************

Hi Happy,

this isn't really poetry and yet it isn't really a dream/fantasy either, it

is just the way I felt last year at summer's end. Maybe there are other moms

out there who would rather have their summers with the kids last just a

little longer like I do. I can't stand when women say they can't wait 'till

school starts again.

JM

Back to School

With two hands she smoothes over the wrinkles in the brown paper book cover;

the same two hands that stain so easily with rich garden soil; the same two hands that long to touch her baby's skin so long ago; the same two hands that now wrinkled themselves tremble when once they were strong and steady. She shakes the hair from her eyes and reaches for the next book. The house is quiet now, and her heart beats to the rhythm of the slow and deep breaths of her family's sleep. "One more" she sighs, and lights a cigarette. 

It is at times like this she wishes she wasn't so demanding, was more forgiving. And it is equal parts perfectionism and nostalgia that keep her facing the task

of covering their crisp new schoolbooks alone. As a child she covered her own books; not because she couldn't find help but because she wanted to accomplish it herself. Somehow that changed and now she is compelled to do

it for her children, to serve them with the talent she developed too many years ago. She hopes they see it for the labor of love that it is. 

She thinks of her children and how much they have grown. It is like sand slipping through her fingers when she notices time gone by. Faster and faster each grain drops away. She imagines herself left staring at her two empty hands someday when all the sand is gone. "That's enough of that" she whispers, and aches as her creaking knees lift her from the floor. The hardest thing to realize is that as the sand of her children escapes her grasp so does her own sand. It is hard to avoid the reflection in the morning that stares back with tired eyes. The same one that reminds her that she is not the same young woman she likes to think she is. The same one that always seems to find her too early in the morning. 

She gazes at the children sleeping everywhere: on the floor, on the furniture; she pulls a blanket up over each young body and appreciates how tranquil they are right now. She knows too well that they will be different in the morning. She wonders who they will be.

I Should Have Known Something Was Wrong....

Dear Methos,

You did save their lives. The mom you went shopping with and the grandma who helped raise you are still alive in your soul. That's where you saved them and they will always will be there.

happy

Making Music With What You Got

...as told to Happyshrink

I wish  this were my story. Actually it was told by a Rabbi giving a Rosh Hashannah Sermon.

Several years ago the Rabbi attended a Lincoln Center Performance that featured the world renown violinist Izhak Perlman. Izhak Perlman is a man of unforgettable physical stature. Having been afflicted with polio as a child, he is unable to ambulate without metal crutches and braces. At every performance he walks out by himself on stage. The effort he exerts to do this is memorable as anyone who has ever seen him can attest. After walking to the middle of the stage and sitting on his chair, he puts down his crutches, removes the braces from his legs, folds one foot back and moves the other one forward. He then picks up his violin case and removes his violin and bow. This almost ritualized task is done hundreds of times every year in front of thousands of adoring music lovers.

The evening the Rabbi attended started out no different than any other Izhak Perlman performance. He began to play a violin concerto with the accompaniment of a full orchestra. Ten minutes into the piece, the unlikely happened. Itzhak Perlman broke one of his violin strings. Anyone going to a high school concert or children's recital has seen broken violin strings before. It's just not expected to happen At Lincoln Center and to Itzhak Perlman. The string breaking resonated throughout Alice Tully Hall. First, the audience gasped and then became quiet. Then there were quiet whispers. Would Itzhak Perlman have to put his braces back on and leave the stage to get his violin fixed?

After what seemed to be an eternity but was actually a few seconds Itzhak Perlman raised his arm to the conductor and directed him to have the orchestra continue playing. For the next forty minutes, Itzhak Perlman played his 3 string violin as few could have played a 4 string violin. He made whatever adjustments he needed to make and the outcome was a masterful performance followed by a thunderous ovation by the audience. It was truly  a remarkable experience by those privileged to have seen this concert. After the applause died down, Itzhak Perlmen addressed the audience. He said, "Sometimes you have to make music with what you got."
 
After hearing this story, I thought about many of my friends on the Internet. I thought about the the people who email me and struggle each day to make do with what they have. I thought about the women I work with who suffer from chronic mental illness. I thought about the the people I work with on my job who have to work hard and make do with what they have. I thought about the challenges that all of us have every day; trying to make music with broken strings.

