The Swing

Ellen stood at the back door and looked at the swing. The strong autumn breeze pushed it back and forth and she imagined she could hear the children's laughter: Hal Jr.'s loud bellows and Anna’s soft giggles. Hal had put the swing there for them and then hopefully for their children. He didn’t live to see any of them grow up.

Cancer claimed him finally on a night much like this one some fifteen years ago. Ellen had opened their bedroom window so he could feel the crisp fall air across his wasted face. He’d asked whether she thought Mother Nature’s paintbrush had worked her magic again and she, looking out at the oranges and reds of the maple tree, agreed that indeed the paint brush had been especially masterful.

For about an hour that evening they’d talked, until he felt parched and wanted a glass of water.

“But before you go,” he’d said, in a voice that was like a whisper on the wind, “promise me that after I’m gone, you won’t let that swing sit idle. If you ever want to talk to me, just go to the swing.” She’d nodded and drew herself up into a tight ball inside.

She knew he was saying goodbye and she could not bear it. Deep in her heart she knew that when she returned to the room, he would be gone, soaring to heights the swing would never reach.

Without looking back or calling out to him, she took off her apron and walked into the yard. She sat on the swing and moved as if her beloved were sitting with her as always. Anyone looking that night would have thought her mad, with her dress flapping, deep rivers of tears flowing from her eyes.

For fifteen years she’d gotten used to being a widow, making a life out of what remained. She raised the children, saw them through college. She celebrated their birthdays, weddings and rejoiced in the births of her grandchildren.

With each new development whether major celebrations like these or minor occasions liked the scraped knees, PTA meetings or getting herself a job - she made a pilgrimage to the backyard and settled onto the swing. This is where she felt closest to Hal. It didn’t matter how good or bad the weather, she talked to him right there.

Tonight was no different.

Ellen had decided to remarry. A chance meeting at her high school reunion had led her to John a man she had barely known in their senior year. She remembered him as a gawky boy with bad skin and big glasses. A widower, he’d grown into a tall, handsome man who wore contacts.

At the reunion, he’d asked her out to dinner at the new French restaurant where they talked for almost until closing. She had no idea how he felt but she knew she’d felt such giddiness only once before in her whole life and with only one man. She had never allowed herself to think it could happen again.

That dinner led to other happy dates and eventually getting married seemed like the only thing to do. Happily she would be leaving the house that had grown so large and ill fitting around her. Sadly she would be leaving behind her beloved swing.


II

Helen knew deep inside that the swing had been only a means to think through her problems; that Hal was no more there than anyplace else on earth except, of course, in her heart. But she also knew that because of his final advice, the swing had given her time to shake off some of the sadness and seriousness of her widowed life. It had allowed her many moments of happiness. Because of the swing she had been able to put her life back together after Hal’s death. And now that she was leaving, Ellen tried to think of all the ways she could possibly thank Hal.

When finally it was time to go, Ellen took one last look around the house and then walked out to her special spot. She stayed so long that Charles had to go out and see about his wife who was fiddling with the swing. He took her hand and they made their way to the car. When they drove away, they looked only forward. Ellen hoped the house would not be empty long.


III

Not long after, the new family moved in. While eating dinner, the little boy pointed to something glittering in the yard. Curious his parents put down their forks, picked up the little boy, ventured out to where the swing was moving, as if pushed by unseen hands. There they spotted, on the seat back of the swing, the source of the shine: A golden engraved plaque which read:


There isn’t any problem
there isn’t any thing,
that can’t be thought out
back and forth
from right here on this swing!

With Love and Peace from Ellen and Hal
To You and Yours 2008


They placed the little boy on the swing and sat on either side of him. They began to swing, slowly, gently: The mother supporting the boy to prevent a fall, the father's arm stretched around both of them.

And although they didn’t know it at the time, a lifetime of thinking was ahead of them... And it would all happen right there under the maple tree, right there on the swing.

When the boy's little baby teeth formed a smile and his laughter filled the air like balloons racing across the sky, they knew for sure that this house had already become home.

###

Written by Pamela Tyree Griffin
Photograph by Kristine Beebe

Fifth Session

Some days it's almost ok. Some days I manage to get up and get going. I finally went back to work after three months extended leave and it was good to get back except - except people kept acting like nothing happened. Like someone pulled them all into a room and told them to pick up where they left off. From before I got the news.

