about a boy
just before daybreak, the phone rang and i answered. a woman, asking for my husband. a reporter, she said, for one of atlanta's tv stations i recall. i pictured a well coiffed, sleek brunette in spiked heels just waiting to purr something seductive into my husband's ear. i shook him awake, handed him the phone and looked toward my feet, but couldn't see them.
just then i felt, well, a nudge. and when he hung up the phone from his seductress, i said three words:
don't go far. then four more.
the baby is coming.
i could feel it.
my husband dressed for work — he was in public affairs for a utility company at the time and there was some sort of nuclear issue, which is in no way as important as a baby, don't you know.
i gathered my thick body in my quilted robe and put my alarm clock in my pocket. walked into my daughter's room, wondering what in the world i would do with her in these hours as i waited for this new baby to come.
she found my closet, right after breakfast, and as i timed my contractions with the pocketed tick of the blue plastic clock, she found my honeymoon shoes and pulled my 'Princess Diana' rehearsal dinner dress over her head just so. how i wish i had pictures.
as my 3-year-old plundered, i crouched on my hands and knees, cleaning all the bathrooms because once again, my mother would be coming and things had to be right.
a few hours in i called my mother-in-law, who was on her way to the beauty parlor, which would be the perfect distraction for a cute little girl who would greet a new sibling, we hoped, by the end of the day.
i called my husband. it's time, i said, and he left the carefully coiffed reporter and drove the 20 miles home to take me to the hospital and into our new life as a family of four.
it was one year to the day, i remember, from when the space shuttle exploded on national tv.
+++
last night we sat across from our son and his girlfriend sharing supper and stories. she asked what time he was born, he said: after Guiding Light, which is partly true. there would be no tv in the labor room that day, and GL was my favorite story, so i asked one of the nurses to find some way for me to watch. 30 minutes into Josh and Reva and this boy would have nothing of my distraction, breaking into this world so quickly that his napping dad hardly had time to put on his scrubs. i have to say my son has consistently interrupted my train of thought since. just when i thought i'd have a moment to myself, this quiet boy would say something that made me wish i had been paying closer attention.
he does so, still.
+++
it seems, looking back on it, as if he grew from two feet to four then to six overnight, stretching his lanky body at times in such awkward ways that you could almost see the paIN in it. as a boy, he craved independence, admired (and practiced) great wit, loved Harry Potter and studied how to build things. he learned how to be a loyal friend to many and a brother to the sister he adores.
some say he looks like me, which is a curse or a blessing, depending upon your perspective (his/mine). the two of us have had our moments. there were days when i thought, well, i will never be good at the mother/son thing, and others when i felt we had just about gotten it right.
lately, though i don't see or talk to him every day, it still feels tenuous. i want to help him but give him space. want to soothe with my mother thing but give him breathing room. want to say i'm proud but leave space for growth.
in the last year, i have seen my son grow into a man. we walked, hand-in-hand, into his grandfather's hospital room and out again, both of us quietly weeping. we shopped for sofas for the house he was buying. i stood by as he walked my mother to the communion rail on Christmas Eve, her arm in his hand.
he inherited my father's saw and is building a place to put it using plans he found online. he is kind and funny and quiet, and he can be quite charming, i hear. though he drives me mad sometimes, my love for him is fierce.
+++
today he turned 27. Happy Birthday, G. It's a pleasure to know you.
mom
susanbyrumrountree.com is the original work of author susan byrum rountree. all written work and photography is copyright protected and can only be used with written permission of the author.
we turned the page on the calendar, and...
my hall closet is crammed with coats. black wool coats, long and short. crisp spring toppers, fleece jackets and thin, hooded parkas. so many coats between my husband and me that we hang them on top of each other so they'll fit snugly, waiting to be pulled out when we need them.
you would think we could put the lightweight jackets away to make room for our winter coverings. but in the first month of this new year, i have worn practically all of them, some days changing out coats by the hour from fleece to topper to wool.
last week temps hovered in the teens, so wool it was, along with long johns and muffs for the ears. by the weekend, rain moved in with humid warmth and even the hooded parka was too much. the next week, the fog lay so thick by my mailbox that i could hardly see the street, so the jacket it was. today it's 60 degrees. tomorrow they're calling for snow.
i don't remember a winter this fickle, yet when we turned the calendar to 2014, we found the weather to be a mirror for what the month would be.
