. . . if I could sing with Jean . . .

As time passes, my mother Jean sings more & more.

Now, in the best of times, when Jean was fully in control of her voice & her body, she sang with sentiment & enthusiasm but would never be chosen for a solo in any choir.

It amazes me that while both of my parents enjoyed & appreciated music, neither Jean nor my father Jack could sing in the center of the note.

Their second daughter, my sister Janet, sings like an angel conceived in a dream.  I have mentioned this more than once.  But it just amazes me, that Jean & Jack, both with voices of a different note, produced a voice that gives glory & honor to praising the Lord.  In song.  Always in the center of the note.

When Jean sings now, if you don’t know her, you think she is moaning or perhaps, in pain.  Sometimes I  think she is moaning or in pain.  And when I ask, she assures me that she is singing.

It would be disingenuous if I did not admit that Jean’s singing drives me a little crazy.

And then I remind myself how I will miss my mother’s voice when she leaves us.

A Facebook friend of mine, Juan Rangel, forwarded at my request a list of life lessons he & his wife read to his son Juan every morning & every night & then discuss on Sunday mornings.

I felt I needed to read & reread those lessons, to remind myself about what is important in this life.  Lesson # 22 is:

Get to know the people you love.  Love them as humans-in-progress.

And I was reminded that we are all works in progress.  When we stop growing, when we stop changing, when we stop aging, we leave this world to return home.

Works in progress do not cease to contribute when a body fails its host.  Works in progress to not cease to contribute when the skin needs more lotion to remain smooth, not when the hair needs oil to make it soft, not when the legs no longer function.

Works in progress do not cease to contribute when the sound of a voice singing is mistaken for something else.

When Jean’s Occupational Therapist Ronald visits, her singing does not drive him crazy or irritate him.  He sings with her.  During the time Ronald spends with Jean, our room & the house resonate with laughter & song.

If I could sing, I would sing with my mother.

 

But that is not my gift. 

Instead, I put on music for us when we turn off the TV & the lights.  The last offering was Bill Medley.  Jean loves Tony Bennett & Lady Gaga.  And Josh Groban & Johnny Cash.  Tonight I think we will listen to Rachmaninoff & Tchaikovsky. 

Because music is not just about lyrics or sounds or what is mistaken for moaning.

Music is about the soul.

Jaki Jean on the Little Red Ball & the Snare of Memory

Memory is a snare, pure & simple:  it alters, it subtly rearranges the past to fit the present.  (p.95)  Mario Vargas Llosa, The Story Teller .

In the wake of the fallout from journalist Brian Williams misremembering that he had been shot down in a helicopter in a war zone, when in fact, he was in another helicopter, I want to write about the snares of memory.

In my soon to be sixty plus old mind, I remember an incident from my childhood that convinced me my mother Jean betrayed & failed me.

We were still living in Dallas & my parents had a couple & their children over for dinner.  We had visited the couple & their children at their home, so it was a return invitation.

All of the children were deaf, all  read lips & some were able to verbalize.  Or at least that is how I remember it. 

After dinner, or perhaps before – the snare of memory is like that & for this story it does not matter – I played with the girl closest to my age.    I showed her my dollhouse.

Now, my dollhouse was not one of those gorgeous architectural reproductions – it was of metal, not wood.  I had no reproductions of fine furniture or art or carpets.  But I did have a little red ball in the corner of one of the rooms.

I no longer remember why I loved that little red ball – or why I thought that it was the finest, reddest, most perfect little red ball I had, in my then few short years of experience, encountered.

When the family left, the girl I played with went up to Jean, my perfect little red ball in her hand, & asked if she could have it.

Jean gave it to her.

Because so much time has passed, I cannot remember my reaction. 

Except for anger & disappointment & an inexplicable sense of loss of the perfect little red ball.

That was embellished & rewritten & remembered through the filter of a story teller.  A snare of memory.

Over our years together as adult daughter & ever so slightly older mother, I have talked to Jean many times about the little red ball & how she gave away my treasure.

One year a long day ago,  at Christmas or my birthday, Jean gave me a present & in the box, outside the tissue paper covering what was inside, was a little red ball.

