Six of us sitting around a table in a nice restaurant. Maybe as much as twenty years difference between the youngest and oldest. We don’t ask about age. Fish tacos, salads, a burger ordered. A few look tired, most are having a good day. One open chair because someone had to work.
Serious personal challenges stir under the calm surface of at least a couple of the women, but those may remain unnamed. Before talk turns to general interests, pictures of grandchildren pass around the table spreading the happiness tiny ones generate. Dogs and landscaping photos are admired. We are inspired to share our own child-rearing and volunteer work with young kids, funny stories of pets, grumbles about critters eating hostas and geraniums and hydrangeas. We relax in the warmth of our regular monthly gathering before iced tea and sodas are delivered. Much later our discussion may move to deeper topics. Usually move to deeper topics.
I can’t speak about how the guys gathering for breakfast on Thursday mornings settle into their friend time. I’ve watched out of the corner of my eye more than once. They’re drinking coffee, eating large amounts of food, laughing, listening quietly, voices loud then back to conversational level. Back pats as they leave. Most digging keys out of pockets as they head two by two to the exit.
We don’t leave as best friends forever, but we carry away a small piece of caring for each other, a bit of comfort from the time passed together, reminders that we are not on the journey alone.
This is my first blog written without the presence of Rocky, our family companion, who passed in August. He also appreciated the company of others.
Why is it so difficult to write about what happened in November? The month began with foreshadowing that a health issue would require treatment in a three-to-five-year window. Nine days into the month, tests shortened the timeline to available slots for more extensive surgery the next week. By the middle of November, I had had major surgery, my first time being hospitalized except for delivering babies.
There is a lot I could write about attempting to fill the freezer with food, set up auto-pay for bills, finish a grandchild’s Advent calendar and locate an adult child’s birthday gift within seven days. In retrospect some parts of preparation were successful, and some missed the mark. A hospital rookie, I packed a bag that included a hair dryer, curling iron, underwear, t-shirts, leggings and more than one book. Weak during that first shower I was very happy with clean, natural hair. Nurses didn’t want a t-shirt sleeve in the way of monitors, cuffs or iv’s. My attention span didn’t last through a comparison of humidifiers much less beginning a new novel.
Returning home was great. Our daughter had stocked individual meals for a few days. She and our daughter-in-law made Thanksgiving dinner. My plan to fill the freezer had dropped off the earlier lists. Something much better happened: MealTrain, coordinated by friends, some from our neighborhood and some from other parts of our lives, created a predictable safe zone as we figured out how to get through each day.
For two weeks the kindness of friends fed us one hot meal each day. Pasta, soup, quiche, chicken marsala, tacos, pork tenderloin, hot sandwiches, each supplemented with salads, vegetables, and breads. Sometimes homemade bread. Plus our friends believe in dessert. One Sunday brunch was delivered and served to our entire family, an incredible gift on many levels.
My husband received daily notices from MealTrain telling who was bringing dinner and what was planned. These wonderful friends gave generously of themselves showing up every afternoon with food and a few minutes of visiting. They saved Tom, who does not cook much, a lot of stress while making both of us feel supported and inching toward ‘normal’ as we sat at our table eating dinner.
Stuff happens, some scary and necessary, some amazingly helpful and kind. To all involved, thank you. Take care.
I didn’t notice the absence of my siblings, the eight closest living relatives to me. At other times, I have. I felt the longing for people who knew me, grew up with me, had a similar life. There was a time I yearned for them to see me and acknowledge my accomplishments.
The room was full of friends. People who supported me. Listened to my words. Really, listened to me.
Imagine if that teenager had had that support when she was 13, 14, or 16. Instead of the silence that accompanied the aloneness that scraped at my young heart. I was a pariah in my own family.
“When’s the baby coming home, Ann?” My 5-year-old brother who did see me would ask. “When’s the baby coming?” He wasn’t yet trained to pick up the subtleties, of who was in or out of the fold. He’s now dead. Died of a heroin overdose when he was 29 years old. I don’t hold any notion that he would have been there Friday night if he lived. My family runs in a pack or as a lone sheep in a gully.
With a sunkeness, I’d pat his sun streaked hair. It had the look and unruliness of summer cut straw.
Every time I speak of my birth son, the baby who didn’t come home, it’s a homecoming.
author age 8
I live in this body. I breathe this air. I’m here to tell you that it does happen. Sisters sometimes get pregnant by a brother and have their baby and then if they are lucky enough, they get to write a book about it that people will read and celebrate with you at a book launch.
I recently read a Facebook post from a high school classmate who read, House of Fire, and she said that it had a happy ending. She was encouraging another classmate to read it.
Think of that. Out of tragedy you can have a happy ending. You can be a happy ending.
I was very happy Friday night at my book launch. Because you were there. And, if you weren’t, you sent me good wishes. All of me was up there at the podium, and it was enough. It has always been enough.
At the podium, I thanked relatives who came. And someone asked me later if my relatives were actually there. I smiled. It would have been something to point out a brother or sister. I would have wished for that before Friday night. But on this Friday what I had was abundance. “The relatives that are here are the chosen aunts and uncles that are in the book,” I said. Except my niece. That brave niece who came. Who fortunately doesn’t have the same story line I do though she’s looked across the fence at mine and knows it to be true.
My 40th high school reunion has come and gone. Not that I attended it. My book did though. Classmates are now reading, House of Fire. I’m in awe of the support. It’s unbelievable to that young teen who had nobody.
Coming home can be a difficult journey and yet the most wonderful. It has a happy ending.
“Su Smallen´s new poems, a lexicon of snow, sing with notes of grief, sorrow, joy and resilience, pondering that great Midwestern element. . . . I am grateful for what this talented poet brings forward: pressing with renewed trust her words onto the pages the way you step — well, through snow.” – Spencer Reece
“House of Fire is a book of naked, sharp-edged truth, a journey into and through immense darkness. Yet it is also a profound testament to our deeply human ability to heal and transform.”
– Scott Edelstein
