It was messiier than that

It was a glorious fall day.  I was in the Ghost Ranch Library, working on donations, when my phone rang.  The call was from my ex-sister-in-law.  I last saw her in August 2017, when my sister and I drove up to Oregon from my house-sits in California in order to say a graveside farewell to Aunt J.  (Some ceremonies take longer to arrange than others, especially when everyone is farflung.) After the ceremony, I dropped my sister at the airport and drove out to Mulino to stay with R and L in their new (to me) home.  Cousins, daughters, and granddaughters came out for a potluck, but D and my stepson K chose otherwise.  I was sorry about that, as K and I are on reasonably good terms and I do love him, but I was relieved to have the uncomfortable meeting with D postponed for some other visit. He had suggested a getaway, and that just was never going to be in the cards.

Now that I was back in the States, I did plan to visit Portland, and I was happy to hear L's voice.  I took the phone out to patio, where the reception was better.  The heart-shaped golden cottonwood leaves were blowing about, and the sky was a deep blue.  It was a gorgeous day.  We talked a bit and then L told me why she had called.  D took his life on Oct 1.  He had apparently been struggling for the last year.  He was her only sibling, and their parents passed some time ago, so she's the last of that nuclear family.

We talked about that, and about K, and to my surprise, I found myself weeping.  Mainly I was grieving for his pain and despair, and for his family.  I left D almost 6 years ago, so my personal sorrow was buried deep,  compounded by some guilt.  Could I have saved him?  He never did well living alone.  But then again, I did not do well living with him.  And in the long run, this was his lifelong battle.  I was only a small part of the army of friends and family that fought beside him and ultimately could only stand aside and watch him flailing and losing in single combat.  It was heartbreaking then, and it's heartbreaking now.

October passed. My college friends were scheduled to visit that weekend and were a loving distraction and sounding board.  The Ghost Ranch management continued to be dysfunctional and provide both drama and angst for most of the staff.  I volunteered at the Balloon fiesta and played in an APO concert.  I played trios with nearby friends.  I hiked through the golden autumnal weather.  And I provided pix, words, and memories for L as she and K and M planned the memorial and attended grief counseling.

Memories of his affiliations and accomplishments:

I know that he belonged to the Oregon Alternative Educators’ Association (can’t recall exact name.) He helped produce E’s play, Home to Walata. His coffee klatsch did something with Panera, can’t recall what.  KA would know.  He did overnights at a few homeless shelters.  KL could speak to his involvement with the day shelter at UU.  Lots of UU involvement:  singing in Chalice Choir, teaching in the Learning Community, Men’s Group, donating to the building fund. He marched in NAMI parades and Parkinson’s walks.  He was a loyal and supportive friend, which is a huge accomplishment in my book. GR included him in the thank you credits of his woodworking book.

The list of activities and involvement is long, but could be summed up by a spiritual and social activist sensibility.

In a word, a good and complicated man.

 

Adjectives, good and bad:

Loving, lovable, frustrating, creative (especially in the kitchen), needy, fun-loving, caring, giving, ethical, intelligent, socially conscious, angry, depressed, fiscally incompetent, sports loving, jazz aficionado, TV-addict, fatherly, impatient, well-dressed, opinionated, abrasive, devoted (to family, friends, and causes), selfish, never boring.

I miss the good times and am grateful for the many gifts of spirit and connection, especially with his family (my family.)

 

My sisters came to visit from Oct 31 to Nov 7 and during that time frame I learned that E, now 103, was in hospice.  I went out the next week for a farewell visit at her Berkeley care facility.  While there, the dates were set for D's memorial and wake:  Dec 8/9.  I cancelled the next several weeks with Ghost Ranch and arranged a trip to Portland.  In the midst of that, Ghost Ranch decided to make me move out during Thanksgiving week, despite the fact that no one was going to be in the farmhouse, and I wanted, as a professional, to come back in January and wind up my projects.  But that's a story for another post.

So, I came to Portland, to drink the wine that L and G had been storing for me during my 18 nomadic months, to visit friends, and to say goodbye to D.  I thought I was okay until the night before my flight out, when I started weeping again.  I came out to the living room and told P:  "I'm never going to see D again."  Suddenly, I was no longer grieving for him and his family.  I was grieving for myself.

