Willow Weep For Me

I remember lying on a blanket on the ground by the creek while my mother hung wet clothes on the clotheslines. I was mesmerized as i looked up through the labyrinthine branches and watched them weave and breathe their peaceful magic over me. As I listened to the soft murmur of the wind kissing the air above me, the clotheslines, the wet clothes in the basket, and my mother all disappeared from my little world.

My willow and me, about 1948-49
8124 West Rivershore Drive, Cayuga Island, Niagara Falls, NY

The weeping willow, her green skirts hanging down sheltered me. I didn't know the streams of leaf filtered light caressing my face was not part of her.

Perhaps I was swaddled. I had no desire to turn my back to the beauty, to roll over or crawl away. Perhaps I was younger than I imagine. Born in June, that first four months would have been the time this early memory occurred. If I had known there was such a thing as God, I would have been sure it was the Weeping Willow.

The next year my mother tied me to the tree. The blanket was my boundary again. I could toddle a bit, yet she hollered and screamed at me so much to be still, to not go in the direction of the river, and to not walk myself around and shorten my tether that it was easier to just sit. I would reach out and grasp at the long threads gracing the grass and get lost in the veins lining the leaves. When my mother wasn't looking, I would bite into a branch and taste the bitterness. I liked the crunchy chewiness of the pulp. I knew the weeping willow didn't mind. She was my friend.

The following summer, there was no more hanging clothes on the line. A big white box sat in the basement in the laundry room. My mother would stand at the washing machine fishing the clothes out of it to squeeze them between the rollers. I was not allowed in the that room, but could stand in the doorway to watch the drying machine go around in circles. I was easily bored by the whole process. Much to my mother's consternation I wandered off to explore other parts of the basement.

Our forays into the backyard to my weeping willow tree were few by that time. I remember when Daddy and Davy brought the kitchen table outside. It was a hot day and my cousins were there. Later, Mommy and Aunt Laura laid on the blanket in the sunshine wearing their swim suits. They didn't go into the creek to swim but sat talking and giggling while Nona and I sat under the magic tree playing with her little dishes with teenage cousin, Myrna watching over us.

"Don't go near the creek" I was warned so many times, I sang a song to the tree. "Don't go near the creek. It will take me away forever. My tree will really cry. Don't go near the creek." And I didn't. But, Dickie Culp did, and Bobby Baker did. They sat on the edge of the cement wall.  Willow had provided them with their pretend fishing poles which they held out over the water. Bobbie went home when his mother called him. Then, I watched when Dickie arched his back, dropped his fishing pole shaking his arms and fell into the water with his eyes open, not blinking, not moving and began to float away. I ran along beside him for a while calling his name. But, he did not answer.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Recently, I used Google to look at the location where I lived as a little girl. I was disappointed to discover my willow tree is no longer there.

Child Writing

I've written all my life in some form or another, not realizing there was something I could "do" with my writing for quite some time. It wasn't until my daughter, in her teen years. let me know she was intimidated by my writing skills that I wondered why she had such feelings, a perfect A student, who wrote very well and was literally a genius.

From that time I began to share my writing with friends, and went back to college taking courses getting a few A's myself. The rewards encouraged me to continue writing, mostly memoir and family history with a scattering of poetry and children's stories. Some have been tossed, and some are filed away in boxes in a closet.

Only recently have I stepped out of the mold of my self imposed writing, and started to make efforts to submit my work. I'm receiving tutelage from two local Santa Cruz authors. I don't feel serious with them yet, only the sense that rubbing elbows might bring me some luck. University of Santa Cruz has an opportunity where Seniors (read: old people like me) can attend classes under their Lifelong Learners program. So, that's another big step I'm taking. Hopefully, I will get into the class of our local Poet Laureate and get more elbow rubbing.

What set me on this enjoyment of writing started many years ago when my sixth grade teacher asked me to help her with the school annual literary magazine. It was a conglomeration of poems, stories and artwork submitted by third to sixth grade students. It was a big production. We were very proud of it.