But you don't have to hear about that again. Me? I'd rather talk about the laundry.

You see I washed clothes yesterday - I've put off doing Jim's until about a month ago. And even then I would only wash a thing or two. I mean I'd do a bunch of clothes for the kids and me and maybe wash one of Jim's socks-just one. One Sock. Crazy huh? Well of course you wouldn't say I was - even if you thought so.

I've been keeping all his dirty clothes in the basket my Aunt Della gave us for our wedding. That rose garden is beautiful...when I first started coming here everything was covered with snow...did you plant it?

Oh yes the basket. She made it just for us. Has our names woven into it - a red heart with our names, also in red, woven right into it like it was bleeding. Jim said it was her subliminal way of pointing out her distaste for our liberal attitudes. Aunt Della is a card carrying, Bible toting, from the womb conservative Republican.

We thought that basket was so damned ugly that we used it to hold rolls of toilet paper and cleaning stuff in the downstairs bathroom! Whenever Aunt Della visited us, we pulled it out, put a bunch of magazines in it and put in the living room like we used it all the time. God we used to laugh about that. Oh boy, I think I'll take you up on that offer of another tissue now. Thanks.

I know - I know... Where was I?

Yes. Well yesterday when I did the clothes I realized that the basket was empty. Empty. I was frantic - why didn't I notice it was empty? I was so upset; I cried most of the day. The kids were with my mother so they didn't see me.

As long as Jim's clothes were in that basket, could smell him. I could feel where he'd been-even in his old smelly socks. Some nights I dumped the whole pile of clothes in bed with me and covered myself in them. Cover myself in Jim.

And now the last piece is gone. No ceremony, no notice on my part.

The fact that I hadn't noticed is worse than finishing the last of his clothes. All of him is gone; all of what he smells like, gone.

And I didn't even notice...

###

Story by Pamela Tyree Griffin
Photography by Inga Galkinaite

Nearest Living Relative

I am the Nearest Living Relative.

A nasal toned woman on the other end of the phone informs me of this. My uncle George, whom I never knew because he died before I was born, left behind a wife I can’t remember. Why the hell did I break my rule about not answering the phone once vacation starts?

This woman tells me that my “Aunt Gladys” was discovered by neighbors at four in the morning, as she paraded down her driveway buck naked and singing the Battle Hymn of the Republic. When approached, she mooned them; a vision given that she is 72 years old.

Social Services has conducted a full investigation, whatever that means, and I have been found. At 35 years old, an unmarried, childless, professional, I have only recently found myself.

“When,” she demands, “will you get here?” It seems that Gladys has to go into a nursing home. I need to sign something which can't be simply faxed.

I try to diminish my involvement in this situation though nothing works. My parents and their parents are dead. Neither I, nor they, have any siblings of which I am aware. My only other relation, my Uncle Sal, is in a Wisconsin (or is it Idaho?) nursing home sustained by his own excellent financial preplanning. I haven’t seen him since dad’s funeral years ago. He was in a wheelchair then.

Later, I search the photo album I inherited after my dad died. In it, I finally find three black and white pictures glued to a musty page. At the bottom of the page is one word: “Gladys”. Then I remember.

Each picture shows a svelte, smiling woman with a hand on her hip. She wears an obscenely (mom's word not mine) short white dress emblazoned with sunflowers. Her blond hair is piled on the top of her head like spiked cotton candy with a cigarette hanging from the corner of her mouth. In one she’s dancing in our kitchen with a mop.

The pictures were taken when I was about eight or maybe ten. Gladys came late, dressed in an obscenely (mom's word not mine) short white dress emblazoned with sunflowers.

She called me “kid” instead of Lisa. I guess calling, “Hey Kid!” was easier than remembering my name. “Hey Kid! What grade are you in?” or “Hey Kid! Like hamburgers?” or "Hey Kid! Come sit by me and let me tell you all about men!" Except for my mother calling her a pistol, nothing else shakes loose from my mind. This is the sum of what I know about Gladys. Such as it is, it brings an involuntary smile.

However reluctantly, I don the mantle of the Nearest Living Relative, cancel my singles cruise and drive the almost 300 miles south to Virginia.

I don't have a problem finding the hospital since it's on the main drag. Actually, there is not much else except the hospital. I slowly walk down its linoleum floors thinking I should be walking down a beach in Jamaica. A white haired and wobbly security guard tells me to follow the yellow stripe on the floor. It eventually leads me to the sunroom where the Alzheimer’s patients spend the day.

