodate students with online texts only, and I’ve donned a mask in front of a live class when schools opened back up with social distancing. In a recent conversation, I’ve joked that I can teach English 101 in a cave in the jungle with my eyes closed. Talk about predictable! 

What’s so different about this semester from all others? I go through a metal detector before being escorted to my classroom at a medium security prison.             

Now I urge you to re-read what I’ve written, including the poem. Who said English 101 is predictable?

Just a Ball

I’ve been mowing around this old tennis ball all summer.
It’s just a ball.
Yet every time I reach down to pick it up, a memory falls out.
A teething toy during puppy years.
A game of fetch after the heat of the day subsided.
The coveted prize in a game of seek and find.
The last time it was tossed, but you were too blind and ill to find it.
I’ve been mowing around this old tennis ball all summer.

It makes me think of you.

Here’s the Thing About Spigots and Springs

As frozen as the maple sap in a spigot on a 20 degree March morning.

Virtually the instant the term COVID-19 made its way to mainstream media, I felt frozen. My spring break escape to Costa Rica was derailed only two short days after the debut of this coronavirus that changed the world. No refund; simply a credit for a safer time, yet to be determined. 

All in-person schooling ceased, and a new term surfaced as Zoom became my classroom. Emails and texts flooded in from students past and present, all echoing, “I’m terrified and don’t know what to do.” I  quickly took solace in “human” interaction behind a screen. There were no pizza fuelled last-class farewells, no graduation angst or revelry as May approached.

I’ve always enjoyed my time away from people and society, and the impetuous child in me was alarmed to discover I was missing human interaction the instant I got what I wanted: isolation. My summer plans to explore Scotland succumbed to travel restrictions and quarantines, while businesses were shuttered, and loved ones stayed home.  

Even the distinct milestones of life and death met a solitary fate. Birthing reverted to the days of old as fathers were forced to celebrate their child’s entrance into the world from afar. Alternatively,  death was redefined for the 21st century with online funerals and final good-bye texts and messages.

This vial virus made life feel as though the world had stopped moving, and maybe it did. 

Then began the drip, drip, drip that signals the sap flow. News of vaccine development gave hope. Since I was a little girl, the flowing sap always signaled the promise of spring. After a year of being frozen, this spring is a floodgate to a return to- well, I’m not really sure. Still, I’m ready. 

I’m ready to celebrate each moment: a dragonfly on my kneecap, hitching a ride while my kayak glides through the still water just before dusk; that wobbly feeling in my knees when getting up off the couch after a day exploring another new trail. Moments I had forgotten to feel beyond the senses.

It’s another brisk March night, except now it’s 2021. The stars are bright, and the outdoor fireplace glows, while the Barred Owl calls out its “Who- Who- Who- Hoo!” and I just can’t resist a responding call.

A COVID-19 Friday the 13th: Glad I Didn’t Shave My Legs

I don’t know what I was thinking booking a flight to Costa Rica for Friday the 13th of March. I booked well ahead of time; September of 2019, to be exact. Now I find myself feeling like Rip Van Winkle after waking up from his 20-year slumber: disoriented and scratching my head.

As an adjunct college instructor, my husband and I usually travel during winter break, directly following the holiday season. I don’t recall the reason we bumped the trip to spring break instead, but I was careful to look up the spring schedule to make travel arrangements.

Preparing for my spring semester classes, I pulled up the school calendar once more only to find that spring break had been shifted. No problem. I’ve never missed a class before, but set to making arrangements for a sub. I should have known this was the first sign of things to come.

Three weeks before the trip, plans fell through for a sub. I scurried to get my classes covered and was grateful for my co-workers who stepped up. Problem averted.

The trip a week away, I graded student essays as soon as spring break began, worked up mid-term grades and submitted them, and thought I had everything ready.

By this time the buzz of the COVID-19 virus had been building. We considered every possible scenario and paid close attention to the news, but every report was different. I checked for incidences of the virus in Costa Rica, and the tropical climate seemed to keep it at bay. I would take proper precautions and keep a level head. All plans still a go.

Then the afternoon of March 11th, the announcement pulled up on the local news. Our governor declared that college classes were to take place remotely, starting the week I was to be away. Soon afterward the announcement came that the President would make an announcement at 9pm.

By the end of the night, only two days away from our flight: travel to Europe would be halted; the virus had made it to Costa Rica (complicated by two of the infected patients being American tourists); almost hourly announcements were being made of the cancellation of events, ranging from the closing of Disneyland Theme Parks to the cancellation of the St. Patrick’s Day parade. Cases of patients testing positive for the virus continued to rise and get closer and closer to home. Still, I tried not to panic.

