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The Unexpected GiftMarlene Moore Gordon
I could not have guessed that my dad’s death would be my catalyst to begin a sharing circle among women. It is not something even he would have imagined! But sharing this legacy has profoundly touched other women’s lives.
My father was an old-fashioned family physician. He sported a bow tie, and for fifty-four years made house calls to generations of blue-collar working families. No one in need of his service was ever turned away. He often returned home with freshly baked Irish Soda bread or a sack of home-grown tomatoes, in lieu of cash payments. Dad devoted his life to his medical practice. Throughout his years of dedication, he kept a trunk full of thank you notes, and a passion for the work that sustained him until the day he could no longer climb the staircase to his office.
Surely, I knew that my father loved me. But for much of my life, I sensed an emotional distance that I compared with those stairs to his office: hard to climb, leading to a door that seemed open to his patients, yet often inaccessible to me. It took years for me to recognize that he and I had something very much in common; a fear of emotional vulnerability. Only as an adult, learning to climb that distance myself, was I able to unlock the door to my father’s heart.
It was Valentine’s Day, when at age eighty-two, my father lost his battle with Lymphoma. Initially, I missed the gentle stroke of his hand across the back of my hair as I walked past him. Later, it was his dry sense of humor during my difficult times. What I remembered most, though, was his quiet, gentle strength. To this day I keep a bottle of his Old Spice cologne in a little box of memorabilia; and one of his signature polka-dotted bow ties.
My family mourned our loss together in our hometown, a suburb of Boston. Returning to my New York apartment, still grieving, I felt disconnected. None of my New York friends had known my father, and while their condolence calls were genuine, they couldn’t fill the void of his passing.
The following evening, my dear friend Lillian invited a small group of mutual friends to her home, providing an opportunity for me to share my loss. It was the bridge I needed to span my past and my present; my old home and my current one. The evening turned out to be a revelation for us all. Relating memories of my father, it became clear that he had been a kind and generous man: a light of hope, an example of stability and strength for countless people.
Of the many memories I shared that night, one in particular touched me deeply. I recalled my first plane ride from Boston to NYC, nine years old. I was terrified at the thought of flying, so Dad sat beside me. He gave me the window seat, and to calm my nerves during take off, he held my hand.
Just after the plane lifted, we looked down at the indistinguishable houses, toy-like cars, and treetops, wisps of clouds drifting by.
“Do you see all those people down there?” he asked. “Nothing means anything, unless you have someone who cares about you,” he said. “Everybody has his own set of problems,” his own ‘package’, he called it. “But if you have someone else to listen and to care, it makes life a whole lot easier.”
I never forgot his words. Years later, as he neared death, I was able to offer a small measure of what his handprint had been on so many other hearts. Often, the greatest gift we can give someone is to simply be there, to listen without judgment. A compassionate heart can transcend words. Knowing that someone truly cares can make all the difference.
In the last few months of his life, I did my best to spend as much time with Dad as I could. I commuted from NYC to Boston for long weekend visits, watching painfully as he wrestled with terminal illness. One day, he was noticeably aloof and distant. Though the room was filled with family members, I sensed his isolation and despair.
When at last we were alone, I asked how he was feeling, and whether he was afraid to die. At first he was taken aback; apparently, no one else had broached the subject. That had been the problem! He admitted that he was exhausted by the struggle to maintain the façade of denial for everyone else. Because he was doing his best to be strong for his family, he had not allowed anyone to be there emotionally for him. He broke down, and I held this frail, gentle man who had once been a tower of strength for so many, and allowed him to sob in my arms. Having admitted that he was frightened, the tension evaporated and I saw the relief in his face. We shared our respective beliefs and ideas about life after death.
Dad said he wasn’t sure if he believed in an afterlife. I told him that I did, and suggested that if he had trouble believing that, he might try to remember that his father had been a very religious man. For now, perhaps, he could borrow some faith from past and future generations. He smiled, and we hugged.
