Strings

“I like your necklace.”

His little fingers creeping out from under the covers pointing at the chain around my neck, at the little square of gold and enamel, I wore. It is an edelweiss pendant, beautifully set in a golden frame. My father in law made it for my mother in law. It really is beautifully done. My father in law was a dentist in Germany before the war and right after the war. He made gold and porcelain teeth, he had always wanted to be a jeweler. When he moved to the States, he set up shop as a dental technician; he made teeth, bridges and crowns. Most of Cleveland, the older people anyway, if they have gold teeth, chances are he made them.

After my mother in law passed away, my husband gave the necklace to me.

“It was Oma’s.” I whisper to my sleepy four year son.

“Did he take it from her?” He asks. Vexed at the idea his dad had taken something without asking.

I can see him thinking, the wheels turning in his head, as he presses his face against the pillow, our noses very close together, as we lay in his bed, listening to "Little Red Caboose."

More earnestly now, “Did Daddy take it from her?”

“No, sweetie, he didn’t. When she died, remember, Daddy and I had to clean up all her stuff. Some of it we kept and some of it we gave away.”

Very perplexed, “Why didn't she keep it? Did Daddy take it from her without asking?”

“Oh sweetie. She wanted him to have it. Daddy gave it to me, so someone could wear it and enjoy it still. In a few years, when your sister is older, we will give it to her.

Do you remember Oma?”

I stroke his hair, above his ear. He really is upset at the notion his Daddy took the necklace. My sweet and sensitive boy frowning in the dark, eyes boring into me, puzzling it out, thought by thought until he is certain he understands.

Thinking, his sleepy eyes fluttering, “No, I don't think so.”

Of course he doesn't. He was 5 days shy from 18 months when she died. He turned 18 months the day we buried her, a sunny but blustery cold day, the day before Thanksgiving, 3 years ago. He sat on my lap, in the church, while his sister and Daddy cried. I dressed in a black velvet suit and my husband in a borrowed shirt. Our little one spit up on my husband that morning in the hotel and we borrowed a shirt from my husband’s high-school best friend.

This year a few days after Christmas, at the cemetery, the plot covered in snow and the Christmas wreath we had bought - sagging on the wind beaten wire forms, we talked about the funeral. My daughter remembering little and my sweet four year claiming to remember, filling in the scene from what he had heard my husband and I discussing. He had slept in the car for the interment. It was just as well, him sleeping like an angel, freed up my arms, allowing me to hold his sister and help her place a rose on the casket.

My daughter remembers some things. Her Oma's beautiful singing voice. Her "funny" talk. We spoke a mix of German and English, drifting from language to language, seamlessly. I never knew it happened, unless someone pointed it out. My husband and I are the same, only not as much anymore. When my mother in law died, his German died as well. I think, it was too sad to continue speaking his mother’s language. The language I learned as a young adult and the only language he knew until he started attending public school.

“I remember her dumplings.” My daughter offers cheerfully as we drive away from the drooping wreath and the snow covered cemetery plot.

As she should, she ate enough of them.

I think about my mom. What will the kids remember about her? What if she is gone soon? Will my children, now seven and four, really be old enough to remember her? Will they remember her healthy? The grandmother on the beach with them, the wind whipping the kite out of her hands as she blabbers on about it going to Cuba. (The exact opposite direction from where the kite was going, floating higher and higher, but who is keeping track?)

Will they remember her going fishing with us and eating BBQ on the patio in November?

Will they remember wondering about all the doctor appointments we have slogged through?

Her dressed up, beaming proudly at dance recitals and kindergarten graduations?

Her walking through the grocery story, conspicuously putting chips in the cart, after I have said no more junk food.

Or will they remember her being the grandmother who died in our living room? That is the plan. My mom will come and stay with us, when she has fought the good the fight and is too tired to fight anymore. Will they remember me crying, knowing that the end is near and both wanting the suffering to end and hoping for just one more day. She will not die alone. She will be here with people who love her. She is not stubborn like my mother in law. My mom will come and be with us as the days dwindle.

I know it is the right thing to do, but I wonder what those last memories will be like for my children.

A week to the day that Oma died, my daughter spent the day with her. My husband was mowing and doing house work and she had gone along. Probably so I could work at our house and rest. Doing double duty and caring for my mother, post her complicated neck surgery - had been exhausting. Running two households, caring for children, two ill mothers and my husband traveling was a lot for a young thirty something woman to handle.

On the way home in the car, our wise and precocious 4 year old daughter said, "Daddy, I think Oma is dying."

What could he say, except, "I think you are right."

The Chemo is taxing. We all see that. They see it. “Grammie is tired,” they told me on Christmas after she left to go home. Exhausted by just sitting on the couch watching them play.

I agreed.

I feel too young to be in this place. Too young to have buried one mother and thinking more and more about what it might be like to bury another.

Too young to feel so torn, so busy being a mother of young children and aiming for more time with Grammie, but it is hard. So many things to get accomplished, simple things, like meals and homework and doctor’s appointments.

I wonder what strings of memories my little people will weave together. What will their family tapestry look like? They are both very young and already their extended family is shrinking. Right before our eyes, and their eyes are so young, so many memories yet to come, will those replace the women, who touched their young lives briefly or will the memories of death, haunt them. I wonder.

As I put the necklace away, I think about what I remember. What strings bind me to the past?

I shut the lid on the jewelry box, I am not sure we really know what we remember. Or do we remember what we know?

 

You can go to Elisa Phillips' blog at: www.elisaphilips.blogspot.com