Remembering

REMEMBERING

By William Stafford

When there was air, when you could
breathe any day if you liked, and if you
wanted to you could run. I used to
climb those hills back of town and
follow a gully so my eyes were at ground
level and could look out through grass as the
stems
bent in their tensile way, and see snow
mountains follow along, the way distance goes.

Now I carry those days in a tiny box
wherever I go, I open the lid like this
and let the light glimpse and then glance away.
There is a sigh like my breath when I do this.
Some days I do this again and again.

Even the Dead

Even the Dead
by David Lee Garrison

Even the Dead Will Die Someday~ Miguel de Unamuno

Bury me in this graveyard,
lost among farms and forests,
where even the dead are dead;

where epitaphs can barely be read;
where the outline of a hand carved
in a slab points toward the sky

and demonstrates the faith
of all the men and women who lie
here in the hope of resurrection;

where stones record longings for
a stricken child, son killed in war,
wife or husband gone before;

where my whole life will
come down to a few true words.
At dusk, a flock of quiet birds.

Recipe Box

I opened my grandmother's recipe box this week. I was trying to get a head start for Thanksgiving and wanted to make and freeze her poppyseed cake. Along with Texas cake and carrot cake and pumpkin pies,her poppyseed cake made an anticipated appearance each year. While thumbing through the thick collection of recipe cards , I found myself pausing to remember many friends and beauty shop ladies who shared recipes with one another on a weekly basis. Many familiar names topped the carefully written recipes. “From the Kitchen of Dorcas Herren” announced the recipes belonging to my piano teacher, Mrs. Herren. She arrived at my grandmother's beauty shop every Saturday morning before dawn to have her hair done for over 20 years.
As I read her recipe for peanut butter bars, and Amish friendship bread I remembered how competently her hands flew across the keyboard and how she never once was grumpy at my obvious lack of practice. I read so many names and could see the familiar faces, now gone.
I read my great-grandmother's recipe for lye soap and wondered how she managed a chore involving dangerous, combustible chemistry and simultaneously keep watch of her 17 children. I wish I would have thought to ask her how she managed.
I found favorite foods of my grandfather- like the mock strawberries my grandmother would make at Christmas. They were made with condensed milk, sweetened coconut, and strawberry Jello and looked and smelled like real strawberries. Not caring for coconut, I never thought they tasted as good as they looked- but it was the comfortingly familiar process of making them that announced that Christmas was coming. I found the Swedish Meatball recipe and recalled how much Papa loved them and how my grandmother had made the tiny, labor intensive meatballs by the hundreds for my parents' wedding reception.
I found an old photo of my brother, Nick, tucked between two recipes. Nick is wearing a chef's hat and rolling out pizza dough. I remembered that day and taking that picture. It was a good, happy day- one of thousands spent together. I am comforted that he knew how much he was loved.
I finally found the poppyseed recipe, but was momentarily daunted to find that it only listed the ingredients- not directions how to put them together. My grandmother must have assumed that whomever made the cake would have the experience needed to put it together. I should have payed attention. I forged ahead, overly confident in my abilities to remember how the batter should taste.
The resulting mixture looked familiar and as the cake baked, I was hopeful . During the last 5 minutes, however, it collapsed completely. I must have botched critical steps. Luckily, my grandmother is still with us, I have time to ask her, time to learn.
The recipe box is a tiny time portal. It can connect me with faces and events that once were. It contains glimpses of a life lived well- with family and close friends. I can open the box and within seconds, am transported to Christmases and holidays spent with people I loved, whom I love still-but whose time with me was limited. We are never certain how long we will remain together for grief and loss visits us all. Although I sometimes ache for those who have passed, I am grateful for having the chance to know and love them. I think of the wise words a friend once told me about loss: “ The holes in our lives created by those who leave us are enormous and will never truly go away, but somehow, we reassemble ourselves around it.”
I hold the recipe box in my hands- it feels warm and alive with the voices and faces it contains.
A mini Pandora's box of love and memory. For this, I am truly thankful.

Orbit's Watch

I grew up hearing tales of amazing dogs my grandfather had known. There was Mike, a Springer Spaniel who guarded my mother when she was a toddler. My grandmother would place my mother in the backyard in the sandbox with a few toys, and then she would call the dog and say, “Watch Cody, Mike.” He would sit down and begin duty. Mike would patiently and repeatedly pull her back from the busy street when she pushed her doll buggy too close. He was the best of babysitters.

