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Welcome to Here. By way of Live Oak.
April 5th, 2008
My Brother, JHJ, is the writer in the family. The Writer and the musician. The Writer, the Musician, and the cook. The Writer, the Musician, the Cook, and the photographer. I am the……um. I am the one who realizes how talented my brother is. Below the line is an essay he wrote about my grandparents. I feel some ownership here, enough to post it on my blog, because it was MY TREE TOO! And they are MY GRANDPARENTS TOO! And it’s MY PAIN TOO! and because he is not HERE to watch what happens with me. He was not here to see them not be able to live at Live Oak anymore, to have to move to a town (my town) only because they know they cannot do it on their own any more. He is not here to see my Grandma forget what a coffee table is called. He is not here to watch my Grandpa touch The Son’s face because he cannot see it clearly. He is not here to see us sell off all of their things because they will not fit in their postage stamp sized and sterile apartment. He does not feel like he needs to keep one more momento to make it a little easier. One more teacup. One more rabbit. One more old picture. My heart, and house are too full HERE. And He is GONE. And, I feel the weight of us being the only two grandchildren, and being the only one HERE. Here is hard today.
This is his, written October of 2007. I am posting it because the memory is mine too, and I feel like we have to look out for each other.
I miss you JHJ!
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Welcome to Live Oak
A plane flies overhead. “We get a lot of those, because of the Naval airport nearby. We don’t even hear them anymore.”
That’s my grandfather. This is me: “Like the trains where I live. They’re loud, but we never even notice.”
“I like the trains.” Grandma. “There were trains when I was a little girl.” Her eyes wander away from mine as she speaks. “During the depression, hobos would jump from the cars.”
We turn the corner, walking back to their town house. They’ve taken me on a tour of their little community, like a country neighborhood except for the iron gates at the entrances. And the exits.
“They knew my mother was a soft touch and came to our house to eat while Daddy was out. They’d come and…” She trails off and fidgets with a button on her coat. Lots of stories end like that, with her breaking off in the middle. I’m disappointed. I wanted to hear about the hobos.
“They’d come and Mom would give them a meal.” I smile. She’s having a Good Day. “She’d keep one of us kids home from school — so she wouldn’t be at home alone with him, you see — and give the hobo something to eat. They were always very nice.”
She threads her arm through mine and leans on me a little as we approach their home. “Those were hard times. Everyone had to look out for each other.”
***
This is Live Oak Village, nestled on dozens of acres of land in southern Alabama. It’s set up like a few little neighborhoods connected by shady, tree-lined roads. There is a full-care neighborhood, for people who can’t do much on their own; there’s an assisted living neighborhood, for people who do okay but need help with meals and chores; and there are the town houses. These are for the most capable of the lot. My grandparents are Townhousers.
The name Live Oak Village is supposed to bring to mind huge stately trees draped with spanish moss, like you might find around the beautiful plantation homes that once littered this part of the south. It’s a nice image, nostalgic and reassuring. Live oaks, you see, are known for their longevity.
It makes me think, though, of a tree I once knew. It was a live oak, an enormous and ancient one. They said it was here as Europeans first came here, when Henry VII ruled Britain. It stood for five hundred years, growing and rustling, inhaling its carbon dioxide and exhaling its oxygen in peace. In 1990 someone tried to cut it down. He went all the way around it with a chainsaw, cutting a foot or two deep. The man was never found and the tree didn’t seem to notice anything.
It soon became clear that something was wrong. The community hired a tree doctor “from up north” to save it. He and his team spliced and grafted and supported and pruned and medicated The Big Tree, and we visited it often, we kids hugging it and wishing it better, our parents talking with the experts, sighing and shaking their heads.
The tree succumbed when I was a teenager. We cried. A lot of people cried for that tree, people from all over the world. The experts tried to preserve it, to keep it as a monument, but it rotted. Our tree, our ancient tree, The Big Tree, rotted away, and the experts left and the park surrounding it fell into disrepair, and now all we can do is remember it.
