 “I come up here to think about life a lot,” I told him as we both looked out at the Connecticut River from our high perch. It was 1965, I was 15 years-old, and my grandmother and her third and best husband, Lieberson, were visiting me at my boarding prep school, Northfield School for Girls, in Massachusetts. “Ah, my Lieber,” she said to me when they were first married just a few years earlier--both of them in their 60s-- “he’s such a good man and so intelligent. Anything he doesn’t know he goes and looks it up. He reads everything. He’s interested in everyone. I’m so lucky to have such a husband so late in life.” And then, with a gleam in her eyes and a smile that dimpled her cheeks she added, “and he’s very lucky to have me!” And we’d both laugh at the truth of all her words.
They were visiting The United States from their home in Montevideo, Uruguay and seeing me was their last stop before heading back home and then moving to Israel to retire. “This is one of the most beautiful places I’ve seen,” he told me as soon as they drove onto the campus, “will you walk around and show me your favorite spots?” While my grandmother took a nap in my room, Lieberson and I traipsed up and down the almost 300 acres of slowly goldening late September. “What are they singing there?” he asked as we passed the chapel where the choir was rehearsing. “That’s our school’s hymn, ‘Jerusalem’,” I explained just as the lines, “And did those feet in ancient time, Walk upon England’s mountains green” wafted through the open windows toward us. Lieberson sighed, “It’s so beautiful.” “Yes,” I agreed, “A beautiful hymn.” “No not just the music,“ he continued, “everything here. All of you girls gathered here learning art and history and math and science and…(He swept his arms out) life. Show me more please.” And so we walked on and found ourselves at “Roundtop” looking at the valley below and the mountains in the distance. “A lot of us come up here to look out and sit and talk. It’s just breathtakingly lovely some days,” I explained as we sat on the ground to take a rest. “If you look out that way you can see where three states all come together—Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire.” “And you, what do you think about when you come here?” he asked with kind bespectacled eyes studying my face. With a rush of tumbling words I told him how we had been studying modern European history and both World Wars. And how the atrocities and hatreds seemed to never abate. How the angers were so pointless and cruel and how people could be so unwaveringly prejudiced and petty. “And I’ve been thinking, lately, with all the horrors that have happened to so many, why was I able to be born? I mean, even in our family so many died in the wars and why then was I meant to be here? It seems like I don’t deserve it.” I had not expected to say all of this, but he seemed to take it all in, listening and nodding as I spoke. Then, quietly, he asked a confusing question: “Tell me—is someone buried here? I see gravestones. Who are they for?” “The founder of this school,” I began, still confused, “Dwight L. Moody and his wife.” “Ah, I thought so,” he continued, “I read a little about this place before we came. He was a Protestant minister, no? And he began this school in 1879 for girls—both rich and poor?” I could see that Lieberson had indeed found correct information. He continued, “It seems to me he was a remarkable man. Girls in those days didn’t have much chance to such education and if they were poor then there was no chance. What a visionary he was! And look, from that beginning the school grew and grew and became this. Why do you think he did this?” I had never thought about that. “I don’t know,” I began, “but I do know that his father died when he was young and his family was quite poor for a long time. He had a lot of brothers and sisters and there wasn’t enough food for everyone. There were a lot of sacrifices.” “Ah,” Lieberson exclaimed, “so maybe because of what his life was like and what he saw, he began to understand who he was and what he could contribute. And maybe part of that was starting a small school for those with limited chances—nothing grand—nothing glamorous. Just a small school where girls from many different backgrounds could explore their own minds and hearts and souls. And it grew and now, look, here you are learning so much!” I was beginning to see his point. He continued: “Maybe part of our purpose here on earth is to remember the past. No one knows why some live and some die. God knows, but in our Jewish religion, He doesn’t really make it clear to us.” Now he chuckled, shrugged his shoulders and continued, “Religions have tried to make sense of this forever. Your hymn, Jerusalem, makes me think of that actual place. Three religions find their holy centers there, Christianity, Islam, Judaism—like your three states that you see from this hill. We keep struggling and searching to find that meaning from many different angles.” “So,” he continued as we stood up to head back, “your Mr. Moody took what was in his history—all the pain and joy and fear and wonder and he found ways to refashion and rebuild it in his present. And then it became the past and it also became the future—the one you are in right now standing here on his grave.” I could see what he was trying to say to me, although it would take me years to fully understand. We kept a companionable silence on our short walk to my dorm—each of us engrossed in our own thoughts. The air filled