How Few We've Become

“Mother, mother
There's too many of you crying
Brother, brother, brother

There's far too many of you dying
You know we've got to find a way
To bring some lovin' here today…”
“What Going On”—Marvin Gaye

All during my growing up years, we gathered for any reason. Yesterday afternoon I sat alone, watching those gatherings. Who is that young, dark-headed guy waving from the second floor landing of his college dormitory? Was that a dismissing wave, probably in response to Mother fretting about something? More likely, knowing the guy the way I do, he was a little sad that Mother and Daddy were going back home, only 90 miles away. He’s the same guy holding his toddler niece, and at the coast on one end of a string of fish suspended horizontally, a college mate on the other end, at family celebrations of Christmas and summer barbecues, and leading the college band down the field at half time. We’re only a few years shy of the 50th anniversary of some of that film.

This spring, Aunt Edna finally got me off my butt to do the homework for converting Daddy’s home movies of the 1960s to DVD. I had thought it would be a big deal, and I questioned that the condition of the film would be good enough after close to five decades. Annoyed and embarrassed by her repeated reminders, I dug the box of film out of a cupboard and carried it around in the floorboard of my Toyota for a week or so. I had had to search my memory for where I had stowed it after asking Aunt Edna to return the film following Mother’s death over two years ago.

After calling a few places in our university community that I thought would have the technical know-how for such an imagined high tech project, laughably it turned out that Walgreen’s photo center was the solution. On the fourth call, someone in the background of that phone conversation said simply—“go to Walgreen’s”. That was four months ago, just before I returned to New Mexico.

The conversion process took about a month, so my sister Joan picked up the DVDs. My copy arrived in the mail this week after languishing in my Texas home since April. Yesterday I spent a couple of hours being amazed—amazed at how young we were, how much we laughed, how graceful Mother and Daddy danced around the floor of their market—cleared for a New Year’s Eve celebration—amazed that my niece, who will turn 48 in September, was still in diapers, learning to crawl in the earliest of these films, and amazed that at the time Karen was making her way on all four across the den floor my maternal grandmother, Lizzie Fuchs, was a year younger than I am now.

Before starting the DVD, I suffered the fear that it would be too painful to see my mother—in her early 40s and in the very prime of her life in this collection of images spanning most of the ‘60s. There she is, though, along with Daddy, both looking handsome and vital. We’re all there—well, just about everyone is there.

One face seems to be missing on this DVD—that of Aunt Mary—who has had her eye on her 92nd birthday, come September 2nd, and now lies in a hospice bed at a Houston hospital, after losing her balance and falling backwards on the brick floor of her kitchen a few days ago. Cousin Donald, the oldest of our generation, called me with the news that the doctor says, “Aunt Mary won’t leave the hospital.” It’s been downhill for her for a few years now, as dementia has taken its toll, even though physically she’s been healthy as a horse. “I’m ready to be with Frog [her late husband],” she’s told me several times since his death nine years ago. No down-in-the-mouth person, however, Aunt Mary is always ready with a smile—and some good advice sprinkled into every lively conversation. She’s just been lonely for her mate. How did she not make it into at least one scene of Daddy's films? Even Uncle Pat and Aunt Martha from Santa Fe are there, along with all the other Hollis siblings at their houses—the Hollis compound—on Caranchua Bay. They're all gathered, doing what our family has always done so well—breaking bread and just being together.

We are waiting and watching—I from 900 miles away—as Aunt Mary makes her mind to let go. She is the last of her generation. Her mother, our Mamaw, made it to 93. She wanted to make 100. Donald asked that I call my sisters, Joan and Sue, adding that he would stay in touch with me. When I talked to Donald, I was on the road to Abiquiu, to interview as a volunteer to work in the gardens of Georgia O’Keefe’s legendary northern New Mexico home. As Donald and I talked, I started to cry. And I was crying when I called my oldest sister, Joan—“Aunt Mary’s dying….” “Aunt Mary died?” she asked. “No…” and then I explained. By the time I talked to Sue, our middle sister, I had composed myself. Something in me needed to call someone else—to answer the tolling bell, for no man is an island—but I realized there was no one else to call. We are it—Joanie, Susan Berry, and Hi-Do—Russell and Tena’s kids.

I called Aunt Mary the night that Mother died two and one-half years ago. At that point, I had to remind Aunt Mary each time we talked that Mother had been sick with a heart ailment and on hospice for several years. “Oh, Tena’s sick?” she would ask. “I didn’t know that.” “Aunt Mary, will you call Donald and Becky? I’ll call you when we’ve made the funeral arrangements.” “Yes, sugar,” she comforted me. The day of the funeral, Donald told Aunt Mary that he was going to a burial in Normangee, Texas. She replied, “I used to know someone in Normangee.”

So much to learn, and yet we squander our precious time. I need to talk about this. We need to talk about this—acknowledging how few we’ve become. When the time comes to pay our final respects, likely I won’t be there, in Houston. I’m watching and waiting from afar—only a phone call away from family. I am feeling close but removed. We need to talk and remember and learn.

How Few We’ve Become—Santa Fe, New Mexico (July 10, 2009)
R. Harold Hollis