TheBanyanTree: Memories

[Margaret R. Kramer]

Familiar faces surrounded me at my dad's memorial service and I was
jettisoned back into my childhood.

My mother's last remaining "nurse friend" came.  That nursing class
graduated in 1953 - 50 years ago! - oh, what friends they were.  Through
nursing careers, marriages, children, and all the stuff life offers, they
were true friends, always there for one another.  I remember attending
lunches, picnics, and casual get togethers with them.  Virginia is the last
one left from that group and she looks wonderful.

My dad was an only child (although that's not really true and that's a story
I don't know much about) and his aunts and uncles didn't have any children,
so he didn't have many relatives, but my mother had close relationships with
her cousins, aunts, uncles, and others, and some of them came to my dad's
service.

We talked about the great picnics we had at my parents' house with the
in-ground swimming pool as a focus for the kids.  My dad would do the
grilling and my mom and grandma would make the potato salad and the baked
beans.  A light breeze would blow through the trees as we lounged in the
sun, savoring every moment of a magical summer day.

The old neighbors came - neighbors who have now lived in that neighborhood
for 35+ years.  Stable neighbors.  Good neighbors.  Caring neighbors.
Neighbors who don't look any older than when I babysat for their kids.
Neighbors who remember my son as that little boy who was cute as a button
and a lot of fun to be with.

My dad's Boy Scout friends came, too, although I didn't know them very well.
But my brother did, and was able to recapture the stories of camping and
traveling and earning badges.  My dad loved scouting.

Finally, my brother found our old minister, the one who did my sister’s
wedding, the one who did my mom’s funeral, and represented the church we
grew up in.  The pieces came together under cloudy skies and high humidity.

We nudged each other’s memories and went back to times when life was
simpler.  We remembered hot summer days when the sound of our screen doors
slamming behind us would signal the beginning of the days’ adventures.

All my worries and anxieties about this service faded away as I found myself
circled by good friends and relatives who remembered me when I was a child
and they knew I had my memories of them as well when they were young.

Well, Dad, the 4th of July is coming up, your birthday, and I’m sure you
remember all the great picnics we had, all the “home made” fireworks
displays, waiting for dark so we could run around the yard with sparklers,
and your 50th birthday cake with 50 candles crammed on it.  I’ll light a few
fireworks off in your honor this year.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at earthlink.net

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Summer afternoon - summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two
most beautiful words in the English language.
~Henry James