2007, Volume 5, Number 1
Family and Fern Boxes
The weeks after Daddy died are a blur. You know how it feels when you wake up from a dream? You can remember some of what was happening before you awoke, but the details are fuzzy and, after a while, you can’t recall what happened or even when. I remember believing that I was lost or forgotten. Frank and Mama were just next door, but I had to stay with Aunt Muriel. Oh, how I wanted to go home! I felt left out, scared, and comfortless. I know Mama thought I was too young to attend a funeral, but I didn’t even get to say goodbye to Daddy. That made me angry and hurt my feelings at the same time. I felt betrayed and abandoned, not only by my father but also by the rest of my family. Mama came to get me from Aunt Muriel’s and we walked home together. The house was quiet and sad-- a stark contrast to the chaos of Daddy’s last night at home full of firemen, noise, and equipment. An odd emptiness greeted me like an invisible whirlwind that sucked away happiness and joy, leaving uncertainty and fear for the future.Two new white wicker fern boxes flanked the fireplace hearth. They were filled with Boston ferns and looked out of place in our living room. I found out they had been filled with funeral flowers sent by the Army Ordinance office where Daddy had worked during the war. As Mama walked by them, she ran her fingertips over the white braided wood. She stopped and stood with her hand still on the planter. She looked lost. I turned away so Mama wouldn’t know I’d seen the tears in her eyes. I’m not sure why that was important, but it was.
“We’ll be okay.” Mama murmured more to herself than to me. “Okay. Shall we make some supper?” She turned toward the kitchen and a task she could do without too much thought.
The three of us ate dinner that night sitting around the kitchen table instead of in the dining room. I wasn’t feeling good so Mama put me to bed early. The next thing I knew, I was awake and it was very dark in my room. I’d been crying in my sleep and woke with a feeling something bad was hiding in the shadowy corners of my room or just outside my door. I tried to lie very still and I tried to breathe shallowly, so that if Evil came to get me, it would think I was dead and leave. This became my nightly pattern and I dreaded going to bed. Mama turned on a small table lamp in the hall after tucking me in each night, but I still cried myself to sleep. I didn’t tell anybody about that or about the Evil that had come to live with us.
Mama didn’t mention Daddy at all the day I came home, or for several weeks afterward. But I knew that she was thinking about him all the time, just like I did. Frank and I went back to school and our routine. Since I could remember, Mama had stayed home while Daddy went to the city to work. Now, she felt she needed to get a job and start a career. First she thought she’d sell insurance, so she went to school and took the state test for a license. But after a month or so working in an insurance office, she decided she hated it. I think she was continually reminded of Daddy and found it hard to convince people to pay for something only useful if they were dead. It only depressed her more.
Next, she tried real estate. She went to school for that license too, but after working at that for three or four months, she realized that she just wasn’t cut out for selling anything. Mama had a Bachelor’s degree in psychology from Washington University in St. Louis. After graduation, she had worked as a psychiatric social worker and in disaster relief for the American Red Cross. She’d been part of a firstresponse team during the floods of the 1920s in the Deep South. She loved that job, but had given it up to be wife and mother…rdquo;a typical path for women in the 1930s and 1940s. While she was trying to get a handle on what to do next, I was having a harder and harder time. I couldn’t adjust to the change. Daddy was gone and Mama was always worried and unhappy. I really missed our evening ritual, especially our ride up the driveway on the running board of Daddy’s green Packard.
Frank changed too. He had always been the quiet sort. He studied hard and was interested in sports, particularly basketball and tennis. But Frank had retreated completely and had simply stopped talking to me--and everyone else for that matter. As for me, I kept everything to myself and didn’t tell Mama how much I was hurting. I guess I was still angry with her.
Dinner time was especially hard. The silver candlesticks stayed on the table, but nobody lit them anymore for meals. Where we had always turned off the radio during supper, Mama left it on now and we listened to newscasts by Gabriel Heater, H.G. one of the newsmen saying, “Good evening Mr. and Mrs. America and all the ships at sea.” I wondered how the ships could hear anything out on the ocean. Who were they, and what exactly were they doing out there? Adults rarely think about explaining such things to children.