Thursday morning, after a restless night, we realized the risks outweighed the reward. By 10am I was on the phone and internet postponing our travel arrangements. Wait times were long on the phone, and information online was complicated to maneuver. Travel sites and airlines had already added clauses based upon the unexpected nature of the virus. This was new territory. I didn’t finish the process until 4pm and as disappointed as I was, I felt a wave of relief that we had made the right decision.

I don’t know what I was thinking booking a flight to Costa Rica for Friday the 13th of March.

Today is Friday, the 13^th.  I tried to ignore the omens. In the end I gained perspective, while trying to maintain a sense of humor. As those around me are hoarding toilet paper, and stores are limiting the purchase of hand-sanitizer and disinfecting wipes, I take comfort that we changed our mind before I bothered to shave my legs for the journey.

A Cup of Tea on Green Avenue

Funny how years go by without giving a person a second thought, and then, out of nowhere, the memories flood back as if summoned by the ghost of Christmas past.

I hadn’t thought of “Aunt” Theresa in years, yet as I waited for my tea to steep at the home of another dear friend I have also come to call “Aunt,” thoughts of her drifted up like visions in the steam of my days growing up on Green Avenue.

I was four or five when we moved in, and Theresa lived across the road from us in a two-story white house she inherited from her parents years prior. Her brother had a barn behind her house, where livestock thrived, and there was a small pond with a magnificent weeping willow and apple tree growing nearby. The winters were spent ice-skating on the pond, and there was always a ration of hot cocoa kept in the barn near the kettle with the hot water steaming on the woodstove. The sliding barn-door was always open, to visitors that is, and I have yet to recall a New Year’s Eve better than those celebrated with the neighbors and friends that became family on those cold winter nights.

Aunt Theresa never married or had kids and lived in that big house all alone after the passing of her youngest brother. She was a feisty, small-framed Italian woman who washed and set her hair in pin curls on the same day every week, and the ruby-red lipstick she wore all the days I knew her, doubled as rouge for her cheeks.

She was a devout Catholic and went to mass faithfully at the same church. I always wondered if it was because I was the oldest child, but I remember the first year Aunt Theresa asked me to go with her to Christmas Eve Mass. I was eight-years-old, and although I had been baptized Methodist, I loved her church and recall vividly the interior all decorated in evergreens accented with red bows. The solemn statues, ornate stained glass, and rows among rows of prayer candles left an impression on me.  I couldn’t understand much of what the priest was saying, but I remember the sight and smell of incense lingering. I cannot adequately describe the feelings invoked by this annual occasion, but if you could feel the spirit of a moment, of brotherly love and compassion, of ritual and reward, then you may relate.

As years passed, she didn’t have to ask if I was going. Sometimes others would join us, but the years spent just the two of us were most magical.

After evening mass, before the cold trek across the road to settle in for a daunting Christmas Eve slumber, Aunt Theresa would put the kettle on the stove, ignite the burner, and wait for the whistle. She kept a box of Lipton tea on hand next to the tea cups, and because it was Christmas Eve, we both got fresh tea bags.

Throughout the years Aunt Theresa was an aunt in every sense of the word. She was there for birthdays, she was there for celebrations, and more importantly she was there for the day to day ups and downs that come with learning about life.

As the eldest, I was often left in charge of my siblings: a brother two years younger, and sister four years younger. My brother went through a rough phase where he challenged my “authority” by taking off and climbing to the top of local trees where I couldn’t catch him. I remember one such occasion when I was 12.

Brainstorming the best way to handle this situation, I looked up and could see that Aunt Theresa’s lights were on. It would be another hour before my parents would be home, and I was on her doorstep in an instant. She never turned me away. Not once. As her only guest that afternoon, I took a seat at the table and she put the teapot on and a fresh bag in my cup as I unloaded about how frustrating it can be looking after “children.” She listened calmly and asked the right questions; she treated me like an adult. By the time I left, I had regained my composure and my parents returned home.

Over the years I found many reasons to drop in on her for a cup or two of tea and a loving dose of wisdom or a needed voice of reason. She never disappointed.

I am reminded of the bonds, thrills, sorrows, and dreams shared over tea with the women I’ve known. How could I have forgotten about Aunt Theresa for so long? Intriguing how the scent and warmth of a steaming cup of tea can trigger memories of the bonds of neighbors, the glow of Christmas Eve forgotten, and the deep feeling of belonging.