Just One of Those Things A Person Remembers

Wayne worked at Everest & Jennings Wheelchair Manufacturing Company before his mission and for a short while after we were married. That's where he knew Lester Madison, Cody's dad. We went to school with Cody, a rough-edged wiry blond kid you couldn't help liking.

Wayne said Lester told him many things as they worked together every day and Lester swore pretty much, but I only know one thing Lester said. He was worried about his daughter and told Wayne she might have to go to the hospital because she had a cisk on her ovulies.

Wow! It's Fifty Years

September I will go down to Santa Monica for my 50-year high school reunion. For that occasion, I am Alyce Brimley, Samohi class of ’58.

I went in 2004 to our 46-year reunion, an unlikely number, but obviously this class likes to get together. Maybe the reunion organizers—Monica, Bob, Donna, Janice, Jim, and others—are afraid too many of our 630+ members will die before we can meet and say, Wow! It’s fifty years.

In 2004 I took my three daughters because I could not handle going alone. Wayne was dead, and we wouldn’t be walking in together. Lola, Alyce, Ann—they were good to go with me, and we visited my Aunt Allie in La Cañada, and we visited Disneyland, Lola’s favorite place. But the death part is what I meant to say something about.

There was a written program, and on it a mention of people in our class who had died. Wayne was not in our class, he was class of ’57, but as my husband his name would appear there. I looked. It didn’t. But Kent Woolley’s did. I knew Kent wasn’t dead. He had visited me in Boise, told me about his heart attack or stroke or whatever it was. Yes, he had been ill, but he wasn’t dead. Someone on the committee thought Wayne was ill and Kent had died. It seems funny, but it's kind of a big mistake, don't you think?

This year I will actually have to go alone. I have reservations for my flight, car, and hotel, but I'm feeling a little apprehensive about it. I suppose I should do some mental imaging, see myself getting there in good order, driving safely up to Marina del Rey, wearing something smashing (it could happen) as I enter a room full of people I used to know, and then see myself feeling okay about being there. It would help if I could be thin by then. Superficial it may be, but I don't want folks to say, "Look what's happened to Alyce since Wayne died."

Missing Wayne, But Don't Worry About Me

1. His hands

2. How he would take his wedding ring off his finger and put it on the top of his ear to hold the pinched skin together.

3. His dry, corny wit. I’d love the hear him tell a joke, like the one about the guy who didn’t like the doctor’s diagnosis and said he wanted a second opinion. “Okay,” said the doctor, “you’re ugly, too.”

4. His physical presence here in our house

5. Looking out the kitchen window to see him out there in his straw hat mowing the lawn. He mowed it better than anyone I’ve hired since his death, of course, but that’s only part of it. The other part was just seeing him out there, such a comforting thing to me. Don’t know why.

6. The smell of him on his pillow

7. I think of him every time I go into any bathroom in this house.

8. He loved the shower in our bathroom.

9. His cooking, how he made such a mess in the kitchen. He had bought several books about cooking and food, ordered this or that machine.

10. His hymn playing, “Lord Dismiss Us With Thy Blessing”

11. He loved to sing.

12. I hear a Subaru start up or see one like his and start talking to him, asking him why he is not here.

13. Watching him write

14. His feet. I always told him he had ugly feet. Funny.

15. Hearing him get confrontational on the phone with tele-marketers

16. His voice

17. The way his mind worked. “Logic dictates,” you know.

18. His perpetual concern over his health

19. His love of his grandchildren

20. There is always more.

Las Viudas

At the top of Mt Roberts in Juneau, Alaska, I met four people—three women and one man. They were speaking Spanish, and I said to Alyce that they were not from Mexico, probably somewhere in South America. So I asked them, just to be sure, and yes, they were from Peru, the place of the purest Spanish, they told me, and, apparently, the cultural seat of the universe, etc., etc. But I couldn’t really fault them for their national pride.

As we chatted, my Spanish faltering at times but their charity growing, one of the women asked if I traveled a lot. “No,” I said, “soy viuda.”

“Somos viudas también,” two of them said. "We are also widows, and she [pointing to the third] was a widow until she married my brother." Then he spoke up, putting his arm around her (she must have had extensive face work because she had the Wayne Newton permanent smile, and she wore a lot of makeup, all in an effort to appear younger; can’t fault her for that, either), “She’s my second wife.”

I said, “Claro,” meaning, “Of course,” meaning also that I had made certain assumptions.

The two widows then told me they travel extensively, go all over together, having great fun and good companionship. “You should find a widow, too,” they told me--a thought I had never entertained. Two or three came to mind, all in their 80s.

I guess I’ll have to start looking for a younger widow. Or not.

One Bird

I saw a western tanager today as I turned onto Greenwood Circle. He flew into the big evergreen—or maybe the old apple tree—around the corner, where the guy with the big mouth bass mail box used to live. A male bird, wearing his summer colors: bright red head, yellow breast, and black wings with two white bars. I looked him up and learned that towards autumn, he won’t appear quite so vivid, head and breast fading some, which is like what we all do with the movement of time.

One year, I remember, not long after we moved here, I saw a whole flock of tanagers in that very same part of the neighborhood, a quick blur of yellow sweeping across the street right in front of me—they were in the air, of course—and I have been watching for them ever since. So today was good. I saw only this one bird, but he was enough to make me smile and say out loud, “Oh, how beautiful. Thank you.”

My neighbors told me that while I was gone on my cruise a big wind blew the crow’s nest out of the cedar tree. Hooray, I said. Then they told me the babies didn’t survive. That did make me feel bad, but not bad enough to wish them back.

Happily, the crows have not rebuilt in the cedar, choosing instead a large ash tree in front of my neighbor’s house on the east side of my property. That is farther away, and the tree does not hang over my fence, is nowhere near my fence. But it is close enough, and they can still be heard, you know, their loud warnings.

Who invited them here anyway? I do not know if they will come back next year. I hope not. I do not know if I can hope they are far enough away from my yard so that the other birds will come back this year, if I can expect the return of the robins and quail and sparrows and finches this year, but maybe next year. Who knows? Maybe next year will bring a flock of tanagers. Yes, there is always next year.

This day

The day Wayne and I married 46 years ago. A good day, you know.

In Dreams

I fell asleep on the family room couch this morning, a wakeful nap, and dreamed about Alyce, her accident, her teeth, her sometime dismay. In the dream I became aware that Wayne was not here; he was away and had been for a while. It seemed he didn't like me anymore and had not given me a way to contact him. Again, dismay, this time mine.

I wanted him here, of course, needed him here for Alyce's comfort and for mine. He would put his arms around her and tell her it will be all right. He was good at that. And for me, if I could see him, then I would know--something anyway. Sometimes a dream of him can be so real that I wake in great sadness to find he is not really here. This time waking brought relief of sorts. It troubles me to think he does not like me. I suppose such thoughts are not uncommon among widows.