For the most part, my friends and family understood, but they also reminded me that there were good reasons I gave up on the marriage and good reasons I had a restraining order for the first year after I left him.  For the memorial service, I sang Fragile at the end of the prelude, the song he sang to me at our wedding.  "On and on, the rains will fall, like tears from a star, like tears from a star.  On and on, the star will say, how fragile we are, how fragile we are."  True of our marriage, true of his life.

It was a beautiful service.  Most of my personal friends and family did not attend, but those who did benefited by hearing the loving words and memories.  There were good reasons I loved him. Friends talked of Big Red, Robbie, Big Unc, the boy and man with a joyous lack of boundaries, the man who held his friends and family close in love and laughter until the last year, when he shut them all out.  He stopped initiating gatherings, stopped cooking, stopped returning calls and emails, stopped accessing the joy that surrounded him.  His mental illness took him.  But, while acknowledging that battle, the service and reception celebrated the lovable D. 

Still, I could not get through the final hymn, thinking how the peace it epitomized had failed him.  I give thanks to the waves upholding me Hail the great winds urging me on Greet the infinite sea before me Sing the sky my sailor's song I was born upon the fathoms Never harbor or port have I known The wide universe is the ocean I travel And the Earth is my blue boat home 

That night I stayed with R and L, helping with preparations for the wake. I learned how D's last year had spiralled downward.   Although R and L were his lifeline and he stayed with them every weekend, he spent his time holed up in the TV room.  He ignored the weekly messages from one of his oldest friends, a friend who spoke at our wedding and spoke equally movingly at the service.  The last time L saw D, she told him he needed to resume therapy and he later asked her to drive him to a therapy session. When she arrived for the drive, he was not there.  I asked R, who found D.  And that's when I discovered how D chose to end it.  It wasn't drugs, his choice in several previous attempts.  As L told her cousins, "It was messier than that."  And irrevocable.  I don't need to wonder if anyone could have saved him.  But the image of that final act is indelible, and as I watch him crying in my imagination, I cry too.  

I wish I could have saved him.  I wish he could have saved himself.

 

We walked together
And with friends. I walked endings
Alone, then and now.

RIP Dave. I will always love you.

 

 

On our honeymoon

 

Do we have to go home now?

 

 

 

RIP Aunt J

She raced her plane in
The Powder Puff Derby, and
Her voice soared also.

She was smart and adventurous and creative. She had a sweet and strong soprano voice. She was my godmother, and she cherished a thank you letter I once sent her that ended "I can make fudge." Her favorite childhood story was Muggins Mouse. She took care of her baby sister L and adored her nephew E. She was a secretary at the VA. But, by the time I met her, she had been forced into an early retirement, and she lived a depressing life in her messy overstuffed house half a block down the road from her parents.

This was in 1981, when I graduated from college and moved to Portland. I had a ready-made family and friends. My brother went to Reed College for four years, and, after getting his Master's in Eugene, he returned to Portland. His friends took me in immediately, and I began to meet my mother's family. My mother's parents and one sister lived across the Columbia in Vancouver, but the rest of her family lived in Portland: one aunt, one first cousin, one first cousin once removed, and their attendant relations. It was odd to have an extended family, because our family had been so insular while I was growing up. Our traditions and behaviors were centered around the immediate family. Our extended family lived in the Pacific Northwest and western Minnesota. Grandma S would fly across country for special occasions, graduations and weddings, mainly, but I never met my aunts or cousin. So, this family did not feel like family. I knew we were related, but I didn't grow up with them, and even familiar things like lefse and krub were subtly different.

Technically I knew the Minnesota family better: Dad was an only child, and we visited his family in Minnesota during the summers. However, I was never clear how we were related to most of the people we met. We would go out to the Carlson Farm and my twin and I would play with C, who was our age. We would roam around the barn and the fields before returning to the house for the cakes and cookies and other midwest foods like glorified rice and 3 bean salad. The grown ups would have been talking about people I did not know and reliving the various illnesses and events of the previous year. I was not interested.

