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| My sister Judy brought these urns for Sandy's ashes. |
After great pain, a formal feeling comes – (372)
After great pain, a formal feeling comes –
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs –
The stiff Heart questions ‘was it He, that bore,’
And ‘Yesterday, or Centuries before’?
The Feet, mechanical, go round –
A Wooden way
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought –
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone –
This is the Hour of Lead –
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –
First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –
The last Christmas I remember with my biological parents was in 1957 in Lewiston, Idaho. At that time, I was seven years old, which made Sandra about three (Tom-6; Judy-2). I have a copy of picture of the four of us sitting sitting together on a couch, smiling. Though our parents tried to live the dream, they had married young (Under the duress of my conception) and they couldn’t handle the load. I remember one scene in which George came home to an angry Chris. She reared back like a major league pitcher and let go of a salt shaker, which was shaped like a bishop in a chess set . The shaker was made of white glass, opaque, and had a domed silver helmet. It stood about four inches tall and made for a hefty projectile. Mom over rotated, so the shaker skipped on the linoleum floor, missing dad but clipping Sandra who had just toddled into the kitchen. Of course, she yelped, causing both parents to launch verbal assaults as to who was to blame. Our parents split not long after that, which marked my initial separation from Sandy (And Judy). I don’t really know the details, but I’ve pieced together a plausible scenario based on the facts I do know. I know we moved out of the big yellow house on seventh avenue. I know that Dad, Tom and myself moved into my Grandparents house on fourth and fourth. I know mom, Sandy and Judy left for the coast (Edmonds). What I don’t know is the legal arrangements. It could be that my parents decided to “share” responsibility with dad taking the boys and mom taking the girls. It could be that the court had to catch up on its case load. It could be something else altogether. At any rate, this split arrangement lasted until the end of my fifth grade year. At that time, mom showed up in a faded gray automobile with suicide doors, dusty cloth seats, and a three on the tree transmission. I remember it clearly because we drove from Lewiston to Edmonds (Before Freeways) across the Washington desert and beyond. I remember it being long and hot. My guess is that the court “awarded” my mom with custody. All I know is that I was ripped from the comforts of my Grandmother’s three story house in Lewiston where I had my own bed to a shabby shack in lower Edmonds (All mom could afford) where my brother Tom and I shared one of those click click couches they marketed as an instant guest bed. The armrests hard been taken off (Most likely so it would fit through the door of the lean to addition we called a bedroom). Those old enough can remember those kind of couches. The selling pitch was that with just a click, it could be turned into a comfortable bed for guests. (If it sounds to good to be true, it is because it is too good to be true). The couch didn’t quite lay flat, and the durable but coarse nylon upholstery was as rough as sandpaper. I can also remember heating hot water on the stove for baths, drinking powdered government milk, eating government cheese, and food stamps. Trying to survive in my own little world left little emotional energy to share with my siblings. We were like ships traveling in the same crowded channel. Danger surrounded us on all points, and we all were competing for navigable space. Each of us was so concerned with the dangerous waters, we could only look out for our own survival.
The spring of my sixth grade year, my mom packed all of us into the old automobile, which was now bright red (Amateurishly hand painted by brush), and she drove us to Spokane. We arrived in late afternoon, depositing ourselves on the doorstep of her sister, Barbara (The Old Lady we called her). The Old Lady had four kids who mirrored my siblings exactly. We cascaded in pairs: Robin/Tim-oldest;Joan/Tom-2nd;Douglas/Sandra-3rd;Daniel/Judy-4th. I remember not long after we arrived in Spokane, Bob Hoisington, Barbara’s husband, came home from his job in the woods. I don’t know the dynamics of he and Barbara’s relationship, but I do remember him driving up in his faded green Ford, walking into the house, packing a few things in one of those cloth and cardboard suitcases with the brass fittings, and driving off without a word. I never saw him again. Left with no men, the two women forged on, using their strength, dogged determination, and undaunted courage. They were hard workers who proudly tried to make their own way, but life is hard for single mothers with only food service skills. The ten of us lived on $250.00/ month. The two women sacrificed much and the eight of us kids attended Catholic School (I think they realized education was the way out of poverty). We lived in this alternative family setting for two years, but again, during that time I had little or no contact with Sandra (Or my other siblings) except for the fact that we were sharing the same time in the same house. (I’d love to get the group together to share perceptions of those years, but it’s less likely than aliens arriving with an answer for World Peace).
