jambop

Claire: Retrospective at 70

 

Meryl put together a slideshow of photos for Guagua's 70th birthday party a few weeks ago. (For more info about Guagua see Hurricane Claire).

 

Untitled from Merry Person on Vimeo.

On Noa's Fourth Birthday

By Meryl Perlson
October 9, 2007

Today is Noa's fourth birthday.  She doesn't understand what a birthday is, or what it means to be a year older, or why there are candles and cake and people singing.  She has no idea why she's getting presents and wouldn't complain, or even notice, if none were given.  But last night when we set a candle in front of her and sang to her she smiled and giggled and seemed to understand the fuss was all about her.  Compared to her first birthday, that's huge progress.

On this day four years ago I thought I was the luckiest woman in the world.  After years of infertility, I was on the verge of giving birth to my much longed for second child.  Compared to the agony of struggling to conceive, unmedicated labor was a breeze.  When I held Noa in my arms those first few minutes, I was overwhelmed with gratitude.  I knew how blessed I was to finally come out from under the black cloud of heartache and anger and helplessness that is infertility to hold my beautiful, healthy, amazing baby.  Looking back now I realize the true blessing of that moment was my ignorance.  The bliss of prayers answered was just a brief respite of joy before the next dark cloud moved in.

Noa's birthdays bury me in unmet dreams of what life would have should have been like for my beautiful daughter.  At four years old, Noa's list of "can't's" is huge.  Can't talk.  Can't sing.  Can't tell us why closed doors enrage her.  Can't tell us what's wrong, where it hurts, what she needs.  Can't hop, can't ride a trike, can't blow out birthday candles.  Can't play house or princess or pretend.  Can't understand time or seasons or anything beyond the level of a two year old.  Can't understand what a friend is, let alone make one her age.

It's a waste of energy, I know, to dwell on these losses.  They are imaginary.  The gene responsible for Noa's condition made its random replication error early in my pregnancy.  Noa was never going to achieve any of the things I mourn.  She has always been herself, fulfilling her utmost potential.  This other Noa - the chatty one, the clever one, the one playing dress-up surrounded by friends - exists only in my mind.  Noa doesn't know this person, she doesn't miss these things.  Ignorance, once again, a blessing.

And what about the things she has achieved in her third year?  Noa has emerged from behind a fog to be fully engaged with the world.  She has started school and gets excited about it every day.  Her teachers and therapists adore her.  She's learned to put away her belongings, to sit for circle time, to use her picture schedule, to open her lunch containers.  She has learned to use the potty!  Noa knows twice as many ASL signs as she did a year ago, and can sometimes voice her thoughts with a special computer.   She can count to five on her fingers and reads numbers 1 through 10 and the entire alphabet.  She can write a messy but legible version of her name. Noa recognizes "her" people now and greets them with huge smiles.  She hugs, she kisses, she signs mommy and daddy.  And if she has an opportunity to make us laugh, she'll do it over and over.  It turns out that Noa, at age four, is quite the comedienne.

So I bake the cake and wrap the present.  I mourn the lost dreams and embrace the new ones.  I try to remind myself, Noa is happy.  She may not understand birthdays, but she is happy.  She may not understand presents, but she is happy.  She may not understand she is four years old, she may not be able to blow out the candles, she may not know how to unwrap her presents, but she knows that we are singing to her.  She enjoys the attention, the cake, the gifts.  She is happy, she is loved, she is as fulfilled as any four year old can be.  And so, we celebrate.

Hurricane Claire

Simon, talking to Connor on the phone (March 2005):

My grandma Claire, Hurricane Claire, cause she always shouts and she's really crazy -- she's a beserk woman.  And she likes to get me gifts. 

Greacian Adele Ospenson Goeke

A few days before Thanksgiving, my Aunt Peg passed away.  Known to most as Greacian Goeke, she was a good woman, a storyteller and lover of books and the arts, and mom to my cousins Greacian Mary, David and Judith.

