On Christmas morning I served cinnamon rolls and gave the gifts to him at the breakfast table. He opened them with polite surprise, then went to his study and came back with a small box that might have held a necklace. It didn’t. I opened it and found a pen and pencil set. Taped to the underside of the lid was a card he must have overlooked: “To Eliot Hess, For Ten Years of Service at South Wesleyan College.” Evidently the box had been in his study for some time, for the ink in the pen had dried up.
Too intellectual to be religious, Eliot at last voiced his opinion, very gently in hopes that I would not be offended, that Christmas was a commercial trap he preferred to avoid. He did appreciate the gifts, he said, but I needn’t think I had to do this each year. He didn’t expect personal gifts. If I liked, he said, we could use the holiday in years to come as an excuse to buy some small item for the house. And so on our second Christmas together we bought a new coffeepot, a suggestion that Eliot put forth with his usual courtesy. Perhaps he had forgotten that I rarely drank coffee.
I suppose it should seem highly unlikely that the two most influential men in my life, my father and my husband, both scorned the most important American holiday. I had learned, however, that one takes whatever he is given. Never having celebrated Christmas before my marriage, it was no sacrifice, I told myself, to forgo it after my marriage. And yet the next time December 25 arrived, I felt a tightness in my throat.
As the years passed, the sensation gradually subsided to only a general restlessness to have the season over and done. Gifts are not practical, I often reminded myself. The gray sweater I had given Eliot, for instance—it remained folded in his drawer, unworn. The gloves were too large and had to be exchanged. Then one was dropped in a muddy puddle, after which both were laid aside and finally discarded.
I have heard other old people, their minds afflicted with the fog of sentimentality, speak about the Christmases of their childhood. “We didn’t get much,” I have heard them say, “but we were happy!” They go on to talk of stringing popcorn and berries to decorate a tree, of finding oranges and stick candy in old socks hung by the chimney, of homemade toys and shiny pennies. As for me, I have a single memory: the storybook I received from my grandmother Wiggins when I was four, the year before she had a stroke and lost all concept of time and place. Lit-tle Soph-ie had no pa-per dolls, no pep-per-mint sticks, no black-board with chalk, no yo-yo in her stock-ing.
Nevertheless, my sisters and I spent hours with the Sears catalog, dreaming of the gifts we would find under the tree on Christmas morning. We made lists of our dreams, wrote letters to Santa that went nowhere. Not only were there no gifts under the tree, there was no tree. My father claimed to be allergic to evergreens of all kinds. His allergy spared him the effort of cutting, hauling, setting up, and decorating a tree, along with the troublesome hopes that would be raised once a tree was installed in the front parlor.
I have no warm, inspiring stories to tell of weathering the deprivations of the Depression. It was a dark time of wishing. I was only three years old in December of 1929 when, in a daring moment, Daddy, possessor of liquid cash, took advantage of his employer’s despair and offered to buy the shop where he worked. The offer was readily accepted, his employer being eager to leave Methuselah and move to Tennessee, where his wife’s family lived.
So at the age of thirty-five, Daddy sank all his cash into the printshop, which left him the last four decades of his life to regret his purchase. He would have sold the shop hundreds of times, even at a loss, had anyone wanted to buy such an albatross during a time when newspapers were folding and printed advertisements were considered a luxury. With no head for business, Daddy hired a young assistant named Woodrow Carper and gave him more liberty than the man’s character could sustain. When Woodrow left town in the middle of the night two years later with all the cash Daddy had hidden in a metal box behind the coal bin, Daddy’s view of mankind, which had never been very high anyway, hit rock bottom.
The boardinghouse revenue became the flimsiest of shields between the Langham family and poverty. Most of the work fell to Mother, of course, since Daddy continued to spend his days at the printshop trying to “drum up business,” as he said. From what I could tell, Mother worked harder than Daddy. This gave Daddy ample time to be the family complainer and worrier, a role which he perfected.
