Hickey's Creek Mitigation Park

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Saying good-bye for the last time

for Uncle Charlie

Saying good-bye for the last time

I thanked him for how much he helped me.

Saying good-bye for the last time

I caressed his back as he squeezed my right hand.

Saying good-bye for the last time

To this sweetheart of a man who loved me in a special way

I spoke of how easily it seemed to me

He infused us with his warmth and affection.

The man was my uncle who became my surrogate father

Some 20 years ago when my own father died.

Now I am the age he was when we grew closer

Starting my retirement the day after our hospice visit.

We are saying good-bye for the very last time

Speaking few words.  “This is hard,” he said.

I told him I hope to age as gracefully as he did.

“I hope you do better,” he said. 

***

Collected Posts for Charlie...

Quagga 2009.01.18

Sixty-some years ago you were with her in a group enjoying a word game,
High school coupling, she of the professor’s daughter pedigree,
You of the two room schoolhouse learning, running with your charm and wit,
And you remember the moment to this day, telling us the story.

All the letters had been used and played except “quagga”
Leading you to declare that there must be such a word,
And you all looked in the dictionary and there it was,
Some obsolete Afrikaans for an extinct mammal.

Such delight, everyone “rolling on the floor with laughter,”
That moment remembered a lifetime later.
And today my high school daughter delights to hear this expression,
She of the instant messaging ROFL’ing acronym. 

Today she and I join you two in a game of Quiddler,
Your choice for how to enjoy the afternoon,
A distraction from the cancer taking her from you,
And I see how much you both enjoy the friendly competition.

She has had a distressing turn earlier, her body failing her.
After she cleans up, she says “I never experienced that before
In my whole life and I hope I never do again!”
Don’t we all wish that and wish we were not helpless against it.

We all help together in the game for each of us to maximize our scores
And she ends up with the high score and you feign chagrin.
It’s all part of the game. And I realize it is this lifelong delight in gaming
You share with her that is the better answer to my question earlier.

It is your sixtieth anniversary next week.
I asked “What is the secret to your long happy marriage,”
Me, the owner of two failed marriages.
You gave a silly answer that she married a saint.

Oh sure! The saint with your first child born when you
Were still in college, broke, playing poker through the night
To win enough to pay the charges
So she could be released from the hospital.

No, she is the saint, uncomplaining
Staying in the game today gallantly,
Holding on as best she can to the QE2 vision,
That you might have that spring cruise together.

***

Alone with my thoughts 2009.02.18

I am alone with my thoughts in the predawn hours
Waiting for your call to say it’s over.
Three days ago you called to say she went downhill fast
And only a day or two are left in hospice.

She can’t speak, she does not recognize anyone.
Everyone is at her bedside, you and your five children,
Saying your good-byes to one so very dear to you,
And I make sure I have my black tie ready.

I think of your children gathered there, my cousins.
What a blessing to have many close brothers and sisters,
Your brood your legacy, every one adored by you both,
But one is my special favorite.

I remember her giddy girlish antics so many years ago.
It was my first halting boyhood crush.
Our lives lived apart, she alone for many years now,
And I imagine us revisiting a happy time, enjoying living out our years together.

I remember the last hours for my mother so many years ago
And there’s something in that picture I see this morning that escaped me then,
Me in such pain then, numb with overwhelming grief. 
I don’t see you. Were you not there? 

No one was by my mother’s side. She died alone.
We never said good bye. I saw her last in the hospital
Perhaps a month before she died, my father still pretending
To us and her that she was not about to die.

My step-mother-to-be moved in when the final wait began.
Were you keeping your distance? Or kept at a distance?
How awkward it was for my father to tell me what I already knew
Taking me to talk in the darkness of the back yard, touching me.

He had never touched me gently. “Who is this man?” I thought,
“The one I know glares disapproval and stings with his words.”
But I digress into my own inner void symbolized by her closed casket 
As if that would keep our feelings sealed inside. 

How could two brothers be so different, you and he?
I admire you all the more for it. When you called me,
We did not speak of my Quagga poem I wrote for you.
I was afraid somehow it had offended you. 

The next day I got your letter thanking me for it.
Thanking and thanking, such effusive praise!
Telling me how it touched and pleased you and your true love
In your final days together.

Thank you for your approval.
Thank you for including me in the large universe of your love.
Hear my heartfelt wish that only goodness and light
Shall be with you all the days of your life.

***

Memoriam 2009.02.21

Today we gather to honor the woman who was my aunt.
I am here to add to the chorus singing her praises. 
Wife and mother, nurturing people and plants, decorator par excellence,
Shopkeeper and more, she did everything well.

It is strange for me to speak of her as a separate person.
To me she has always been there together with her husband
And I marvel at their sixty years happily married.
Not once did I hear a hint of discord or annoyance between them.

I know that there were difficult times for her and for him
Growing up and then making their way as young adults and later in life.
It was not a bed of roses, not at all, but I heard never a complaint. 
Their love for each other and for their children made a safe haven in their home.

As an adult I would seek them out, awestruck by their love,
Grateful for their acceptance of my faults and their support and encouragement,
As I am sure my cousins their children likewise received.
She will live on in our memory as an exceptionally good person. 

Barbara, I can hear your voice. You are speaking kindly, affectionately.
You say “Charlie,” beginning a sentence. Can you all hear it? "Charlie." 
This room is filled with love for you because of the love you gave us
Like some multiplier effect for the currency of the heart.

