Red Leaf Lane

ten years ago I absconded from a terrible job in south China when I heard my mother was close to her end on earth.  These are the notes I kept.

Your father is here.  He sits in the chair.  I asked him why he was wearing a coat. He said it’s cold in here.  It was cold in this room.  I turned the thermostat down ten degrees.  We stand, talking, sometimes laughing, sometimes crying.  Mom lays there, a shell, her wide-eyes searching for angels. Are they here, waiting for her spirit to come with them, just a second, there is a concern she didn’t score any points when she locked me and the ex out of the house on thanksgiving eve, but she did send me some holiday gift or card every year for all the holidays I was overseas and they uncannily always arrived on time.  Always. That was good karma there. 

It’s damn cold in here, let’s go Norma. 

Norma Theresa O’Neil, mother of seven, wife of the late Charles Richard O’Neil, passed away on June 11 2005. She was 79.  Born on December 6, 1925 in New York City.  She married twenty years and two days later.  

Mom was a homemaker and mother.  I can’t think of a single day where I didn’t get a meal.  I’ll never forget the light in the hall coming on at six thirty in the morning, and how many times did I fake sleeping, waiting for her to come in and shake me awake.  How could I forget am radio, northwest orient airlines and mom making cream of wheat when it was still dark outside? 

When the children all grew up, she threw herself into community activism.  She volunteered at Saint Patrick’s Bookstore for ten years, St. Dominic’s Soup Kitchen, the Southfield Library.  She was active in St. Bede’s Church and School when they moved to Southfield Township in 1955.  She was a Eucharistic minister and volunteered at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak. 

Norma is survived by seven children and 24 grand children.  

**** 
 

I enjoy cool Michigan weather in the middle of June.  I know the heat will come and stay longer than anyone likes, but now when it is in the high fifties, I do not complain when my feet are cold and I have only a flannel shirt to my name and no warm socks. 

Last night the siblings made their requests for items.  No spilt blood, no raised voices other than how to go about selling this home.  This morning walls were bare, bookcases thoroughly pilfered, and the furniture will disappear in a week’s time.  It’s too surreal to even prepare for such an ending on Red Leaf Lane.  The neighborhood is changing, this family is the last of the originals who moved here in the mid-fifties to leave.  Fifty years. 

The sun is strong, a nice confidant to cool air.  The walls will need painting.  We’d like to pull up the old gray carpet in the living room and clean up the nice oak wood below it.  It will be easier to do when everything is gone.  I talked to the neighbor south of the house at the funeral home longer than I ever had in my life.  A former teacher of Detroit, his left eye bugs out and while we chatted he made disparaging remarks about his overweight daughter who let her 16 month son scoot back and forth, harmlessly. 

Today, the legal looting continues.  Mom had three closets worth of clothes.  Nieces, sister-in-laws, and sisters held up the sweaters and jackets.  Mom wasn’t a big person, about five foot three and a foot shorter when she left earth.  In the hope chest we found the stoll that went with the ‘mafia fur coat’ Sophie Lotz gave to her when she married, her husband’s sister said was from Jersey.

I volunteered to have a garage sale.  Odds and ends will be left, thirty year old dryers, vases and candle holders, baskets and souvenir dishes from China, Italy and Florida, Readers Digests compilations, tools, car radios, mom’s computer which might fetch ten dollars. 

I am surprised I am not more emotional with this closing of the longest chapter in my life.  Maybe not now.  Everyone maintains a stoic look.  I walked to get a newspaper this morning and I can’t remember what crossed my mind but I started to choke up.  Memories come up and whack I’m teary eyed.  The US Open is happening at Pinehurst #2, I have dad’s red ball cap from the 1999 site of the same tournament.  How could I ever play golf without thinking of his rotation lesson in a barrel swing.  Danny asked for his clubs.  Nancy wanted his gold colored putter which he stopped using years ago and which I used ineffectively when we played on the Southfield courses. 

Golf.  Golf on television.  I sewed a button on my shorts this morning.  I sat at the sewing machine in their bedroom.  Unseen was the old singer suspended upside down.  The new one looked hopelessly complicated but it didn’t matter, a needle and thread I could use. 