Even when the printshop business picked up during the 1940s, my mother’s workday always began earlier and ended later than my father’s. She was remarkably efficient around the house, inside and out. She could wield a hammer as well as a mixing spoon, a garden hoe as well as a broom, a paintbrush as well as a feather duster. My sisters and I were regularly called upon to help my mother. When I was five, I was setting the dining room table three times a day for a dozen people.
* * *
It is quiet in my apartment. The television is off. I have no desire to see the Christmas specials and commercials that are on every channel this time of year. I hear the ticking of the clock as the day comes on, the marching feet and beating drums of time. I sit by my window waiting for the first light, wondering which species of bird will be the first to visit my feeder on Christmas morning. One day I tried to keep a tally of the birds that came to the feeder, but after the tenth mark on my paper I realized the stupidity of the endeavor. How could I keep from counting the same birds twice? And even if my count could be accurate, of what benefit was such a tally?
One’s days are made up of a little of this and a little of that, all of it best forgotten. I have read that certain birds are known for the odd things they weave into their nests, some of them bright and shiny, some not. It is said that the great crested flycatcher sometimes weaves an old snakeskin into its nest. At the end of eighty years, I find no scavenged scraps of brightness in my nest. It is dull, dry, unadorned.
Memories are often touted among the aged as rescuers from loneliness, but the effort of recalling the good ones is too great. The best ones are elusive. The ones I remember offer no affirmation that my life has justified itself. So much of my eighty years is unaccounted for. The ivy of time has covered the neglected little house of my life. At no time of year is this more evident than on Christmas Day.
I knew a woman once, a fellow teacher at the last elementary school I taught in, who kept a record of her days in leather-bound diaries. I have observed that it is often not enough for such people to keep their accounts quietly; they must instead talk about their diaries constantly, citing the benefits of “living life thrice,” as this woman was fond of saying—once in real time, once in writing it down, and again in reading it. She frequently referred to earlier events recorded in her diaries from past months and years, as if to demonstrate that her life was richer and fuller than anyone else’s because she had written proof that she had lived and breathed. See here, she could say, pointing to her diary, the record says that I have gone to the supermarket, planted tomatoes, and baked cookies. I have painted my porch railing, wept over the Holocaust, and watched Neil Armstrong’s one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind on my television set.
And this teacher’s diaries—where are they now, I wonder? No doubt some younger relative has already come across them, pronounced them redundant for the purposes of modern living, and relegated them to their final resting place in the great trash heaps of mankind.
“DIED. FAY WRAY, 96, shriektacular heroine of the original King Kong and other thrillers of the early talkie era.” “DIED. WILLIAM MITCHELL, 92, food scientist who accidentally invented Pop Rocks, the exploding candy that burst onto the market in 1975.” “DIED. RODGER WARD, 83, one of auto racing’s most prominent figures during the glory days of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.” “DIED. JAN MINER, 86, stage and film actress best known for her role as Madge, the manicurist in Palmolive commercials from 1966 to 1992.”
How light the weight of what man leaves behind. How pitiful that a person’s life may come down to so little—a scream, a candy, a speeding car, a television commercial. And th
ese are the people judged to be famous enough for Time magazine.
The sky begins to lighten in the east. I am wearing a dress I have worn for four straight days. It is blue with dark spots where I have spilled my food on it. Shakespeare’s second sonnet speaks of the wrinkled brow and sunken eyes of a loved one besieged by “forty winters.” My winters are twice as many, the garment of my youth now “a tattered weed, of small worth held.”
But enough of this, I tell myself. “Get a plan”—this was something I often heard my father say, though his own plans were most often thwarted. Rise from your chair on Christmas morning, I tell myself. Put your stained dress in the clothes hamper, from which Rachel will take it and return it spotless. Draw a bath before your breakfast arrives. These are things you can do. Then set your teeth and see the day through.