Sometimes life is like a symphony played with a lot of broken instruments. But if we have the courage and faith to improvise just a little bit, we can all make beautiful music!
 

Subject: UFO Propulsion Secrets...

M here.
As sent to me by friends:

As found on page E10 (The Features Page) of the Thursday, August 4, 1994,
edition of the San Francisco Chronicle, quoted in its entirety:

''THE SECRET OF ANTI-GRAVITY

Jon Carroll

The rise of Net culture has meant an exponential increase in Folk Documents, bits of amusing prose that circle the globe endlessly in electronic form.

As the prose travels, it loses some signifiers, so exact authorship is hard to pin down. The best guess is that the following bit of High Nerd Wit is by Patricia Misakian of BMUG, which might be the Berkeley Mac Users Group but also might not be.  Whatever, it's a radical solution to an age-old problem:

"If you drop a buttered piece of bread, it will fall on the floor butter-side down.  If a cat is dropped from a window or other high and towering place, it will land on its feet.

"But what if you attached a buttered piece of bread, butter-side up, to a cat's back and toss them both out the window?  Will the cat land on its feet?  Or will the butter splat on the ground?

"Even if you are too lazy to do the experiment yourself, you should be able to deduce the obvious result.  The laws of butterology demand that the butter must hit the ground, and the equally strict laws of feline aerodynamics demand that the cat cannot smash its furry back.  If the combined construct were to land, nature would have no way to resolve this paradox.  Therefore, it simply does not fall.

"That's right, you clever mortal (well, as clever as a mortal can get), you have discovered the secret of anti-gravity!  A buttered cat will, when released, quickly move to a height where the forces of cat-twisting and butter repulsion are in equilibrium.  This equilibrium point can be modified by scraping off some of the butter, providing lift, or removing some of the cat's limbs, allowing descent.

"Most of the civilized species of the universe already use this principle to drive their ships within a planetary system.  The loud humming heard by most sighters of UFOs is, in fact, the purring of several hundred tabbies.

"The one obvious danger is, of course, that if the cats manage to eat the bread off their backs they will instantly plummet.  Of course the cats will land on their feet, but this usually doesn't do them much good since, right after they make their graceful landing, several tons of red-hot starship and angry aliens will crash on top of them.

"And now a few words on solving the problem of creating a ship using the aforementioned anti-gravity device.  "One could power a ship by means of cats held in suspended animation (say, about minus 190 degrees Celsius) with buttered bread strapped to their backs, thus avoiding the possibility of collisions due to temperamental felines.  More importantly, how do you steer, once all the cats are held in stasis?

"I offer a modest proposal:

"We all know that wearing a white shirt at an Italian restaurant is a guaranteed way to take a trip to the Laundromat.  Plaster the outside of your ship with white shirts.  Place four nozzles symmetrically around your ship, which is of course saucer-shaped.  Fire tomato sauce out in proportion to the directions you wish to go.  The ship, drawn by the shirts, will automatically follow the sauce.

"This does not work as well in deep gravity wells, since the tomato sauce (now falling down a black hole, perhaps) will drag the ship with it, despite the counter-force of the anti-gravity cat/butter machine.  Your only hope at that point is to jettison enormous quantities of Tide.  This will create the well-known Gravitational Tidal Force.

by; Lillian Carol Russell

Twenty-seven years ago our son was three years old. We'd gone to town and
bought clothes for him. When we got home he put on one of his new shirts and said, I'm going to see if Crince likes it."  He went to his room and I followed. This was to be the first of many encounters with his invisible friend.  I watched in amazement as he carried on a conversation. He turned to me and said, "Mommy, Crince likes it."
 
In the days,  weeks and months that followed, Crince became a very real part of our lives.  As I walked across the floor Norman would scream out, "Stop mommy, you're about to step on Crince." I had to prepare a place at the table for Crince, although he never ate. Norman would always say that Crince just wasn't hungry. There were times when we couldn't go in the bath room. Norman would stand in front of the door bidding us to wait until Crince finished using the potty.