with the rustling sounds of early falling leaves gently landing on the browning grass. Suddenly I stopped and turned to him, “Lieberson, I just realized something—In the ‘Jerusalem’ hymn the writer of the lyrics—poet William Blake—tells us that if we want to have changes, we need to do what work we can to make it happen. And we need to remember the past to change the future. And we can start anywhere to help the world—and do it any time.” He smiled and hugged me and said—“From wherever I am in this great universe, I will be cheering you on.” Suddenly we both saw my now-rested and buoyant grandmother come happily toward us in the late golden light. As the chapel bells tolled the hour, and the three of us entwined our arms and walked down the path toward the waiting car, I could feel the roots of my life slowly growing downward toward the nourishing past as my limbs grew strong and reached upward toward the beckoning and mysterious future. “Hello, hello,” I called out loudly, but silence greeted me. There was no one in charge of the vegetable stand. It was an unassuming, rustic, road-side produce farm that I passed on my way home late last summer. I needed zucchini and tomatoes and they had a lot of them. I was flummoxed. There was only a small box with a sign to put money there and to take needed change. How would they know if I ran off without paying? How could they possibly have a business like this? I opened the box, put my money in (with considerable other cash in there) and left. A few days later I passed the same stand and a farmer was putting things out so I stopped to talk with him and ask him why he had that box—it seemed unwise. “You see, “ he told me, “I got tired of living in a world where I didn't trust others. I really thought about it—really thought long and hard—and I figured that most everyone is good and decent, but we run around fussing over and worrying about those few who aren’t. Don't want to give them space in my heart I decided. I want to live in the world I believe in, so I decided to. I plant my plants, take care of them, sell them and enjoy my family and my time with passers-by like you.” So I asked him if he lost much money. “See, that’s people’s first question. Ain’t that sad? Shouldn’t the first question be about how much I make?” He shook his head, “and let me tell you, I don’t feel like I’ve lost a penny. Maybe one or two got away. But you know what? Most people are good folk and decent. We’re all in this world together.” He swept his arm out to the fields, the sky, the house, the gleaming vegetables around us, and then to me, and continued: “And that’s the world that I want to wrap around me and my family. Around all of us.” He smiled and went back to his plants. So, my friends, I want to do that also. I remember this man often and think of his wisdom. And while we can’t all be farmers and have his kind of lifestyle, we can have it inside of us. We are the creators of our own lives. External circumstances challenge us all, but, ultimately we choose. We choose. And I choose to put that box outside my produce stand and assume the best from most (most!) of my fellow travelers of this life.   When I walked in she was on the sofa crying. “There’s no hope for any of us,” my mother spurted out between sobs. Just then my father came into the room with a glass of water and two aspirin. “Here, Sara, take these. It will help.” She looked up at him gratefully and swallowed the pills. “Mom, what happened?” I asked. “Jaqueline Kennedy Onassis has just died. Died,” she answered as she set the glass down and began leaving the room, “And I’m going to lie down for a bit.”
It was May 19, 1994, I was 44 years-old and my father and I were left to sort out the pieces of my mother’s grief. “I don’t really understand it, Daddy,” I began. “I mean, she hasn’t met the woman. She only knows her through stories in the paper and magazines and tv. Why is she so emotional?” Equally baffled my father posed some possibilities. “Well, they’re close to the same age. And maybe she’s afraid that if someone with so much power and money and connections can die, then, well….” Here he trailed off afraid to finish the sentence. But then looked me squarely in the face and did, “we can all die. We will all die. It’s a hard reality at our age and a sad, but inevitable, truth.” “You know,” he continued, “Jackie was beautiful and elegant, but your mother was so much more so. When I first met her I thought she was the most glamorous woman I had ever known. She still is you know,” he sighed. I had never really thought about their first meetings. Fresh out of a New York University Master’s program in economics, my American father had gone to Montevideo, Uruguay to start a branch of the Schick razor company. He was 25 years old. He spoke little Spanish and knew right away he needed help with not only the language but also the customs of the country. “When she walked into my office I found it hard to say anything. Her raven-black hair fell in waves on her shoulders and when she reached out her white-gloved hand to take mine, I knew I was a gonner.” He laughed remembering the details. “She didn’t seem like she had much experience as a secretary and really, after she started working, she was abysmal at it. Tried firing her twice, but she wouldn’t stay away and neither could I. When we formally became a couple I was finally able to meet her three-year-old daughter, you,” he smiled, “and I loved you from the first moment as well.” He hugged me and