Telling the Truth

connecting the dots of my life

Tag: Family Reunions

November 17, 2015

Faculty Wife | Part 19 of 19

FRASER_S_0124

Today’s photos bid a fond farewell to my Faculty Wife series (fall 1969 through July 1973). Here’s our son in 1970, sound asleep shortly after we brought our daughter home from the hospital. D’s Mom gave him Big Bear, just after his sister was born. He was an instant hit. He and FuFu, hiding beneath Big Bear’s head, always understood and agree with our son, not with us.

Every now and then our daughter got to play with FuFu. Here she is in 1971, intent on getting into a doll bed with FuFu who has just fallen out. You can see FuFu is already wearing out from all the love. Note: I didn’t make or buy the ruffled dress. It was a gift.

1972 Mar Sherry with Foofoo trying out a bed too small 2

In 1972 we traveled to Ft. Smith, Arkansas for a small family reunion with D’s Mom. It was held at her Dad’s home. Here’s a photo of the women and children who came: D’s great-aunt, his Mom, me, his sister, one of his aunts, our son and daughter. Four generations dressed in multiple fashions and hair styles. The three oldest women are now gone. D’s aunt is holding her camera.

1971 Sep Aunt Edith Edith Cathy Elouise Dorothy with Scott and Sherry in Arkansas

That day we went to a park, and our son got to take a train ride with Grammy! Great fun for both, as you can see.

1971 Sep Grammy Edith and Scott on a train

Now we’re back in South Carolina, in our back yard. It’s summer 1972 and unbearably hot. This calls for lots of picnics in the back yard in the late afternoon. Here’s our son taking a supper-snack break from playing outside.

1972 Scott and the Got Milk ad origin

Note the beautiful blue-flowered casual dining plate. Also the price of bread–4 loaves for $1.00! And don’t miss our teak-handled salad servers. A wedding gift. We still have them and I still use them. One more thing. I see our son has dirt in his elbow creases and generally all over himself. Possibly from the sand box in the back corner of the yard–which you can’t see. I don’t know what those pipes are on the ground; I think D was putting something together–perhaps the swing set.

It’s early summer 1973, our last summer in South Carolina. We’re down in Savannah for a last visit with my Mom and Dad. Of course we had to bid farewell to Tybee Beach. Always a hit! And always A-OK!

1973 Jul Beach Joy2
1973 Jul Different depths for different ages at the beach

In July 1973  my parents, plus Diane and Clay with their first son arrive for a last visit before we move. Here we are, standing around in the front yard.

1973 Jul Diane Clay and Chris Eileen Sherry and Elouise at Columbia SC house

Short skirts are in! So are shift-like dresses. I made mine, as well as our daughter’s outfit. I’m certain Diane made hers. It’s shocking to realize that only 9 years earlier the Bible College wouldn’t allow women’s knees to show. Nor did they allow women to wear shorts or blue jeans.

Finally, for the record, someone (Diane? My Dad? D’s camera on a tripod?) took an informal family picture of us in the back yard. Was this a way of marking the welcome end of our cultural isolation from the rest of the world? Actually, D says we were already one hip family! I totally agree. California, here we come!

1973 Jul Family portrait getting hip

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 16 November 2015
Photo credit: DAFraser, and whoever took the last photo

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July 6, 2015

Saying Goodbye to Mom | Memories

1996, Diane on bench, Montgomery house

Diane at our old house on the river, 1996

Regrets. This one grabbed my attention after I’d written my piece about Mom and Arnica Ointment. It all began in 1998 with a telephone call to let me know Mom had just had a stroke. The news immediately set off a firestorm of self-recrimination in me. Here’s why.

In late 1998, two months before Mom’s stroke, she and Dad flew to Houston to visit Diane and her family. I’d flown to Houston two days earlier–the first time I’d visited Diane since she had gone on a ventilator.

Even though I’d been there before, I wasn’t ready for the sound of this monster machine pumping, wheezing and making noise night and day. Add to that the agony of never hearing Diane’s voice again.

Two days later I drove to the airport to pick up our parents. Mom was in a wheelchair. She was wearing a new, unobtrusive microphone that picked up and projected her weak voice. Suitcases were piled high on a cart. Some filled with equipment to ease Mom’s increasing difficulties with post-polio syndrome.

Mom and Dad’s visit with Diane was painfully difficult. They didn’t seem to know how to relate to her, given dramatic changes in Diane’s ability to communicate.

Two years earlier in March 1996, Diane, her husband and daughter drove to Savannah for a small family reunion. We all knew Diane had ALS, and that this was her last trip to Savannah.

There were awkward moments, especially when Mom choked more than once while trying to swallow food. We all knew Mom wasn’t well. Nonetheless, the visit was happy, a nostalgic stroll down memory lane.

We drove downtown to see the old grade school we sisters attended, and where Mom taught kindergarten. We also drove out to our old house on the river, seen in the photo above, sandbar peeking through at low tide.

Diane’s body already showed limitations from ALS. Yet they were nothing compared to what she now lived with, just over two years later.

Here are a few excerpts from my Houston journal that describe what I observed in my parents in late 1998.

Silence and sadness and inability to speak. . . .Very uncomfortable to watch. . . .Neither of them [my parents] knowing what to say or how to act. Awkward.

The air was heavy with longing and with stunned silence. Not knowing what to do or how to relate. Sometimes projecting onto Diane thoughts and feelings that seemed to keep them from admitting their own sense of grief and helplessness.

I tried to help bridge the gap, but it didn’t work. I felt stuck. Unable to move things forward. Nothing about this visit felt normal—even though we were all dealing with the new normal.

My parents were there for five days. On the sixth day, Diane’s daughter and I drove them to the airport. I wasn’t sure how I would tell them goodbye. A lot of old buttons got pushed in me during this visit, and I was relieved that they were returning home.

Still, the thought of my parents negotiating the airport alone weighed heavily on my mind. I was about to suggest we park and go in with them when Mom spoke up. She said she didn’t want us to go in with them because she didn’t like goodbyes.

So we dropped them off at the curbside check-in and left them there. Two very frail human beings. As we drove away I had second thoughts.

Two months later I got the call about Mom’s stroke. I’d talked on the phone with her once since the Houston trip. It was my last verbal conversation with Mom.

For years I blamed myself for not parking and going into the terminal. Strangely, it seems Mom’s stroke and my arnica ointment helped ease the way for both of us–even though it was late.

Perhaps that’s how I discovered what I wanted to say to her, and how. Still, I prefer earlier goodbyes. And fewer regrets.

© Elouise Renich Fraser, 6 July 2015
Photo credit: DAFraser, March 1996

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