We are your legacy in the way you touched our lives 
And showed us by your example, bearing up and carrying on.
As we go on with our lives and are good to each other,
So we honor your life among us. Thank you for the sweetness you brought us.

***

The Promise 2009.02.21
for Julie

This I can promise you, you who are bereft in your loss:
She is gone from the external world but remains with you.
She will be there for you when you need her most.
You will feel her guiding you when you are quiet in yourself.

You will honor her and remember her and carry on her traditions.
You will cook a special dish and she will be there.
You will arrange flowers and cherish a peony and she will be there.
You will wrap a present in her special way and she will be there.

I know these things because my mother is with me still,
Though she died nigh on fifty years ago.
And I have children who never knew her 
And births she missed and I sorely missed having her with me.

But I keep her memory alive and I give her to my children
In ways they know and ways they do not know
Because she is in me and is acting through me. 
It is not just stories of another time, it happens right now.

When I set out a vase with gladiolas, her favorite flowers,
She is present in a way that defies logic. 
I feel her love and I express my love to my children
And in that way she touches me and them with her love.

***

Lyme rickety 2009.03.22

You are standing there again where you stood as a bright-eyed boy so long ago
In front of the hardscrabble poultry farmhouse where you grew up during the Great Depression.
You are about to begin the next chapter in your life.
You have come to get centered and we come along to see and learn.

It is what the mathematicians call a “zero trip” for you returning here.
All the vectors of direction and distance to all the places you have ever been
In the seventy some years from then to now all add up to zero.
But such a wealth of experience, knowledge and wisdom has filled you along the way!

You were here before your great lifelong happiness with your true love now gone from us.
You are here again, collecting yourself to persevere and continue on without her.

So here is this place out in the back woods where today the dirt road is in mud season ooze
Like it was then when your father took his family to scratch with the chickens
And eke out a marginal existence desperate for better times to return.
And we see that even today the current inhabitants are struggling to make ends meet.

It was hard having only a potbelly stove for heat against the harsh New Hampshire winter.
It was scary having a house fire started by a kerosene lamp in that rickety house in Lyme.
It was difficult with a finishing school mother fallen on hard times
And a frustrated father needing financing to build his great inventions.

But there were sweet happy memories here for you, too,
The kind of delights a boy will find no matter what troubles the adult world.

We see the two room schoolhouse and hear about climbing snowdrifts to walk there,
Less than 20 students all told, one room first to fourth grade, one fourth to eighth.
But you did get an excellent education somehow,
I think by reading everything you could get your hands on.

It ended in tragedy, your father despairing and taking his life,
Leaving your mother alone to keep a roof over your head and food in the pantry,
Moving to town for work, placing you in a “real” high school where you would meet your true love,
Because every crisis is an opportunity, one door closes and another door opens.

I think for that boy each day was a gift with joys to be found for the looking.
May you embrace that child as your companion and comfort in the days ahead.

***
http://tommfoot.blogspot.com/2009/10/in-memory-of-barbara.html 2009.10.24

***
http://tommfoot.blogspot.com/2010/06/wilkinson-visit.html 2010.06.12

***
At the end of the day 2013.10.11

Who knew you would be with us today?

You have survived multiple medical crises

While others have fallen like the leaves

Covering the ground we walk upon.

Those who survive mourn those who do not.

You have lost your better half, the love of your life.

You have lost your older and younger brothers.

You have lost too many dear friends.

It is natural to have a certain melancholy

As we grow old and lose loved ones

As our bodies age and lose abilities

As we grow aware of everything passing away.

There is a sweetness to the sadness.

We have our memories of happy times together

And times of need when we were there

Holding each other holding things together.

I remember visiting you and your family as a child

Happy to be accepted and included in the fold.

I felt the love given and received by everyone in your house.

I come to visit now to find that goodness in your core.

You worked hard to provide for a large family.

You were a good steward of that large colonial house.

You did good works to help less fortunate people.

You were like a father to me when I needed you.

It means so much to me that you approve of me

That you give me acceptance and praise my successes.

I bring my child and my sweetheart to visit you

To enjoy your presence and for you to enjoy them.

Your death will be a great loss to us

We who have known you over the years.

We hope that day will not come soon.

We need good people in this world among us.

***

N is for not good enough 2014.12.23

When you compare yourself to others

How you are not as smart as someone

How you have not achieved as much as someone else

How you measure up as inferior

I wonder how this self-image took root

I wonder if these faults were impressed in childhood

I wonder what your brother my father took in

Growing up not knowing his own father.

I know what disapproval feels like to a child

Never good enough to hear words of praise.

I know how ready I am to hear criticism

To take it to heart that I am not worthy.

Now Wendy is compiling a dictionary

For all of us to tell you that you are a good person

Because you are a very, very good person

And we wish that you will take in our love.

Last year I wrote a poem to bring to you

For our October visit “At the End of the Day”

And we were alone when you read it

And you were moved and squeezed my hand.

I wish that you would know what that meant to me

Having a father figure show emotion and affection

Being the important person you have been for me

Able to include me in the folds of your embrace.

You have given all of us a special gift.

We feel your love fill us with approval.

You do this so effortlessly you think it is nothing

But it is everything.  It is the most important thing of all.

Hear me tell you now what you have done for me.

Charlie, I feel your gentle hand on my shoulder

And I take you with me as a presence always

Helping me to be a good person like you.

Harns Marsh

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