It was all so cute and funny,  friends and family encouraged Norman to tell them all about Crince. We were told that he had red and blue hair, he could fly airplanes and drive trucks. Crince always stayed home when we went somewhere. Norman would say, "Bye-bye Crince, we'll see you later." There were some days that Crince did not come to play with Norman. On those days we were told that Crince had to fly a plane to Mississippi.

A little over two years of this and we began to worry. Crince was so real to Norman that he had begun to carry on two way conversations, speaking in a slightly altered voice for Crince. There were times that I went to check on him thinking that there actually was another child in the room. We began discussing seeking professional help,  but first we began to read every thing we could find on the subject. Our hopes soared,  we read that children with invisible playmates were usually above average intelligence. They were also usually always children who had no one to play with. We lived in the country and there were no other children. We decided to wait
it out because a playmate was about to be born. Sure enough, upon the birth
of our second child, Crince moved away.

We all missed Crince, maybe we were the ones that needed professional help. Norman did in fact turn out to be a person with above average intelligence.  One of our friends to this day still ask our son how Crince is doing now days and if he has seen him lately. A while back we were grocery shopping and my husband saw a child riding in a shopping cart and carrying on a two way conversation with an invisible friend, he said to me, "Look ma, there's Crince!" We both had a good laugh as a flood of happy memories paid an unexpected visit.

Dear Lillian,

I am sure that many of the readers can relate to your son's experience. I have been told that I have imaginary friends too!  Some of my imaginary friends go by the names St_Theresa, RU4692NITE, Reverend_Al, Edna, Crickett, Pam and of course you Lillian. These friends have contributed their real world experiences as well as their make-believe ones! I wish everyone was blessed with as many imaginary(but very real)friends that I have! After all, the chances of me getting a baby brother at this time in my life is darn near hopeless!

happy(thanksagainlillian)shrink

Hi Hap!

Still getting humorous stuff through my former job ;)
 
Two of the political bumper stickers now being sold on the Pentagon concourse:

 VOTE DEMOCRAT -- IT'S EASIER THAN WORKING !!!
 VOTE REPUBLICAN -- IT'S EASIER THAN THINKING !!!
 ==========
 How To Tell Republicans From Democrats:
 
Democrats buy most of the books that have been banned somewhere.
Republicans form censorship committees and read them as a group.
 
Democrats give their worn out clothes to those less fortunate.
Republicans wear theirs.

Democrats name their children after currently popular sports figures,
politicians, and entertainers.

Republican children are named after their parents or grandparents,
according to where the money is.

Republicans tend to keep their shades drawn, although there is seldom any reason why they should.
Democrats ought to, but don't.
 
Republican boys date Democratic girls. They plan to marry Republican girls, but feel that they're entitled to a little fun first.
 
Democrats make plans and then do something else.
Republicans follow the plans their grandfathers made.
 
Republicans sleep in twin beds--some even in separate rooms.
That is why there are more Democrats.
 ==========
 Politics:  It all really just boils down to this:
 
 Issue:

Criminals:
Democrats:  Give them a second chance.
Republicans:  Give them the swift sword of death.

 The poor:
Democrats:  Give them some food.
Republicans:  Give them the swift sword of death.

Endangered species:
Democrats:  Give them protection.
Republicans:  Give them the swift sword of death.

Dictators:
Democrats:  Give them a way out.
Republicans:  Give them the swift sword of death.

The uninsured:
Democrats:  Give them health care.
Republicans:  Give them the swift sword of death.
 
The cost:
Democrats:  $9,000,000,000,000,000,000
Republicans:  $29.95 (cost of one sword)

hahahaha!
St(readingbannedbookswiththeshadesup)Theresa

Lillian Carol Russell

Dear Lillian,

First I want to say, thank you for this contribution to my webpage and welcome to my ever-growing family of writers. I want to encourage you to continue sharing your thoughts and feelings. Your story brings to mind a client of mine who came to me in his early twenties. He was a telephone repairman. He was in early recovery from alcoholism and substance abuse. He was drug free now, but very depressed because he was unhappy with his life and hopeless about his future. As I continued seeing him my perception  was of an extremely intelligent and creative individual. I asked him why he decided not to further his education and he told me, "Oh, my brother was the smart one; I'm good with my hands!"  I asked him where he got the notion that he wasn't smart and after some thought he said, "That's what my parents always used to tell me." I asked him if he ever got any encouragement by his teachers and he said, "Yeah, just a music teacher once! He said I had a lot of potential in music."  He fooled around with guitar but never really developed his talent.