continued, “You know she had been in medical school but then stopped. She married Harry and you were born and then Harry was horrible to both of you. When he disappeared, everyone was relieved. And then we met, fell in love, got married, and moved here to the U.S.” It seemed so simple when he told it. But I knew there was more. Now she came back into the living room, her eyes red and puffy, a tissue clutched in her hand, and sat down next to me. My father took this as a cue to leave us alone and wandered off into the kitchen. “I want to explain,” she began, “what troubles me so much. Jackie Kennedy Onassis was a really complicated woman. She had a hard life.” I jumped in, “Sure. Her husband was president and then he was assassinated in the car, right next to her.” Now my mother continued, “Well, of course there was that terrible trauma. But, she was full of so many tragedies. She had miscarriages, and her husband had so many affairs. He was terrible to her. She only married him because everyone said that since she was already in her twenties she was getting very old to find a husband. She went to college and had a job at a magazine, but was told she really should just get married. I understand this. It was like that in those days.” Now she sipped the water she’d left behind, and I noticed a hint of her newly-applied lipstick on the rim. Even in her sadness my mother wanted to look “put-together” as she called it. “So she married JFK, helped him become president, had two children, and when he died, she was alone. Alone. All that wealth and popularity and beauty, and still alone.” “But then she married one of the richest men in the world, right?” I said. She continued, “Who knows why she did that? Maybe she loved him. Maybe she saw no choice. Maybe she was lonely. Maybe it was security. But that too wasn’t happy.” Now she looked at the large clock on the wall and fell silent. We could hear it tick, tick, tick the seconds away. She looked at me again. “When he died, she came back to the U.S. She began working with the arts and with publishing. You know, the press was not kind to her. But she kept going. Kept going. Until today.” Now my mother’s head folded down into her hands. “Mom,” I said as I put my arm around her shoulder, “Is it upsetting to you that if she can die, we all can? I’m trying to understand.” “No, it’s not really that,” she said as her tear-filled eyes searched mine, “It’s her story. Who tells her story now? How will we know about her life, her struggles, her energies?” Maybe my mother had a sense then that her arteries were starting their hardening, her heart beating out a new staccato rhythm, not allowing enough oxygen for her brain to connect the wandering memories. “Sylvia,” she continued, “I’m afraid that all our own stories will be lost. What will happen to all of the life we led? Where will it go?” “Tell me about the time you and father got the car stuck in the thick mud on your way to Brazil,” I began, making us both chuckle at an old family tale. We got out photo albums and talked over tea. My father grilled some steaks and we kept talking over dinner. And into the chill of the May night we laughed. Five years later, my father died of cancer. Five years after that my mother died of her heart conditions. And today I am here right now telling you, dear readers, their stories—keeping them alive. We sat in stunned silence. My husband spoke first: “Six years? You think it’ll be six more years?” It was 1994. I had already suffered with Lyme disease for two years. Luckily we knew what it was because my tests came back positive from the beginning, but the problem was that the medical community still did not know what would wipe it out. So I went on round after round of different antibiotics. Once, for a month, I had to teach classes with an intravenous line in my arm. I spent days in the cardiac care unit of the hospital three different times; On another hospital stay I had a spinal tap; Throughout these years I had numerous scans—all of them showing the invasive tunneling and hiding of this spirochete which had invaded my body via one tick bite. One tick bite. “Yes,” continued the infectious disease specialist, “that’s about what we can hope for if this current medicine works. But after that you’ll still have a lifetime of symptoms. This has altered your brain function (The spinal tap showed us—it’s in your spinal fluid.), changed your heart rhythms, and challenged your immune response mechanisms.” I sat silently—staring at my trembling hands. Finally I spoke, “So, I will never be the same as before, and, and, it will be six years before I fully regain my strength—before my legs won’t wobble when I walk, my eyes won’t suddenly blur, and my headaches won’t feel like crushed glass inside my brain?” “Yes,” he repeated, “If the medicine keeps working.” I had been battling this so long and the thought of those years stretching ahead of me struggling through the pain and fear and general malaise was overwhelming. JohnBaer and I drove home in silence and then I went straight to our bedroom, got in bed, pulled the covers over my head and sobbed. Dear reader, the doctor was right. In great waves of pain and recovery coming one after the other after the other, by the year 2000, at the age of 50, I had regained my strength. And I was right as well: I was not the same as before. Fighting the battle against this disease had altered me. It had made me evaluate so much of what I had always taken for granted; it had made me realize