art by
@
debucket
i was so ready to turn the page, (and yes, i still do use a paper calendar), to bring out my 2014 planner and mark the squares with all the good things to be: a. trip to paris. paris! family visits (and not in the hospital), a new fitness routine. i was so ready to leave last year behind with all its changes and losses and move full force into hope.
on new year's eve, my husband and i found ourselves 500 miles apart, he making his resolutions alone in a Hampton Inn in Paduca, Kentucky, and me out with friends sharing ours at one of our favorite restaurants. his aunt was in the hospital, and since she has no husband, no kids, no siblings left, he was the only one to see about her. pull on the wool and prepare for winter.
on my way to dinner that night, i checked in with my son and learned he'd had great news at work. i felt the sun breaking through the clouds. on the first day of the year, i planned my trip to Paris. on the second, my husband headed home in a blinding snow storm. wool again. by the weekend, the temps hovered near 75 degrees, and all was steady, no coat required. then good news again: Aunt Betty left the hospital, and our daughter shared her own work milestone. i found myself thinking, well, maybe we can put our winter buffers away.
on the fourth day, we opened our home to the family of the newest priest at our church — or he would become one the following day— welcoming them with a warm fire and hot soup, filling our house with laughter that seemed to have been absent for too long awhile. on the fifth day, we witnessed as priests surrounded him with the powerful laying on of hands. all warmth and bright sunlight, hope.
on day 6 i had my annual mammogram, opting for the new digital kind, bracing myself for a minute discovery. but all was clear. on day 7, my great-niece celebrated her first birthday — steady winds and bright sun, little outerwear needed.
then on day 11, the wind shifted, and i felt myself pulling on my heaviest coat to brace for it: the dog and i hid in the hall bathroom as trees swayed and 65 mile-per-hour winds passed overhead. and just about that time (i later discovered) my boss was having a heart attack. he is 44 years old. day 13 brought triple bypass surgery for my friend, and hours of waiting and days of fear for wife, my friend, and his three young daughters. on day 14, a dear friend lost her husband, 66, to
. on yesterday we bid him farewell.
today the winds calmed. the sun came out. the boss's health has improved. things settled in the the family.
yet my coworker said she was tired. last week her dog almost died, had to be raised up in an oxygen chamber at the vet school, and today she felt the pieces of january weighed her down like a giant wooden puzzle.
we are just about done with it. january. a month i have loved for its fresh start, for the fact that my son was born at the end of it. but i'm weary, too, from all that has happened to those around me. i know the fatigue, the sadness and fear that grips them.
so i long for snow, the makes-you-stay-put kind, the watch-the-world-transform-into-swirls-of-white-and-crystal kind, that finds you pulling on that wool you are so tired of and heading outside. to hold your sleeve out just-so, to watch the tiny iced-jewels — each of them their own sculpture — rest on your sleeve, to show you that despite all, hope is there. God. Is. There.
writemuch.blogspot is the original work of author susan byrum rountree. all written work and photography is copyright protected and can only be used with written permission of the author.
summer sentence
it is on the third day
that the words come back,
letters long absent
from your page,
but as you figure out how
not to spill the water
as you pour it into the
rented kitchen's coffeepot,
there they are,
stretching ahead of you
like line to a new boat,
and you grab hold
of that line
and hold on
because you know
what's coming
finally coming,
so you think twice
about the pink sunrise
you saw just a bit
ago
as you scramble the eggs
and scratch the grandog's nose
butter your toast
and serve up breakfast
for your kids who
are almost never
under the same roof
anymore,
and you think
some more
as you
butter yourself up
for a stretch out
in front of the ocean,
when you
will crack open
that new book
because you've already
read two
in the past days
as you listened
to the ocean
talk to you
for the first time
in many, many months,
you catch yourself thinking again
that you are
relieved
that the first book
is done because
you feared
so for the woman
and the boy
in that story,
and you found yourself
weeping at the end
of the second one
because you could
imagine how the man
and his wife, and
the girl
all felt
at the end of that one,
and yes,
you think still more
as you listen
to the churning
of that blue ocean
and watch
the pink-tutued baby
next door dabble
in the saltwater puddle
at her feet
and remember when
the daughter sitting
by you
with a book
in her hand
was just that size,
doing just that thing,
dabbling,
trying to
carry
a small bit of wave
in her tiny hands,
when you first brought
her to this beach...