As time went on I suggested he take a series of aptitude tests to determine his areas of interest and strength. Not only did he show great interest and abilities in many areas but the IQ test he took had him at 165! This guy who was not the smart one by his family's perception turned out to be a genius! Well, he did go back to school and renewed his interest in music. Last time I heard from him he owned a recording studio that was very successful and he has also published several musical compositions.

Thanks again Lillian.

happy(alwaysgivesandreceives)encouragement

Here's some stuff someone sent me, i thought you might like it.

The population of this country is 237 million. 104 million are retired. That leaves 133 million to do the work. There are 85 million in school, which leaves 48 million to do the work. Of this there are 29 million employed by the federal government.
This leaves 19 million to do the work. Four million are in the Armed Forces, which leaves 15 million to do the work. Take from the total the 14,800,000 people who work for State and City Government and that leaves 200,000 to do the work.  There are 188,000 in hospitals, so that leaves 12,000 to do the work.  Now, there are 11,998 people in Prisons. That leaves just two people to do the work. You and me. And you're sitting there fucking around on email.

Dear ST_Theresa,

Gee, there has gotta be a few job openings for the two of us!

happy(stillhunting)shrink

This was written by a man I admire a lot. His name is Dan McCullough and he is a Professor of Philosophy, Ethics and Religion at Cape Cod Community College.  He writes a weekly column in the Cape Cod Times.  This was in the Sunday, June 1, 1997 edition. Dan has a way of breaking down complex things into easy to read pieces and has you walking away with some new perspective on life.  This one is very sad...yet profound.

Ellen
a.k.a. St. Theresa
www.capecoddesign.com

A little gem of a life from which we all have a lot to learn

Years ago, I knew a woman in Truro who had a child, a little girl, who died at a very young age.  Very young: days old.  It was not her first child, and she had other children after that. Later in life, she had a bracelet made with the birthdays of her children inscribed on the charms of the bracelet.  One little sterling silver animal for each child. I did not know the woman at the time when her little girl died so soon after being born.  When I met her, all of her children were grown.  But I knew the children and knew their number, so one day when I asked the mother about her beautiful  charm bracelet, and she explained it to me, I noticed that the number of charms on the bracelet was one more than the number of children she had. It was then that she explained about the child who had died in her second week of life.  I just nodded, but I must have had a funny look on my face, because the woman took my arm, looked me in the eye and said, "She lived, you know. She lived here on Earth."

I haven't seen or thought about that woman in many years, not until a photograph in this past Thursday's Cape Cod Times caught my eye. It was on the obituary page. The reason it caught my eye was that I was a photo of a beautiful little girl.  Her bangs hung down on her forehead and the rest of her hair reached almost to her shoulders.  She had on what looked like a sweater with flowers or little animals on it.  She was smiling into the camera as if someone had just prompted her to say, "Cheese."

You probably know the story:  it was the little girl who had been run down in what appeared to be a tragic accident in Mashpee this week when a neighbor's vehicle bolted across the street out of control and hit the child, pinning her against a tree and killing her. The headline next to her picture said,
"Paige R. Knieriem, 4."

Four.
Four years old.
On the obituary page.
How obscene.
But there she was: right there with the old and the dead.  There were seven obits on the page on Thursday.  Other than Paige Knieriem, the average age was 72.5 years. The next thing I noticed after looking at the picture, was the length of the obituary. Now, you know what an obituary is supposed to do: it tells about the life of the deceased, what schools she attended, degrees attained, professional status, hobbies, and generally just says what the person did with her life. What could one say about a 4-year-old, I wondered as I began to read.