the interconnectedness of our human family; it had reminded me of my thankfulness for all the scientists working to help all of us win our fight against unseen foes like spirochetes, other bacteria, and viruses; and it had reminded me to celebrate the awesomeness of the human body and spirit—what it can endure, what it can overcome. I still live with a lot of the damage done to me—It has left me with internal scars which I have, for the most part, learned to accept. And so these days when I wear face gear as I walk about the neighborhood and when I ensconce myself in my house dearly missing my friends and family, I do so not just for me. I do this for others—those I’ve met and those I haven’t. I know what it’s like to be ravaged by disease and I don’t want others to go through it. Wearing a mask is my way of visually saying: I will do my part to help to honor and support you and to wish you good health.  “Nice ride, you got there—looks sort of happy,” he said. There was a chill in the wet dark gray sky which matched my mood perfectly. It had been a morning full of small but mounting frustrations. On a short break from errands I was leaning against my red pick-up truck outside of the no-seating allowed Starbucks looking down into my hot cup of coffee. “His name is Henry The Helper Truck,” I volunteered as I raised my eyes. And then: “You’re Dr. Baer! Wow. It’s been about 20 years. It’s me, Dan M. from your English class.” I recognized him instantly. The multiple scars across his face. The severely drooping left eye. His warm, uplifting smile. “You know, I never would have thought of you as a truck person,” he chuckled and continued, “but Henry here seems to fit you well.” I laughed: “He does, indeed. He seemed like a practical solution to lots of our needs, but he’s more than that. He seems to have lots of personality. Lots of…” And Dan jumped in: “character. He has character.” We chatted amiably for a few minutes. Memories came. Forgotten details. “I’m a veterinarian now, in North Jersey. I’m here for a few days to check on my dad. My mom passed away a few years ago.” We both looked at each other, remembering. He had suffered near-fatal injuries during the first semester in my class. The family home went up in flames and he rushed back in to rescue his mom and younger sister who were passed out on the kitchen floor. The sister died in his arms. He returned to school the following year. I remember the downcast head, the reluctance to respond to any discussion questions, the defeated indifference to his work at the beginning. And then the change. One day he showed me pictures of a dog his uncle had given him—a terrier he named “Moxie”. Slowly at first and then with gathering speed Dan’s demeanor changed. Eager to demonstrate his hard work, his hand went up immediately when I posed questions. His papers, once careless and superficial, became insightful and precise. And, for the first time, I began hearing him laugh—a deep, throaty laugh that softened the hard edges of the metal desks, beige-painted concrete walls, and white boards of our college classroom and beckoned others to join him. And 20 years later, here he was, smiling at me as I leaned against Henry sipping my now lukewarm coffee. “You know," he said, " when we studied that sonnet by Shakespeare—the one that goes: ‘When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself and curse my fate’? Well, it was like he was talking to me. I couldn’t believe how he knew how I felt. It was a low point in my life and I didn’t know how I’d ever get out of it.” He shook his head and I continued, “Good ole Will certainly understood the universals of our humanity, didn’t he?” We both chuckled. Dan continued, “You asked us to think about what person or thing or being made us feel hope—made us feel happy just because they were in our lives. And it came to me immediately: “Moxie”. No matter what, she made me happy just knowing she was in my world.” Ah, yes, the end of that sonnet. “You know when I finally had my own vet practice, I framed that sonnet and put it in the waiting areas. Sometimes people ask me about it, but usually they get it. They get how thinking about love—a person or a pet or a profession—can make you better--richer. Can turn any day around. I’ll never forget you for bringing me that gift.” He sighed as his cell phone beeped—a text urging him to get to his father’s bedside. Before we waved our good-byes, he stopped, and began the last lines of the sonnet from memory. I joined in joyfully and loudly, our faces turned to the sky, right there, outside of the coffee shop, on a cold New Jersey morning—with Dan at the open door of his car, and with me leaning on my little red truck my minor irritations now forgotten: “Haply I think on thee, and then my state, (Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate; For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings That then I scorn to change my state with kings.”   “Amputation is the only recourse we have. The surgery is underway now,” my father told me over the phone. It was June 1970, the summer before my senior year of college. My mother and I had been shopping for fabrics at a store near our small New Jersey town. She and I wandered up and down the aisles looking at bolt after bolt of glorious fabric. Taffetas, silks, organzas, cottons, wools—we both loved to run our hands over the material and feel the uniqueness of each weave. I was determined to sew some new skirts and dresses for all of the events planned for my final year of college. “I’ll need this for our fall formal—I can make it into a great dress with a high waist and balloon sleeves,” I gushed holding a pink crinkled fabric blend in my arms. “I’d like 5 yards of this please. And three of this one. And this is just for around the collar, so one yard will be fine,” I pointed and motioned to the lady behind the counter who was armed with thick glasses dangling around her neck on a beaded chain, a large pair of scissors in her right hand, and a long ruler. She cut the required amounts, we paid for our goods, and loaded down with fabrics—oh the clothing possibilities!—we left the store.
