From Branch to Trunk

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I wrap my wet hair in a towel after my morning workout. I hear the door close and Scott’s quick steps. I ask why he is back an hour and a half after leaving for work. I notice watermarks on his tie. Later I know they were caused by teardrops. 

Scott: “Here she is, Dad.” 
He hands me the phone and stands close, his arm around me.

I hear my dad speak. 
Me: “What?”
He tries again.

I hear a solitary wail in the distance. 
The sound of grief.

I sink onto the bench at the foot of the bed, and only then do I discern the wail rose from a place within me. 

In the next moments, I understand two things. My mom is gone and I will forever reference my life as before and after. 

Scott and I drive an hour to be with my dad. I see a lady in the car next to us and think, “She is having a normal day,” while I feel my footing disintegrate. 

My dad, sister and brother-in-law meet us in the garage. We collapse into each other’s arms. I feel a bit of the weight lift. During the next 24 hours, my brothers and their families gather. I feel a little stronger. 

The deep loss and subsequent decisions are an initiation. With the death of my mom and the illness of my dad, I move down the family tree from branch to trunk. I feel my adulthood for the first time, even though I am the mother of five.

Everything is off. Nothing seems right. I pick up the phone to call her time and again. I listen to the last phone message she left over and over. I cry at random times. Maybe not on her birthday, but in the grocery aisle when I see butter pecan ice cream. 

Am I still a daughter?
Who will answer when I call out for Mom?
Who will remember my early childhood?

Who will tell the stories? 
Who will keep the rituals?
Who will welcome new family members?
Who will be the glue?

I walk a new path, void of familiar guideposts. I fumble for the torch. 

Gradually I see my parents have given me a gift that outlasts them. The gift of my siblings. 

The six of us were born in 9 years, two in each of the states we lived in. We shared teachers and coaches, piano music and baseball gloves, almond-shaped eyes and long fingers, DNA and history. 

Now our mom has been gone 12 years and we share the care of our father, who lives with Parkinson’s Disease. Across three time zones, we connect, complain, mourn, laugh, remember, discuss, decide, support and step up. It’s messy and imperfect. We move forward.

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My sister and I continue our mom’s tradition of tea parties with her granddaughters. We text each other pictures of us eating ice cream on her birthday.

Sometimes I see a gesture or hear a word from a brother or sister and I see or hear my mom or dad. They live through us.

At our family reunion last week, my brother and I made our dad’s hand-cranked ice cream. It’s a recipe he always adjusted according to taste. We had questions. My dad couldn’t answer. 

While the next generation used spoons to scrape ice cream from the dasher, we told stories about our mom. How she would eat a full dinner and then follow up with bowl after bowl of my dad’s ice cream. 

The next night my brother and I made carmelitas, a dessert my mom made for every gathering. You have to marry into the family to get the recipe. Last year my niece made them for the first time and called me with questions. 

I read a book whose author is an only child. She said friends often ask if they should add a second child to their family. She answers that the only child will love the undivided attention and resources of her parents. For the author, it was only when her parents grew older and needed care that she wished for the constancy of a brother or sister. Someone whose pain matched the intensity of her own. Someone who shared her memories and story. Someone who had always been there.

Our brothers and sisters are there with us from the dawn of our personal stories to the inevitable dusk.”

Susan Scarf Merrell

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When we are young, siblings help shape us. They can be both best friends and antagonists. But it may be during this stage of life that we feel their true worth. When we are the ones pulling. When the weight is heavy. When we carry memories and continue the tradition. 

Strong ties with their brothers and sisters. It’s one of the things I hope most for my children. And spouses and siblings who love each other. 

”Sibling relationships…outlast marriages, survive the death of parents, resurface after quarrels that would sink any friendship. They flourish in a thousand incarnations of closeness and distance, warmth, loyalty and distrust.”

Erica E. Good

I try to explain to my children, but it’s one of those things you learn with experience.