In the last year all of her siblings died, including my dad, James Anton Ospenson, Jr.  They were all in their seventies and eighties, and died more or less peacefully, and surrounded by loved ones.  On hearing of Peg's death however, I was greatly saddened by the thought that a generation of Ospensons has passed, and that I missed them.  This surprised me, strangely enough, and affected me in some ways more than the deathof my father, who passed away after a long illness, bedridden after a stroke and incapable of speech.

My cousin Greacian Mary Goeke spoke some fine words at her mom's funeral.

Remembering Mom

Mom was a very private person and would be quite uncomfortable to hear a tribute like this. So, I'm sorry, Mom. Forgive me for telling some stories about you to the people who love and admire you. We all miss you very much.

We have lost a dear friend, confidante, mother, mentor, subtle crusader and champion of the art of living. Despite also being a "worry warrior," -- what mother isn't? -- Mom was at heart a free spirit, endlessly curious, always taking time to "look it up" in one of her reference books. This is the essence of her that I carry into my own life.

Mom didn't have a habit of reviewing her life out loud so we children had to ask specific questions to learn what her childhood was like. I always wanted to know more about her father, James Anton Ospenson, who had died when she was 15 years old. One vivid memory of him was of going to his office in New York on Saturday mornings back when everyone still worked a half-day on Saturdays. They took a ferry from Hoboken. She said the smell of horses was always strong during the crossing because the lower deck was crowded with horse-drawn carts bringing fresh produce into the city.

Mom's sister Eileen was fond of telling us that during high school, she was the doorkeeper for an endless parade of admirers who always came to see Mom, and never her. As one eager young man was leaving out the back door, Eileen was opening the front door to the next one. Though in later life Mom loved to spend long periods alone, we saw that at the Windrows she knew and liked everyone. We teased her about being the most popular girl on campus once again. It could take her 15 minutes just to cross the dining room as she stopped to talk to every table. Her last days in the hospital were no different in the ongoing procession of visitors.

Our favorite question to Mom was, "Tell us about when you were bad." Unlike our father, who claimed to be "a model child" Mom relished telling us about skipping school and going in to New York to visit her "fairy godmother" Ruthie Randall, her mother's best friend. Ruthie looked like Marlene Dietrich and lived alone in an elegant Fifth Avenue apartment. When Mom played hooky, Ruthie never scolded but gave her money for lunch at Schrafft's and sent her off. Then secretly she would call Mom's mother to let her know that her daughter was not at school, but everything was fine.

Mom's great love affair with cats began with the magnificent Persian that Ruthie purchased for Mom when she was a teenager. He cost something like $45.00, a huge sum during the Depression. Ruthie and Mom brought him home from the pet store in a taxi, and when they opened the door at the apartment, the cat jumped out and ran down Fifth Avenue. Needless to say, everyone was extremely upset to see this "million dollar cat" running away. After a frantic chase the renegade Rameses was eventually captured. From that moment on, he and Mom were bonded for life. Mom carried a picture of Rameses in her wallet, and made it clear to us that no other cat, no matter how much she loved it, could ever replace him--he was "unique in all this world." He moved with her to Palmer Square when she first came to Princeton after the war. She often told us that when he died she had to miss several days of work.

A neighbor, Mary Wall, gave her a copy of Exupery's The Little Prince to comfort her. She read this book aloud to us many times and loved to quote from it, especially, in her words, "It is what you do for your rose that makes your rose so important to you." In my last conversations with Mom she was rereading the book once more. I found it by her bed when I got home and saw that she had marked all her favorite passages. As I reread them I felt she was reading to me and comforting me too.

Mom took refuge in literature and relied on it make sense of chaos and tragedy. I treasure the books and notes she has left behind, in particular the collection of Emily Dickinson's poetry. She has written a resounding "yes" in the margin next to this poem:

They say that 'time assuages,' --
Time never did assuage;
An actual suffering strengthens,
As sinews do, with age.

We all know that Mom was adamant about not dwelling on her health problems or past difficulties and she accomplished this feat in heroic fashion--gracious always in the midst of suffering. I can hardly imagine the effort it took to maintain this.