Chattering and laughing we walked on the sidewalk heading home. At that moment, a distracted driver swerved his car onto the sidewalk, pinning my mother and me, like two bug specimens, against the brick wall of the building behind us. There was much confusion as he just kept ramming and ramming the car into us unable to distinguish forward from reverse. He finally stopped, and alerted by our screams helpers raced out from offices and buildings, calling for ambulances, trying to stop the bleeding, holding us steady. We both suffered many injuries. I had multiple casts on my legs, swollen and damaged arms and back, and I was bedridden for several months with some organ damage. “You will be fine. You’ll heal. But the internal scars are deep and dangerous,” they told me. My mother suffered most of all. She hovered between life and death for more than a week. When gangrene set in, her leg had to be amputated to save her life. My father called from the hospital to tell me. I was frozen—unable to speak, and unable to move from the pain and from the plaster that surrounded my shattered limbs. Over the next few months while I healed slowly at home, my mother went from one hospital to the next—recovering in stages from the physical trauma, and being fitted with one prosthesis after another to help her regain some mobility. By late August she was home, and I had been cut out of my casts and had begun to heal well. At the insistence of my parents, I went back to my college where everything, including the walk up three floors to my dorm room, became a challenge. I threw myself into my school work and into the social whirl around me, but I found it almost impossible. My legs and body were strong now and few visible scars remained, but I was losing focus in my studies. By second semester I was struggling to maintain emotional and mental balance. Things that had seemed shiny with importance now seemed dull and rusted. I went to parties and events with my patient friends and caring boyfriend and tried to find a measure of fun. But everything was difficult. Toward the end of second semester the professor of my last required English course, Modern American Literature, found my lack of focus distasteful. “I am very sorry to see you go so much down-hill, Sylvia. You did show some promise early on, but I must have been mistaken. Your work seems, well, undisciplined,” he said during a short conference. His brow was furled into deep wrinkles between his eyes, and his mouth and nose looked as if he’d smelled something rather putrid. He continued, “I’m afraid that going into a Master’s program is not for you. It’s just as well,” he finished standing from his high-back wooden chair and dismissing me quickly, “You haven’t really learned much and as a woman you don’t have much to offer in the world of literature.” He slammed his office door behind me. In truth my work was not up to my own standards. But later that night his words echoed like the banging door in that old, brick English Department building, pounding—it seemed—at the scars on my legs, my arms, my mind. And the anger and frustration and fear of the past year seemed to well up inside my chest—a balloon filled too full—too ready to burst at any minute. I drove the three hours back to my home for the weekend. And while my parents were busily trying to sell our three-storey home and move to the more practical—more manageable for my mom—one level house, I began two projects of my own. “Why are you up here in the attic? It’s after midnight. What are you doing?” my father called up to me as he ascended the creaky steps. “Oh, I see,” he said, kissed the top of my head and left. I was at my sewing machine, having found those bags of fabric from last summer that had somehow gotten shoved into a dark corner under the eaves. The parts that were blood-stained—rust-colored now—I cut away. I still had enough for a pink skirt and a white top. I sewed much of the night and into the next day. Exhausted, I drove back to campus. Days later I wrote my final English paper with renewed enthusiasm and reimagined focus. My professor was not impressed. I had chosen what he considered to be a minor Hemingway novel, The Old Man and the Sea. And my focus he called, “awkward”. But I realized that while he was a scholar in his field, perhaps I had been too narrow in my own thinking. And now I began to feel that I had begun to cast off all manner of constraints. I had learned a great deal, but it was time to determine how I would fashion my life. And I chose. That paper and that novel is all that I truly remember from the foggy haze that surrounded my school-work that year. And I carry the memory to this day. In the book, the main character, Santiago, a poor, old fisherman by trade, tries, one last time, to catch the giant fish which has eluded him his whole life. As we read on we watch his