**** 
 

I’ve really done little since I’ve been here, at least in comparison with the others.  I have no job yet, what the hell am I doing all day?  I’m almost ready to feel a bit guilty, the kind only Irish Catholicism can bring to me soul, bloody hell.  Well, I’m having a garage sale, that’s been my big contribution, and the proceeds I’ve said will pay for gas and I guess a bit to St Bede’s. 

 I’m sure I will be questioned about the money earned.  Do they want some?  I’d find that hard to believe since much isn’t going to be made.  I speculate too much sometimes, but you gotta wonder.  All have asked if I am still having it and several said they’d be bringing stuff themselves to sell.  Danny is sending one of his kids to help out.  I’ll make sure she stay busy.  I told Nancy I was going to buy detergent with the money.  I went ahead and bought some on credit.  I would like to think I have been prudent with the card.  A little here, a little there.  But there could be some more big ticket items like an eye exam, hardware, dried cranberries, cherries, raspberries.  I have an extra suitcase in case, and will pay, what, $400 to take it with me?  

**** 
 

Why are her pupils dilated?  It’s the morphine.  So, does this mean she’s seeing a lot light?  In her eyes you can see the soul.  I didn’t moms.  This was hard.  Her mouth was held agape with a tube and tape.  I’ve never seen sustained agony until I saw my mother in her last days.  Did she hear me say I loved her?  Could she see tears that burned my eyes?  She looked hard in mine.  I couldn’t read hers.  I didn’t know what she was saying.  Her priest came in and we clasped hands, prayed the Our Father, and then anointed her.  I kissed her forehead and thanked her for everything.  I’m sure I gave you a few of those gray hairs, mom, but you did a good job.  Thanks. 

Later in the day I held her hand after the padded pillow net was taken off.  You’d better wash your hands, john. She’s not clean.  What do you mean she’s not clean?  There’s something on her skin, her smell isn’t right.  Was I washing death from my hands? I didn’t wash my lips, though I remembered an oily sour that a day later lingers.  

I walked into every room a dozen times, never staying for more than a minute.  I looked at everything quickly.  Every item, large and small echoed time.  I can’t imagine anyone replacing what lives in a home for almost sixty years. 

**** 
 

I woke up this morning and ran five miles.  It was a soupy summer sweaty fatigue that hurts me now.  The houses in Lathrup are nice to look at when one doesn’t have to constantly take off their glasses to wipe burning saline from the eyes.  Did it feel good to run?  Does it feel good to return to an empty house?  I’m used to returning to every home I’ve lived in for the past seven years.  Not this time.

**** 
 

I put up three screens.  The weather is comfortably cool and cloudy and there’ll be no need for central air conditioning for the next two months.  The screen to the back door was a stiff challenge.  I left the upper left corner out of the door because I feared pushing too hard and breaking something.  This was the same door I put my right hand through trying to catch an ice cream truck 32 years ago. 

Little scars on my wrist, next to a major blue vein, remind me I’ve been pretty fortunate in the areas of my life where I needed to be fortunate.  I’ve had plenty of unfortunate events because of incompetence and the inevitability of time, but whatever you call it, say it’s the luck of the Irish, a guardian angel, or Karma cashing in some chips for unknown good behavior, when a ray of light shines somewhere on me I am most fortunate. 

One day after mother was put in the ground, her husband’s urn placed snugly under her right arm pit, the looting started.  Gone were framed photos from the wall of the southwest corner of the living room which left unseen Irish lace and a variety of nails, and gone was a collection of small plants in a large round wicker basket in front of the big living room window that revealed a clean circle of rug.  I’ve claimed a few items as well, books, three old license plates from dad’s 40 year old collection in the garage, a few black and white photos.  When the seven siblings gather I believe one item on the agenda will be who wants what, with a few potentially contentious items promising to require excellent oratory skills and plenty of beer. 

Meanwhile the house remains silent when I am walking through and sitting in it.  I can hear the rustling of the trees and bushes in the backyard and from the neighbors.  The low beam hum of the freeway a mile south of the house doesn’t interfere in the peace. 