She was born in St. Petersburg, Fla., and she attended the Knowledge Barn, a preschool in Yarmouthport. It said she enjoyed painting. As I read that, the little girl came alive to me.  I pictured her little fingers wrestling with the water colors or finger paints, and then distributing the colors of the rainbow onto a white sheet of paper, saving it to bring home to mommy or daddy at the end of a hard day at preschool. She enjoyed cutting and gluing, the obit said. Hey, who doesn't enjoy cutting and gluing?  Cutting and gluing can be important things to know.  Part of the newspaper you are holding in your hands today was put together by professional veterans in the composing room in Hyannis, but a process which is essentially cutting and gluing.  I still do cutting and gluing when preparing materials for my college lectures.  I learned it in kindergarten. Paige Knieriem was ahead of me; she learned it in preschool. She enjoyed books. That made me smile.  I knew what those books looked like.  They had drawings of Winnie the Pooh, Dr. Suess characters, Mickey Mouse, and figures from the mind and pen of Cape Cod's own Edward Gorey.  The words in those books were in large print, and the corners of the pages were worn. She enjoyed riding her bike.

In the yard where the accident happened, the bike now lies crumpled and twisted, mangled under the wheels of the runaway van that roared through the yard in a flash on Memorial Day.  Neither the bicycle nor the girl will ever ride again.
And finally, the obituary said that she enjoyed climbing trees. When did you ever see such a statement in an obituary: stating that the deceased was someone who enjoyed climbing trees?  Never.  And you'll never see it again.

All in all, a wonderful obituary, if there can be such a thing when the subject is a 4-year-old. But it did the job: it told about where the deceased went to school; it told of her achievements, of her pastimes and her hobbies, and of the things she loved. Make no mistake; these are the same things that your obituary is going to do.

So, yesterday afternoon, the Rev. Constance Bickford and Deacon Donald Biron conducted a funeral service at the Dennis Union Church over on Route 6A in Dennis.  People came together and prayed, comforted each other, and tried so very hard to come back to the day-to-day world that existed before this child left.
Her name was Paige Knieriem.  She was 4 years old. She lived.  She lived here on Earth. She went to a good school.  She enjoyed painting and cutting and gluing.  She enjoyed books, riding her bike and climbing trees.  And then she left.
Not bad, not bad at all.
Many of us could do worse.
A lot worse.

It was 1956 and my world revolved around Davey Crockett:

Born on a mountain top in Tennessee
Greenest State in the land of the free
Raised in the woods so he knew every tree
and killed him a bear (pronounced "bar" by the diehards) when he was only 3 Davey…..Davey Crockett king of the wild frontier.

If you didn’t know that song, you were probably behind the Iron Curtain! As popular as any Star Wars, Batman, Power Rangers or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle toy ever was, the Coonskin Cap was still the biggest seller of them all! Every boy under 12 years of age had to have one and I was no exception. But the emotional ordeal I went through, and the insight that I gained from it later on would have an impact on my life forever. Whenever I have to make a tough choice, or receive some well meaning advice from friends and acquaintances, I think about this time in my life.

It was the Spring and I was 7 years old. Mom promised me the night before that if I ate all the carrots and peas from my plate, we would go to Alexander’s Department Store to buy me a Coonskin Cap. Those overcooked carrots and peas, like this story are etched in my memory but that’s a tale for another time. That morning was one of the few times in my early childhood that mom didn’t have to coax me into getting dressed or finishing my breakfast. We walked the 7 or 8 blocks to the Department Store, my anticipation growing as we neared the store. Once there, we had to go up to the 4th floor. Normally, this would have been another ordeal for mom and me. Alexander’s had escalators! This was the closest thing to a Coney Island ride that my neighborhood had. Usually I would be walking backwards on the moving staircase trying to stretch the ride out as long as possible while mom would be pulling me by my arms trying to get me off. But the only problem she had on this day was keeping up with me.

We finally got to the 4th floor and there, about 100 feet ahead of me were 2 tables filled with Davey Crockett Coonskin Caps! I broke free of my mom and raced towards the tables. It didn’t take me more than 30 seconds to make my selection. I told mom that this was the cap that I wanted. Mom said, "Not so fast! We just got here! Let’s take some time to look for the right cap!" I really couldn’t understand what mom meant by this. I thought I had the right cap. But she insisted we continue to look and I went along with her while holding on tight to MY cap!

