Samhain, Part II
This morning the service in church honored All Souls Day. I was caught unawares, totally forgetting the fact that the second part of Samhain, or now as it’s known “All Souls Day” (or if you are catholic and don’t think the common man worth remembering “All Saints Day”) is really a remembrance day. A week ago at church in preparation, I took the card and jotted down the names of those who shared my life and left to go before me, hardly stopping to think of the meaning, and then completely forgot it over the course of this last week.
Then sitting down and opening the papers for the service, there in bold black and white, I wondered at the people whose names I had jotted down without thought. People who gave me birth, made me both by their presence and lack of it, who I am. I remembered as I stared at those names what they meant to me, who they were and my defenses against the grief of not having them in my life broke the dam. The service was touching and beautiful, and I lit the candles that stood for my dead. And tonight I chose to remember a tale of each one, to immortalize it in words for others to hear and to know who these people were, what they were to me, and to remember.
Patricia Joann Fitchner King
My mother. She died when I was 10, and I really have no other real memories of her other than of mommy stuff. It feels strange to not know the person she was, the woman she was and how people knew her. But I remember our weekly trips to the library, walking out each with our stack of books, hers at least 4-5 high, all read in a week. I thank her for my love of reading, and my ability, like hers to devour books like candy. I remember sitting with her in her big chair, hip to hip watching TV. I remember the fear of having her sick, unable to get out of bed, and having to call someone to come help. I remember the colors and smells of the plastic bleached hospital walls and floors, and sitting alone in the waiting room while my Grandma went up to see her. They didn’t allow children then. I remember the gift shop ladies and sitting on a stool as tall as me, and the taste of the sugar cookies they fed me. They helped a little, but not much. I remember sitting next to her the final time she left for the hospital, both of us in tears, when she told me “close your eyes and I will always be with you”. And I remember my last visit with her while she was in the U of I hospital (they did allow children), so far away that it took 2 hours drive and I only got to see her once in the whole month she was there. She was upset with me, for I loved my hair down, and she loved it in pigtails or braids. She gave me a valentine’s day heart with candy, and hugged me from her bed. I remember how frail she looked and felt, and how tired she was. And I remember seeing her in the casket and in child wisdom knowing that that stern, pale, shell of a body was not my Mother. She had left me behind and gone somewhere I couldn’t.
Elizabeth Ann Warner Fitchner
My grandmother, my mother’s mommy. The only daughter my grandmother had was my mother. She was the strongest woman I knew growing up. She certainly held the matriarchy of the family. I remember going to stay with her and my grandpa on the farm when I was very little and driving with her in the white car with the red seats covered with clear plastic. I remember sitting in the office where she worked as a secretary for the town vet, while she read me story after story to keep me entertained. I remember the hours long games of spite and malice, the only game we ever played, a card game that I love today, and play far too infrequently. I remember the teenage feelings of hating to stay there when my step parents left town. She was old fashioned, her house smelled funny, and it wasn’t home. I remember the day she made sandwiches for the drive to my uncle Royce’s house, and asked me if I wanted mayonaise on my bologne, and I said “oh yes, I LOVE mayonaise”. Doing her best to spoil me she put the thickest layer of mayonaise on a sandwich that I’ve ever seen. I learned that afternoon that I really didn’t like mayonaise that much, but knowing Grandma, and knowing it was her love for me that made the sandwich (and of course knowing I would never waste the food under her watchful eyes), I swallowed every bite of that sandwich. I remember the years of her cancer eating a way at her, her will to live so strong that she held on with every fingernail past when she should have let go. The sickness of the chemo, losing her hair, and her fraility just like my mothers. I remember the final games of spite and malice played while she lay in the hospital bed in her bedroom, still just as ready to beat me as always. I remember going to show her my dress my junior year prom as she lay in that bed. And I remember my step father holding me and telling me what I already knew, that she had died the night before. My last memory in my head is the sure knowledge of seeing her cold and stiff body that lay in the casket and that she too was no longer there. That her and my mother had joined another path, again one that I could not walk down.
Mark Ernest King
My brother. The name sake of my youngest child. The most amazingly intelligent man I ever will know. He was a hard act to follow. Of him, I got to know a little of the man, since I was an adult before he died. But my childhood is filled with memories of him when he was in high school, his girlfriend Gay Renee, a baton twirler for the band, his first car, him leaving for college. I didn’t get to see him very much once that happened. It was he who came home to take our mom to the hospital where she died, and he blamed himself for that the rest of his life. It was he who came to tell me she had died, crying so hard himself he could barely get the words out of his mouth, the rain pouring on the top of the car like the whole earth mourned her too. After she died we saw very little of each other again, and we grew apart. He was 13 years older than me. I remember his girlfriend, Teri who became his wife. I remember their wedding and his absolute devotion to her. I remember his rescue of me when I convinced myself to no longer live with my step parents and moved in with the first available guy, who incidentally was quite surprised as well. I stayed that summer before college with he and Teri in their San Diego home and was entranced with California and them. He tried to get me to come to college there. I wish I would have now. I remember him calling me to tell me he had lung cancer and how it was no big deal, not to come to see him, to just let him heal. He assured me he was doing fine, half way across the world in California. I should have known he was lying. But I didn’t, and again we fell out of touch, and he died without me knowing, and without saying goodbye.
So many others lived and died in my life. So many crowd around my table tonight. I know their spirits are here with us, and I know that they wish us a long and happy life. I just wish they could have had the same.