I lay my fingers to the buttons of my dress. The top one is more securely fastened than the others, the result of my recent deception and Rachel’s needle and thread. It strikes me that Patrick and Rachel have taken me in as one would a stray cat, except for the fact that stray cats have no monthly social security checks to share, no inheritance to promise in return for food and shelter. They are also, I must remember, less bother than an old woman who soils her clothes and pulls off buttons.
Chapter 16
Like a Rich Armor, Worn in Heat of Day
The Brewer’s blackbird is not easily intimidated. It has been known to light among farmyard chickens and drive them off, then eat their grain. Flying in flocks of thousands, they appear to flow through the air like a shimmering black river, dipping and turning in unison.
With the aid of a safety bar and with the traction provided by adhesive strips, I have managed to ease myself into a tubful of brown bath water. Looking down at herself in the bathtub, an old woman’s view does nothing to lift her spirits. From one extremity to the other, it is a depressing sight. However, the water is warm, the hum of the exhaust fan is low and steady, and my thoughts are singularly clear. I will get through another Christmas Day. I will bathe and dress in clean clothes; I will eat; I will watch my birds; I will breathe in and out. I will try to stay in the waiting room today. No trips to the corridor with its many uncertain cubicles.
I fix my eyes on my feet. They are not a pretty sight, yet they have served me for eighty years. One cannot demand more than dependability from servants. I keep them protected by thick socks and soft-soled slippers. Still, there is something that hurts when I walk. Perhaps it is a wart. I cannot see it. The second toe on both feet is longer than the first and overlaps it—a condition known as hammertoe. I have heard of people undergoing surgery to correct the defect, but having inherited my mother’s aversion to doctors, I have never been tempted to do so.
Finding comfortable shoes has been a lifelong challenge. Had I wanted to wear fashionable shoes, I couldn’t have. As I did not, I suffered no great disappointment. I left it to my sisters to wear fashionable shoes. I chose comfort instead. But my days of buying shoes are over. Morticians ask family members to bring in clothing for the burial of loved ones, including stockings and undergarments. They do not, however, request shoes. And when one is cremated, he needs no special clothes at all.
My legs have the wasted look of an invalid’s. No larger than the shanks of a colt, they belie the burden they have supported through the years. Though I cannot see them now, great networks of spidery purple veins spread themselves down the backs of my legs, not from carrying children but from bearing my own weight. My eyes skim upward, passing over withered, sagging parts too sad to behold.
I move quickly over stretches of nakedness totally devoid of the appeal usually associated with the female form and come at last to the only part of my body I once thought a man could love, now simply two hugely empty bowls. When I married Eliot almost forty years ago, I imagined that he would feel great joy over such bounty. If he did, he concealed his joy. Alarm was the look in his eyes on our wedding night, as if such immoderation were a thing to be shunned.
My arms, unlike my legs, are large. When I lift them, I feel the great loose weight of flesh that has fallen away from bone. The skin of my forearms is finely wrinkled and strangely pigmented, a coat of many colors, from the palest patches of white to the dark brown spots of age. This is the body of Sophia Hess. Observe it and be instructed that time is an invincible foe.
My face I cannot see, but I know it well enough. Time has had its way there, also, though with faces it is different. Time levels facial beauty. A woman called beautiful in her youth will not be so when she is old. Put an ugly child and a pretty child side by side, add seventy or eighty years, and you will see no appreciable difference in their faces. One may have fewer wrinkles, brighter eyes, or a nicer smile, but the same adjective will be applied to both: old. My face is a map of time, many small roads crossing its planes, all leading downward. A cluster of broken blood vessels, like a tiny burst of fireworks, blooms beneath my left eye.
“DIED. ELISABETH KUBLER-ROSS, 78, Swiss-born psychiatrist whose incisive research in the 1960s demolished medical taboos against discussing death with the dying and helped establish hospice care in the U.S.” In her book On Death and Dying, Dr. Kubler-Ross “gave permission,” according to Time magazine, for us to “speak openly about our greatest fear.” Her book described the “wondrous capacity” of the human mind “to prepare itself for dying” by progressing through five stages, beginning with denial and ending with acceptance, leading finally to “a peaceful resolution.” No details of Dr. Kubler-Ross’s own death are given except for the fact that she died in Scottsdale, Arizona. One must wonder if she talked candidly about her own death, if she coached herself through the five stages she identified for the world, if at the end she closed her eyes in peaceful resolution.