Mom eventually noticed that there were two different styles of caps. The one I had picked out had a brown vinyl top. A picture of Davey Crockett was embossed on it. HER cap had fur on the top. Mom pointed out several differences to me about the cap SHE wanted me to get. She showed me that HER cap was more like the cap that the real Davey Crockett wore. She showed me that the fur on HER cap was thicker and the tail was longer. She even turned the caps inside out to show me that HER cap was sewn together better. I wasn’t buying any of her arguments. I knew what I wanted and that was MY cap. It was like the ones that some of my friends already had gotten and I liked the picture of Davey Crockett on the top.

The debate raged on for what seemed to me to be hours. Years later, mom pointed out that it was just a few minutes and I will give her the benefit of the doubt that she was probably right! The debate ended as many debates of this sort between moms and 7 year olds. My eyes welled up with tears, I became hysterical and I uttered the words that strikes fear into the hearts of all mothers when they are in a department store with their kid,  "I Think I’m going to vomit!" End of debate! Mom was now dealing with "damage control." She grabbed MY cap, put it on my head, dried my tears and gave me a hug. I began to feel less nauseous and made a full emotional recovery in less than two minutes. I had MY cap and mom was happy that I didn’t vomit! Boy, I wished those words could have worked in my adult life crises.

This story would have seemingly had a happy ending if not for what inevitably happened to that Coonskin Cap. After about two months or so, it fell apart. Mom was quick to tell me that I had chosen poorly and that HER cap would have held together. Mom didn’t show any anger or hostility toward me. She didn’t spend a lot of time gloating about it either. This story hardly ever came up except when I had to buy something like an item of clothing. Mom would always remind me that sometimes I didn’t make the best choices. I grew up believing that this was true. Besides buying clothes, identifying a career path and making other important decisions was something I never felt comfortable doing by myself. I think I may have even got married so I could get a woman to buy my clothes but that is certainly a story for another time.

Let’s move on about 12-13 years into the future. So now I’m a twenty year old college student and I don’t know what the hell I want to do with my life other than NOT go to Vietnam! I’m seeing a counselor at the college and the issue of my poor judgment comes up. The Davey Crockett Coonskin cap story emerges and I am amazed at the detail and vividness with which I remember it. The subsequent dialogue between me and the counselor goes something like this:

Young Happyshrink: So you see, I made the wrong choice way back then! I have a history of making bad choices.

Counselor: What makes you so sure that you made the wrong choice?

Young Happyshrink: Well, the cap fell apart like my mom said it would.

Counselor: And as a seven year old that was important to you?

Young Happyshrink: What do you mean?

Counselor: What happened to the other kids caps?

Young Happyshrink: I guess their caps fell apart too! It was the Summer and too hot to wear the caps anyway. We all stopped wearing them.

Counselor: So the cap served its purpose when you and your friends did wear them?

Young Happyshrink: Yes it did! I really didn’t care that the cap fell apart. The fad was over. And it was more important that I chose a cap that was  like the other kids’ caps. I didn’t want to be different. I might have been teased!

Counselor: So you made the right choice for a seven year old even though it may have been the wrong choice for your mom?

Young Happyshrink: Yes! I did make the right choice! It was the right choice for me! My mother ruined my life GOD DAMN IT!! (Just kidding….I didn’t say that or feel that but I couldn’t resist saying now! LOL)

…and some 25 years or so after that revelation, I still hate buying clothes! But I try to make the choices that are right for me!

©1997 by Happyshrink

I Remember Grandma

There is something heroic about Grandmas. I  don’t know too many people that don’t have a good grandma story! To most people, Grandma was an unremarkable person. Small in stature, she never achieved much in her lifetime that people would write stories about. She was a teenager when she emigrated to America from her native Poland. The bulk of her life was taken up with caring for her family during tough times. She had a hard life, was widowed at an early age, devoted herself completely to her family and never complained about anything. Chronicling her life would not tell you much about Grandma. But one story stands out in my mind. It’s a story I remind myself of when things aren’t going too well for me. When I feel depressed, powerless and unappreciated, I remember Grandma. 

