a year
a year ago i sat at my desk doing i can't say what now. the phone rang: my sister. she had spent the past couple of weeks with my parents, and she was leaving town that morning to join her daughter and the new baby girl who had joined their family just two weeks before.
i picked up the phone, thinking that this would be the debrief: that conversation we all have with our siblings after one of us has spent more than a few days with the folks who gave life to us. as i punched the button on my phone i thought: wonder how it's gone? how will i pick up her slack?
then she said: well, here's the thing.
i would learn over the next few months that this was code. all was not right with our world. pay attention.
that day, the thing was this: my 84-year-old-father had woken with a fever, chills, and while we talked he was on his way to the tiny hospital where he had practiced medicine his whole career. and my sister was scared.
after our phone call, i left work, packed a bag and headed home. that afternoon, my sister, mother and i sat with Daddy, watching the nurses go in and out as he slept and started, in his yellow sweater and brown corduroy pants. he did take his shoes off, as i recall.
but his stay was to be temporary. we sent my sister on to her new granddaughter, confident that we would take Daddy home in a few hours, or at least the next day.
i remember i had a big interview for work the next day, and by late afternoon, i arranged to do that from my parents' kitchen table. Daddy didn't come home that night, and i woke early, driving through Hardees to bring coffee and biscuits to him.
i would end up throwing all that away.
the next day, which was long, ended with my father waving to me and my mother from the back of a giant medical transport that would take him to the medical center where he needed to be. i will not forget that moment, Daddy being wheeled into the lighted transport and lifted up, him waving to me as he had done a thousand times from the back porch of our house. a wave that said he would be back soon.
only he wasn't.
+++
we are in the healing stages now. the days when we don't think daily so much about my father's absence, as his presence in our lives. i think about that sweater and those pants, his hush puppies and the conversation i had with him that day, and though i am sad, i am not devastated. i think of the story in that day — the old crank bed, the fact that it fell with him in it, the nurse who said when i arrived that he would need a higher level of care — these are elements in a story — no longer bringing outrage to me, though they certainly did that day. there would be other moments in his months in the hospital, but now that he is no longer there, i think of other families, and what they face each day they drive into the parking lot of a hospital. i wonder if they get long-term parking permits, like we did.
healing: what a gift that is, to the grieving. that at some point we turn the page from how can this be? to what is. and we keep moving on.
so here is the thing: in this year, my mother has moved to a new house. my sister's grandbaby is a year old. the grandbaby born on my father's birthday (and named for him) is 14 months old. one nephew got married and another will in April. Two nephews have changed jobs. my son bought a house. my daughter moved up in her job. my brother and sister and i stayed the course. the dogs all hung in there.
and in small pieces, Daddy has been right 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.
one saturday with Daddy
the morning i was to be married, i woke up and heard my father crying, hidden behind the bedroom door.
i honestly thought he'd be happy to be rid of me, to have another man take my mercurial soul off his hands.
what will we do? i recall asking my mother, who was not crying at all.
he'll be fine, she said. don't worry.
overnight, Lydia and cohorts had thrown toilet paper high into the oak trees in the front yard, and i remember him coming by my room, asking me what i wanted to do about it. the reception was at home. and then, as i scurried around getting ready for my big moment, i looked out the window, and my father was swatting at the toilet paper with a rake. though he stood more than six feet, his efforts did little to pull the paper down.
by the time he walked me down the aisle he had dried his eyes, smiled a little, and though i don't remember what he said to me i felt certain, probably for the first time in my life, that Daddy would miss my presence.
a small combo played at the backyard reception, and though i had not yet danced with my new husband, Daddy and i stole a few moments away from the guests for a dance, both of us quietly sobbing this time.
no one was watching, and i don't even recall the song.
none of that matters now. because the feeling of that moment lingers, still.
10.10.1981
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.
land, ho!
my father grew up in a country crossroad that when i was a child seemed like the prettiest little place on earth. he spent his first 17 years growing tall and fishing in wooded ponds, later working in the shop where his father sold Fords. when Daddy died, my brother told a story i had never heard. that when Daddy was working in the shop, my grandfather asked him to change the oil on a car, which he dutifully did. only he forgot to put new oil back into the car he was working on. so instead of inheriting the family business, my grandfather decided the boy who would become my daddy would be better off fixing people than fixing cars. so he sent my father to medical school.
i spent my childhood going back to my father's home, visiting my grandparents for a week during the summer. there is so much i remember about the place. the back yard swing where my grandfather used to push me into the sky. the storage house that smelled of moth balls but held a thousand treasures. the garden where we used to dig for potatoes and pick butter beans. the old shop, where we would sit in the showroom cars, turning the steering wheel and blinkers, then get cold cocolas from the old stoop-shouldered machine.