Mrs Rae taught me how to type up the stencils in preparations for the mimeograph machine which, thank heavens, she wouldn't let me use. I was a terrible typist, probably ten words a minute, and made many mistakes. She patiently showed me how to fill them in with correction fluid. I hated doing this, and eventually she let me off the hook.

Having been exposed to the other children's submissions, I decided I could write as well as anyone else and produced what I considered an epic poem. It used up a whole page, and Mrs Rae was full of praise. I wish I still had it, or at least a copy of the 70th Street School Banner with my poem in it. I wrote completely in rhyme an experience based upon "What I Did Last Summer".  I had an infestation of bees set up housekeeping in my bedroom. I don't remember anything I wrote except how I managed to fancifully describe myself as sitting like a Buddha in order to be still until the bees moved on and I could get away. 

California Winter

Since I live in coastal California, the devastating cold weather that others in the country (in the world) experience through the winter is not such a major factor in my life.

Yet, having grown up in Niagara Falls, New York, I haven't forgotten Lake Effect snow storms, or 15 foot snow drifts or ice so thick it can cut a huge tree in half, and fall on your car. (Yes, that happened once.) I haven't forgotten sub-zero temperatures with a wind chill factor of 30 below. That would be -35 centigrade.

When I attended Elementary School, I walked a half mile to school, even in the wintertime. They didn't use school buses except for field trips. It would have been a good idea for me to wear what my mother called a snow suit, which was a thick jacket with leggings. I found them bulky and after about age 7, only the dorky kids wore them.

Sometimes, if I was sensible, I would wear flannel lined cordorory pants and boots (galoshes). But, by age 10 that was the time to stop wearing them. So, I hurried that half mile with bare legs. Girls didn't wear pants or tights to school. It was only when I was 13 that it began to become popular to wear your brother's jeans, but never to school.

I look back on those times with awe at the little girl who got through those winters. Sometimes the weather might be cold when I left for school in the morning, then be much colder and maybe snowing when returning home. If people didn't shovel off their sidewalks, I often walked in the street to avoid having the snow make my feet colder.

Occasionally, a friend's mother would offer a ride home. Both my parent's worked. Things were different then. I was a pretty independent kid by circumstance. I think most children today have much more protected lives.

You might have heard jokes about Grandpa saying, "When I was a boy, I walked 9 miles to school all winter long!"

Funny! One day, in the summertime I actually did walk 9 miles to my school just for the fun of it, with friends, and got a ride home from Dad. By this time, I was a teenager and we no longer lived in the city and had moved to a rural location.

The nearest city was Lockport, New York, named because of the Locks which ships traveled through on the Erie Canal. Fortunately, by this time, I was able to ride the school bus throughout the school year, and therefore did not have to face quite the winter challenges I did when younger.

Suicide Attempt? or Blessing?

I was a youngster, practically. And I used to cry and moan and twist in pain in my hospital bed, saying "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus," and "Oh, My God"

Now mind you, I was pretty much out of my head not only with the pain, but the morphine they were shooting into me every four... or if they forgot, five or six hours, sometimes later. Some compassionate woman from down the hall, got herself out of bed to come find the one who was calling on God. She found me and proceeded to tell me how she would pray with me and for me. Praise the Lord, thank you Jesus...

Oh, my. I shut my mouth and smiled at her. There was no way I was going to get into a religious argument with her, no way I was going to go through a major guilt and conversion session, and soon she was gone. I was very bitter, and at that time was Atheist. Little did she know that I had been cussing, "taking the Lord's name in vain", otherwise I don't think she would have been so interested in praying with me. I guess I should have said "goddammit", as my Mother would have said if she was hurting.

Doctor MeanGuy had been in that day to tell me the tests showed my bladder was shreds and there was nothing they could do with it, except connect the ureters to my bowel. Of course that would mean a lifetime of E-coli infections and who-knows-what-all backing up into my kidneys.

I knew little medical terminology. But I sure as hell knew bad news when I heard it.

Since I had cancer and wasn’t expected to live anyway, I just thought I would take things into my own hands and get it over with. I was so despondent about what that doctor had said. I had had enough surgeries!!! I had had enough pain and suffering. I had enough of hospitals, doctors and nurses. Enough of living in fear.