When Mom married Dad they moved from Princeton into the "country" near Kingston, still very undeveloped. Suddenly she was in the world of compost, corn and cukes. She admitted ruefully that the first time she heard her landlady, and then lifelong friend and mentor, Helen Shope Flemer, say the word "cuke" she had to ask what that was. Through Helen's awe-inspiring example, Mom mastered freezing, canning and preserving, and patiently taught us as we hovered around begging for a taste of the grape jelly foaming on the stove. Though she may have worn out every summer from freezing endless bushels of beans, she had to admit, in February, that it was worth it. She liked to remind us that Dad's garden had spoiled us permanently, and no one else's vegetables, especially the corn, would ever come close.

I don't have much of a picture of Mom and Dad as a young couple before children, but I do know they shared a love of modern architecture and design, and spent time together carefully choosing furnishings for their new house. Anyone who saw our black, grey and red kitchen floor from the fifties would know that their taste was very au courant for the times. Later Mom was more drawn Colonial furniture, and the kitchen floor was covered by carpet. She jokingly referred to their first years in the house as the Black and Red Period. Dad copied a black iron coffee table he had seen at Sloane's in New York, welding the legs and frame himself. He and Mom went to Chinatown to purchase the big marble slab for the top. Mom was uneasy taking a car into the city, into an unknown neighborhood, but Dad knew exactly where he was going. The lasting shock for Mom was that she had to step over a dead chicken on the pavement as they walked down a small alley to see the marble. She said she never looked at the coffee table without thinking about the dead chicken. Dad just laughed, kept walking, and said, "That's someone's dinner tonight."

After Dad died in 1986, Mom stayed in the house and truly found her own natural rhythm. She discovered she enjoyed living on her own. She posted a sign by the front door, "I don't do mornings" that was well respected by those who knew her. It was amazing when visiting her to see how she literally came alive as the sun was going down--a true night owl.

Though she had taught us to check in and leave phone numbers if we were traveling, she was often not home anymore when we called. It might be several days before we caught up with her and she'd say, "Oh, I ran up to Connecticut for the weekend." It was our turn to worry. But we were happy that she felt free to follow her whims after so many years as a dutiful wife and mother. She told me that she would catch sight of herself in a store window sometimes and wonder, "Who is that old lady?"; that she felt about 15 years old inside. We all know she carried that youthfulness to the end of her life. One of her friends said to me, "She's the youngest old person I've ever met."

Mom also told me that she felt somehow much bigger than she appeared physically. This gave her a fearlessness she admitted was perhaps not entirely justified. My aunt aptly describes her as a "small but mighty force" who was not afraid to crusade for what she believed -- as when she successfully campaigned in the fifties to allow fathers in the delivery room at Princeton Hospital. She drove to Florida alone for many years, did heavy work in the garden, walked around Paris by herself at 81. In the last years on the hilltop she was still going up on the roof to clean out the gutters. I was startled to come up the driveway one time to see her standing on the edge of the roof, trowel in hand, looking out at the view--with no one else at home. She said she didn't want to give up the chance to see the property from this angle once a year. And no, she would not wear a crash helmet the next time. On the Pont Neuf in Paris, before I even knew what was happening, she had elbowed off a thief who darted out of nowhere and had his hand in her purse. In the middle of admiring the view, Mom was still on alert. I was impressed.

Some of my favorite times with Mom were late at night, in the summer, when we sewed together, watching old movies. We would made fudge and eat it from the pot before it cooled. One time I looked over to see her sobbing through the last scenes of God is My Co-Pilot and wondering what it had reminded her of. She hardly talked about her experience during the war years. The best time to phone her from the West Coast was at the end of my day, around 9 pm, midnight here, when she was still up watching TV, reading, doing the crossword, usually all at once. Mom is the only friend I've ever had whom I could call at any time of night. She was always glad to hear from me; even if she had been sleeping she would wake up and talk. I have caught myself reaching for the phone late at night a few times already since she's been gone. But my cousin reminded me that I can still talk to Mom late at night and no phone is needed.

Mom embodied the spirit of "Do unto others." Up until she went to the hospital two weeks ago, she had given herself the task of writing at least one note a day to someone she cared about. Even when feeling wretched from the struggle to breathe, she kept up with weekly notes of encouragement to a friend who had had a severe stroke. Just this month she wrote a limerick to accompany a get-well present to another dear friend. Birthday and Valentine cards from her were usually were homemade, with a witty original verse inside.