That discovery was not a snare of memory, but a wonder & affirmation of a mother’s love.

This afternoon, I left my workspace & writing to ask Jean if she remembered the incident & story of the little red ball.

She did not. 

And that is just another one of the snares of memory.

Over the years, I have misremembered many incidents.  I have confused time & space & players.  Not to mention conversations.

I don’t think I have misremembered the incident of the little red ball or confused time & space & players.  I don’t think the snare of memory has taken that incident from me.

I think Jean gave our guest, a little girl who could not hear, the brilliantly red ball I cherished, because she needed it  far more than I ever would.

We all misremember – especially if we are storytellers or writers.  We embellish, we recreate, we make the story something our friends or public want to hear or read.

Memory is filtered by many things – time & space & experience.  Perception & state of mind & maturity.   By the audience, by who is listening or reading or wondering.   By events.  But always, it is a snare, altering, rearranging, rewriting, sculpted to fit in the moment.

PS:  I am certain the perfect, most brilliant little red ball came from one of these.

Maiming Jean, Memory & Forgiveness

This afternoon, I pulled out nail trimming & grooming supplies & perched on a stool next to the bed to take care of my mother Jean’s nails. 

Sitting on the stool, I went after her left hand first.  It is the hand most affected by her Parkinson’s, several fingers are extremely uncooperative, but slowly, I trimmed her nails & cleaned the remains underneath & tried in my inept way (there is a reason I used to be a regular at a nail salon) to shape them with an Emory board.

The doorbell rang & our manicure session was interrupted by the home health care nurse, the effervescent & charming Sheila. 

As Sheila interacted with Jean, I sat nearby & started to re-read The Velveteen Rabbit because of a post by my friend Jo-Ann McCoy.

Before Sheila left, she was laughing at something Jean said & I was adamant about what bandage I wanted her to use (I had the bandage, but I have learned over the years that it is best not to confess to home health care that my sister keeps me the best equipped home health care giver in history). 

Besides, it is the bandage Jean’s wound care doctor & nurse wrote in their orders.

After Sheila left, I moved the stool to Jean’s right side & began to trim the nails on her right hand.  All went well until I reached her pinky.

And I cut her finger with the clippers. 

Suddenly I was thirty or thirty six & cutting a baby’s nails & nipped a piece of flesh & it seemed to bleed forever.  I cleaned it – I bandaged it,  I cried & apologized & it still kept bleeding.

It seemed to me that the nick was bleeding forever.

I went extreme & called Sheila of our Home Health Care Service & she calmed me down, gave me instructions.  Instructions I already knew & was following.  I wanted someone to tell me that I had not maimed my mother, that Jean was not going to bleed to death.

Of course, the bleeding stopped & I put on a bandage & gave Jean a choice of leftovers from lunch or yogurt & fruit.  She chose yogurt & fruit (raspberries) & after I tossed it with honey, I grated dark Ghirardelli chocolate into the mix.

Still feeling guilty.

As Jean ate, I finished reading The Velveteen Rabbit.  Pondering about the nicks & wounds we inflict on those we love, on those we encounter, on those with whom we share time & space & memories.

I did not remember buying The Velveteen Rabbit for either of my sons.  So I went back to the pages where people (like me) write an inscription.

The inscription reads simply:  87  Merry Christmas Nick.

No signature.  At first I was at a loss who gave this book to my son Nicholas in 1987. 

I spent a ridiculous amount of time & energy trying to remember, trying to determine who gave my son such a lovely book without leaving a signature.  I have my suspicions, based on the handwriting & timeline & the 87, written with a line across the middle of the seven, in European fashion.

Of course, in the end, I realize that it does not matter who gifted the book back in 1987 without a signature.  The gift, the book, is still lovely.

But there is a part of me, not a nick on a pinky, but something deeper, a bit buried, that longs to remember & grieves for not knowing.  

Jean forgave the pinky nick I inflicted this evening.  I am sure she has forgiven much deeper, longer lasting wounds I have inflicted on her in the last six decades.   But Jean is a much finer person than I.

Because I cannot seem to find it in me to forgive the person who gave my son a book & wrote a date but did not offer a signature.   Anymore than I can forgive myself for not remembering.