I open the door and immediately hear a raspy, “Hey Kid!” coming from a small lady in a wheelchair. Her hair, now white, looks much less styled by Albert Einstein than I remember it. She is composed. She is looking at me when she again says, “Hey Kid!” I can’t believe it. Could it be that Gladys remembers me?

I go across the room and sit by her, taking one of her liver spotted hands in mine. Her fingernails are painted a stunning red. She is the thin woman in the pictures. She has a lot of wrinkles now and the right side of her face is slack-maybe from a stroke, but it’s her.

I don’t know why but thoughts pour out as if from an overturned pitcher. I imagine that, since it’s clear that she remembers me, we might have a chance here. I project us to my small house for our own celebrations. Scenarios abound of us sitting on the front porch sipping tea or something stronger, going for walks and the like. I’m lost in this sort of revisionist future when the door opens and a nurse enters the room.

And that’s when Gladys yells, “Hey kid!” and I see that she is no longer even looking at me but is totally and absolutely focused on the nurse.

To every single person who enters (including her Nearest Living Relative a few moments before) she calls out the salutation that has carried her this far, this many years: “Hey Kid!”

I watch each recipient smile at the greeting, wondering what they think, and knowing what I know.

###

Written by Pamela Tyree Griffin
Photograph by Blake Campbell

Nametag

Nametag:
"Hi My Name is Delia and I'm Twelve Years Old"

Nobody wants the big ones.
They say different but it's all a lie.
The younger, the better, is what their eyes say.
Eyes don't lie.
The cutoff point starts around five-
then your options decrease.
From the display, the little ones are chosen.
Carefully selected
and are more often than not
taken away
to live lives of
happiness presumed.
We big ones
are returned to wait
for the next time.
to hope
and hope
we'll be
the exception to the rule.

###

Poem by Pamela Tyree Griffin

Photograph by Charlie Balch

Sleeping Beauty

Today you brought me roses
and whispered in my ear,
just how much you love me
as you wiped away a tear.

Now in the dimming light of evening,
I look into your eyes;
lose myself in all your sweetness
which is your disguise.

If someone saw you sleeping
they would not believe
your capacity for cruelty;
your ability to deceive.

At work they think I'm clumsy.
My lies become an art.
I explain the bruises visible
And hide the ones that stain my heart.

###

Poem by Pamela Tyree Griffin

Graphic by Guenter M. Kirchweger

(October is Domestic Violence Awareness month. Link-->Domestic Violence Awareness Month - National Coalition Against Domestic Violence I wrote this poem to honor those who have suffered abuse at the hands of a loved one or significant other...)

For Those Who Love A Writer

I was happy to be alone
writing in my solitary fashion.
Pen in hand, ideas boiling
from my head, rolling out of
my pen.

I was able to sit in my quiet places
never exchanging many words with you.
I was unafraid of sitting only
with my self
and my ideas.

Your present absence

made it easy.

For years I lived life
on a stack of pages
while you existed,
a nebulous, unseen someone
on the periphery of me.

Now you are gone;
tired of living alone,

I suppose you were

unamused by the muse
of a woman writing,

always writing.

And for the first time

I am afraid of the dark
and
my own company

###
Poem by Pamela Tyree Griffin

When Aunt Agnes Came To Stay

Aunt Agnes came to stay with us when Mamma went into the hospital to have some of her inner workings adjusted, as Daddy said. Aunt Agnes had spent most of her life in the Army where she earned many awards for her skills.

She was an excellent markswoman. My Uncle Ernest still limps from the bullett stuck in his behind. It got stuck there when she found him in a compromising position with the neighbor lady. Aunt Agnes aimed and fired as he ran down the street and got him in one shot.

She could play the piano better than Elton John and Little Richard put together. She complained that she was slowing down even though she could still run the 50 yard dash in 7.5 seconds at close to 53 years old. Amazing indeed given her habit of chain smoking!

It was obvious to us early on however, that if they gave a medal for cooking, she would never win. A medal for eating her food maybe, but cooking? Not a chance.

As Mamma said, “Bless her heart but your Aunt Agnes, an apron, lard and fire are nothing to be messed with.” In fact, if we saw any combination of these items, Daddy told us we should run. Daddy's saying that Aunt Agnes had no idea what constituted edible victuals always drew a quick smile from Mamma.