This is what I think of when I see the sign in front of my grandparents’ idyllic gated community. I keep it to myself. These are hard times. We have to look out for each other.
Filed under Family-blame the DNA, lexapro lexplains it |8 Responses to “Welcome to Here. By way of Live Oak.”
Hey You, I know the pain of watching grandparents age and all the things that come along with that. After reading JHJ’s essay, I also have another comment. But, I don’t really want to put it out there, because I don’t want to hurt JHJ’s feelings.
JHJ… you are awesome. You were great with the kids as an intern. You are a fabulous cook (I had the wedding food). You are an amazing writer. WTH are you doing? Take one of the many talents God has blessed you with and roll with it. Is writing fun for you? Make it your passion. You’re clearly good at it, and I’d much rather read your work than any of the books your sister has read and reviewed here on the Huckablog.
You can disagree with me, ignore me or whatever. No one can live another person’s life for them. However, after reading your essay, I think that perhaps your family feels some of the same emotions over you. You, this talented, blessed, funny, wonderful, charming individual…You, the one who knows a little bit about everything…You.
Okay, so I forgot where I was going with that and I have to go to work now. Sorry. If I remember, I’ll comment later.
And, sorry…but not really.
Hey You is right, her brother, JHJ is indeed very gifted. More so than any one human has a right to be. For now he is away discovering himself and making an effort toward independence as is the right of each of us. Yes, we miss him enormously, but support his right to do so.
To say that Hey You lacks any talents herself is to deny the fact that she is indeed gifted in her own unique ways. You already know we think she is an ideal parent. In fact, she has a special gift with all children.
Her administrative abilities are also impressive. If you need something done, put her in charge. She has a special ability to break down the job, assign roles, and achieve excellent results. Her ability to market items for sell were also impressive.
This happened over the course of the last several days. She handled all the marketing, much of the display, and a great deal of the negotiating for the best price. Yes, it was a painful thing to sort, price, arrange and sell off the possessions of my dear in-laws. Yes, our homes are burgeoning with the intake of their most treasured items. At the same time we struggle to incorporate these things and still maintain our own sense of self.
In the future we’ll all have these things to help us remember these two special people. But, for now, we have THEM to treasure, for as long as God allows.
I’m not discovering myself at all. I’ve known precisely who I am for a long time. It’s everything else that I’m discovering.
Congratulations on knowing who you are. Thanks for sharing it with us when you so choose…we love all of it you know. Personally….I don’t think I will ever really know who I am. Maybe because it keeps changing?
I failed to mention the most special thing about Hey You. Its her charisma. You can even see it in the pictures she’s posted. She lights up a room when she enters it. There is a special essence in her that people are drawn to in some way.
Her laughter bubbles up from deep within her and spills out making everyone around her happy.
So you can see, though she believes she lacks the special gifts her brother was so amply endowed with, she in turn has her very own special gifts that make her unique as well.
Hey You is also the best friend a person could ever be. Seriously. Hey You has been the truest friend I have ever had. She’s seen me happy, sad, crying, laughing, crazy, silly, dorky, funny, in shape, out of shape, dressed up, in PJs, sleeping, making messes, etc. And in spite of all the dumb things I’ve done in the short time I’ve known her, she has never once judged me. She has only loved me as only a good friend could. She offers hugs when needed, a calm and sweet voice at the other end of the phone, stability through my instability, honesty and is always able to give me the “right” answer, without trying too hard to force her opinions upon me. Thank you Hey You for being Hey You.
We are all blessed with so many gifts, some of which it takes us years to unwrap…that’s the complexity of life…it’s how God made us.
And, while you may not know fully who you are yet, we all love the you that we know. So, if you change a little, I hope those changes are for good…I wouldn’t want you to lose the you that makes you Hey You!
Sappy much?
Hey. One more thing. The real treasures are the memories…not the things.
NOTE: Do keep all the photos. Those are worth way more (personally speaking) than the teacups.
Just saying.
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