I reminded him that he had led an amazing life, and that he had touched the lives of many people. He had graciously accepted from me what he had offered to his patients: someone to just listen, and to care. Now, it was my privilege to be that someone for him.
Later that evening my mother called to say, “I don’t know what you and your father talked about, but he said you gave him a ‘Tremendous Boost.’” Because my dad had allowed me to be there for him, he gave me a lasting gift. The protective shell encasing my own heart had dissolved!
Never had I felt more compassion, nor more open to my own humanity than in witnessing my father’s vulnerability. I then saw that all his life he had been a healer in this truest sense. Thankfully, before his own death he had enabled himself to not only offer love, but to receive it, as well.
After sharing this with my women friends, there was stillness in the room. I had remembered my dad not from a place of loss, but from a place of gratitude. It no longer mattered that during my life my father had seemed emotionally distant. What mattered was that we had bridged that distance before he passed on.
Yes, my friends had gathered to console and comfort me. But by sharing from a place of acceptance and gratitude, I had touched each of them. They recalled their own fathers, and the handprints that remained on their hearts. We realized that we were more alike than different, and recognized that the willingness to share and to listen to each other without judgment had empowered us all.
2nd Story
My Mom’s Teacups
Marlene Moore Gordon
As a little girl, I was in awe of my mother’s china teacups; each unique, delicate and exquisite. For special occasions I helped her to set the dining table. “Just carry one at a time, and be sure to use both hands,” she would caution, letting me know that the teacups were very precious to her.
With the passing years, Mom’s collection grew. We discovered most of them together, exploring the dusty shelves of neighboring antique shops. She safeguarded her fragile treasures in the glass-fronted mahogany cabinet of our family dining room. Her gentle touch ensured not a single chip or crack among them.
Mom’s teacups witnessed the changing events of our lives. Time passed, but the teacups remained unchanged. They became treasures unveiled for holidays and special occasions, to be shared year after year with family and friends. At birthday parties, Thanksgiving dinners, and my sister’s backyard wedding, the cups were familiar and comforting.
While my two older sisters appreciated Mom’s teacups, their beauty captivated the artist in me. They became a source of our mutual joy, as we admired each new addition to her collection. The cobalt blue cup, with its gold rim and spray of flowers inside, is still my favorite.
When I was ten, I spent most of the money I had saved on a white cup and saucer, painted with pale lavender, yellow and pink pastel tulips. “I think this is the most beautiful one of all,” exclaimed Mom, opening her Mother’s Day gift from me. From that day on, she always chose that particular cup and saucer for her place setting. Although she never mentioned it, I believe that she had already decided that I would be the daughter to pass her collection on to.
Now, so many years later, I treasure those fragile heirlooms even more. I look at them, recalling simpler times of great joy; fleeting, precious moments, filled with laughter and love; and memories of my mom. As if it were yesterday I remember the day she gave her collection to me.
On a lazy Sunday afternoon in early autumn, Mom and I relaxed on the den couch, engaging in a series of competitive Scrabble games. Dad dozed in his comfy armchair, watching a TV documentary. Although I had shared many similar, wonderful weekends with my parents through the years, this visit was different. Dad had recently been diagnosed with Lymphoma, a terminal type of blood cancer. The familiar rhythmic tick-tock of our lives had suddenly slowed. Every minute became precious; every word worth listening to; every hug held just a bit longer.
Later that evening, I heard Mom call out from the kitchen, “I think you should take my teacups home with you.”
“No Way! I have no place to keep them,” I called back. “I don’t want them!”
She insisted, “Don’t worry, you’ll find a place for them. We have the Sunday paper; Dad and I will help you wrap them. I’ll get a cardboard box from the storage room.”
