This Side Up

Some things best remembered, not recorded

Posted 10/7/14

Rose gave me one of her contagious smiles. You have to smile no matter how you really feel but, in this case, there was good reason to be happy.

“Oh,” she reported, “she’s doing fine. …

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This Side Up

Some things best remembered, not recorded

Posted

Rose gave me one of her contagious smiles. You have to smile no matter how you really feel but, in this case, there was good reason to be happy.

“Oh,” she reported, “she’s doing fine. She’s packing; getting ready to leave tomorrow.”

I was hoping to seen my great aunt, Dot, and had dropped in unannounced. Dot is the matriarch of the extended family and, at 98, stays on top of what everyone is doing.

In recent years she’s had a few health issues and given us a few scares. Rose had been a Godsend. Rose is a good talker, and a good listener, and she’s there to help with things, although Dot is fiercely independent and knows what she likes.

Rose won’t be going with Dot to New York City, where she lives for the winter. But on Saturday morning, she was standing by as Dot went about preparing for the transition from rural upstate New York to the big city.

Rose led the way as we climbed the narrow, polished wooden stairs to Dot’s room.

“I have a visitor to see you,” Rose announced.

I heard a voice from beyond the open door but couldn’t make out what was said.

“Better give her a moment,” Rose said.

We retreated a couple of stairs and waited.

Dot appeared in slacks and a green sweater and pushing a walker. She had combed her hair and looked marvelous. I gave here a quick hug and she ushered me into an adjoining bedroom where she seated herself in a straight-backed chair beside a table. There was a rocker close by and I settled into that.

She wanted to catch up on the news.

Rose filled me in on who had visited recently and how Dot entranced some of her great-grandchildren with stories. One she quickly told was of a young woodsman who came upon an elf. The elf asked the woodsman what he wished for, and the man said he dreamed his wife would have a child. The elf said he could grant the wish, but on the condition that, when all the leaves fell from the oak trees, the child would stay with him. The woodsman agreed, but year after year the oak trees always kept some of their leaves. The elf didn’t get his end of the bargain. Finally, in frustration, the elf bit the leaves, and that’s why oak leaves are shaped the way they are.

“That’s the story,” said Rose, “but the way Dot tells it is so colorful and alive, the children are captivated. You should hear her.”

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful to record that? I’ve got tapes and I would love for her to record many of her stories.”

Rose was suggesting that, years from now, when Dot’s great grandchildren are grown with children of their own, they could hear Dot and, from the tone of her voice, have a feeling for this woman, if not for the stories themselves.

I saw her point and was intrigued by what Dot would think of the idea, but Dot wanted my reaction to the new look of her yard.

The change was hard to miss. The massive oak that once stood at the base of the hill was gone. The tree was surely more than 150 years old. Its limbs alone had been the size of most other trees, and its trunk, now a stump barely six inches above the ground, was about seven feet across.

Without the tree, Dot had a commanding view of the nearby farm fields and the mountain rising beyond.

“There were swings in that tree and I used to climb to the top,” she said, showing how she wrapped herself around the limbs to reach the upper branches.

But one of the larger limbs had fallen from the trunk and the tree was severely rotted.

It was best that it come down, but change is hard to accept.

“Some are sad to see it go. It’s like a part of history,” she said.

I wondered what she thought. After all, of all the family, she had more memories of the tree that any of us.

“I think it’s great. I like it.”

What about making recordings?

Dot said her late husband was urged to do that same thing, in an effort to preserve family history, and to immortalize his voice.

“You know,” she said, “he did it and, when he played them back, he said, ‘I sound like an old man.’ Well, he was.”

That’s what I love about Dot. No illusions; no pretenses.

So, would she tolerate a recorder?

Dot wouldn’t say, but then, she really didn’t have to.

She wanted to hear the latest news, not preserve the past.

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