Two brown rabbits have made the backyard their home for the past three days.  Today they were kissing noses while the thinner one did this odd short vertical jump like we’d do if we rubbed our shoes on the carpet and touched someone.  Mom wasn’t a big fan of the marigold eaters, but a long eared one always pulled dad away from the television.  

It might seem strange to be in a house that was really known to be noisy.  Off has been mom’s radio across from the oven.  WJR and music from a Canadian station filled the kitchen whenever the television wasn’t on.  It was constant for as long as I can remember; northwest orient airlines ads on JP Mcarthy.  Off has been the television, the 20 inch black box that accompanied dad during the winter months with an almost cultic grip.  When everyone came home from mom’s funeral yesterday the rooms bulged with family.  The radio came on and off a few times, a baseball game was discovered, though only for a minute.  One of the 24 grandchildren put a cd of lovely Irish American music on the living room.  Its volume was turned all the way down within minutes. 

I embrace the silence, lush breezes and deep shadows.

In every corner and on every surface memories dating back to the beginning of the 20^th century are overwhelmingly peaceful.  If the house could stay like it is for another fifty years I could live with that. Maybe it’s simply being a sentimentalist melancholic who knows reality and illusion are far apart. 

I plan to take everything I gave them as gifts.  Most of it seems to have been from the Middle East; a gray pashmina shawl, brass candle holders, a rug from the Russian Caucasus, Indian pillow cases, Turkish dishes.  I will be asking for the wooden spoons and rubber spatulas, small baking dishes.  I’ll take a cookbook or two.

**** 
 

A great distance lies between us

dark clouds cool my land

an absence heats yours

sometime soon I hope to have forgotten you

but if you don’t forget me,

I’ll be here. 

****

3 July 2005

The first cut of the pie was big.  A sour cream peach pie now sits in the refrigerator.  Another piece and a fresh cup of coffee await in an hour or so.  I ate the holiday buffet fast, going back to the table and grill for fourths.  I didn’t stop picking until the last kin left at 7pm; a four hour kill and forage of hot dogs, barbeque chicken and hamburgers, four different kinds of salads, a chocolate pie, lemon bars, oatmeal cranberry cookies, six flavors of two liter sodas, a huge circular cheese plate two cheese dips with tiny pumpernickel bread slices a plate of vegetables and no coffee.  We considered it, it was too warm, the house was wide open today, a gorgeous day.  I don’t like the way it tastes when it’s made in this pot.  The twelve cup percolator.  “Your mother loved a strong cup, the Bronx way.  She loved to chew the grinds.”    

It had to have been at least 10 years the last time I saw my mother’s sister three weeks ago.  She is the last link to the proclaimed greatest generation on the maternal side.  One uncle remains from my dad’s family.

Fifteen people and one new comer came on the day before the fourth.  I spent an hour or two on the backyard before anyone was supposed to come.  I enjoyed being out there in her garden with all the color and variety of species.   The day before I planted Zinnias in three places.  I worried the rabbits had eaten them, though I hadn’t seen any creatures in the past four days.  And of course later I saw a baby brown one, and it only seems like a month earlier I saw his parents doing it under the forsythia. 

I wouldn’t say there was an uncomfortableness on a few faces, more of a respectful and cautious approach to being in the house to celebrate the last independence day in this house.  To do it without our parents, well it would have been easier if they were here and dad had finally convinced mom to sell and move to the Carolinas where it was a little warmer and he could play golf year round.  No way, Chuck, if she was angry, no way, Charlie, with a laugh at such a proposition. Her grandchildren are here, five of her own remain close.  My brother’s oldest girl, now twenty something came with her boyfriend’s son, Charlie.  A Charlie was in fact in the house.  I watched the 10 year old play catch in the front, light off bottle rockets in the back, eat a slice of chocolate pie.  At the end he left with a smile. 

*** 

Somewhere up in the stairs there is a chance to find peace in this chaotic world.  As long as we climb, as long as we continue to climb, up the stairs into the smoke and fire of the unknown, through the fires of risk and faith, we will find peace outside in the cool air, the cool clean air. 