Mike was a valued member of the family and when he vanished one cool fall day, my grandfather searched the County for him. Several days passed before a neighbor on the edge of town called with the sad news that he had found Mike, dead, caught in his wire fencing. His collar had strangled him as he tried to free himself. Mike and his remarkable fidelity lived on in stories that I begged to hear and my grandpa loved to tell.

When my brother Nick was born, my grandfather dropped in daily to hold the baby. For the first few weeks, despite my mother repeatedly telling him that his name was Nicholas Joseph, my grandfather stubbornly called the baby “Mike”. After a month or so, when he saw my mother was unyielding in her choice, my grandpa finally gave up his attempt to christen my brother after his dog.

I had my own faithful guard dog as a child. Hershel the beagle lived with my paternal grandparents on their farm outside of town. Hershel had wide and knowing eyes, a gentle disposition, and an almost human presence. In the many pictures I have of myself on the farm, Hershel is always sitting a few feet away, observing me with his liquid and soulful eyes. Though he usually watched with benevolent boredom, he wasn’t afraid to voice his displeasure if I ventured into trouble and more than once began barking like crazy to alert my grandparents when I snuck too close to the barn. A particularly vicious bull lived there and I was fascinated by his dangerous horns. Hershel had more sense and thwarted my every attempt to get a closer look.

One fall day some trigger-happy hunters mistook Hershel for a turkey and blindly shot toward some low brush. After he was killed, it felt so alien to be alone on the farm without his ever watchful gaze; I pretended he was still there, a few feet beside me, keeping silent vigil.

Canine fidelity was a trait respected by my family, but I think one dog will forever be linked in my mind with true devotion. My brother Nick brought home a small black and white rat terrier from the pound, and named her “Orbit”. She had the frustrating qualities that many terriers possess: a willful spirit, a devotee of the dangerous art of moving tire biting, and a relaxed attitude about peeing wherever and whenever the mood struck her. Nick thought she was perfect, however, and even wrote songs in her honor. One I recall was sung to the tune of “O Christmas Tree” and included the lyrics, “O Orbie Dear, O’Orbie Dear, you’re the best dog in the hemisphere!” And she was.

They would often play a game of mock battle: Nick would grab Orb through a blanket and Orb would bite his hands and spin about in a delighted fake attack mode. Nick called the game “Pit Pup” or “Ninja Pup”. There’s was a perfect example of a dog finding her true boy.

When we lost Nick, suddenly, unexpectedly at age 12, we each were caught in our own waves of grieving for many months; we struggled just to keep breathing.

Absorbed with my own misery, Orbit was present, but not foremost in my thoughts until I noticed her sitting in the front window one fall day. Nick had died shortly before school had begun and now, weeks later, children were streaming down the street, released from school for the day. Orbit watched each child intently. Particular children were given extra scrutiny. Boys on bikes, boys with a familiar walk, boys with tee shirts and knobby shoulders, or a boy with dark hair – these traits excited her. As they passed by, and she recognized each not to be hers, she would sag a bit, and then resume the posture of patient waiting. Every day, she waited.

We moved to a new house and Orbit immediately took up her vigil in the front window. Each possibility that walked or rode by elicited brief excitement. A tiny quiver of hope. A black and white canine candle in the window.

Ten years passed and a much greyer Orb still watched with cloudy eyes. Too arthritic to jump up, she barked for a boost to her perch. She would keep waiting for as long as it took.

In her 14^th year she had a stroke and fell down a long flight of steps. After an emergency trip to the vet, mom called to tell me Orbit seemed to be paralyzed. I rushed home armed with bags of Orbits’ favorite treats and we worked with her all night. By midnight she was up, pudgy with treats and although unsteady, she was walking. We said how proud Nick would be: Orbit was healed by the power of Pupperoni.

Eventually, more strokes struck and the day came when Orb could no longer walk at all. Our family knew what needed to be done, yet it was excruciating to take that final trip to the Animal Hospital. The vets were wonderfully kind as always and as Orbit slipped quietly away we all sobbed together. The thought that sustained and comforted me was that her long wait was over; Orbit had finally found her boy.