our visits also included 'going to ride,' which meant driving down quiet farm paths so my grandfather could check the crops growing on farms he had owned for some time. to my knowledge he didn't plant the rows himself, but he was overseer. one summer, he took friend Lydia and me down the path to see the largest hogs we'd ever seen in our lives.
over the years, as we headed to and from the beach, i would try to point out that farm but could never quite find it. then a couple of years ago, Daddy asked us to go back.
though my grandparents have been gone for years, he wanted us to see the landmark of their legacy — the three small farms that are now leased, the land worked. Daddy wanted us to know where they were, so we would not forget.
so we drove down country roads to the familiar places of my childhood and his. the first farm stands between my grandparents' burial place and their house, and that spring, before the crops went in, we could see their breakfast room window from their graves.
and then down another road and a surprise. a family cemetery i had never seen, where my great-grandfather Moses Byrum is laid to rest. i still can't figure out why i never knew it was there.
and then, back to the farm where those hogs once grew, an expanse of winter wheat waving at us along the short drive toward the old house and barn. i watched, as Daddy's eyes scanned the horizon, the circle of land his father owned that now belonged, in part, to him. And i wondered what would become of it.
turns out, Daddy knew.
a few weeks ago, as we headed to the beach, we made a couple of stops with the kids. first, to the family cemetery where their great-great grandfather is buried. then on to the farm where as an 11-year-old, i had tried to pet a few gigantic pigs.
the kids took pictures, as i recounted my last visit there with their grandparents, Daddy in his favorite yellow sweater, Mama telling me how she tried to convince my grandfather to be more progressive and put indoor plumbing in the tenant house, almost 60 years before.
my siblings and i now own this farm with my aunt, my father's sister. Daddy gave us this land in his will. which i have to say was a big surprise. we did not expect anything... and though i always knew he loved this farm, i never imagined he would entrust its future to us. cityfolk though we all are.
i don't think i have ever owned anything outright. maybe a toaster. a book. a pair of shoes. but not land.
land.
as i write this i don't know quite what to say. even after close to 25 years in our current house, the bank still owns a small part. cars? all loans, though one is coming close to being paid off. i know people who buy cars with cash, but we have never been able to do that.
but cars are not the same as land.
land.
the thing that drew the Israelites from Egypt and
kept them going,
the thing that kept Noah and Christopher Columbus in the boat, kept Scarlett O'Hara from losing her mind. (well, maybe not.)
it is a small plot, considering.
but it is ours. and it is land our father loved, and our grandfather before him, so there you have it.
we often joked in years past that we would one day own a third of a half of something — this land — just about enough to put a lawn chair on so we could watch the sunset on a summer Sunday afternoon.
guess i didn't count on it actually coming true. and now, though i am pretty sure where the sun will go down on a summer Sunday, i am wondering just where Daddy would want us to place those chairs.
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.
sing around the campfire, pt. 1
when i was 9 my my sister came home from a two-week sleep-away camp. she talked about the campfires, the dances with boys, the group picture, something called canteen, the sailing and the songs, and about all the people who were now her friends from other places. she didn't mention kp.
i didn't know anyone from another place besides a couple of cousins, and wondered what it might be like to meet folks i hadn't known all my whole nine years.
the week before she left, she packed a footlocker full of shorts and matching tops, sneakers and bathing suits — another thing i couldn't imagine — packing your whole self up and willingly spending 14 days away from family. where you hadn't already figured out that a witch did not in fact live in the linen closet. where you couldn't fall off to sleep listening to the sounds of your parents in the family room. she was the bravest girl i'd ever known.
i must have asked to go. surely they wouldn't have just sent me to camp without my permission. parents didn't do that, did they? but there my mother was, washing and pressing all my clothes into crisp squares (she has this habit), and we packed the metal trunk full, with socks and clean underwear, stationery and stamps, leaving just enough room for the sweatshirt i was bound to want from the camp canteen.
i had never been away from home for more than a night or two.
but we set off through the countryside. it was a long way, turning down a sandy road in the middle of pines, tall and straight. we drove by a spot in the sandy pine forest where my sister said the devil left his footprints. right outside an episcopal church camp? i hoped there was a fence strong enough to keep the devil out.
suddenly, we were there, driving through the gate, and i looked up at the sign: camp leach. leach. would there be leeches in the water? I wondered. (i doubt i'd learned to spell it right by then.)
we were barely passed the first cabin when my sister jumped out of the car, headed to find her counselors. i stayed close to mama, unsure. i could see the river before me, white clapboard huts scattered about, the masts of small day sailers peeking up from the water.