The ownership of shawls, the discovery of seventy year old pieces of mother’s history, pizza, showers, and real estate sent me back to the room and listen to the boss sing of great loss and different worlds of thought.

Everyone leaves with handfuls of memory.  The logic sometimes is curious:  I’m holding onto to it so that nothing happens to it.  Nothing is going to happen to it if someone else claims it before you, my dear son.  There’s nothing wrong with everyone having a piece of history that is meaningful.  That’s all we have when the house is empty.

I asked for the records and said I was going to sell them.  That was two days ago.  This morning I counted 42.  Everyone has a memory connected with this music?  Who listens to Burl Ives?  I learn through the selling of books and music that these are the connections with our parents, even if we never listen or read them, we know they did. 

I’ve been afraid to look into the basement because of the absence of a few boxes of dad’s I started looking at seven months ago.  My sister holds all the love letters that went between them.  I would like to see them and maybe write some of them down.  It’s time consuming, isn’t it.  I am not writing down what they have, but I am writing here what is important and what is worthy of being mentioned. 

This will be the last time I will ever be in this house and it’s just surreal to say that.  I always looked forward to returning here.  The tiny bathroom, trees in every window, huge slabs of kitchen floor torn, stained, ripped once, twice, three times, taped, stapled, glued, and a television in the kitchen, walking downstairs to the basement and feeling the temperature drop. 

**** 
 

They read Reader’s Digest’s monthly condensed stories from 1955 to 1988. The hard bound copies filled the hallway shelves.  I found others in boxes downstairs.  And it makes sense now.  With seven kids to raise who the hell had time to read a full length novel?  They had the Encyclopedia set, a yearly almanac collection that stopped in the seventies, and on the top shelf in the basement, above an old desk where the eldest siblings may have learned a few thing or two, was a 20 volume set of Charles Dickens stories that disappeared quickly in a garage sale. 

Their reading changed once the last one left.  Even with the grandkids taking their time now they kept a steady presence at the local library, getting on waitlists for the new books coming out. 

The last day I saw her I brought a copy of Memoirs of a Geisha.  At first I considered reading some of it to her, but she was too close to the end. In hindsight I’m glad I didn’t read it.  Who wants to hear about Japanese prostitution in a hospital?

****

Today was a significant moment in the art of timing.  Tuesday is trash day.  Today’s pick up was very late.  Very very late.  I started cleaning in the afternoon.  I had five bags of garbage and a wooden container from new jersery to break down.  I went outside and noticed they hadn’t come by.  I took it all out to the curb. I wondered for a second if there was a strike I would have missed in the paper if I had bought one.  I went for dinner to meet a Palestinian and wouldn’t you know it when we got back, it was all gone.

I don’t think I am blessed or gifted.  I don’t think I have any special connections with anyone or anything.  I believe in bad timing as well as good timing.  Becoming interested in a girl who works at staples is bad timing.  Being interested in a girl at borders is borderline bad timing.  Meeting a girl on the plane to the same city I’ll be living in is good timing.  I want to believe that thinking the right way and considering others and being honest, a difficult thing to do when things get tight…results in timing of the good kind.  Getting all that trash out and picked up a day late is amazing.  Dad would have shook his head.  “I can’t believe it” It’s the luck of the Irish, chuck, believe it.”  Sure I can believe it, but I don’t believe it will happen next week.”  Yes, that’s right, all good things have an end, sometimes an immediate end. 

****

A fly the size of a quarter flew by me twice.  I had to stop listening to Crosby Stills, and Nash tell me to get on a ship and take her out of here.  The house is cold in some parts and there have been big black ants, super large mosquitos, large flies, flies that bite, and two centipedes.  The house is dying. 

Everyone from under and around and on earth have partaken in this feast of the decaying building, life is taking and eating the house.  How in the hell can any not forget that which was good.  In each direction, to other countries, and from each other the souls of the departed will go on and be with us. 

Likewise other animals of earth smell the absence, the fight to keep them out has been cancelled, unless of course one of these black flies gets near me, then there’s no mercy in creation.    

