"The melancholy days are come...
the saddest of the year,
Of wailing winds and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere."
William Cullen Bryant wrote these words long ago (I don't know exactly when; he died in 1878) but it might have been me, and I might have written them myself sometime between September 10, 2005 and the present day.
Since my last rumination on 239 Capitol Street, one of it's dearest and most enduring inhabitants has gone from the earth forever. My dear, sweet Mother, Shirley Ruth Milligan Thompson followed her soulmate and lifelong companion into eternity twenty-two years to the day after his death, on the day set out in the last paragraph.
She suffered indignities, fear, and pain in her last few days, and loss of independence, vitality, and glory in the last decade, but she died in the arms of her four children, shielded from the very worst by medicines and end-of-life "caregivers" (a word recently invented, and one I despise.)
By my age, we accept the cycle of life. Having experienced the loss of loved ones and friends many times, we know where it's all going, and so we no longer crash and burn each time as we did when we were young and first lost a Grandad or a favorite uncle. Still, I haven't been the same since the day my Mom died. Hearts don't really break, but events can and do control whether people thrive or wither. I'm not thriving.
In photographic terms, one might say that my moods move within a "very wide dynamic range." Or you could just call me manic or bipolar. Another facet of my life that I've embraced more than come to terms with. I like it, being moody and unpredictable. But what has been happening to me since last September seems unrelated to my moods. I believe that it is a real, measurable deterioration in my mental function. Time is now warped; elastic. Some days last weeks, others seconds, and a few seem not to have ever existed in the continuum. Nothing seems urgent. Procrastination, always beloved, has become the central theme in my daily routine. I feel old. (Of course I AM old, but I've never believed it or felt like it until September.) It's as though I have a DUTY to be old now that MY generation is on the brink of the abyss. There is no one left to go before me. Mom carried that burden when she was alive, and now it's mine.
I live more and more in the past, which seems real, and true, and bright, and good. In contrast, today's world is filthy, mean, rotten, and not much worth saving. Am I transitioning into irrrelevance? I suppose that I am.
On a May day in 1946, Shirley Ruth Milligan Thompson held me in her arms and looked out on her world with new eyes; she was a Mother. Her future was ordained. Her legacy was assured. Her epoch was begun. Look at me, a helpless little infant in her arms. Me, when the slate was blank, the possibilities infinite. Capitol Street, Lewis School, Center Market, the U.S. Army, my loves, my children...all ahead of me, all unknown.
What were her dreams on that day? How did she plan to live her life with Carty? Of all the things I talked about with my Mother as her days diminished, THIS was what I needed to know, and THIS was what I never explored with her.
It's a safe bet that her dreams exceeded her grasp, and that life laid more disappointments at her doorstep than she wold ever have believed at this time; certainly more than she deserved. But how did she feel about her life when the final chapter of her story was written? That's a question I failed to ask, and now I'll never know. She gloried in her children, and I know she felt loved and elevated in that universe. Could that have been enough, or just something she settled for?
I am going to try being old with a measure of the grace my Mother managed. The bar is high.
In May of last year, I dreamed that my Mother came to save me, blind and afraid and trapped in my basement. In my dream, she made me feel safe, and that everything would be alright. It's what she made me feel so often throughout my real life.
And I'm reluctant to go into the basement, for who will save me now?
Of wailing winds and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere."
William Cullen Bryant wrote these words long ago (I don't know exactly when; he died in 1878) but it might have been me, and I might have written them myself sometime between September 10, 2005 and the present day.
Since my last rumination on 239 Capitol Street, one of it's dearest and most enduring inhabitants has gone from the earth forever. My dear, sweet Mother, Shirley Ruth Milligan Thompson followed her soulmate and lifelong companion into eternity twenty-two years to the day after his death, on the day set out in the last paragraph.
She suffered indignities, fear, and pain in her last few days, and loss of independence, vitality, and glory in the last decade, but she died in the arms of her four children, shielded from the very worst by medicines and end-of-life "caregivers" (a word recently invented, and one I despise.)
By my age, we accept the cycle of life. Having experienced the loss of loved ones and friends many times, we know where it's all going, and so we no longer crash and burn each time as we did when we were young and first lost a Grandad or a favorite uncle. Still, I haven't been the same since the day my Mom died. Hearts don't really break, but events can and do control whether people thrive or wither. I'm not thriving.
In photographic terms, one might say that my moods move within a "very wide dynamic range." Or you could just call me manic or bipolar. Another facet of my life that I've embraced more than come to terms with. I like it, being moody and unpredictable. But what has been happening to me since last September seems unrelated to my moods. I believe that it is a real, measurable deterioration in my mental function. Time is now warped; elastic. Some days last weeks, others seconds, and a few seem not to have ever existed in the continuum. Nothing seems urgent. Procrastination, always beloved, has become the central theme in my daily routine. I feel old. (Of course I AM old, but I've never believed it or felt like it until September.) It's as though I have a DUTY to be old now that MY generation is on the brink of the abyss. There is no one left to go before me. Mom carried that burden when she was alive, and now it's mine.
I live more and more in the past, which seems real, and true, and bright, and good. In contrast, today's world is filthy, mean, rotten, and not much worth saving. Am I transitioning into irrrelevance? I suppose that I am.
On a May day in 1946, Shirley Ruth Milligan Thompson held me in her arms and looked out on her world with new eyes; she was a Mother. Her future was ordained. Her legacy was assured. Her epoch was begun. Look at me, a helpless little infant in her arms. Me, when the slate was blank, the possibilities infinite. Capitol Street, Lewis School, Center Market, the U.S. Army, my loves, my children...all ahead of me, all unknown.What were her dreams on that day? How did she plan to live her life with Carty? Of all the things I talked about with my Mother as her days diminished, THIS was what I needed to know, and THIS was what I never explored with her.
It's a safe bet that her dreams exceeded her grasp, and that life laid more disappointments at her doorstep than she wold ever have believed at this time; certainly more than she deserved. But how did she feel about her life when the final chapter of her story was written? That's a question I failed to ask, and now I'll never know. She gloried in her children, and I know she felt loved and elevated in that universe. Could that have been enough, or just something she settled for?
I am going to try being old with a measure of the grace my Mother managed. The bar is high.
In May of last year, I dreamed that my Mother came to save me, blind and afraid and trapped in my basement. In my dream, she made me feel safe, and that everything would be alright. It's what she made me feel so often throughout my real life.
And I'm reluctant to go into the basement, for who will save me now?
posted by Mike St James at 8:05 PM
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