so you take
a short walk
in and out
of other people's vision,
those
lining to beach
propped under
a kaleidoscope
of umbrellas
watching
the gulls,
the tattooed
girls,
lanky
boys
skimming
the surf
with their boards
and you wonder how they
can keep from
falling,
and you peer to see
what other folks are reading
on iPads and phones and
in actual books,
like the weathered woman
sitting where the seafoam
laps at her feet
who is in the final pages
of a good book about dogs,
so you walk on
and find yourself beneath
the pier,
and at once you recall
your
grandfather's
knotty
fingers
cutting blood worms
with an old knife
on the splintered pier bench
then plying
the bloody bits
onto a hook
for you
to cast
over the side,
and you think
how many times you
watched the water
and felt the tug
not knowing whether it
was fish
or foam
but you pulled it in
surprised
at
seaweed
or silver fish
biting,
and as you think
of those times
all those years ago
you remember
your father's thin
tanned fingers as he
stood on the pier
and slid his serrated
scaler on the surface
of the fish,
the fingers of his other hand
holding tightly to the
surprised
mouth and fins
of the spot
or bream
as scales flew
in every direction,
and you think of that summer
when he grew a beard
and you didn't like
that at all
or how that year,
the beach didn't
seem to soothe him
like it always did,
and on your way back
you look out over
the sea and the foam
and think of
how many times
you
walked this beach
with your dad
and how this
is your first
time, really,
without him
being here for
even a day or two,
when you are
and there you
are, making new
prints in the
moist sand
without him
by your side,
and as you make your way
back
you
wonder who
that girl was
so long ago who
that her daddy
loved so, so much,
then you spy your children
sitting there
by the sea,
your son's fresh beard
irritating you
just about as much
as your daddy's did,
and you
think how
many more stories
there will be
to tell of this place
even though
daddy can't
sink his
narrow
toes
in this
sand
anymore.
as writemuch.blogspot is the original work of author susan byrum rountree. all written work and photography is copyright protected and can only be used with written permission of the author.
of happy hearts and glorious things
as a child i used to sit on the living room floor, slide out the bottom drawer of my parents' secretary until the brass pulls clicked softly against the wood. inside the drawer were treasures — baby books for my siblings and me, old photograph albums showing my brother, sister and me as babies, and a creamed-colored book with gold-leafed edging that contained evidence of my family's beginnings.
it was my favorite — my parents' wedding album — and i would spend hours studying the photographs of the day my parents pledged their troth to each other. my mother, striking in her ballet-length crinoline, my father handsome in his white dinner jacket. they stood with their back to the camera in the center aisle of a church the likes i had never seen. large stone columns stood sentry as my brim-hatted grandmothers, my dapper grandfather and dozens of family and friends gathered around them.
they looked like teenagers, holding each other's hands as the young rector gave God's blessing over their union. (within 10 years, this same man would become bishop of the Diocese of North Carolina. would confirm my brother, my sister and me some years later in our home church.)
i studied the sepia images — the lights hung from the ceiling, the carved fretwork over the pulpit, the stained glass windows, stone floors and marble altar, those stone arches standing watch, protecting them from what lay outside the walls. and as i studied, i wondered what it might be like to sit in a church as grand as that.
when i was 32, the sepia photograph faded into my reality, and i came to stand myself in the stone aisle of
, feel the grasp of those arches and knew i was home. my husband and i had just moved our young family to winston-salem from atlanta, where though we attended church most every Sunday, it never felt quite right.
that first Sunday morning in Winston, we rose, not questioning where we would go. we set out early — getting to church in atlanta took 45 minutes — and arrived for the 9 o'clock service before the early service had even let out. our five-minute commute left us time to head back home, grab some coffee and start over again, and we marveled at our good fortune. on our return trip, we still arrived early enough to take the kids to Sunday School and the nursery, so the two of us could sit for an hour in peace.
uncertain of this new pace and space, we walked into the back of the church and there it was, the picture i had studied all those years ago. the place where my parents got their start, where i first became a twinkle in God's eye. and that's when home hit me.
that first day, the teacher in my 5-year-old's sunday school class invited us out for hot dogs. in the weeks after, we joined the young families supper club, even hosting it at our house. so easy it seemed to make friends, when in atlanta i struggled to make two close friends in four years.
but here, i wrote essays on my mornings at home, took the dog to show and tell at preschool, walked the baby with my next door neighbor whose son was the same age as mine. it was on the way to st. paul's that one day i found myself singing alone in the car: oh i feel so very happy in my heart, because i was.
we would be there only 18 months.
the day we found out we would have to move, i came early for preschool pickup, walking into the darkened nave so i could spend a few quiet moments under those stone arches. i found my pew, kneeled, begged out loud for things to be different, for God to let us stay... we had just really gotten started in this place where it seemed so easy to
be
. i cried a bit...might have even screamed in the empty space, but i can't truthfully admit that now.
the arches didn't seem to hear.
we moved, started a new life, found a new church that has become more of a home to me than St. Paul's ever was. my daughter barely remembers her time here, and my son not at all.
but still.