I think of the centenarians featured on the Discovery Channel one day last week. There are pockets of such people scattered around the globe, but the ones on this program lived in Nova Scotia. Medical researchers have studied them, trying to determine the factors contributing to their longevity. A lifetime of eating healthful foods hardly seems to be the answer, for most of the Nova Scotians supplement their seafood, a staple common to any coastal location, with traditional favorites such as buttermilk, curds, cream, bread, butter, and fried foods.
One of the men interviewed in the program had spent his life building fishing boats. This man, who was 103, looked right into the camera and said, “I’ve always worked hard and eaten plenty of sweets.” I took heart from his words. If hard work and consumption of sweets are qualifications for living a century, I am eligible.
After almost an hour of interviews with a number of the centenarians, who routinely engaged in pastimes such as reading, piano playing, cooking, computer games, and crossword puzzles, the program concluded with this fact: Researchers are still mystified by the causes of the advanced years achieved by so many of the Nova Scotia elderly. Except for its sensationalism, therefore, the program was of little value. It was tantamount to an ogling of freaks.
The final word was “One thing is sure. Out of all the folks we talked to in this little corner of the world, there didn’t seem to be an ill-tempered one in the lot. The centenarians of Nova Scotia are a contented and optimistic people, ready to share a kind word and a laugh with anyone, friend or stranger, who happens along.” I did not take heart from these words. Besides the folksy, condescending tone in which they were offered, the implication was troubling. If contentment and optimism are qualifications for reaching the age of one hundred, I am not eligible. To the question “Why would anyone want to live to one hundred?” I counter with “Why would anyone want to die?”
I pick up the bar of Dove soap, with which Rachel keeps me supplied, and lather my washcloth. I take stock of my ailments on Christmas morning. I have arthritis. My shoulders and back ache. My knees are stiff. This is nothing out of the ordinary for one my age. Because of whatever is on the bottom of my foot, I limp slightly when I walk. I forget more easily than I once did. I once had a
mind for names, but today I can recall the names of only a handful of my elementary students and none from my years of university teaching.
I am weak and slow. To say that I am overweight would be a kindness.
In my youth I was quite strong. When I married Eliot and moved my things to his house, he reproved me for carrying a heavy box of books by myself. “You will hurt yourself, Sophia,” he said. Having carried my own boxes many times in the past, I found his remark humorous, but I obeyed when he instructed me to set the box down, then take up one end of it while he took the other. Such an arrangement of carrying was awkward and slow, but I was touched by his solicitousness. It did not occur to me at the time that he could have offered to carry the box by himself.
I have other ailments common with age, things related to stomach, bowel, and bladder that one does not like to talk about. I frequently hear a ringing in my ears. My heart often beats too fast. I sometimes must lie on my bed and breathe deeply to slow it down. When I get up, I often feel dizzy and must hold myself very still until the sensation passes. Some days I feel dizzy most of the day. My left arm throbs on cold, rainy days, perhaps a phantom pain from a shattered elbow as a child. I sometimes burp or break wind suddenly, with no warning.
Occasionally I find it hard to swallow. My vision blurs when I read for long periods of time. My hair is thin and wispy, like the underplumage of birds. From time to time patches of eczema erupt on my arms and hands. I have poor circulation in my legs and feet. My fingers are not reliable in following simple instructions. When instructed on a package to “Tear here,” it is often beyond my ability.
On the other hand, I can walk, dress and feed myself, speak intelligently when I choose. I can hear reasonably well. I chew with my own teeth. I have food, shelter, and clothing. I have a thermostat by which I can keep my apartment as warm as I like. I have windows. I have a great amount of money in store.
Winter Birds Page 16