Sometime before my ninth grade year, the sisters split into separate households (Who knows why?) Mom married Jack Eckhaus a year later, but not before my biological parents made one more effort to reconcile. Their bonding moment lasted about as long as a duct taped wing would hold on a transcontinental flight, but it did manage to rip me (And everyone else, I suppose) to shreds. I felt like a bird getting sucked into a jet engine. There wasn’t much left of my psyche except for a few tattered feathers floating wherever the wind chose to blow. I was collateral damage: wrong place, wrong time. Needless to say, my response to a new step father (Not his fault) was lukewarm. By my senior year, the only thoughts I could muster involved moving out, and ironically, my salvation was to move in with my father. Apparently, I had caught my mother’s can’t avoid the pain disease (Same song, different verse).
When I left for college, Mom, Jack and the kids moved to the coast, and once again, I lived a life separate from my siblings. Sandy and Judy were still school girls, and Tom, a year younger than me followed our father’s example and married his pregnant girlfriend (Unlike our father, Tom and his bride have stayed together). Two years later, I quit college and married my high school sweetheart (Anne O’Brien-1971). Anne and I moved to Seattle where she went to the UW and I worked at Smitty’s Pancake House (The Old Lady was my boss). We moved back to Spokane a year later. I went to work for Chapter Eleven Steak House where I rose as rapidly as the chain grew until I was General Manager. During those years, Anne finished school at Eastern. Steve was born in 1976, and Odessa was born at basically the same time. I do remember that Anne and Sandy got along well. Anne often babysat the babies. Sandy, who had completed school as a hair stylist, cut my hair (I had a few wisps then). Lovar, the father of Sandra'a children, and I often played pick up basketball. And life continued to twist and turn. I quit management, returned to college full time, and worked four days a week as a waiter to pay the bills. I graduated from Whitworth with a teaching degree in 1981. During that time, Sandy and I had quite a bit of contact because we were both living in Spokane. Annie and I moved to Centralia when I landed my first teaching job. Not quite four years later, after Elizabeth contracted cancer, Annie and I decided to move back to Spokane to be nearer her family (For Support). Around the same time, Sandy moved to the coast, which meant we were again like passing ships, but this time we were on opposite courses, and it also meant that I mostly missed the early years of Damon and Mercedes. The next summer, with Elizabeth in remission, Annie dropped dead of a brain aneurism, another shredding session, but my attitude has never been why me, it’s always been what now as in what are my choices now. At that time, I chose massive doses of self medication, and things would have likely deteriorated if Judy (My Bunny) hadn’t come into the picture.
Two years later, we began forging our new life together (Twenty-five years this summer and a another story as well). Through these years, I had only the occasional connection with my siblings. All of us had survived the passage through the narrow channel (More or less), and we were all sailing the open sea of life in crafts of our own making. We usually gathered once a year at mom’s for Thanksgiving (This was more usual after Jack died). Things went on that way for a number of years, including Elizabeth’s recurrence, her ensuing loss of a kidney, chemotherapy, and her eventual miraculous cure.
Then mom died of surgical complications. We’ve managed to gather a time or two in the ensuing years, but frankly our ties are so tenuous, it became much harder to gather with mom gone. I do remember that Tom and I helped Sandy move into her house some time back. I don’t really remember when, but I think mom was still alive. I could be mistaken (Actually, this entire time line is suspect, but not for lack of trying).
This brings us to last summer. Sandy began to struggle more with her diabetes. Dialysis was imminent, if not already in progress, so Judy and Sandy made a visit to Madras to see our father in a gesture of attempted reclamation. I used to tell those of my students who were suffering through their parents breakup that you either have a relationship with your parents, or you want one. In that sense, I think the visit was good, albeit late, and I hope it made Sandy feel better. Last week she finally succumbed. My wife Judy and I were in Phoenix when Tom called with the news. We arranged to store our trailer; we suspended our adventure (Ain’t retirement great--What schedule?); we bought plane tickets, and now we’re here (Both for Sandra and Nora as it turns out). The bottom line is that I didn’t know my sister, Sandra, very well. I had minimal contact with her life, even when we were living the same days in the same place. This stroll down memory lane started as a way to find Sandra’s place in my life. It’s turned out that not just her, but also my other siblings passed like ships in the night. Like someone said, “You can never step in the same river twice.” But since this is about Sandra now, I can say this. She tried as hard as she could. She loved as hard as she could. She dreamed as hard as she could, and even though she lived through many disappointments, she had a giving heart and a strong will. She will be missed, especially by those whom she loved. I would say another thing to her “babies” based on what I heard a friend of Sandy’s say at her memorial. The friend said, “Sandy didn’t settle.” I liked that, and I agree. Don’t settle. Live in a way that would make your grandmother proud because she will be proud of you no matter what. She was noting if not an unconditional lover. And I would say more. Life is often hard and it’s often unfair, but it’s always what you make of it. Above all, life is good, especially today.
This would be us at the peak of the family dream.
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