Punch drunk love...of a different era

Maybe some day my children can write my parents' story. I am too close to it, to heavily involved; my emotions and relationship with them colors my perception. I don't think I'd give it a fair shake, to tell you the truth. The story changes in my head each day. When I am angry at my parents, the story takes on ominous and treacherous blue and black tones. When things are going well, suddenly all is sublimely rosy. And so I don't tell it, because I don't trust my own moods. It is astounding how the same story can change in the telling depending on the teller at the moment of telling.

So whose story can I tell? Perhaps best to tell a story that has already ended. At least there's no need to leave the ending open then.

***************
Even today she urges everyone around the table to eat, to take another helping, before she'll help herself. She hovers, waiting for a spot on someone's plate to look slightly empty, as she jumps up quickly and offers more. Her table is always overflowing; even if she ate three helpings before anyone else we wouldn't know the difference. But she never does. "I had to take care of the others. I was the oldest, how would the little ones eat properly if I didn't watch over them? Our mother was dead, who would take care of things?"Those days of making do and scraping are gone, but she's still taking care of us.

She lived with her aunt then. Her father started a new life with a second wife, and although everyone got along just fine, there just wasn't enough room. It was a boon, she says. Her father would never have let her stay in school. Her aunt was a school teacher; she became a prefect. I imagine her bubbly and vivacious, but with a hint of care at the corner of her lip. Hair braided neatly, a ready smile.

One day her aunt took her to a friend's house to meet the friend's brothers in law. They waited around and made small talk, but nobody showed up. They walked around thinking they'd meet them here, then there, but nothing.

Another afternoon they found themselves there again. "In our house playing with cards was such a sin! And there they were, all the brothers just gambling!" But snacks followed, and tea. And her aunt left. And her aunt's friend left. And slowly the brothers left. The tea grew cold and the crumbs stiff on their plate.

"Suddenly it was getting to be evening! I felt so embarrassed! How could I have sat there talking so much? I don't even know what we talked about! Who knows when the rest of them left. Oh dear, I didn't know how we came to just sit there talking!"

He walked her home in the dusk.

The next day someone at school asked her "so I hear you might be getting married?" She shuffled her feet, her cheeks warm. News spreads quickly in a small town.

She met his family, they approved instantly. She quaked then, as she realized her father was coming to town the week after and didn't have a clue. Twisting his arm, she bribed her brother to tell him. "How could I tell him myself! What would he say - you've gone and arranged your own marriage!"

But what about school? What about college? She was only sixteen. Would all those enticing books remain closed to her now? "I was lucky. I got a husband who wanted me to learn. I went to college. I was so lucky."

They lived in two rooms: 3 brothers and 2 wives. Those weren't the days of affording personal space. "We were all brothers and sisters then, it was fun" she says as I cringe at the horror of sharing a bathroom with three boys. "We'd have so much fun, all five of us - it was awkward of course, sometimes, but we made it work."

They made it work.

Four daughters and eight granddaughters later, they sat on the balcony one evening, sipping some tea. "I'm happy," he said, as he held her hand. They were still talking forever into the dusk.

The next day he died.

Her smile is only half real these days. The sparkle in her eyes is almost a reflection now, of what what was once a brilliant fire. Her lips turn down when nobody is looking. She stays alone in her own place now; there's personal space to spare.

Maybe I shouldn't call it a story that has ended. Just one where the keeper is left alone, watchful, into the dark of night, with only memories now to hold her hand.

A hug. A kiss.

I no longer remember being able to give him a big bear hug, though I know I once did. However, as I throw back my memory as far as it will go, at least I remember being able to give him a proper hug. Maybe not the jump on you and get lifted up into the air kind, but at least a solid, proper hug - one where your hearts meet for an instant, where for a moment the world is no longer a scary place, where you know there is something, someone, solid, to anchor you.

I was in the habit of randomly giving him a hug or a kiss on my month-long summer vacation visits. An outpouring of affection that was meant to make up for the rest of the year when I would be across an ocean and out of hugging distance. I still remember the soft skin of his cheeks, the stubble that was all white. He stopped going out too much because it was exhausting, and so he would walk around the flat. Thankfully it was large so going from one end to the other about ten times, especially when you're walking pretty slowly, took up some time and was enough exercise. I would walk with him sometimes. Other times I would be reading a book in a chair in the sunlight and every time he would pass he would lay a hand on my head or exchange a comment about my book.

One day I was just getting up to get another book from the cupboard that houses books that have belonged, at one time or another, to some member of the past three generations of my family. Our paths crossed, and I reached out to give him a hug. A sick sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach as I felt him falter. A fear in his heart, a fear in mine. I retained my balance and he regained his. And I went and got another book, and he continued his back and forth.

Since that day my hugs became gentler. I warned him that I was putting my arm around him by saying a random 'Hi' a moment before I slipped my arm through his. I cuddled up to him when he was sitting on the sofa. When we hugged, he was not the one pulling me in, I was the one supporting him.

And then came the day that I saw him wince as I gingerly leaned over the side of his hospital bed to brush my lips against his cheek. Even the slightest movement of raising his head to receive my kiss required more effort than his emaciated body could summon. Since that day I held his hand, wishing, wanting, to somehow make my own life flow into him. My hands were warm, his were habitually cool and dry. The pulsing heat that quickened my blood didn't make it past my hands into his, past my heart into his.

I remember the last time I kissed him. Cool, dry, like soft thin silky paper, his skin stretched across his face, his cheeks, his forehead. I can feel, distinctly, his hands in mine. The memory of the countless times I have held them does not fade from my palms. I feel his earlobe still in my fingers. As a child I had a habit of holding on to it whenever I would sit in his lap. I don't feel his skin against my lips as I recall that last kiss. He had already left by then. There was nothing to feel.

"Whatchu thinkin' about?"
I looked at D, startled. He had been telling me about how he is going to visit his grandparents in a month or so, and I had fallen silent, leaning my head against the car window.
"So how long will you be there? That should be fun!"
I didn't want to start bawling in the car.