Someday next month, Liza Rose James will enter this life, carrying the name that you gave yourself, that my son will give in turn to his daughter. The joy of your life, the eighth wonder of your world, your Max, already lives on in his son, Maxwell.
I don’t think most children think much about their parents lives before they were parents, that comes later, a task for adulthood. When I was in my mid-twenties, I visited my grandmother, Nanny, as we called her. Mom was one of two sisters, Dolene and Lerene, and Nanny was telling me a story about how Lerene, my aunt, was always helping her in the kitchen. I asked, “Did Mom ever help you in the kitchen?” She answered, “Oh heavens no, all she ever wanted to do was read books and play the piano”
With a clap of thunder in an instant of awe, I understood my entire life, my history, my very being, perhaps even a bit of my future. I had to press her for more information, still in shock over how little I knew about my own mother. It turns out there was a church rummage sale when little Dolene was a pre-teen, and she was helping with collecting and arranging the donated items. Apparently someone donated a box of books of the sort that my grandparents would never have allowed in the house, and Mom managed to squirrel them away and read every one cover to cover before sneaking them back into the church. I have no idea what those books were, but I think they changed all our lives
Note: None of us could possible count how many times in our childhood we heard the phrase “Oh Heavens no …” or it’s companion, “Oh Heavens yes …”
After Dad passed away, and Mom was in a long-term care home, the brothers went on mini-pilgramiges to both of their Oklahoma hometowns, Cushing for Dad, El Reno for Mom. The El Reno Historical Society had archives from the high school , including the yearbooks. Equally shocking and clarifying was the realization that the newspaper and yearbook editor was one Dolene Hebberd, for both her Junior and Senior years! Did she ever once mention that? Oh heavens no!
The house where we grew up was built before storm doors, we just had the wood frame screen doors. The sound of those doors swinging shut is etched into my childhood soundtrack. Certain images and pictures from childhood can meld into a single emotion, a serenity, a capturing of the essence of a certain time, place or even person. The frozen image I still hold involves coming home from school, walking into the living room and looking out through the screen door to Mom and toddler David slowly swinging on the swing set
There is so much more to remember her by, but for tonight I’m content with a warm spring day with the back door standing open in the long afternoon sun, the screen door silent and the swing of the swings slowly ringing in the soft back yard light. There is a plane flying overhead, the sky a blue that only a cloudless sky can be, the air drenched by the neighbor’s mimosa tree. I am just a boy with an armload of books, looking around, wondering upon which foundation I should set them