Before Aunt Agnes arrived, Daddy made me and my sister thoroughly clean the house.

We scrubbed the floors until they shone; even the raggedy linoleum in the kitchen was buffed to perfection. We cleaned the pots and pans until we could see our harried reflections on their bottoms. We flipped a coin to see who would have to stick her hands into the toilet and I lost. We swept the front porch, weeded Mamma's precious flower beds and we washed the windows until they sparkled.

Daddy looked the house over and satisfied that we’d done a great job, gave us each a crisp five dollar bill for our efforts.

Then Aunt Agnes blew in through the front door with her various baskets, bags and suitcases one of which held her cleaning ingredients. The first thing out of her mouth was, “Stanley you done let my sister’s house go straight to Hell. Where are the girls? We gonna clean up this place.”

Out of one bag she pulled what Daddy called her damnable cauldron. From the depths of it she pulled jars, bottles, cans of potions and elixirs the combined smells of which made us woozy. And finally, from a straw basket lined in wax paper she grabbed a clump of chicken feet and potatoes each one with with more eyes that a common house fly.

“Girls, get your mother's lard out. I’m gonna’ fry us up a mess of these chicken feet and taters while we clean this house. Proper like.” She added that last bit just to antagonize Daddy who by now was hiding behind his newspaper and cramming his last supper of three hot dogs into his mouth.

And so the torture began. And running was out of the question.

###

Story by Pamela Tyree Griffin

Photo by Preben Hansen

"MOSES"

Moses just HAS to answer the door himself, oxygen tank and all. His wife is in a back bedroom likely shaking her head. She never comes to the door and so I have learned to wait for as long as it takes.

I'm used to waiting. Moses is my friend though we've met solely due to his infirmity. I'm a volunteer at the "Peaceful Bridge" Hospice.

After about ten minutes, the door opens. There he stands smiling in his toothless, glad to see me fashion. Our visit may last ten minutes or it may last all afternoon. Moses, a man dying, decides.

Today is a good day because he has taken out his weathered deck of cards saying. "Girl you ready to get beat?"

"Yeah right," is my reply.

"By my calculations," he wheezes, “you owe me close to $222,000. Lucky for you I'll be long gone before you can pay!"

We laugh. He's not uneasy about his cancer and never has been. When I first met him, he told me that I shouldn't worry about him-that everybody dies just not everybody knows when. In fact, he's lasted longer than predicted. One more month he'll have to be removed from Hospice. If you haven't passed away in six months - you gotta' go.

Moses sits on his recliner with a colorful assortment of pillows supporting his back. He's got to rest a minute. He's a big man although not as big as he used to be, judging by the pictures around the room. I don't know if he has some dentures lying around somewhere which don't fit his shrinking gums. In his pictures he's a big, teddy bear of a man with arms like logs and a wide white grin.

Moses has a little multi purpose folding tray in front of him. The tray does a bunch things: holds his food and medicines, his tv guide and sometimes his comb and brush. Once I came here and he had one swollen, dry foot up on the tray.

Now though, everything is cleared except the single picture of him, his wife Pearl and their baby.It's a studio portrait. It's never far from sight. Moses looks to be in his twenties wearing a seersucker suit. Pearl, who seems to be using all of her strength to hold the baby, is a handsome woman. Her straw hat partially hides her face but her eyes are shining.That's the closest I've come to seeing Pearl. When I visit she is either out or in one the back bedrooms. She has never once opened the door. If I want anything, I get it myself. Not that I mind- it's just that I feel like an intruder, a trespasser in their domain.

"She thinks you is death itself girl," Moses said to me once. “Like seein' you is bad luck or something!" I have never seen their son either.

Rested, Moses shuffles his cards so we can play 21. I think the deck is fixed because I've never once won and he always insists on dealing.We play for an hour or two. Throughout Moses likes to watch videos, usually westerns starring Jack Palance or John Wayne. He's already won several hands and is finally tired of playing with a "fool girl like me".

Usually he falls asleep right about now and I leave.Today though, he's wide awake and is standing. "You wait here while I make a deposit, girl." The first time he said this to me I thought he was going to the bank. In reality he was going to the bathroom but just didn't want to say it.The toilet flushes, the door opens and then there is that horrible crash.

