Red

 "THAT is not Barn Red." Getting the punctuation correct, so that you can hear it has been tricky.
It's poignant for her when the red is wrong. The markers of time and culture are set askew. She wonders why anyone would do this?

I heard it while driving through the Rondout Valley in the Catskill Mountains with my Aunt Amy. We were discussing something and then we turned a corner, she saw the barn and suddenly, "That is not barn red." She was pointing - with a very stiff finger. I knew which building she meant. I had previously noticed the fire-engine red on the historic barn. It means much more than a color. It is a cultural marker...an agreed upon understanding...she will be 83 next week...she needs the barn to be an historic red, one that leaves time in the place she remembers it.

xo,
Bob's Daughter

Peeking

I peeked once
a year ago
into Linda's Red Bag.
I quickly closed it.

Inside the red bag
is a black briefcase.

Inside the black briefcase
are papers and I know not what.

"My whole life is in that bag."


My brother and sister-in-law visited with us over Memorial Day weekend.
They took the the girls to the park and for a walk in Woodstock.
It was comforting to see our little ones play happily with their aunt and uncle.
I even had the sense of what other mothers are talking about when they describe "dropping the kids off with their grandparents."

We sat and talked when they came back from their "big adventure."
Tuli (one of the twins) took out "her" passport.
Pete thought it was odd that a child was playing with a passport.
I  wasn't in the room.
My husband told me later.
I replied, "It isn't my passport - it's my mom's."
This made sense to me...
Linda can't use it.
It has a picture of their grandmother before the chemo took her hair.
It has pretty pictures of eagles - which they love... and... suddenly I am my grandmother Kate
with a balloon of Santa floating around the house in March because it reminds her of Grandpa Joe who died the previous summer.
Floating objects.

We need to decide what to put on mom's gravestone.
The bag needs to be opened and stored or heaven forbid
some contents thrown out.
That is what I am afraid of... that this carefully packaged mausoleum
that my mother constructed of her "whole life,"
in the end will not be understandable to me.

I don't know if it will be good or bad if there are post-it-notes on everything.
The only way I knew who Linda's lawyer was when she got sick was  deciding that the post-it-note with a heart on it must indicate importance. When I called the number, the man on the other end of the phone said, "Linda must be very ill. I knew this day would come. I hoped it wouldn't be for a long time. How is she?" Not bread crumbs, post-it -notes.

I used to say that Linda should have invented post-it-notes.
When Bob and Linda had big buffet dinner parties, which was a couple times a year, Linda would rip up little pieces of yellow legal pads and write notes on them and put them in the silver serving bowls so that "the help" would know where to put the peas. Little floating pieces of paper in big silver bowls - directions. I hope there are directions in that bag. For the first time in my life, I am hoping for post-it-notes.

With regards,
Bob's Daughter

Red Bag and Santa

Linda's red bag is on the move. 
Our daughters wanted something from the closet and the bag - escaped. 

I never mean to move the bag. 

I don't really want to look at it, but it fascinates me. 

She specifically told me, "My whole life is in that bag." 

Now, I can't open it because I don't yet want to know what she considered her "whole life" and yes,

she spoke with an emphasis, 

as if music played in the background. 

I am reminded of Grand-Katie, Linda's mother,

(my Grandmother - along with Jay, Lee, and Peter's Grandmother, in case you are trying to keep track).

At Christmas, after Grandpa- Joe died, one of Kate's gifts was a helium balloon with Santa's face on it.

(We always celebrated Christmas with Kate and Joe and my mom grew up with a big Christmas tree. I was told that Reformed - German - Jews celebrated Christmas, but since my father grew up Orthodox and then Conservative, and his family was from Russia, now called Latvia, we could not have a tree and there was no Christmas in our family house. Christmas at Kate and Joe's tasted like Thanksgiving, but there was ham and jello with marshmallows in it.)

Kate loved the Santa balloon. 

When we returned to visit in March, Santa was still floating around the house, bumping off the furniture and up and down the stairs. I was shocked to see it. I asked, "How come the balloon is still full???"

I thought that this must be the most incredible, long lasting helium balloon EVER.

Grand- Katie casually said, "I have it refilled. It reminds me of Joe. It's like he's still here."

Then she went into the kitchen. 

Mom didn't say anything.

I had the distinct feeling that I was living in a Beckett play and Godot really was never going to show up.

I hope one day that I will have the courage to open Mom's red bag...and that I don't wait too long.

Until then, I will keep moving it around. 

I think I will document these actions.

For now, the bag is between the laundry basket and the diaper genie. I am sure it deserves better.

With regards,

Bob's Daughter

Linda's Red Bag

Ideas take up space. There is no design for where to put them. It is up to each individual.

It is memorial Day weekend and I have driven by many yard sales, driveways filled with items that people no longer use, that are taking up space, and will be sold or given away. Truly valuable items are sold at auctions and other marketplace venues or given to loved ones. Is it the same for ideas?

The red bag my mother gave me, with folders probably filled with resumes, stories, poems from throughout her life, items that she valued because they concretize her ideas, it still sits on my floor and I have no heart to put it in a closet or an attic. The contents are much larger than the bag. They fill time, our home, my future, if I cannot decide where to put them.

xoxo,
Bob's Daughter