Like three displaced homing pigeons, we gathered at the dining table. My dad looked piqued. He was losing his remaining white hair; his red cardigan sweater and the collar of his shirt looked too big for him. Even his polka-dotted bow tie drooped a little. Still, he joked as he read a comic strip aloud to us. I could barely see the teacups through my river of tears. I knew what this meant: it was a changing of the guard.
A divorced woman of forty- six, I still clung to my illusion of freedom. I lived with Robert, my boyfriend of nine years, in a rental apartment in NYC. My lifestyle did not include incorporating things so tied to commitment and family traditions. Those were values that I visited when I came home: admired and yet feared, needed and yet pulled away from. Marriage; roots; commitment; my parents understood their meaning. I had not yet embraced their legacy to me, yet Mom was signaling that it was time to grow up, to become part of a family, to establish roots of my own. Even when the cups were all packed, I insisted I was not ready to take them.
I looked into my mom’s eyes and saw my tears reflected back to me: two rivers, a mother and her daughter; one bottomless ocean of love. Resting her hand on top of mine, her words softened my resistance. “You have to take them; it’s time for me to let them go. Life goes on, Marlene. Whether we flow with it or not, it keeps on moving.” She hugged and kissed me, and said, “Use them well.”
With the cardboard box planted in the back of my SUV, I thought about the teacups the entire drive back to NYC. About ten minutes from my apartment it finally struck me: these were my teacups now. This marked the end of an era for these precious objects, yet a beginning for them as well. I left the box inside the front door, waiting to be unpacked, uncertain of where it belonged.
But the next generation has a way of opening our sealed packages. Later that evening, watching television with Robert and his daughter, Lindsay, I mentioned that my mom had given me her teacups. Lindsay exclaimed, “C’mon Marlene, let’s look at them!” Two voices within me quarreled: one prompting me to share, the other screaming loudly, “Don’t touch them; what if one chips or breaks!” I felt determined to unpack them myself. Then I thought of my mom. Remembering her words to me, I asked myself, what did it mean to “use them well”?
Mom’s teacups were never untouchable objects on a shelf collecting dust. Always an active part or our lives, they were shared and enjoyed at moments like this. I knew this was an opportunity for me to open my heart to Lindsay.
I’ll never forget the expression of delight on her face as we admired each teacup together. “This is the one I used at your parents’ anniversary party last year. Isn’t this one your mother’s favorite?” she asked, as she pointed to the cup with pastel tulips, my Mother’s Day gift of so long ago.
Sometime after midnight, Lindsay suggested that we phone her sister, Danielle, to join us for a tea party. We tossed pillows onto the wooden floor, arranged cake and cookies on paper plates, and had our first tea party. Within minutes, each of the girls had selected a teacup that would be her favorite. I‘ll take the white one with the tiny light and dark blue flowers; they look like they are dancing around the rim,” declared Lindsay. “It reminds me of your mother’s blue flowered nightgown, the one she wore the night I slept over and the three of us played Scrabble together until 3:00 a.m.”
“I’d like this one,” offered Danielle, reaching for the burgundy cup and saucer, rimmed in gold with a single rosebud inside the cup. “Remember the time we all sang that funny song over and over and we couldn’t stop laughing? We were sitting in your parents’ den and there was a bouquet of red roses on the table.”
That evening, as the three of us sipped our chamomile tea with honey, I knew that marriage, commitment and family were the threads that would connect the fabric of my own life. I wondered what my legacy to these two young girls might be, and whether I was strong enough to take on the difficult role of wife and stepmom.
For the first time in my life, I wanted to embrace the legacy of my mom and the generations of women before her. She had set an example through her strength, optimism, and, above all, her love and commitment to family and friends. Mom knew all along what I am now learning. Love is all that really matters, and conversations exchanged over a china teacup create moments that become the memorable times of our lives.
Thanks for taking time, Marlene Moore Gordon
To share a story and / or submit it for print publication contact me: mmg@handprintsonmyheart.com
©2007 Marlene Moore Gordon