She believed strongly in the ritual of thank you notes and acknowledgments for cards and flowers received, and in writing to friends on occasions large and small. We used to hate to hear her say, "Manners are the lubrication of society," but today we thank her for teaching us so well to express our caring through words and deeds. From an early age she took us with her when she visited elderly friends in nursing homes. She looked after my Great Aunt Eva and had primary responsibility for her own mother in her last years here in Princeton. I feel that Mom herself gave me the best training in how to look after her as she needed more help.

On my last visit in September I asked Mom if she had a list of hymns she liked. It was one thing we had not written down in her last wishes. She said she had some lists around somewhere, but was too tired to look for them. There wasn't a note in the Hymnal where she thought she had left it. Yet when I came home last week, there was a handwritten list in the middle of the Hymnal. For once she had done the "homework" I had given her! It was wonderful to choose the music for today knowing exactly what she wanted.

Mom was a child of the Depression, as she so often reminded us when demonstrating one of her "waste not, want not" techniques like scraping every last bit of raw egg from the shell by hand. She loved to find pennies on the sidewalk, and kept a running tab of how much money she had found each year. Her pet theory--borne out by years of experience--was that in hard economic times there are fewer pennies on the street. At the end of each year she bought a lottery ticket with the change she had found. In a business meeting a few years ago, someone remarked on the shopping bag she was carrying: "Hasn't that store has been out of business for 10 years?" Well, she wasn't going to throw away a perfectly good bag. She took care of things and they lasted and lasted. She was the financial manager in our household, and her decisions were always guided by concern for us children, her own comfort being the lowest priority. It is hard to feel deserving of such selflessness.

In the years after I lived in Paris and then in California, Mom often told me that she liked to watch the planes overhead when she walked around our woods in the evening, with the elkhound and cat following behind. Above the nursery fields she could see a long line of lights in a regular procession, heading to Newark or Philadelphia. She said, "I'd watch those planes, one after the other, and wish that every one of them was bringing you home." When I was younger, I couldn't stand to hear this. It made me feel trapped, like I couldn't have my own life, even though Mom had always said, "I'm not a librarian who needs all her books on the shelf."

The last time Mom told me about watching the planes we were sitting on the balcony at Windrows looking out towards our old home. In the warm dusk we saw lights blinking over the trees. As I listened to her I was walking around the woods myself, in her shoes. For the first time I truly felt the depth of her longing for the comfort of her children. My feelings didn't matter. I was grateful that I was with her right now. Over these last years we all understood how much it meant to Mom when we visited.

On late night TV, Mom loved to catch reruns of the film The Shawshank Redemption, just to see the scene in the vast, barren prison yard when music suddenly blasts over the P.A. system. It is a soaring aria from Mozart's Marriage of Figaro. The downtrodden prisoners stop and stare into the distance, deeply moved. The music lifts them over the prison walls and for just a moment they are free, returning to a sense of their humanity. When I reflect on how restricted Mom's life became in the last year--truly a prison sentence for a free spirit--I see even more what this scene meant to her.

The evening that Mom died, Judith and I watched the sunset from her balcony. Wide spokes of orange funneled to the west against an egg-blue sky. Like calligraphy, narrow white and gray jet streams zigzagged across the deepest colors fading to smoke at the edges. As the sky grew darker, I saw the blinking lights of a line of planes heading east, and another line heading north in a regular procession. They seemed suspended, slightly wavering, like magic ships swinging from a giant, invisible mobile. I was no longer the one in the air, returning to my mother securely on the ground. She was flying free, weightless, finally released, on her way home.

Mom, I will think of you whenever I see the planes blinking like heartbeats in the night sky.

Up the stairs

It seems that Noa has discovered the stairs.  This little girl is not yet walking, instead she's hauling herself up and bracing herself on solid furniture, bouncing on the soles of her feet, and generally acting as if she's on the cusp of some big breakthrough.

She's also drooling like crazy and waking up in the middle of the night, much to the "delight" of her parents.  How can anyone be so cheerful in the middle of the night, especially in the face of two grumpy parents?