struggles form into a bond of understanding between man and fish. None-the-less, struggles they are. In the end he catches it, but in transporting the fish boat-side in the water toward his home, fate takes an unexpected turn and sharks eat it. But this was and is a story of triumph not tragedy. Santiago battled the fear and pain and isolation within himself and ultimately he overcame it. The fish was not the prize. His transcendence was. That June, under my formal robes for my graduation I wore my self-made skirt and top. And my mother, balancing on her crutches and beaming with pride, took my picture. In the summer of 1999 my father was dying from various virulent and (then) untreatable cancers. By July we knew the end was near. It was an unbearably difficult time for all of us but he seemed to take everything with great grace and dignity. In early July after frantically looking all over the house I finally found him sitting in a chair in the backyard. “Daddy, what on earth are you doing out here?” He looked at me incredulously, smiled, and replied: “It’s a beautiful day and I’m enjoying the sunshine.” I was hardly able to hold back tears as I sat next to him and held his hand for a few minutes until he was ready to go back inside. About a week later again I went looking for him and again he was sitting outside. But this time there was a gentle but steady late July drizzle. His wet face was turned up to the sky, his eyes were closed, and he was softly smiling. I sat next to him again as he said, “Sylvia, you know, until today I had forgotten how delightful it is to feel the rain on my face, my head. And look,” now he opened his eyes and pointed to trees, the flowers, the grass, “look how they must love this! This life is so wonderful and mysterious and even with all the pain and fear, I am so lucky to be reminded of its magnificence.” The rain covered my tears. We sat there for a few minutes until he was ready to go back inside to his hospice bed. He died the following week. And this morning, more than twenty years later, as I ponder the fear and isolation and worry and pain in the world, I also look at the rain and the sun and a lone flower on my gardenia bush. I think of my dad. Now, I too, awe-filled, marvel at the fragile but powerful beauty of all life.  I had never seen my grandmother Annette cry. “She’s just a little sad,” my grandfather explained. The three of us had just finished dinner and we were sitting at their big dark wooden table where weekly my grandfather would write poems for me on any topic I came up with. It was 1957, I was seven years old, and in a few days I would be leaving my birthplace of Uruguay for The United States. My grandparents had immigrated there from Prague and while they each spoke many languages, my grandmother had never mastered Spanish, my only language at the time. She was a warm, large woman with silver hair, bright blue eyes, and an almost shy smile, who always seemed to look at me with absolute delight. But my grandfather often had to translate for her.
“In a few days you and your mother and your father will be going on a fine adventure to a whole new life in America,” he said. Ever since my mother married Fred Kuhner when I was four, my grandfather referred to him as my father, even though his own son, the scoundrel who deserted his wife and tried to harm his infant daughter (me), and repeated stole from his parents , was my biological father. “Fred Kuhner is a wonderful man and he will always take care of you and protect you in your brand new world. I used to dream of living there when I was younger,” he said with a small sigh and then continued, “I even tried for Annette and me to go after we were married, but we could not get papers.” Then he continued, “But now you, you will get to do this.” “Is abuela sad because we will be so far away?” I asked. He translated for her. She had been clutching a delicately embroidered white hankie which she then used to dab her eyes. She smiled softly and said something, slowly got up, and left the room. My grandfather translated, “Yes, Sylvia, she is sad because she loves you very much and she will miss seeing you.” My seven-year-old mind could not possibly comprehend the vast distances between where my grandparents were and where my future would be. “This is very important for you to remember,” he said, suddenly more somber and serious, “life is a mighty adventure and you never know what will happen. And even the briefest encounter with someone connects you to them somehow. We are all connected in this giant world. We are never, truly alone. So remember to be kind, always.” I understood. Even after the Nazi invasion of his homeland and the ransacking of their house and the killing of many family members and their sudden escape to South America and their scoundrel son’s painful activities, he never allowed me to use the word “odio”—hate. “Hate only kills parts of you, not the other,” he would tell me. “Your father has a father in The United States. Did you know that? He comes from Germany. We never met him, but we have written a few letters. I think you will like him very much. And you know what? We have the same name, Max.” My father had told me stories of his own dad and that of his mother, Wilma who had died just a few years ago. My grandfather continued, “I’m sure he has interesting stories to tell you about his old country. He’s a good man.” Months later I met my new grandfather, Max Kuhner, at his home in the woods just outside Worcester, Massachussetts. I liked him right away. Although he seemed a rather aloof and exacting man—a very prominent engineer by profession—whenever we would visit, he seemed to delight in telling me stories about his life. I was a child full of questions and he was happy to answer. There were walking sticks throughout his house and I asked about them one day. “Ah, I like to hike in the mountains. So beautiful. You know, your grandmother Wilma and I took our honeymoon in a beautiful place, not far from where we lived in Germany. The place was called Neroberg and it was magical.” I had never heard him use that word before. “How was it magical?’ I asked. He replied, “I’m not sure. But when we wandered through the hills and then ate and slept in the town, we both felt almost like there was a special something surrounding us.” Now he shook his head. “The people we met were especially kind. It seemed that everyone smiled. Like we were all connected.” He sighed. “That was the first week of June in 1922. About a year later we were lucky to get papers to come to America. So many tried but could not.” I nodded remembering my Meindl grandparents. But the past had even more surprises. Here I am years later, writing this in a lilac-filled early spring. Life’s twists and turns have led me to many adventures. I took with me the stories from all of my grandparents and have woven them into my own life-blanket which I wrap myself in for comfort and warmth and security. After we left Uruguay, I never saw the Meindls again—they died just a few years later. My grandfather Kuhner died in 1982, at his home in the woods looking out at what he always called the “most beautiful painting of all—the daily changing panorama of nature.” And yesterday, in finally clearing long-forgotten parts of my attic I came across a box from a relative of the Meindls who had sent it to me years ago. In it I saw a familiar photograph of the Meindls, Annette and Max, as a young couple. But this, I had never noticed (How could I haved missed it?) had been turned into a postcard—a common thing for tourists at the time—with my grandfather’s distinctive writing on the back. It was in German and I was desperate to know what it said. A translation group online quickly and generously helped me. It was a simple message of connection, “hope your children are well,” and “It’s hot here. We’ll be home soon.” But suddenly I saw it. Look where it was sent from—Neroberg, Germany. And when? June 5, 1922. They were on their honeymoon. In the same place, at the same time as my Kuhner grandparents. Right before I boarded the plane to America in 1957, my grandmother Annette gave me a doll she had as a child. My grandfather translated for her as she hugged me close, “I want you to have this because, dear child, we are always connected to the past in ways we can’t even begin to understand. And we must pass along not just the stories, but the love and the magic. Life is magic.” “Would ya look at that? Amazing isn’t it?” I was on the front porch, vigorously shaking out a rug that had sat in my entry hall for the past year. The accumulated dust sent waves of tiny speckles into the air as the bold red and green and gold patterns in the carpet rose and fell in the spring afternoon. I had been diligently cleaning all day—scrubbing cabinets, washing curtains, mopping floors, and this was the last piece before dinner. When he called out to me from the street I was startled. “It’s an owl’s nest. See it?” he said pointing up. I focused my eyes skyward and there it was, high in the tree. “Do you see the little baby?” he continued, “right there.” “Oh, my goodness,” I exclaimed, I didn’t even know all of this was going on just outside my house. I’ve been so busy inside that I haven’t noticed.” He smiled at me and glanced at the rug in my hand. I continued, “I’m doing some spring cleaning. Trying to get this house in order after a year of neglect.” He was leaning on his hastily parked, battered blue Ford truck cluttered with construction materials in the bed. His gaze drifted gently upward again and then back to me. “You got kids?” he asked. “Yes, a grown daughter, and two grandsons,” I answered, “but they live hours away. How about you?” “Oh, I got me two kids,” he said smiling broadly. “I’d like to be a big bird,” he continued pointing up again, “and fly around looking at the whole world. Just free and soaring. You know the story of Icarus?” I did. “Well,” he continued, “when I was in high school my dad, he told me that story when I said I wanted to go to college to be an engineer. I had good grades and all, but he told me how Icarus’s father built Icarus the wings with wax and told him not to fly too high or they’d melt in the sun and then he’d crash into the sea. Icarus didn’t listen and he drowned. He told me that I’d be better off working construction, like he did. He could get me a good job with his company and I wouldn’t have to worry about no college. College—it was too high for me. My wings would melt he said. I was better off.” He sighed and looked up. I followed his gaze and then asked him, “So did you get angry with him?” “Naw. He was doing the best he could. He just didn’t want me to be disappointed I guess. And it’s been a good life. Can’t complain.” “So what about your kids,” I asked, “what are they doing?” He answered: “One of them is in college, graduate school—wants to be an archeologist. Digging up ancient buildings and such. Learning about old civilizations. He tells me all sorts of stories that