By the end of our two-week vacation, we would have visited all the relatives. Every day we swam in the outdoor town pool. Other activities included trips to Granite Falls, swinging on the tire swing, visiting Minneapolis for a day of shopping and some Bridgman's ice cream, and walking along the alleys between Grandma H's and Great-Aunt Inga's homes. I remember visiting F, an enormous woman with tree-trunk legs in support hose. Her sitting room had horse hair furniture, covered in antimacassars, and the house had that special old-person smell of baking, onions, coffee, and mothballs. I'd sit on the floor, looking with awe at her legs and listening to the sing-song immigrant Norwegian tones, the occasional exclamation of "uff da!" And then I'd go outside and explore the yard, with its water pump, white clapboard shed, and short-cropped grass.

A lot of the time was spent sitting around the house, reading, listening to the victrola, looking at the stereoscope. Grandma H had some books: I read Anne of Green Gables in an old green hardcover, with black and white plate illustrations. I still remember the picture of Anne trying to walk across the ridgepole, wearing her unattractive aproned dress, her hair in two braids.

I remember those activities more than I remember the people. As a general rule, my attention was inward, and I did not really connect with anyone. Now I thought that the family gatherings in Vancouver would be different. I was an adult, and I wanted to know who these people were. I had heard stories of all of them, and there were cute pictures of my twin and I as flower girls at L's first wedding; but I remembered the punch fountain at the reception and the black waiter on the train better than I remembered my family. My cousin was literally half my age, and L was only 4 years older than my brother. My brother was 10 years older than me, and I didn't know him well, either. 

My brother and I usually drove over together in those early days. The gatherings centered around my Aunt L, and it was clear that had always been the case. She was always well put together, with ethnic jewelry, hats, and tailored outfits of rich materials. She talked of art, history, literature, music, with a well modulated voice and careful enthusiasm. Aunt J was usually there when we arrived, bulking in the corner. She wore tent dresses, and her cheeks were flushed with rosacea. Her iron grey hair was short, wiry, and unkempt. When she spoke, there was a subtle undertone of resentment. She would talk about her "patients" and other grievances, and we would wait for a pause and then change the subject. 

I became close to the rest of the family. I saw my Portland aunt regularly, and when he entered college, my cousin lived in my house. Once I had a car, I visited Grandma S on a monthly basis, taking her to lunch at the Holland restaurant, going shopping, going to the doctor, driving out to the cemetery to visit Grandpa. Aunt J often hitched a ride on these excursions, and it was always uncomfortable.

As the years passed, the discomfort of Aunt J's presence grew. She would ramble about the past, and it was never a pleasant reminiscence. She would talk about her ailments: teeth, digestion, and legs were always giving her trouble. She would accuse neighbors and shopkeepers and family of various ill-doings. Eventually she was diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic and put into a care facility. She would call us with threats and anger. There were problems with her housing and her guardian, but the family had no legal right to help, and she refused to relinquish control. Her guardian sold her house, and she spent her last days in assisted living, barely able to walk. Once she became less mobile, we did not even see her at family gatherings. Most of her possessions were sold or stored in her sister's garage, although she frequently sent pictures and photocopies of legal papers to us.

And now she is gone, and I don't know what I feel. I used to think I would be the Aunt J of my generation: single, childless, smart, quirky, crazy. But even that thought did not make me compassionate towards her. I avoided her presence. I did not answer her illegible and rambling letters, I did not answer her phone calls. Oh, occasionally I would write or call, but not much, not enough. And I would sit next to her at gatherings and talk with her, and remember her at Christmas and birthdays, but I made no special efforts to see her outside of the group. I do remember the mortification of attending the St. Olaf Choir performance with her; she spent 10 minutes rustling through her purse before I finally spoke up about it. Was the offense really bad enough to keep me from doing anything with her again?

Her sad and angry later years have swallowed up her adventurous and joyous early years. I am sorry I did not spend more time learning about her. I am grieved that I was not part of her life. And I am frustrated that I cannot write a suitable farewell to her. All I can say is, she was a remarkable and creative woman who accomplished much in the face of great obstacles. And I wish I'd known her.