I have been reluctant to start the big basement of a job.  Cleaning it out.  Timing is everything, right?  So when…

****

At the library I saw mom.  She was looking at a display case of Tibetan artifacts.  She crossed her arms while she read about tangkas and horns.  Two days ago a man who reminded me of dad sat in a comfy chair ten feet away.  I finished what I was doing and left. 

I haven’t had any problems with coming here.  But sometimes I wonder why I can’t find myself wishing to stay in this part of the country.  Is there too much familiarity that is unpleasant?  Is it the cold winters, the dark and depressing days without someone to love?  In sunshine I am much better when I am alone. 

The basement is just about finished. Matthew has done a damn good job doing what he has given himself to do.  He’ll be moving up into the other rooms now, starting at moms, which is just about ready.  I have been filling the garage with unclaimed things of the house and getting it ready for a garage sale in a few days.  I can no doubt guess that the last days of this house will smack emotions right and left.  Remaining stoic, remaining composed, all is good, let it out, say goodbye, say hello, mix it all up.  The days are going fast and then the chapter will be written and we will all move on.  The cycles of change and what it is doing to my dynamics are a challenge.  Where is it all going to lead me now that I have no place to come back too. 

Uncle Richard must have gone through this when he left and didn’t return. I don’t see myself coming home anymore.  To see friends?  To see family?  I’d always feel as a guest if I stayed at anyone else’s home.  On Red Leaf Lane, I always felt at home though it wasn’t really my home.  It was my parents.  My home is still out there somewhere. 

**** 
 

Dad would have been eighty five today.  At the garage sale I almost heard him muttering from the rafters, unbelievable.  It really wasn’t that hard to believe, really.  Nice weather brought out many for cheap shopping and what a varied bunch there were.  I think he would have considered people from Africa buying the black dress shoes I wore only to funerals for a couple bucks unbelievable.  He may have found the fella who shrieked in horror throwing his hands up when I told him a New York Times edition announcing FDR’s death was sold an hour ago unbelievable.  He may have found it unbelievable to witness orthodox Jews, Mexicans, Chaldeans, and many of his African American neighbors walk away with car ramps, a golf ball retriever, his red wheel barrow.  Bill Pullicin, a warm and generous man who coached a ragtag bunch of us for four baseball games at Tyndale took a box of trophies.  He said he knew a fella at his church who could clean them up, put new face plates on them, and give the trophies to kids at a vacation bible school.  Cool. 

Little Maggie came up to me during a lull in the afternoon.  Uncle John how much money have we made?  We?  It hadn’t been discussed at all, what was John going to do with the money?  Later In the kitchen Mary and Matt pondered the question.  We got bills that keep coming in.  I shook my head in agreement.  Getting a house ready to sell required money to clean it up.  The bills kept coming in and summer taxes came a few days ago.  Happy birthday Dad, that big bite out of the minute nest egg wouldn’t have made you particularly chipper. 

I just want to eat and buy gas.  There wouldn’t be enough to pay the credit cards on time, but that’s the way it is.  For now I eat bacon mom left in the fridge.  She wrapped four wraps of three strips in white freezer paper and I ate salads with bacon and blts.  I run out of bread, milk, one time coffee, flour, sugar.  Oh well, I told her I’d be living on my credit card and for the most part I have, at least for the big ticket items and a few other things like meals and non-edible items. 

Tomorrow I have to go to his gravesite.  He still doesn’t have a stone.  It would be nice to see one before I leave.  It would be really nice to see one there. 

**** 
 

The rain started five minutes after eight.  I covered the stuff on the tables and wheeled, carried and pushed other items into the garage.  Thirty minutes later it stopped.  Dark clouds rumbled by and kept me guessing for another thirty minutes before I put it all out and pulled the tarps off the tables.  Less than an hour later the heavens opened up.  Two women in the garage pulled in the items they intended to purchase.  One of the ladies had been here the day before, she had great long white whiskers.  She returned with her sister.  I didn’t see anyone for the next four hours as the rain continued.  And that was that.  One Hundred and Forty dollars.  $140.00.  I bought a Tubby’s Steak Sandwich for $5.20.  Five dollars and twenty cents. 

