Not sure what to call it -- a memorial for my mother? A gathering of close ones, on her behalf? Or, as the funeral parlor would have it -- a scattering? Maybe all of the above?
We set aside today for this. Or, part of this day. The two young families, a friend, my ex and his partner. And me of course. Ed stayed home because he's still not past his kidney drama. Besides, I'll be spending the night with the young family up from Chicago. And in fact, he has heard plenty of commemorative thoughts, listened to loads of mom issues that needed to be resolved by me, helped move each time I had to move her, taught her everything she knew about computers, fixed broken this, broken that. Today I told him he should stay home.
My mother repeated many times that she did not want any ceremony once she died. But, she wasn't always trustworthy on these things. She said no when she meant yes. And anyway, I was going to listen to the kids on this one. And they were clear: they want something to commemorate her life. And I honestly think she would have liked what we did today. I think.
It's Saturday and I start the day in my usual way.
I skip the market once again. It's winding down for me. I'm back to picking up most of my produce at the grocery store.
Breakfast with a very tired Ed. It's not early, it's just that things are dragging him down right now. Let me perk him up with a duo photo. To show off his clean shaven face! And my burnt croissant. Never put a pastry on the upper level of a toaster oven. Live and learn.
By late morning, I pack a small bag and head out toward the lake. Not our local lake. We're meeting up at Harrington Beach State Park. It's by Lake Michigan and yes, thank goodness, the weather is just perfect for this. My mom loved sunshine (in California, it was sunny all the time, she'd remind me every time we had a cloud cover) and considered sunbathing to be virtuous and invigorating. She stuck with it all the way through last summer. Today is one sunny day!
The idea is to do the ceremony in that shore-front park. In her one hundred years of life, I can't really say that my mother developed a special attachment to any particular place. Yes, she liked New York. And she liked living in Berkeley. But neither place tugged at her heart once she moved away. The one place that she did seem somewhat sentimental about was Cross Village -- on the Michigan shores of Lake Michigan. In their later years, her parents ran a guest house for Polish workers there. She would come up often, to help, maybe to play -- I don't really know, she would never admit to playing. But it was a formative moment in her life. She was a young adult, at the cusp of marriage, and at the brink of leaving America to return to Poland. She was afraid of McCarthy and she thought my dad, who was deeply infatuated with her, was quite an interesting prospect. He said come travel with me to Poland to check it out, and so she did. Can't say that she was thrilled with what she found there, but, within a year or two they got married, she got pregnant, her parents followed her back, and so she stayed in Poland. For a while, anyway. I am absolutely sure she would not want to be scattered in Poland, even though her father is somewhere there. (Her mother is splashing around in the Pacific as best as I can figure out.)
Cross Village itself was (is) a nothing spot. It really is just a village -- Ed and I drove up there some fifteen years ago, just to see what it's like. (I wrote about it here.) But it has my grandparents written all over it -- for me, but especially for my mother. And in her last days, all she would talk about was a return to her own mother and father. The shores of Lake Michigan it is then. A scattering of ashes, a memorial.
* * *
First stop: Homewood Suites, northwest of Milwaukee. I'll meet the younger family here. It's our overnight and they'll be my chauffeurs for the remainder of the day.
They're here! Last minute getting ready...
We drive to Harrington Beach State Park. It's a beautiful spot with a nice stretch of shoreline and a wooded space hugging the waters. When you step out onto the sandy beach you notice one thing: it is windy today! I mean, like you wouldn't believe! The waves are huge!
But it is sunny. Someone may say -- too windy. I'm going to retort -- but sunny and wildly beautiful!
Everyone arrives. All here. All wanting to be here.
(cousins)
(all of us; thank you, Carey, for taking this photo)
I read three poems. Szymborska, Oliver, and Anonymous.
The younger family has prepared a song. I Walked With You a Ways.
Snowdrop reads a meaningful passage from a book...
Sparrow reads a bit of a story that is a hand-down from his great grandma.
My older girl speaks. Memories. Good ones.
We end with a song that is possibly the only one we all associate with my mother. She sang it to me, she sang it to my kids. Is it a little wistful? Or maybe it speaks of a resignation... I sing the first verse, each daughter sings one after, we all join in on the chorus. que sera, sera, whatever will be, will be... (Did you know it was written for a Hitchcock movie? Doris Day sang it in The Man Who Knew Too Much. 1956.)
The wind is so strong! But we scatter ashes, mindfully, not so that they blow back straight at us. We take turns...
My mother belongs to the earth, the water, the sun, stardust. And to our collective past. We are here because she was once here.
* * *
We eat dinner at the Twisted Willow Restaurant in Port Washington -- a town that hugs the shores of the lake. It once was a vital commercial outpost. These days it relies more on tourism and nearby Milwaukee to stay afloat, and indeed, to prosper.
Dinner is lovely. Albums from my mother's early years are passed around. The kids play, the adults talk.
And afterwards, we linger still, on the "village green," where the cousins romp and we adults stay a bit more somber. Carey, our family friend shares his recollections of my mother. We listen, nod, understand.
How those five young ones love this moment of utter closeness, out there on the village green of Port Washington...
And then its time for goodbyes.
I ride over to Wauwatosa with the younger family. They play music, the girls sing along. Dolly Parton, other songs too. And I remember one family car trip from my teen years: my mother, my father, my sister and me. It was raining hard on this particular day and my father was trying to push forward anyway. In the back seat, my sister and I sang songs we'd learned around Polish campfires with our friends. We harmonized some. One song. Another. And another.
Later, in a rare show of gratitude, my mom thanked us. These weren't the best years for her, for my father. They weren't getting along much anymore and the years were pot-marked with silences and recriminations. But on this one car ride we, our songs, put a smile on her face. I felt I had on that day made her happy.