I love. The other is in trade school—he’s going to be a fine, fine carpenter. My wife and I—we’re real proud of our boys.” There seemed to be movement in the nest and we both looked up, but too late. All was still now. He continued, “I told them that they could be anything that they set their minds to, and I’d help, but they had to do it on their own. I figured out that instead of building them wings, like Icarus’s dad did, I’d help them build their own. That way they’d figure for themselves how high they could fly, and they could adjust them all the time. Wouldn’t have to rely on my design ‘cause they’d have their own. Seems to me, best we can do for our kids is teach them how to fly and be there to catch them if they start to fall so we can help them up again. You know—help them be strong inside themselves.” We both nodded. The sun was going down and a steel gray darkness began spreading in the sky. “Well,” he said, “I better get home soon, and you got your house to finish.” I laughed, “Yes, getting my own nest ready. Our daughter and grandsons will be here soon to visit. The boys have gotten so big this past year—really grown. One is learning to play the piano and the other knows everything about computers now. I can’t wait to see them.” And then, our eyes drawn upward by movement, we saw it: a tiny baby owl slowly make its way onto a nearby branch. We both watched silently, breathlessly willing it to succeed, as it gingerly made its way to the left—teetering—almost tumbling but catching itself and then going back to the right and returning to the nest. An adult owl looked on. “Yup,” my new friend said to me as he doffed his paint-splattered cap and walked slowly to open the door of his truck, “them owls are going to have strong wings. Gotta help them build their own and then they’ll know for sure—for absolute sure—they’ll know that they can fly.” And he drove off—one long arm outstretched from his window waving good-bye, looking, just for a moment, like a soaring bird.  I was surprised and delighted when Nancy called me to recommend someone to do child-care in my home. It was 1979, we had just moved to a new town in Western Maryland, and circumstances made it necessary for me to go back to work quickly. It broke my heart to have to leave my baby with someone else, so I was anxious to find the exact match for our family. I didn’t know her very well, but Nancy was a close friend of an older neighbor and she knew of my circumstances. “Ann is wonderful,” she said on the phone, “a very caring and trustworthy woman. You’ll love her.” As I interviewed Ann later that day I found her to be a gentle person. She had grown children of her own and her 30 year job at a nearby clothing factory had suddenly ended. “Factory’s been shut down—bought out. I hear they’re going to tear it down, “ she told me. Very quickly she became part of the family. She cared for my daughter and even made some of her baby clothes. I would sometimes help out tutoring her grandsons with their schoolwork. One day a long time after she started, she came to the house looking very tired. She laughed, “A bunch of us was up all night at Hilda’s house making baskets last night.” When I asked her about this she told me the whole story: Nancy and her husband James had run the clothing factory for 30 years. When the out-of-town owners sold it, they gave only a two-week notice. People needed jobs and the small communities in that part of Maryland did not have any opportunities. Most of the workers were older and they had no chance for income. Nancy and James were devastated. Even though they also, both in their mid-sixties, would lose everything, they set out on a plan. They worked tirelessly to find employment for all 54 workers at the plant. Day in and day out they called, they visited, and they wrote everyone they knew scouring the area for jobs until everyone was placed. “Wow!” I said, “That’s how you came to us!” I continued, “But the baskets…?” “Well, you see,” she began, “every year for all the time we worked there at the factory, Nancy and James made us Christmas baskets . They knew we weren’t making much money and it was a tight time—you know with holidays and kids and all. So they’d buy us things we could use. See, we knew they were pretty strapped too. They had three kids and the factory wasn’t paying them enough to buy their own house, but still they figured out how to give us things to make our lives better. And now—Well now they’re really low —no money coming in and James has bad, bad lungs. So, it’s our turn to do for them. A bunch of us all get together every week and make baskets. Every day someone leaves one on their front porch in the middle of the night.” I listened, mesmerized by this story. Suddenly, as I realized I had to get to work quickly, Ann smiled, picked up my crying baby girl from her crib, gently soothed her and said, “We figure that we all got to help each other in this world, right? We all got to do what we can with what we got. We’re all in this together.” Even after my daughter had grown and our family moved to New Jersey, Ann and I remained long-distance friends. One day about 10 years ago during a particularly sad time in my life a box arrived in the mail. No return address. I opened it. There, placed gently nest-like within scraps of fabric, was a basket filled with homemade cookies and breads. The note said: “We are all in this world together. Today it’s my turn to do for you.”  |
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