///
ten days ago, we were in town for a family wedding. finding ourselves with an idle hour or so, i asked my mother if she'd like to go to her old church. it would be her first trip there in 61 years (61 years and two weeks, she reminded me.) so we drove up the meandering hill toward the church, and i almost lost my way.
'it's that way,' she said, pointing, never minding that she was 24 years old when she last made this trip.
the stone bell tower stood right where we'd left it, and i hoped that a June saturday meant the doors would be open, though when we checked they were locked. we took a picture of her in front of the bell tower anyway, talked about that day so long ago in her life, then slowly made our way to the car.
just then i spied a man, keys jangling from his belt, slip out the side door. i approached, asking if there was any way we could get inside, and he pointed to the door he would happily unlock for us.
'take your time,' he said, slipping away quickly as we walked into the narthex. mama edged her walker onto the stone floor of the nave and stood, taking it all in.
at just that moment, the organ shouted through the stone, "Glorious things of thee are spoken," and i couldn't help it, the tears just came. i watched mama, her own eyes wet, but her mouth forming a smile.
///
my husband and i have a habit when we visit churches of slipping into a pew to say prayers for our family. from the corner of my eye, i saw him edge into a pew in the front. (didn't he remember that we always sat in the back?). i didn't want to leave mama, so i motioned to her to move down the aisle toward the pulpit.
she shook her head no, held onto the frame of her walker, listening.
"glorious things of thee are spoken/Zion city of our God; he whose word cannot be broken/formed thee of his own abode; on the Rock of Ages founded, what can shake thy sure repose? with salvation's walls surrounded, thou may'est smile at all they foes."
as i listened, i thought about all my mother had seen of this world from her last day in this church — her wedding day — to this one, the day her grandson would be married. i imagined what she might be thinking of that life well lived, the heartache she must be feeling without my father by her side this time. my family began on this particular rock, and God had formed it as he saw fit, and in my thinking, though Daddy isn't with us physically anymore, the fit was just right.
there is a line later in the hymn that says:
safe they feed upon the manna, which he gives them when they pray.
my family has prayed plenty, has seen plenty of manna in its time, and on this day both my mother and i felt full to bursting with it.
'i'm ready to go,' she said, just as the organist ended hymn 522 and moved on to another. as my husband helped mama, i walked up the aisle to about the fifth row on the right and took to my knees. i asked for blessings on my nephew's new marriage, just as God had given my parents so many blessing they'd begun to feel first in this place. i asked for guidance, for blessings on my children and gave special thanks for my family gathered to celebrate, when for so many weeks we have felt so little joy. and i thanked God for this moment with my mother, etched forever in my mind like the stone arches of this beautiful church that was built the year my parents were born.
'tis his love his people raises over self to reign as kings: and as priests his solemn praises each for a thank offering brings.'
glorious things indeed. amen.
susanbyrumrountree.com is the original work of author susan byrum rountree. all written work and photography is copyright protected and can only be used with written permission of the author.
a toast to a happier time
a year ago today, my entire family gathered in the great room of a rented beach cottage to make a toast. to the day, 60 years before, when what would become our family took root. on this, my parents' 61st wedding anniversary, i say thanks to God that we had that time together, however fleeting. it's been a bittersweet week, remembering where i was when i took the pictures posted here. thinking of the quiet chats my father and i had each day, when he climbed the two flights of stairs to see what we were up to. strolling together down the rickety pier behind the cottages to see if any fish might be biting. sharing a meal and talking about his life. just watching him watch his grands and great-grands. marvels to me.
my parents' dance is over, sadly, but today i just want to be happy that they took that first dance together long ago.
Save the last dance
They met in the hallways of Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem in the fall of 1951. Not long after, the skinny young man in the white coat asked the wavy-haired Florida girl if she would like to go to a med school dance with him.
Two weeks later, he asked her a bigger question: Will you marry me? And on June 14 the next year, she did.
