Telling the Truth

Dear Mom,
An old photo and a poem–just for you. I think Dad took the photo. It’s one of my favorites. It’s August 23, 1944. I’m 9 months old, and you’re 23. You look beautiful and happy. Probably because Dad was home for a one-day visit before going back to the TB sanatorium. I wonder what it was like for both of us when he came home to stay after 18 months in the sanatorium.

Here’s a poem that got me thinking about our relationship. It’s by one of your favorite authors, Amy Carmichael.  She seems to be thinking about children and colleagues who’ve died. Especially those living or working at the Dohnavur Fellowship’s home for children in South India, and family members she left when she became a missionary. She didn’t see her family again before her death 50 years later.

Ours Forever

All that was ever ours is ours forever:
Glory of greenwood and the shining river,
Joy of companionship of kindred mind;
All, all is ours.  It is not left behind
Among the withered things that must decay;
It is stored up for us, somewhere, and for another day.

Amy Carmichael, Mountain Breezes: The Collected Poems of Amy Carmichael, p. 349; © 1999, The Dohnavur Fellowship, published by Christian Literature Crusade. First published in Kohila (1939) and Though the Mountains Shake (1943)

What catches my attention is her way of thinking about death. Whatever it’s about, it doesn’t mean the joyful, companionable parts of our relationships are dead. They’re not even decaying. It seems they’re being kept safe, “for another day.” What was life-giving will someday be restored.

Could this also be about us? Our relationship with each other? I’d like to think so.

Sometimes I feel sad that we didn’t connect until the last 5 or 6 years of your life. Part of it was because of our personalities. Extroverted you, introverted me.

Yet there was more going on than our personalities. Polio and other illnesses, three more daughters, housework, sewing, cooking, church work, children’s Bible clubs and more. I wonder about Dad. Did he make it more difficult than it already was? Sometimes he joked about the way ‘his women’ ganged up on him. Today I wonder whether he feared something like this might happen.

At any rate, it wasn’t easy for the two of us to have a strong relationship. I was busy protecting myself, especially my introvert who just wanted to be left alone. I definitely didn’t come running to you to share confidences or just hang out together.

Now there are days when I can’t help saying, “I need my Mom!” It happened just before Christmas, when I got sick and wanted you to take care of me the way you did when I was young. You know. Chicken noodle soup, cool wash cloths on my fevered brow, bedside pans for all kinds of puke, clean sheets comfortably arranged, books to read and protected time to sleep.

It happened again about a week ago. I felt downhearted and needed a mother to listen to me, and comfort me. I wasn’t physically sick again. I just wanted my Mom.

I’m not eager to go back to all our ‘good’ old days together. Yet I miss your attentive care for me as a child, especially when I was sick, and your interest and encouragement to me as a musician and student.  I also miss moments of unexpected empathy and affection between us in the few years before you died.

That’s why this poem speaks to me. It suggests these treasured bits weren’t lost to us when you died. They aren’t rotting or decaying. They’re being safeguarded, held safely for another day.

Love and hugs,
Elouise

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 14 February 2015
Photo taken 23 August 1944 in Charlotte, North Carolina