Author: Mary Elyn Bahlert

“Sue, sister, sweet”

I remember when I first knew you were my sister –

you, sitting on the edge of the claw footed bathtub

in the crowded bathroom of an old Milwaukee flat, crying.

I sat on the toilet, listening, and I knew then:

You are my sweet, sweet sister, Sue.

I remember you at 8 months pregnant –

another baby on the way!

– we were just girls, really –

I remember your voice all night long

in the dark Carolina night,

the light from your cigarette, up and down, up and down,

the two of us, laughing, laughing.

We laughed until dawn.

During the day, you were Mom.

I remember years later, in my new life,

you bringing me a home-baked goodie

while I was still in bed – insisting that I accept this gift of love!

I remember you marching me to the classical music CD’s in the back

of Barnes and Noble – music, your other love!

You bought me Beethovan.

I listened, all spring long, to the minor notes,

mourning another Sue.

Now, these notes are for you.

I mourn for you.

I remember your coming through for me through all the years, sweet Sue.

I was always certain of your love –

across miles, across different lives, across hard years and good years.

I remember – will remember always –

you waving goodbye (I watched in my rear-view mirror),

as I drove away from you for the last time.

“I don’t know when I’ll see you again, Sue,” I said into your silence.

You knew, you knew, you knew, my sweet, sweet sister, Sue.

You knew.

(meb/05/2014).

****

A tribute to my beloved sister-in-law, Sue Lass, who passed on Friday, May 22, the day before her 72nd birthday.  I will miss her – forever.

Oregon junco

This morning, my husband and I walked to the corner to get a cup of coffee while work continues in our house. The weather has been cold for the Bay Area, and this morning as we walked, a few drops of rain actually fell to earth. Yes! A small offering in a time of drought.

We climbed the last hill to reach our place, where we walked alongside a lovely garden – the garden of the columbarium that is a landmark in our neighborhood. As we walked, we were joined by a hopping Oregon junco, who stayed just a few feet ahead of us. Then, we saw her dart into the vines that cover the wall of the city garden.

We walked along, commenting on how she did not seem to be afraid of us. Her brashness in the face of these giants surprised us! As we continued, she left the vines and flew up into the tree. Did she have babies in those vines? Was she protecting them?

We walked back a few steps and leaned over to peer into the vines. Yes, two tiny, tiny – tiny – baby Oregon juncos were hidden there. She had revealed their home to us! We thought we might hear her squawk, surely when we leaned over. But she flitted away to find food for the little ones.

What trust!
***
I suppose today is like any other day. I had several important meetings on my calendar,and my time with my husband this morning was a little gift in the day. I am so grateful that he is the kind of guy who thinks to notice a little bird, the kind of guy who wants to see into the nest, and the kind of guy who, after holding his breath for a few moments, suggests we move on, so as not to alarm babies or mother.

And I am grateful, also, for that holy moment, a moment when we were invited to gaze into another world – that small and frail and vulnerable world hidden beneath the vines. I am grateful to be alive today, to have seen that small gift – tiny, breathing, shaking baby birds.

No other moment today has been as rich as that moment. Thank you, Universe! Thank you, God! Thank you, All That Is! Thank you, thank you, thank you.

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

e.e. cummings

Sometimes I think about the ones who came before me, without whose lives I would not be here.  Like many of you, I have spent hours on ancestry.com, looking for clues.  What were the names of those who went before me?  Where are they buried?  Who has followed in their lineage?  As the generations spread out beyond one another, so do the increasing numbers of cousins and second cousins and “once removed” relations.

Google it!  I have googled to learn the difference between a cousin  once-removed and a second cousin.  There is a difference!  I have googled my own last name, and the first and last names of my parents and grandparents, looking for clues.

But finding the facts is not the reason I wonder about the ancestors.  Of course, the facts are important.  The facts reveal where they lived and how they made their living.  The facts reveal that they left the land of their birth at some time to immigrate to another land.  The facts reveal that one died of cancer, another of a heart attack, another in an accident.

Still, discovering the facts is not the reason I wonder about the ancestors.  I am looking for something else.  I am looking for answers to why I am here, why I lived my life the way I did – and did not live my life in other ways.  I am looking for answers to connect myself to history, to my own personal history, and, in another way, to the history of the world.

I am turning the pages of personal history, looking at pictures and thinking about dates, to find something of myself in that personal history.  Why am I here at all?  Whose dream is it that I am here?  What stroke of history has brought me to this place?  What is the larger reason for my being here?

I am turning the pages of personal history, also, to discover my own part, my own culpability  in issues of the day.  I am searching for the reasons for my own hesitations, worries, choices.

From Family Systems Theory I know that patterns repeat themselves in families.  For example, one child is abused as a child, and in the next generation, another child, through remarkably similar conditions, is also abused.  In one generation, the eldest son goes to war, and never returns to the family.  In the next generation, or the generation after, the eldest son goes to war and never returns to the family.  In one generation, one child receives an education, and the others do not.  And it is eerily true in the next generation.

Shame runs through families, also.  Shame runs through the generations.  The shame may be based on different things, but there it is, seen in the eyes and the choices of the children.  Shame, it seems, comes to us when someone else tries to rid themselves of their shame.   They throw their shame onto us, and then it is ours.

Patterns, also, are part of who we are.  In my own searching, I look for those patterns to discover myself.  I turn the facts of history over and over, piecing them together like a patchwork fabric, looking at the parts that are beautiful and at those parts that are discordant.  I see how I fit into the pattern, and sometimes, although I am looking, I do not see.  I cannot see.  I am lost in my own searching.

***

Sometimes, over the years, something I have known forever becomes, in a particular moment, completely clear.  The truth – or my truth – about that event or person was always present, but it was not clear in my sight.  Then, I knew.

Sometimes, over the years, I shift blame from someone to someone else, as a way to make sense of my own history.  Sometimes, I shift blame from someone else to myself, and then I face a new story, a new reality.  How, then, do I live?

***

The ancestors are a source of interest to me, but the ancestors are so much more.  They are the reason for my being here, and they are the ones who unconsciously, brought me here.  I am their future.  They are my past.  We are connected, through blood and story and family and time.

***
I have learned that the ancestors will answer you, if you speak to them.  You will hear their voices again, you will see the expression on their faces.  You will see these things in the mirror, or you will hear their voice in your own.  They will tell you their story, if you speak to them, and then, if you listen.