And the day after that? He graduated from Bowman Gray School of Medicine. All the family was coming anyway, so what better time to get married than the day before you become a doctor?
My mother often said Daddy didn't want to go to Louisville (the location of his internship) alone. So she went with him, and two weeks shy of their first wedding anniversary, my brother joined them in their little apartment with the Murphy bed in the wall.
In those early years, the young Byrums would not often be together. Mama moved with my brother to live with my grandparents, whom she had really only met a couple of times. Daddy joined the Navy, spending his days in the cramped infirmary of a destroyer, tending to the medical needs of other young men his age. He has a certificate from that time that says he crossed the Arctic Circle.
When he came home, they moved to Newport, Rhode Island, then back with my grandparents. Daddy left again, and while they were living apart, my sister was born, the story of her birth a favorite of my grandfather, who drove my in-labor by the hospital entrance because the February fog was so dense.
When my father left the Navy, they looked around for a place to settle down and found a spot just an hour from my grandparents. Within a year, they had a house and another baby — me — Daddy tending to the needs of patients who would come to him for the rest of his career —more than 50 years.
I wrote about them last year
Little has changed except they are moving a little slower, but I marvel at the fact that my parents continue to grow closer today as each day passes.
This week we have gathered — 23 of us (with two pending) — to celebrate the fact of them and their 60 years together, and that what seems to us to have been a hasty decision back in 1951 has turned into a pretty remarkable life.
Each day someone new has arrived to join our celebration. Grandchildren. Spouses. Great-grands. Earlier in the week, we even gathered in a nearby gazebo to toast the newest union-to-be, all of us weeping after my nephew proposed to his girlfriend. What a joyful moment for us all.
Mama has enjoyed sharing the story of how she met my dad with each new face. Daddy checks his watch and asks who is coming next. By this afternoon, we will all be in place, and we have a few special things planned for them to mark this day in our family history.
Last night, Daddy stood before supper and thanked us all for coming, and for being who we are. He said he was proud how we are living our lives, and though he and my mother could not take credit, they would like to.
Well.
"There was more I wanted to say but I have forgotten!" he said then, tempering the tears that had formed at the corners of all of our eyes with the subtle humor he is known for. I watched Mama sitting in the chair behind him, looking up at him, her blue eyes sparkling.
"Would you like to go to the dance?" he asked those years ago. My mother has never felt she was very good at dancing, but when my father took her in his arms that fateful night, somehow she stayed in step. For 60 years. Imagine.
Happy Anniversary B&Pop B. May the dance continue.
©susan byrum rountree, june 14, 2012.
writemuch.blogspot is the original work of author susan byrum rountree. all written work and photography is copyright protected and can only be used with written permission of the author.
i will always love my mama, she's my favorite girl
my mother sits in a wheelchair beside my father, her gloved hands holding his. she wears a brilliant blue dress just the color of her eyes, though it's obscured by the yellow gown we all have to wear now when we visit daddy. i watch the two of them, their eyes meeting as they nod to each other and speak a silent language only those who have been married for almost 61 years can understand.
she has been here at his side, most every day since that first day — february 6th. before the day that changed so much, i'd see her walking down the hall in her crisp denim pants and neatly pressed blouse or tailored jacket and i'd think: wow, i wish i could be that beautiful. in these weeks since daddy has been in the hospital, mama has seemed to grow more beautiful. she waves at the nurses in the hallway, the members of the lift team, the care partners — by now she practically knows all their names and they know her, a quiet but kind woman whose beauty they see, like i do, in how she cares for my dad.
now though, she can't get herself here, has to depend on others and on someone else's schedule to see the man she has been married to since she was 24.
it seems impossible to think that they are now both on such difficult but parallel paths. daddy works each day to regain the strength he had when he walked into the hospital so many weeks ago. mama works to walk again, too, but for entirely different reasons.
in the middle of our day-to-day journey, there is something to celebrate. mama turned 85 years old today, and we had a party, just like we might any other birthday, with a picnic lunch in a side room and with yellow roses requested specially by my daddy, with cards. but we also celebrated by watching her learn to wheel herself down the hallway toward my father, so together we could cheer him on to lift his arms, shrug his shoulders, breathe on his own.
this might be a new challenge for mama, but it is not the first.
