My little Grandma’s arthritic hands, her shuffling feet - bunions pushing through dime-store slippers - and me - A little scared girl at the table by the window: I absorb my Grandma, whole, into my skin.
“Yeat! Yeat! Yeat!”
Old wives’ tales, years of tears, the dead - not forgotten, but carried, heavy - filling the room - And sadness, never spoken. I am in that room, with Grandma - with Ma - with sunshine, old curtains, a dirty oilcloth: silent, watching: I sense the yearning to be set free.
“Yeat! Yeat! Yeat!”
Cabbage, tomatoes, sour salts and Slavic sounds sizzling into Old World Soup and me - sipping in the New World - I absorb my Grandma, whole,into my heart.
“Yeat!” “Yeat!” “Yeat!”
Love is not spoken here; still, I hear: a whisper,in foreign tongue - “I love you.” Quiet, inside the words.
“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all these people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world. . . .
As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun. – Thomas Merton, “Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander”
“… if only everybody could realize this…” Merton writes. “If only…”
**
I am more and more taken with the light around me, the light of day, as it creeps into the sky, moment to moment. I often reflect on earlier days of my life, when I was busy, busy with important meetings, busy with preoccupations as I drove from one important meeting to another important meeting, all the time missing, not seeing, the light all around and in me, and in others. Now, I think of my inability to see the obvious all those years as a loss, a loss I can never recover. And now, I want to remember.
Like Merton, I am silently saying: “If only…”
Across from the bedroom window of the home that I live in in Oakland, there is a crimson maple tree. I love that tree. I love it, especially, because for just a couple of days, every autumn, and just for a couple of minutes, as the sun sets over San Francisco Bay, the light shines just so on that crimson maple. And it is lit then, lit with a light that it has at no other time, at no other moment. I wait for those few moments. sometimes I come out the back door and onto the stoop to wait for the light to hit that tree, just so.
The crimson maple reminds me of the light that is within us. Like the crimson maple, you and I are light. As children, we are that light, but the wounds and frailties of our care-givers, our parents and others, force that light inward – unseen by others – little by little. They do this because their own light has been extinguished. It is our task to use our lives to wipe away all the debris that has hidden that light.
This is not an easy work in life. It’s hard. It hurts. It brings tears, and memories, and losses to our consciousness. You will need courage to embark on this work. If you choose to do this work, you will need a witness, some large and compassionate presence, to give space to the bringing forth of your wounds. There are many paths that allow this work, and you must find yours. That is your mission, if you choose to take it…
I am convinced that it is because we have forgotten the light that is us, that allows for all the hatred and fear in the world. When we look at someone who is not like us in some way – in any way – we see only the outer shell of that person, that person who is suffering, just like us. Murder and war and racism and poverty and greed are only some of the wounds that cover the light. The media is filled with shallow and brittle – and murderous – witnesses to this forgetting.
“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye.” “The Little Prince,” Antoine de Saint-Exupery
“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” – “The Little Prince”, Antoine de Saint Exupéry
I remember when I first named you: “sister,”
your sisterhood, a gift to me:
you, sitting on the edge of the claw footed bathtub
in the crowded bathroom of an old Milwaukee flat, crying.
Smaller, I sat without a word, until we laughed - again.
Then, I knew:
You are my sweet, sweet sister, Sue.
I remember you, 8 months pregnant –
another baby!
- your deep voice, your laughter until dawn
in the Carolina night,
the light from your cigarette, bright in the darkness.
During the day, you were Mom.
I remember you, marching with me to find the classical CD’s in the back
of Barnes and Noble.
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.
Sweet, sweet Sue:
Your love was there:
a simple melody in the background of my life.
Your love, that spanned the miles, the years.
I remember, Sue, sweet, sweet Sue.
I remember you.
“I don’t know when I’ll see you again, Sue,” I said into your silence,
your deep hug.
I remember your silent wave: "goodbye."
(I watched you in the rear-view mirror).
You knew, you knew, you knew, my sweet, sweet sister, Sue.
You knew.
“Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness; come into God’s presence with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is God who made us, and we belong to God. We are God’s people.” – Psalm 100:1-3a
“Mickey’s strong spirit shone through his hard work. He was ready with a kind word, with a cheerful word. His eyes lit up as we each were greeted warmly and readily by this man who had known war and spent his life telling the story of what war is like to others.
When I was the Pastor at Lake Merritt United Methodist Church in Oakland, California, I knew that the community there loved a spirited hymn, and so we sang spirited hymns as often as we could. One of our favorite hymns as a community was “Marching to Zion.” I liked to have us sing that hymn as the closing hymn of the worship service, and I would stand at the center front of the sanctuary, just as happy to sing that song as everyone else:
“We’re marching to Zion, beautiful, beautiful Zion,
We’re marching upward to Zion, that beautiful City of God..”
As we stood to sing, a few bars into the hymn, I would see Mickey Ganitch start to march around the perimeter of the sanctuary! I smile when I remember it, as I smiled then. Everyone in the sanctuary smiled! Mickey’s joy in life and in service to others was contagious! As Mickey marched, the children would follow, and then the adults, and we’d finish worship in a high spirit, having marched together to Zion! — Mary Elyn Bahlert, Opening Comments, 7/23/2022
Photo taken 7/23/2022, the day of Mickey Ganitch’s Memorial Service aboard the USS Hornet, moored at Alameda Air Station, Alameda, California. Photo credit: Mary Elyn Bahlert
Come And talk of all the things we did today Here And laugh about our funny little ways While we have a few minutes to breathe Then I know that it’s time you must leave
But, darling, be home soon I couldn’t bear to wait an extra minute if you dawdled My darling, be home soon It’s not just these few hours, but I’ve been waiting since I toddled For the great relief of having you to talk to… John Sebastian, 1965
When I was a child, when I was growing up in the flats in Milwaukee, my sister and I were in bed before Mom and Dad. Mom and Dad stayed up to watch the news at 10 pm, and shortly after, the television turned off, they went to bed.
My memory of those days is of the soft, quiet talking they did before they went to sleep. I don’t know what they talked about. In the evenings, after the supper dishes were taken off the table, they sat at the kitchen table and played Canasta, most nights. And from the living room where I watched television, or from my bedroom, where I studied, my back propped up against the headboard of my bed, I could hear their laughter and shouts of happiness at having won.
By late evening they returned to the living room to watch the news of the day. Then, the flat was quiet, except for the soft, quiet talking they did before they went to sleep. I don’t know what they talked about. Dad fell asleep first, of course, and then I could hear his snoring, sometimes having cut the conversation short in the middle of a sentence. And Mom, I know, lay awake for a long time, her anxious mind, her memories filling the space that could have been filled with sleep.
Jeff and I are often quiet in the evenings, reading, chatting a bit, fussing with small tasks around the house, and we both go to bed at about the same time, but we don’t often talk once we go to bed. A few evenings ago, we were talking for a few minutes after we’d gone to bed, and Jeff said: “we’re talking in bed, just like your mom and dad.” He had remembered my telling him about that small intimacy I had known as a child, I expect because his parents didn’t like one another much at all, it seemed. And his remembering recalled those times in my own mind.
From the first time Jeff and I met, I felt as if the John Sebastian’s words, written years earlier than our meeting, were written for us. They still are.
