Month: May 2024

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Memorial Day

 

 

Before Memorial Day became  known as “The Day The Pools Open” it was called Decoration Day. It was a day to decorate soldiers’ graves in honor of their memory. In my small town, families decorated the graves of loved ones in the local cemetery, whether they were soldiers or not. I loved going to the cemetery with my mother and grandmother on Memorial Day to plant flowers on the Hunt family graves.

I’ve always liked going to cemeteries. They are never spooky or depressing. Being from a small town, I knew most of the family names at St. Mary’s Cemetery in North St. Paul.. They were the names of my classmates at St. Peter School. Schmidt…Roy…Luger…Olson …Scanlon … Knospe. They were all there. Some of my classmates were there on Memorial Day, too, planting flowers just like we did.

I don’t remember what kind of flowers my mother planted every year. I don’t remember if she planted the same thing or not. I think they were probably small and easy to grow. Maybe zinnias or marigolds?

Mostly I remember there was a small grave next to the Hunt family plot. It was smaller than the other graves and was always decorated with yellow pansies. Every year my mother would tell the same story. The grave belonged to a little boy who died before he was old enough to go to school. His mother and grandmother came every year and surrounded the grave in yellow flowers because it was his favorite color. It was the most beautiful grave I’ve ever seen.

As I got older, and learned to ride a bike, I often rode through the cemetery in the evening, after dinner. It was a quiet, friendly place, near Silver Lake. Later, after I moved to Denver, my grandmother was also buried in st. Mary’s Cemetery, next to her husband and her son, my mother’s brother, Frank, who died when he was thirteen. I haven’t been back to St. Mary’s Cemetery in a very long time. I wonder if anyone still plants flowers there on Memorial Day?

Now both of my parents are buried at Fort Snelling military cemetery. It is an especially beautiful place on Memorial Day. There are flags on every tombstone to honor the soldiers and their spouses.

My father was proud of his service in the Navy during World War II. He wanted to be buried at Fort Snelling and six years ago my mother was buried there alongside him.

There is something very solemn about Memorial Day. Yes, it is the day the pools open. But It is also a day for remembering.

After planting flowers on Memorial Day, we would have a picnic in our back yard  ~ the first picnic of the summer.  The menu wasn’t fancy and it was always the same: hot dogs, potato salad, chips, beer and soft drinks. At the end of the day, my Dad would take out his trumpet, stand in the front yard and play Taps. It was a signal that it was time for bed. Summer had started.

TAPS: Gone the sun, from the hills, from the lake, from the skies.

All is well. Safely rest. God is nigh.

 

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Graduation

Connor, the oldest of my three grandsons, graduated from the University of Colorado this week. His older sisters graduated years ago. I didn’t attend their graduations because they were out of state. I didn’t want to miss this one.

Connor is a young man with many talents. He’s a journalism major, who wrote a book in fourth grade. He has a beautiful singing voice and plays guitar. He and his roommate throw big parties and invite the whole neighborhood. But mostly, he is a sweet, kind, thoughtful young man who makes me smile when I remember the past twenty-two years with him.

When Connor was two years, I picked him up from daycare every Thursday. We came to my house, sat in the rocking chair and watched Monsters, Inc.  together. Connor knew every word of the movie. At the end, when Sulley sings, “You’ve got a friend in me,” Connor jumped off my lap, threw his hands in the air and sang along. Even then, he had the voice of an angel. It was pure magic.

Sometimes I think Sulley shaped Connor’s character more than I did. This is the official description of James P. Sullivan:

“Humble and caring, Sulley is extremely modest. And in spite of his utmost devotion (to his friends), his moral standards remain more important to him than anything; he is willing to sacrifice his personal gains for what he feels is right.”

This is Connor! But he’s much better looking.

This week Connor graduated with a bachelor of science degree, with a special interest in sports journalism. He plans to stay in Boulder for a year, while he looks for a job in his field. My darling boy is all grown up.

As Connor prepares for the world ahead, I am reminded of Sulley’s song, written by Randy Newman. It was our song, too.

“When the road looks rough ahead and you’re miles and miles from your nice warm bed, you just remember what your old pal said:  Boy, you’ve got a friend in me. Yeah, you’ve got a friend in me.