I'm not supposed to lift Moses, instead I put a pillow under his head and call 911. He's breathing okay and talking fine-making perfect sense. In his ramblings he tells me about Little Moe, who I thought was a grown man somewhere.

As it turns out, his baby son died the same day the portrait was made. As they left the studio, he broke free of his mother's hand and ran ahead of his parents on his fast three year old legs towards God knows what. He tumbled off the sidewalk and landed under the wheels of an old, blue Caddy, which mashed his head. Pearl has not spoken one word since that day. Not one.

My friend Moses died during the night in the hospital.Some weeks later I received a box in the mail. The return address label said Pearl and Moses Dawn. I didn't open it right away, preferring to look at the name Moses Dawn for a while.

When I finally did open the package, I found wrapped in tissue paper, Moses's deck of cards and his favorite picture of his little family. No note. Nothing. Pearl had decided to speak to me after all.

Moses would have liked that.

###

Story by Pamela Tyree Griffin

Photo by Agata Urbaniak

"Promise Kept"

(Inspired by and written for FH)

I console my friend’s husband today;
words escape me-don’t know what to say.
For how do you talk about the life
Of his one and only - his friend-his wife?

We surrounded her that last day in her hospital room-
we four high school friends and her anxious “groom.”
I remember she asked us with her usual zest-
“Why are you crying? It’s only a breast.”

When the nurse came in to usher us out,
“What a load of crap!” we heard our friend shout.
But then she beckoned me back to the room
and she whispered, “I think I may be leaving here soon.”

Then weakly she pointed toward the hall, out to him.
“Just in case I don’t wake up-please take care of Jim.”
I dismissed her words most prophetic.
Lost in my fear, I was unsympathetic.

Now with my head bent and my shoulders shaking
and with my tears falling and with my heart quaking
torn as I am with grief of my own-
I rise to console the one so alone.

I have no idea what I should say or do
to help our friend’s Jim - to bring him through
a grief so strong-so horribly profound
that for now I can say nothing – I can’t make a sound.

That way I won’t rail out against mighty Death
who audaciously has stolen my friend’s final breath.
For now I’ll just put my hand on the shoulder
Of this broken soul- the loving foot soldier.

I console my friend’s husband today;
words escape me-don’t know what to say.
So I’ll just let him talk about the life
Of the someone we loved deeply-our friend-his wife.

###

Poem by Pamela Tyree Griffin

Art by Jixue Yang

Gladys had a face like a patchwork quilt. When people first saw her they recoiled although they tried to hide it. Children cried. Teenagers made fun. Her own daughter Phoebe though,now a teenager herself, was as beautiful as sunshine. She'd never said hurtful teenage things. At least in Phoebe’s eyes, her mother was beautiful.

Gladys had been married to Phoebe’s father and there were some good times. One day however, she returned from work to find him sitting on the couch with Phoebe in his arms. His belongings were packed in suitcases lined by the door like soldiers going off to war.

"You just don't get it, " he said. "What man could reasonably be expected to wake up to a woman who looked like... that?"

And Gladys, who did want to be reasonable, snatcheed Phoebe away from him and said, " Just get out!". And that was the end like the last sentence of a very sad book wherein for better or worse held no meaning.

Still she had her Phoebe. The little girl who had always come running into her mother’s arms and given her kisses, who was ever so helpful and kind seemed to have grown up overnight. Often Phooebe said, Gladys was just fine, “Just the way you are!” It got so that Gladys believed it was true.

And she went on with her life.

Few people remembered that Gladys had not always looked this way. She had been born with a soft complexion and noble features. Those who attended her small wedding thought her radiant- a handsome woman.

One day though,when Phoebe was just a few months old,the kitchen caught fire. It raged into the living room where Gladys napped. She woke up just in time to see it surge toward the baby’s room.

She lurched from the couch, through the angry flames and into the nursery. Grabbing her sleeping baby and holding her close to her chest, Gladys tried to get the window open. It was stuck. She had no choice but to return the way she’d come - through the same flames which licked and snapped at her arms and face.

She’d saved them both. The baby, the beautiful unscarred baby, never knew the story.

And tonight, as Gladys goes to tell Phoebe goodnight and sweet dreams, she hears her daughter giggling on the phone. She doesn't interrupt her, understanding her daughter's need for privacy.

Then, “PALEEEZE! Who TOLD you that? You know I’m adopted.”

###

Story by Pamela Tyree Griffin

Photograph by Bazil Raubach