betty jean mccormick byrum was born on april 12, 1928 and raised to be strong. to stand up for herself when need be, to fight back, even when she didn't feel like it. she has shown this to me over and over as i have grown up. when my father was sick and dying at 39 — and yet he didn't — when her family presented her with challenges — and especially right now.
she. carried. on.
i wish i had gotten that from her. the pick everything up and steady the load and keep on walking kind of thing. she did a lot of that, the mother of three and wife of a doctor who was often with other people's families. she picked it— us — up, and gave us a pretty wonderful life.
i tend to leave life all on the floor — as evidenced by my bedroom closet and my home for the past few months — hoping someone else will come behind me and make everything all straight. usually mama. when i was a child, she usually did.
there have been moments in my life though, when i called on my 'mama' instincts and took care of the impossible. all by myself. picked myself up and moved through what i didn't want to, because i come from her stock.
now it is my turn again.
you know i am a storyteller. this comes sometimes much to my parents' chagrin. might i tell too much? in their eyes probably... i hope only to tell the important.
mama is not one to share many stories about her childhood. i can remember, though, times when she shared a bit. how roosevelt died on her birthday. how she met my father at a medical school dance. (and my, was she beautiful.) how they lived their first married year with a
.
my favorite betty jean childhood story is the one when my grandmother sent her to the store to buy a loaf of bread, but wouldn't you know it? a new movie — "the wizard of oz" — was showing at the local theater. the 11-year-old betty jean rode her bike to the store, got the bread, and several hours later — maybe she sat through two showings — she emerged from the dark theater, too late for my grandmother's sandwiches, but she was a changed little girl.
weren't we all changed by that movie? our grayscale worlds turned suddenly into color by the wind?
in these past weeks, it feels like the wind has taken our colorful world and upended it, picked up our settled family home with it and crashed it down so rakishly that we don't know which end is up. and the whole world has turned to grayscale again.
we are not alone. a church friend one day this week said her 97-year-old father had the same injury as my mom, her own mother already in 24-hr care. she wept, telling me her story, and all i could do was hug her. i understand. add her to my now pages-long prayer list for families like my own.
my siblings and i have often joked that our family is just so beige. to the outside world i am sure that's how it seems. we tend to cling close, though i am the one who puts the story out there. neither of my parents have been comfortable with my writing about them from time to time, but i hope one day they will understand why.
today is my mother's birthday. all the grandchildren called her, and one even came to visit. she sat next to the love her life and held his hand. and he told her he loved her, one more time.
it was an honor to be with them as they shared their own private celebration.
today we celebrated my mother and my father. brave souls, both.
ps: a favorite college song was 'i'll always love my mama' by the intruders:
watch the video here and dance!
susanbyrumrountree.com is the original work of author susan byrum rountree. all written work and photography is copyright protected and can only be used with written permission of the author.
days with daddy
my fridays with daddy have turned into mondays and other days. it is a roller coaster, and though i wish i could find a more literary term to describe it, that seems apt. how you begin the long slow crawl to what you think is the top, then all things ricochet, up down sideways and backward. then up, down again.
i remember the first roller coaster i ever rode, in myrtle beach back when i was a senior in high school. that trip, like this one with daddy, was all about uncertainty, and it did not end as i would have wanted. i was supposed to love riding the roller coaster, but i didn't. i was scared but i didn't want anyone to know it, so i got back on again.
that's what you do, isn't it? you get back on and see if the next ride will be different. at least that's how it is for me right now. i'm willing to ride again. because i keep thinking one of these days soon it's going to be a joy ride with daddy, and not the scary one we have been on.
years ago, my father and i took a joy ride. it was Ash Wednesday, and when i was little, daddy took wednesday afternoons off. my brother and sister were in school but i was 4, so the two of us set out in a cold rain to ride an hour or so to visit my grandparents, aunt, uncle and cousins. as we drove north, the rain turned to ice, and before long, snow covered the road and the telephone poles leaned toward one another, held up only by the power lines.
i could hardly be a reliable narrator recalling a memory when i was 4, but when i think of that day, i see the wipers swishing hard as the whole world turned white, daddy leaning into the dash, his hands gripping the steering wheel. we didn't turn back. daddy kept that car on the road and somehow we reached my grandparent's house. when we arrived, the lights were out, and we found them huddled around a pot belly stove in an upstairs bedroom, trying to stay warm.
it would turn out to be a legendary storm, the Ash Wednesday Storm, a northeaster that battered the outer banks and caused damaged that took years to repair.