I have three weeks to live in this house.  For the last time.  The house, to be really honest, would never be the same the day we let her go.  To live here, it could never happen.  A new family a new start for someone else, someone who needs a nice place with wood floors, a huge basement and plenty of space for a garden.  I think mom and dad wouldn’t mind such an arrangement.  To keep it in the family, I really don’t think so.  a grandchild, a great grandchild, perhaps.  But for her seven kids….

**** 

It seems so hard to say

it was a year ago today

my father had passed away

time lost

so slow

Barely has a moment gone

Hardly has a second ticked

When I don’t wonder why the

Inevitability of death

Can’t make an exception

once in a while. 

I’ve yet to go over my notes I copied and letters I have with me that dad wrote to mom during his service because it’s still a hard thing to do right now.  But one thing for sure I remember: after reading hundreds of letters that covered the years 1941 to 1946 and looking at a mountain of notes of every size and variety for the next 59 years, dad’s faith and passion were remarkably clear at the beginning of his life until the end. 

There was one letter in particular that he wrote to his sister-in-law Peg, asking advice about a particular matter regarding mom’s view of the church.  Seemed she didn’t take it as seriously as he believed she should have.  I’d suggest mom’s view of religion and the faith throughout her life remained steadfastly New York German, one defined with common sense and no-nonsense compassion.  Dad’s faith in Catholic traditions of the Midwest and in the industrial and rough neighborhoods of Pittsburgh, were simple and quite undemonstrative compared to our generations today; take care of yourself and the family first and then help others  (or defeat them, that is, the Nazis), trust in God because you’re better off with faith than without it, and simply hope and pray that the common good for all mankind is the best common good for all mankind. 

From the legacy he left behind in writing, I don’t think there was ever a serious doubt that Dad had not found the right woman for him.  I’m thankful this holiday they stayed together, for us, and for themselves unto the end.  There’s still a lot of legacy to live on here.  They are after all, the greatest generation. 

****

The sky darkens the rooms and it is not yet noon.  I stopped whatever it was I was doing and sat on the porch.  Lightening kills more people than tornadoes and hurricanes combined.  To my east and twice to my north timber shaking bolts crashed and I jumped every time.  I thought the thunder in Dharamsala was the loudest I had ever heard.  I forgot about the Midwest. 

I planned to go to an afternoon ballgame.  The storm had passed through so I left late knowing it was going to be delayed.  I was a bit surprised to see the Detroit skyline on Woodward before I reached Nine Mile.  Parts of the avenue have been repaved a nice black asphalt, but they left the manhole covers and pipe fittings sticking two-three inches above the new surface.  Mother’s ’92 tempo had shot shocks and I slalomed southbound, fearing a wheel would break off.   

I parked two blocks north of the new stadium, on a street with the seedy Comet bar and 2500 Entertainment club, empty buildings, and plots of tall grass.  It wasn’t very safe looking but it was free.  The stadium lights were still off so I walked around, found Greektown, enjoyed a gyro meal and beer at the Golden Fleece, took some photos, and walked back to the stadium.  I stood in front of the box office.  The national anthem started.  It was a two hour delay. 

I decided not to go in because I knew I’d have to charge it.  I have a list of things in my head that I need and I am hesitant to spend $25 on a seat.  The problem is I didn’t want to spend $6 for a seat.  I walked back to the car and drove home.

If it were Tiger stadium I don’t think I would have hesitated going in.  I miss the old park and the memories it embraces.  The new one doesn’t have it yet.  Nothing magical has happened there.  I went to the all-star game in 71, sat in the bleachers with my eldest brother.  I saw Nolan Ryan pitch a no-hitter there.  I loved sitting in the bleachers on hot days and no matter how cold it was an opening day is an opening day. 

My mom and dad went with me to the last game at Tiger stadium.  Back in February of 1998 I called dad and asked if he could get in line for seats.  Because he had cash he jumped the queue and we enjoyed the historical moment from upper left grandstands that wonderful and sad day in September. 

I looked into the new one through the bars where bystanders could read the bios of the tiger greats statues.  It is a beautiful place but it has no history.