Continued from A sense of normalcy returns
Meanwhile, worry gnawed at Herman’s health. Not one to share his concerns or to complain, he grew gaunt. Joan’s liveliness brightened an otherwise dour atmosphere. As the decade closed, Yry was still putting together care packages for the German relatives, but less frequently. The packages now coincided with birthdays, anniversaries, or holidays.
Yry and Joan spent hours imagining themselves into exotic scenes in life-like dioramas in the Museum of Natural History. Or they went to the Zoological Park where Joan giggled as the elephants suctioned peanuts from her open palm. They spent hours together in Central Park; Joan patiently chummed ducks, geese, and squirrels with peanuts and breadcrumbs while Yry fiddled with her Leica, perhaps imagining yet another career possibility. The two of them formalized their outings by creating a botany notebook where pressed flowers and photos of plants illustrated their shared research projects. In my mother’s papers after her death, I found countless references to nature.
I have found great satisfaction in studying nature, as I have great longing for contact with the earth. I think we would all be saner if we would know nature better and understand more fully our place as one small particle in a great complicated and wonderful universe.
During the summers Yry and Joan escaped to New Hampshire or upstate New York where they could swim, pick berries, and ride horses. Occasionally Herman and Norah joined them, but Norah’s severe arthritis and bouts of depression made travel difficult.
Joan dove into the world of language and books. Precocious and well mentored by her mother and grandparents, she was reading by four and by age five she meticulously printed letters to the delighted relatives in Europe.
With her 40’s looming, Yry ignored impertinent questions about her marital status. But school girl notions of love lurked in her heart. Mother never shared stories of her courtship with my father. Given my mother’s melodramatic ways, I mistrusted anything she said about him. Certain facts can be corroborated by my birth certificate, which I didn’t see until days before my own marriage. Others can be inferred from letters and from the numerous short stories that Yry penned, and which corresponded quite miraculously to my birth.
This one was dated May1951.
As I read back thru these pages, I see my faults, I see my groping, clumsy attempts to attain happiness, the rainbows I’ve chased and the ignorance of human nature which led me astray more than once. I see also the ever pervading sense of loneliness, the striving for being loved which runs thru all my sentiments, (a thing I remember from earliest childhood) After being burned and seared and disappointed, I approach the middle years of my life and find that in my heart which I thought had gone dead and barren, blooms a new love. This knowledge like a stroke of lightening, making me tremble with dizziness. At first I was afraid and skeptical. Would love play me false again? Now I am hopeful and happy and very, very humble and grateful that yet another chance has come my way. And I pray, “Oh God, make it right this time. Let him love me. Let me be right for him and he for me. Guide me in the right path to deserve his love and bring good things and happiness into his life.”
The entry goes on to talk of all that her love has brought her: friendship, companionship, and FAITH! Oh, and now she discovers that Judaism holds the tenets of all she has held true.
Continued
gerard oosterman said:
‘Let him love me. Let me be right for him and he for me’.
Perhaps, just love without the expectation of it being returned is the purest, if not the best.
‘True love’ and the expectation of it being reciprocated forever onwards is often the banana skin on the doorstep of life.
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rangewriter said:
I couldn’t agree with you more, Gerard. Perhaps because I observed the aftermath of my mother’s experience with idealistic notions of love, I have a very pragmatic idea of love. I know some few are fortunate enough to find soul mates, but I suspect the rest of us muddle along and make the best of a lot of hard work to keep a relationship healthy. I love your imagery!
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Jane's Heartsong said:
I hear hope. Every one deserves to find love in their life. It takes many forms and I await the news to come. Happy holidays, Linda. May you find paeace and joy in the burgeoning light.
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rangewriter said:
Thank you Jane. I suppose hope is what keeps us going, what picks us up after defeat and carries on to the next experiment.
Burgeoning light…YES! Every day no, a tiny bit more light.
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catterel said:
Whatever the lumps and bumps that disturbed your relationship with your mother, you are really bringing her to life in a sympathetic way. And the suspense continues! Will she, won’t she ….?????
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rangewriter said:
It is very kind of you to say that Cat. I sort of cringe as I feel my sarcasm slipping out. But I am trying to treat everyone in this piece with fairness and to show their rich humanity, warts and all. And, I was lucky to have been born to this mother.
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Karen Krause said:
As a woman raising two little ones alone, having also approached that 40’s marker, experiencing loneliness & disappointment & yet longing desperately for Mr. Right, I can totally appreciate your Mother’s written sentiments. The little I knew of her in my Laramie days never diminished the connection I felt for her…..always drawn to her mystery, always admiring what I did or did not know. Now, all these many years later, you painfully & proudly connect the dots. It is beautiful and I thank you.
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rangewriter said:
Thank YOU Karen for sharing your perspectives and encouraging me to continue. I wonder if there can be a harsher judge than a daughter. I will be eternally grateful for the way she raised me. Her sentimentality never rubbed off on me, only her determination and stubbornness. (Which oddly, she attributed to my father!) She was a complex person, so an easy subject.
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Doreen Pendgracs said:
I really enjoyed this post, Linda. How I envy you that your mother left so many diaries and notebooks that gave you insights into her thoughts and loves. I lost my mother so very long ago, and how I would love to have had something to hold onto. Something that would have given me greater insight into a woman who was so filled with love and laughter and left this world far before her time should have come.
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rangewriter said:
Thanks, Doreen. You know what we all cursed as we worked to empty mom’s house, did turn out to be a rich blessing. Mom’s old adage…”you never know when you might need this.” It’s true!
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Keith said:
Linda, I find her May, 1951 entry so telling and heartfelt. Her choice of the words “clumsy groping” as she tries to find happiness is so very human. Each of us has clumsily groped to find such. Thanks for sharing. Keith
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rangewriter said:
That is the truth, isn’t it? Thanks for reading, Keith.
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Keith said:
Indeed. Sometimes it is that road you decided to try late. I was thinking of this yesterday as the step-mother of our niece has lamented her step-daughter is seeking “shiny things” as happiness. She correctly and subtlely is getting her step-daughter to consider what she enjoys most and that she has a good job with a small company who is helping her grow.
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