Needless to say, the little old Italian woman, Mrs. Calabresi who was in the bed across from me, (four to a room was a luxury in those wards) watched all this with bright eyes. I loved that old woman. I don't know why anymore. Every morning the priest would come in to give her last rites, every afternoon her adult kids would traipse in to see if she had died yet, and quietly leave. Every evening she would attempt chat with us but mostly listened. I didn't know much about her diagnosis except that she had something terribly wrong with the arteries in her legs, ( I think) and she couldn't walk and was expected to make her exit quite soon.

So, that night when I decided to cut the intravenous line and the bladder catheter tubes (one came out of my abdomen) she figured it all out, got out of her bed, and walked over to me. I was so shocked to see this, you'd think Jesus walked on water! Anyhow, she lovingly stroked my forehead, I got tears in my eyes. Real tears not the tears of the frightened girl in pain. And she touched her heart, then my heart, speaking in her broken Itali-nglish. I understood quite a bit, anyhow, as I lived in Niagara Falls. Either you were Italian or Polish, I was neither but heard the languages all my life. Anyhow, she said things like, “you be better, God will help you.” That's the woman I could be honest with. “No, God wont help me, I don’t believe in God, I'm mad at God!”

She completely disarmed me by saying: “You no like God? Tha's okay! Madre di Dio si curerà. God's Mother make better!”

My mind went completely blank... a concept I couldn't conceive, God’s mother? Calabresi had me and she knew it.

"Okay Now? A pregare la Madonna You pray!" I just stared at her. "You pray! I pray!"

I couldn't say no. I would have done anything she asked me. She had a "green scapula" with her. (How it suddenly appeared threw me. Did she have it in her hand all along and I didn't notice. Why, of course!) She held it up for me to see the Blessed Virgin. She showed me the words encircling her picture. Then we said the words together.

"Again!"

We said it again. We repeated it quite a few times. Then she put it in my hands and curled my fingers around it telling me to pray all the time... well, three times a day, ten times over, or maybe it was the other way around. By this time I was hypnotized, and I can't even remember how fervently I did this. Though it really did calm me, and I felt prepared to go beyond, whatever that would be. I still was mad at God and still didn't believe in him. (Yes, yes, an oxymoron, I know, but had little logic back then. Hmmm maybe less now)

Soon the nurses were in there putting in a new IV and one catheter. They couldn't do anything about the one leaking into my abdomen. The doctor would have to repair the damage surgically.

So, that was why I was cutting things. I had scissors, but no razor, so this would take time. Damned nurses. If I had turned that light on needed assistance they never would have come in all night long. Just when you don't want them, they come along and bother you.

So, the next day, they had to take me into emergency surgery. After I woke up Dr. Neisen (the nice one, see? I remember his name after all these years) came in beaming. I was still kind of druggy from the anesthesia but so glad to see him. He said, "I don't know what happened, but your bladder is all in one piece. All we had to do was sew up the hole where your abdominal catheter was located."

Smiling nurses came in to see that I was comfy and all tucked in. When they pulled back the curtain, I could hardly wait to tell Mrs. Calabresi. But her bed was all made up tight as a drum. She and all her belongings were gone. Nobody had to tell me where she had gone.

The next day, I asked for the priest. He came in. I told him about the miracle, and that I wanted to become Catholic. After he asked a few questions he told me no. It was impossible. I was a married woman, on my way to a divorce and previously baptized and confirmed in a non-catholic church. I was pretty insulted. After all, it had been a Catholic miracle. He agreed it couldn’t have been anything less. But that wouldn't make any difference where my soul was concerned.

He left, and then I was REALLY pissed at god!

For a long time after that though, I went to the shrine of Our Lady of Fatima in Youngstown NY, and had some peaceful times. But, I never converted, even after the "rules" got loosened.

This is the tip of the iceberg of how I coped with the diagnosis and surgical challenges. Very badly, until Mrs. Calibresi stepped in. Then, very calmly, because,  “Tha's Okay.” I could always talk to God's Mother.