i don't remember much about that day. just mama making up my bed and me climbing to the top, where i could see into the bathroom and the showers where there were no doors.
i did know somebody — a girl in my class from church — she was supposed to be my friend— but i was scared of her most of the time. i looked around at the strange faces that would be my cabinmates for the next two weeks and missed the faces of my friends from home.
i think it must have been at supper when the end of my adventure began. i don't drink milk, and so when they put a carton in front of me at the table, i ask for water. nothing doing. drink the milk. and then i started thinking i'm sure about how mama would put a little vanilla and sugar in my milk to get me to drink it. that thought led to watching mama fix supper and the softness of her apron and it was all pretty much over by then. and the tears fell.
somehow i got to sleep that night, and by day things seemed just a little bit better. i met a girl named penny and took her picture with the camera i had brought.
i can't tell you when it turned again, but somehow i found myself on the phone with mama, and i was wailing. despite the fact that the counselors had taken me sailing and swimming and walking around the camp on my own personal tour. we'd had our camp picture made and heard ghost stories by the campfire and i was there for all of it — for a whole three days. but by that time i'd had enough of trying not to miss home, so there i was again on the phone, begging, pleading. come get me. i'm dying here.
and so she did.
oh i know you're saying right about now that the only thing to cure a homesick camper is to leave her there and make her tough it up. well, that's probably what my mother should have done, but i can pretty much bet that even when she wasn't on the phone with me she could hear my crying, two hours away, through those pines. and you can bet that i was making everyone around me miserable.
she drove the wagon into the camp yard and i was waiting, my trunk packed inside the cabin. my sister once again combed the grounds looking for her counselors, drinking in the smell of the Pamlico, begging just as hard that my mother let her stay in my place.
go get your trunk, mama said, and her words melted into me. i was going home. finally. I ran up the short steps and somehow filled with a new-found strength lifted that thing up by myself and straggled out the door.
that's when i saw the dust clouds. clouds kicked up by mama's station wagon, headed toward the gate. she was leaving me. it was not her finest moment.
i guess she thought seeing her would be good enough medicine, that it would buy her another three days without me at home. days of quiet. if i had been my mother, that's what i'd have thought, too.
but that's what you get for thinking. i was what today would be called a high-strung child, and that translated into a loud and crying one most of the time. at that point in my life, i hadn't found my writing voice, but i had found my voice, surely i had.
so i saw those dust clouds, and i used that voice. screaming. don't. go. don't. mama. wait. please. take. me. home. it embarrasses me to admit what a baby i was.
and i ran. faster than i had ever tried, ran to catch up with her. i can't tell you whether i was running with that damn trunk or if i dropped it in the sand.
then i saw the breaks, lit up like the tree in the early hours of Christmas.
she stopped, and i got in the car, satisfied that i would no longer be held prisoner in this place where i couldn't get so much as a glass of water, and i was going home.
whether you are the mother or the child in this story, there are no good answers. yes, she should have made me stay (probably never should have come in the first place, or shouldn't have thought i was ready or whatever. ) and no, i shouldn't have cried until all that was left was the driest of sobbing in order to get my way. i don't know about you, but i've been that mother who no matter what i did, it would be the wrong choice.
and as for the child, sometimes there are no good answers there, either. no good way to get around what you're feeling except
feel
.
i was grounded for the rest of those two weeks, where i was content never to be too far from my mother's soft apron as she stood at the kitchen sink. i never went back to camp — never wanted to — but i suppose i am glad to have provided my family with a source of laughter whenever we gather around the holiday table.
my children went to camp and loved it, though when i left them each time, i spent the first 10 minutes crying my eyes out, imagining them feeling abandoned. but they never called home.
in the years since, i've found my voice and learned (sometimes) to temper my tears, so i could leave home, finally, for more than a sleepover. and on a warm July day in 2001 i dropped the kids off at camp and went on an adventure of my own. for five days i traveled coastal north carolina and virginia, promoting my first book.
on the third day of the trip, i stopped in a small bookstore in elizabeth city, where a line had already formed near the door. i began signing books for students at a local school, one of whom had the last name 'spence'. oh, i knew a girl once named penny spence I said aloud. a suddenly a voice near the back of the line lifted above the din.
'i'm penny spence,' said the brown haired girl i had photographed in front of our cabin way back in 1967. 'do i know you?'
'well, probably not,' i said. 'we went to camp together, but i only stayed three days.'
she didn't remember me, but that was ok. that meant she didn't go home from camp telling her mother about the crazy girl who cried all the time and ran after her mother's car, screaming to beat the band.
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.