It was Sunday afternoon and Mama called Frank and me into the living room. “I’ve decided that I am going to become a teacher,” she began. “But that means that we’ll need to make some changes. I’ll have to go back to school for a year or so to get my teaching certificate. And while your father provided well for us, we may not be able to afford to do some of the things I’d hope to do.” Mama stopped talking and looked down at her left hand resting on the edge of the fern box. “So, I’ve asked Mother and Father to come over this afternoon. Before they arrive, though, I’d like to ask you both how you’d feel if I asked them to move out of their apartment and share our home with us.” Mama looked first at Frank and then at me, waiting for a response.
“Mama?” I asked. “Would Grandpa and Grandma live here all the time?” Mama smiled at me and nodded. “Yes, sweetie pie…rdquo;except for the time they visit Aunt Lois in Tucson. But that’ll only be during the winter when it’s too cold here.” I was a little confused. If St. Louis was too cold for Grandpa and Grandma, why wasn’t it too cold for me?
“But whose room will they sleep in, Mama?” I asked. Maybe I was being pretty selfish, but I was worried I’d lose my room with its window seat and my beautiful bird’s-eye maple furniture.
“We’ll have to work that out, if and when the time comes. I haven’t even asked them yet,” Mama said. “We have four bedrooms, so there’s one available for them. But it’s important for me to know how you and your brother feel about your grandparents living with us.”
“I think it would be super duper, Mama,” I bubbled happily. My grandpa was one of my favorite people. He always had time for me and he told me funny stories about when he was little. He’d start them with, “Well, when I was a little girl…” Then I’d start to giggle. I knew he was pulling my leg; he’d never been a girl. He was a boy, for heaven’s sake! “Frank?” Mama waited. My brother stood up, walked to the window, and looked out at the redbud tree ablaze with crimson blossoms. He hesitated for a few seconds and said, “I guess it’d be alright.” But I could tell he wasn’t as happy about the prospect as I was.
“Frank?” Mama spoke very softly. “What’s wrong?” My big brother whirled on his feet to face us. His hands were clenched into fists at his sides and his face was all screwed up. He looked like he was going to explode.
“Wrong? What could possibly be wrong, Mama?” he yelled. “Everything’s just peachy!” Each word of his outburst cut through the air like a meat cleaver…chop, chop, and chop…rdquo; hacking away at the family’s heartache. Mama stood silently, her knuckles whitening from her grip on the fern box. The house held its breath while we fought to recover from the blows struck.
“Mama? I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean...” Frank’s voice was raw, barely a whisper.
“It’s alright, Frank. Everything will be alright.” Mama gathered both of us into her arms. Tears rolled down her cheeks. “I know it’s not fair. I know. But things will be okay. Give it some time. Just give us some time.”
It’s interesting how major decisions that affect the rest of your life are made at the table where you eat. That afternoon, my grandparents arrived and Mama had a long talk with them in the dining room. A time schedule and basic ground rules were laid out for everyone. Mama felt she needed rules so there’d be no question later about who’d decide what was best for us as a family. It had to be pretty hard on Mama, but also on my grandparents. If they moved in with us, they’d have to let go of all major decision making. They had strong personalities and I’m sure that relinquishing authority was hard.
The situation couldn’t have been any easier for Mama. She was making the rules, but they were her parents, after all. And she had always been a respectful, dutiful daughter. Shortly after that, Grandma and Grandpa moved into our house on Sweetbriar Lane. My grandmother taught me girlie things: how to do embroidery, how to hem a garment with stitches so tiny they’re almost invisible, how to make lemon meringue pie, and how to rice potatoes so they’d whip nice and smooth. My grandpa taught me boy things: how to catch and throw a softball, how to parallel park the old Mercury, how to putt and read a golf green, and how to hunt…rdquo;though we mostly walked in the woods and shot tin cans off fence posts. Mama got her state certificate and started teaching school at Manchester Elementary. Family life took on a different routine, a new rhythm, and rough times started to smooth out for all of us.
Soon after my grandparents moved in, the fern boxes disappeared. I was happy when they were gone and Mama didn’t have to touch them as she moved through the living room. I hated those white wicker reminders of what had been lost. I was more than happy to replace them with my grandparents who made me feel safe and enriched my lifeenormously.
Looking back now, I am amazed at how truly brave Mama was during this terrible, bittersweet period in our lives. And the most important thing I discovered at that time became the center point of my life: family is everything.
This paper was written for English 204. The assignment was a personal essay/memoir.