Grandma’s health and mind were failing. She was nearly 80 and lived on the third floor of a very old apartment building two blocks away from where I lived. She lived there for over thirty years, having moved after Grandpa died suddenly from a stroke. As a little boy I remember walking up the three flights of stairs in her building. There was no elevator, the walls had cracks in it and the radiators were exposed. But Grandma’s home was a house of treasures; a museum of past memories and links to my mother’s childhood. In today’s age of collectibles, Grandma’s home did possess treasures but who knew back then? Except for her grandchildren, everyone else thought that Grandma’s home was just filled with junk! More important than its monetary value was the memories that her treasures held for me as well as their importance in this remarkable story I will tell about Grandma.

I was 19 years old and going to college at the time. Grandma’s home no longer held my interest. This little woman who was the only baby-sitter I ever had  was not the same person I remembered as a little boy. She was more frail and she walked slower than in the past. She was forgetful and confused at times. Her apartment which was always immaculate despite the clutter began to show signs of neglect. Grandma’s children knew that she could not live alone anymore. The option of living with one of her children was rejected outright by Grandma. She would never have that. But when a studio apartment became available in my parents’ apartment building, grandma reluctantly agreed to move. Here she could have her own apartment, and Mom could care for her, at least to the extent that Grandma would allow.

The task of moving Grandma was not going to be easy. There was no way that the treasures cluttered into a large three room apartment could fit into a small studio. Things had to be discarded. My mother enlisted me in this activity. I  would rent a van and with a couple of my college buddies, we would move grandma to her new apartment. The day before the move, Mom and I would spend the day going through Grandma’s treasures and throwing out everything but the bare essentials. I remember this day like no other!

Mothers and daughters are bonded in a special way. This was true of Mom and Grandma. They were a lot alike. Quiet women on the outside; strong, stubborn and fiery on the inside. I never saw them fight until this memorable day. Every item that was to be thrown out was fought over. Grandma fought hard to keep everything. Mom fought hard to throw out almost everything. I stood their observing these two women who where so significant in my life. Torn between the two, I felt both their pain. Mom’s practicality would ultimately win this battle. I understood the situation and knew Mom was also grieving. But, I identified with Grandma’s passion for things past. The memories of my childhood returned. Grandma’s treasure house was being lost forever!

It took from early morning to late at night to gather up everything. We packed what was to be moved in boxes. We filled 20 extra large trash bags of grandma’s treasures each weighting over 30 lb. or more. We dragged them down three flights of stairs to a back alley where garbage cans were kept. There were too many bags to fit them all in the garbage cans but we tied them up and neatly arranged them. Mom and I walked home both physically and emotionally exhausted. It was late at night and I had to pick up the rented moving van at 8:00 am the next morning. Normally, it would not be hard to fall asleep after such a busy day. But the sadness in Grandmas face as we left her stayed in my mind and ached in my stomach. I didn’t get much sleep that night.

The next day started routinely enough. I got the moving van,  picked up my college buddies and drove to the front of Grandma’s apartment building where I met Mom. My friends stayed downstairs as Mom and I went up to get Grandma so that she would be out of the way. What we saw when we entered her apartment was as incredible as anything I would ever experience in my life. You see, Grandma didn’t sleep that night either. Grandma had carried back up to her apartment every last bag of treasures. Most of them were back in their rightful place in her apartment. The treasure house, if only for a brief time had been restored! My mother was horrified! I was awestruck. Once again Grandma had that fire in her eyes that I remembered as a boy. It took all of her strength and will! And in the end she would still lose it all.

I don’t think Grandma actually hoped to save her treasures. But as a mother and a grandmother you are expected to give everything of yourself even to hopeless causes. Grandma remained true to that belief. Grandma moved into her new studio apartment that day without most of her treasures, without the fire in her eyes and without the will that kept her going after 80 years. She would die within the year, leaving some of the few remaining treasures to her children and grandchildren who cherished them. But she left her family greater treasures that are still not diminished by time. This story is just one of them. 

I remember you Grandma. I always will. 

 ©1997 by Happyshrink