Dear UD,
So many years ago, a couple decades even, I wrote this
short piece:
I spied a container
full of pickled okra—placed two on my salad plate beside beets, tomatoes and
cucumbers, strolled back to my table where I sat in my chair, picked up an okra
by its head, bit into the sour end with a crunch; the seeds rolled on my tongue
and— transported back ten years to dinner at Grandpa Bruce’s house where I ate
pickled okra before playing bridge, hugging my grandpa so tight I never want to
let him go, never want him to die, buried with a rain gauge and my daughter’s
scribbled picture in the oak drawer of the coffin’s lid and a perfect grand
slam dealt on his chest, leaving me missing his gray whiskered kisses, his
smell of fresh outdoors, and his hands of no trump.
Since then, we lost grandma, grandpa, dad, you, mom. Years
later, a decade even, the grief is still there. Dulled some from time. Lessened
some from the activities of life. But still lingering, buried deep, ready to
strike sharp and hard when transported. There are those moments, those memories,
those sensory connections that transport us back in time, and the beauty of the
memory clashes with the pain of the loss.
A kaleidoscope of shared images flows through my mind:
So many hands of no
trump, road trips singing the soundtrack from
Into the Woods, specially
made omelets, your dogs lying at your feet, spring buds, Scrabble tiles, the bookshelves you
made, the jungle gyms you built, the swing sets you constructed, garden
tomatoes, roasted corn on the cob, the car racing over the ditch into the grass
as you showed me how to drive and missed the sign for the sharp turn…
An orchestra of sounds floods my heart:
I can hear your hearty
chuckle as we watched Bringing up Baby, your deep voice as you taught us
to play the Broadway game you created, the bark of your dogs, the bubble of
your chicken veggie soup, the buzz of the hummingbirds in your yard, the sizzle
of a searing steak, the crackle of the fire under the pot of apple butter…
And sometimes it’s the new thing that transports: The new
moments I treasure yet you are not there. The new beauty and wonder and
learning I want to share with you. The new people and accomplishments I want to
tell you all about. The craziness and folly all around that I want to discuss. The
moments I want to call and hear your voice, your advice, your perspective on
something. The hard truth—I still miss you, mom, dad. We all do.
So on the day you were born long ago, I choose to focus on
the beauty and love and good from you living on this earth and being my uncle. I
am so grateful for those years and those memories, and I hold onto all the good
and pass it on to the next generations.
Love, Rach