now daddy and i are in the middle of a different kind of storm, but in many ways it's the same: he's driving on icy roads, i'm holding on to the seat for fear of slipping.
on the first day of this week, i sit by his side, watching him breathe in and out, look at his blood pressure (good) and try to cool off from beneath the hot yellow gown and purple gloves i have to wear to guard against infection. he is hard to wake, though when i left him a few days before, he stayed awake for much of the day.
so the only certainty is that there is none.
except maybe in the cafeteria. my father has been housed in the hospital now for 47 days. and he has many, many days left. so sometimes when they say it's time to do this or that to him, i end up in the cafeteria, alone, watching, trying to eat something.
the man next to me speaks into his phone, which he lays on the table as he eats a very large salad. his words could be my own: sleeping mostly, i don't think he knows i'm here. concern. sleeping. update. all words i have used myself in the past day. finally he ends his conversation with 'drink plenty of fluids and get some rest.'
i imagine he is talking to his child, updating him or her on the grandfather's life now in ICU, or somewhere on the floors above where we sit. i say a prayer for them, quietly, because i know what he and his family are going through.
looking around, i recognize: the young woman wearing a beautiful Muslim scarf. she is on daddy's lift team, comes around every few hours to shift him in his bed and who now calls him Pop B, just like she is a grandchild. the hospitalist is there, the one when daddy first arrived those many days ago. he saunters up to the cash register, just as he did that first day to daddy's room... sauntered, hands in his pockets, posture that made me feel he didn't care very much about his patient. one thing my daddy doesn't do, never did, is saunter.
everyone else caring for daddy is engaged and concerned, wanting not to pass the time but to make this critically ill man better. and so i tell the nurses and the therapists and the doctors about where he practiced and how long, try to paint a picture of this man who to them is an very sick and aging man. a man can't speak for himself right now.
i know nothing of medicine, but the longer i stay here with him, the more i just want to somehow to story him well, if that makes sense. telling his story, somehow, has to make him better. right?
friday comes, and it is once again my turn to sit. when i arrive, they've shifted daddy's bed into a sort of chair, and he has the paper in his lap. he wears his glasses for the first time in these 47 days, looks so much like himself that i'm startled. i've brought him a soft ball to squeeze because right now he can't use his hands or arms very well, and squeezing the ball will help him grip the wheel again, navigate this icy road. i drop the ball into his hand and say 'squeeze' and he looks at me and does just that.
behind me, players in the ncaa tournament travel back and forth across the floor, tossing another ball, and every now and then daddy looks up. his team is not in the running, but mine is, and i pretend for a moment to be daddy's coach. we work with the balls, he nodding his head, squeezing and dropping, moving his arms just enough to show me he can. i hold my phone in front of him, showing him a picture of his newest great-grandchild and ask him to hand her the ball. he moves it over and places it in front of the picture, smiling at her, his lips forming the thin line i have known my whole life.
'remember the story of the little engine that could?' i ask him, and he nods. 'that book is as old as you are, daddy.' he was two when it was published. might have read it as boy.
ok, daddy, i think you can, i say, urging him to try one more task — to touch his finger to his nose. i'm allowed to lift his elbow but he has to do the rest. we try but he can't quite make it, so take a time out. a few minutes later we try again, and i say: i think i can i think i can... until his narrow finger meets that nose.
so much of his recovery now depends on this kind of work. this knowing that he has inside him what he needs to keep from slipping back down the icy road. what he needs to get well.
by the end of the day he can put the ball in my hand and pick it back up.
have to hit the road, daddy, i say, exhausted myself from being his coach. i'll be back on monday, ready to let him steer once again, while i sit holding onto the seat.
susanbyrumrountree.com is the original work of author susan byrum rountree. all written work and photography is copyright protected and can only be used with written permission of the author.
Save the last dance
Two weeks later, he asked her a bigger question: Will you marry me? And on June 14 the next year, she did. My mother often said Daddy didn't want to go to Louisville (the location of his internship) alone. So she went with him, and two weeks shy of their first wedding anniversary, my brother joined them in their little apartment with the Murphy bed in the wall.This week we have gathered — 23 of us —to celebrate the fact of them and their 60 years together, and that what seems to us to have been a hasty decision back in 1951 has turned into a pretty remarkable life.
Happy Anniversary B&Pop B. May the dance continue.
writemuch.blogspot is the original work of author susan byrum rountree. all written work and photography is copyright protected and can only be used with written permission of the author.
life's too short to be rude