“If you’ve got troubles, I’ve got ’em too. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you. We stick together and see it through, cause you’ve got a friend in me. Yes, you’ve got a friend in me.

“And as the years go by our friendship will never die. You’re gonna see it’s our destiny. You’ve got a friend in me!”

I love you, sweet man! I always will!

Grandma Lynda

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Loca

Ernesto has two daughters by Loca, a woman from his neighborhood. He is adamant that he didn’t like Loca and never married her, but he has always loved his daughters. He calls them Princesa and Reina. In this essay, I call them Uno and Dos.

Loca’s mother owned the house that Neto and Loca rented when the girls were young. Most mornings, Loca’s mother would put her fat head in his bedroom window and yell, “Get up you good-for-nothing lazy ass.” When I first met Ernesto, he was working nights as a security guard at a parking lot. He had often just returned home from working overnight when his landlady appeared at his window.

The first year Neto worked for me, he was excited  about Christmas. He saved $700 from his paychecks to buy gifts for Uno and Dos, who were six and ten years old. It was the first time he had money to spend for gifts. He bought bicycles and art supplies. The girls were delighted when they saw their gifts on Christmas night. They called him Papí and gave him hugs and kisses.  After he put the girls to bed, he came back to the living room and Loca threw him out of the house. She told him never to return. He was too embarrassed to tell me or his mother what had happened, so he went to sleep on the beach. The girls woke up  the day after Christmas Day and he was gone.

When Neto came to work for me the next day, I asked him, “How was your Christmas?”

“It was nice,” he told me. “The girls really liked their gifts.”

Neto spent the next nine months sleeping in the sand. He slept on the beach until he moved into my house the following September.

Loca tormented me the entire time I lived in Mazatlán. She didn’t want Neto to live with her and the girls, but she didn’t want him at my house, either. Eventually, she chased me out of Mexico. She was not the only reason I left, of course, but she was one of the main ones.

Loca’s weapon was the telephone. She called my house at all hours, wanting to speak to Neto. If I answered the phone, she hung up and immediately called back. One night, when Neto was at his AA meeting, she called sixty-three times in a row. It was a landline so I could get calls from the U.S. After that, I unplugged the phone and only plugged it in when Neto was home.

Loca knew that Neto was devoted to his daughters, especially Dos. She would call late at night with alarming news:

“Dos has been raped. You need to meet me at the hospital.”

“Dos is choking. You need to take us to the hospital.”

“The girls have run away. You need to help me look for them.”

Neto would jump on his bicycle and fly out of the house. Of course, all of these were false alarms, but what father would take a chance? Certainly not Neto.

The five years I lived in Mexico, I noticed that the girls wore clothes that were dirty, torn and wrong for the season. They didn’t do well in school. Uno failed two grades in elementary school and didn’t move on to middle school until she was thirteen years old. Neto tried to get custody of the girls but was denied by a judge, who was bribed by Loca’s mother.

One day, I heard someone pounding on my front door. I opened the door and saw an armored truck full of police carrying automatic weapons.

“We have reports that you have kidnapped this woman’s children,” said a policewoman, who spoke English. “Where are they?”

“I did not kidnap them! They are not here,” I answered.

Loca was standing next to two policemen. She was speaking in agitated Spanish. I lost it. I started screaming in a mixture of English and tortured Spanish. “This woman is crazy! Because of her, I’m leaving Mexico and never coming back.”

“Please don’t leave,” the policewoman said. “We believe you. But we had to check this out.”

I left Mexico in 2010 and Neto went back to living at his mother’s house. They girls visited him every Sunday, asking for money and food.

Follow-up:

Uno is now 28 years old. She has a son and a daughter, by a man from the neighborhood. He is a known drug-dealer and is often in rehab. Uno lives with her mother-in-law and works full-time. She calls Neto about once/week.

Dos is 24 years old. She has two daughters. She lives with a man who is an Uber driver and she calls Neto only when the Uber car breaks down. She seldom calls, unless I am visiting. Then she calls relentlessly, just as her mother did years ago.

The parish priest recently came hurrying down the street to find Neto. A band a neighbors were close behind.

“Neto, you have to do something with Loca.”

“Why? What is she doing?”

She is standing outside my church, yelling, “The Virgin Mary is a whore!”

“Call the police,” Neto told them. “I’ve never been able to do anything with that woman. She’s Loca!”