The continuity of dots...

“A good many family trees are shady…”

- Gonazles, R.E.

Poems and Paragraphs

It wasn’t the first time.  In fact, over the years, it was not a frequent experience, but surely not uncommon.

The first time was one of those unexpected, unguarded moments.  You know the kind…you are just taking a little time to spend with family…someone you love.

The first time was at the movies…

A little background

To say she was a precocious child would be an understatement.  My sister Nancy had come to Missouri and brought the little creature along with her.  Actually, Mariah had little choice, because she was still ‘…in the oven…’ when she arrived – sight unseen – a mystery yet to be revealed.  It wasn’t long, however, before she presented herself to the planet, slipped into consciousness, began her journey and became a part of our family.  We don’t have children, so this little one found herself, unwittingly filling the bill. 

That girl seemed to have a pot of glue in her brain where it seemed almost everything she saw or heard stuck!  A little under the age of three, she gave me a card.  I don’t remember what was on it, but I put it on the side of my filing cabinet where only I could see it.  A year or so later she asked me about that card and wondered if she might have it back.  Before the age of 10, she heard the musical Les Miserables and memorized all of the songs.  “I mean,” she would later say, “who could NOT know the words to that music!”…as if…as if everyone who heard them must know them.  Yes, she was surely different. 

The first time

It was November 1991; the movie had just been released – Beauty and the Beast.  Mariah, was seven at the time and wanted to see the film.  So we made a date to spend the evening with Belle…she was so pretty – Gaston…what an oaf! – Mrs. Potts…just bubbly – Lumier…a character, if there ever was one – and all the others from that wonderful film. 

We laughed and from time to time, occasionally whispered about some of the characters – but mostly we just allowed ourselves to be captured by the ‘evening’s ride’ for which we had purchased two one-way tickets. 

There were a couple scary places when we looked down…you know just to be safe, and of course we weren’t really sure whether Belle and the Beast were going to fall in love…but then the magic happened.  Belle asked the beast if he would like to dance.  He said he couldn’t, but Mrs. Potts – ever the matchmaker – said, “Dance with her…” and in the most lyrical voice that sounded amazingly like Angela Lansbury, Mrs. Potts began to sing these marvelous Howard Ashman lyrics:

“Tale as old as time 

true as it can be

Barely even friends 

then somebody bends

unexpectedly

Just a little change 

small to say the least

Both a little scared –

neither one prepared

Beauty and the Beast”

And then real magic happened.  As we sat in that darkened theater, I felt a little hand slip into mine.  There was another dance beginning and I found myself overwhelmed.  I glanced her way and saw tears streaming down her face – Belle and the Beast had indeed fallen in love…we were sharing the moment and she was touched.  I found difficult to see her in the dark…I found it difficult seeing her in the dark because tears were streaming down my face too.  Here we were at the ages of 7 and 44 overcome by the music, the characters, the storyline and most importantly this moment with each other.

Over the years I was amazed watching this little girl turn into a young woman, and then slip away from the home.  While I had the idea, never could I have expressed as thoughtfully as George MacDonald in The Baronet’s Song,  “…she was…a girl in whom childhood and womanhood had begun to interchange hues.  Happy they in whom neither had a final Victory!”  And so it is with Mariah in her 28^th year, neither childhood nor womanhood has taken complete victory. 

This time won’t be the last

And so today we found ourselves weeping together once again.  It wasn’t the theater or a film that tugged on the strings of our collective hearts – although there have been many films and theater experiences since “…the first time...”   It was a telephone call as we found ourselves separated by half a continent.  That’s the thing about the heart though isn’t it – time…distance, what do they really mean?

We found ourselves weeping together once again, this time about her mother.  It’s one thing for a sibling to realize there will be no golden years with a family member, no sitting on the porch telling stories, laughing at those embarrassing moments…remembering when…for her there is no longer a ‘…remember when…’

It is another thing for a daughter raised to serve others…a daughter instilled with an iron will…a daughter for whom justice really means something…a daughter in medical school learning that the sequence of disease followed by healing is not the way things often are…a daughter who feels the loss with a sense of current and impending impotence…a daughter who sees the withering away of her very best friend…for you see, there is nothing that can be done, nothing that can be said, nothing…..

We had been busy

So she was studying and I was writing, we had each been at it all day; both of us thinking about my sister and her mum…we needed to touch one another…we needed to reach out just to know we were there…we needed to share a moment of love and of sorrow…we needed to remind one another, once again, that family does matter – for better or worse, that love may not conquer all, but surely conquers much. 

In the darkened theater of life, this is one of the scary places where we looked down…you know…just to be safe...  But then the magic happened once again…we found each other’s hand for comfort and to remember the common bond we both so deeply shared…a quiet moment…a human connection…something we all understand, don’t we?

- ted