His chest is broad and barrel-like; his shoulders are wide and sturdy. The tree-trunk legs bespeak his half-century earlier career as a firefighter, a rescuer. His strength and the quiet power of his physicality are still apparent, only a bit slowed. The shock of white hair that covers his forehead adds dignity even when one notes the hearing aids in both ears. He just turned 94 years old, and he now lives alone at the end of my street.
I met Ted and Margaret in the fall. I’ve lived down the street for three years, and I’ve often seen them outside in their yard, or getting into and out of their truck. I just hadn’t ever gotten around to “meeting the neighbors.” I was always rushing hither and yon, there was never the time. One afternoon as I drove by and saw them watering their freshly seeded grass, I realized I’d lived here 3 years and I had never said hello. When exactly did I think my life would slow down to accommodate all my whims? I decided to walk back down and say hi. I stayed for over two hours. I couldn’t believe it when Margaret told me they were 93- “You don’t look a day over 70!” I exclaimed, honestly. (Later, I tried to decide in my head if this was a backhanded compliment to a woman!)
Margaret was in a wheelchair but very able- her lower leg had been amputated eight years prior. Her bright blue eyes and silver fox hair pulled back into a wispy bun gave her more an impish, sprite-like look than a wizened one. She was exuberant life in an almost century-old body. Her animated face and hands pulsed with electricity. She was glad for the company, and I was honored to share her time and thoughts. She talked about when they’d first moved to the neighborhood, and the way it’s changed. She talked about divorce once she heard I was a single parent, exclaiming frequently from then on anytime I saw her, “What WAS he thinking?” about my ex-husband. She spoke with poignancy about the family she didn’t get to see much now, scattered as we all are in the twenty-first century. She spoke with love and a bit of teasing in Ted’s general direction- I couldn’t tell if he didn’t hear her or had just perfected selective hearing over the last 70 years!
I took my children down to meet them that weekend, and we sat in the parlor. Margaret insisted everyone take a handful of cocktail peanuts, and Ted talked more than I’d heard him before. He talked about being a firefighter, and his children. Margaret looked around periodically with an exasperated gesture and said, “They don’t want to hear all about YOU!” But I did. Almost a century of stories. The things they had seen. After a bit, Margaret looked around and then grabbed my twelve-year-old son’s hand (the child closest to her, who had been the most receptive to the peanuts) and said, “What WAS your father thinking? To leave all of you? To leave your beautiful mother? To walk away from you children?” I felt the sting as my son’s head gave a little jerk. This was unexpected- a slap from a woman who did not know him, a kidney punch from the grandma in the wheelchair. I felt the hotness behind my son’s eyes, and he blinked for a moment like a baby just come into sunlight from the womb. “It’s okay,” he said strongly, “It wasn’t really like that.”
After a moment, I explained we had to go. I hustled everyone out the door, and turned to say goodbye. Margaret said it again, the refrain that was helpless to not spring from her lips, “What was that man thinking?” Then she grabbed my hand and held it, and spoke of her daughter’s upcoming visit, her tempered dislike of her son-in-law, her worry for her children’s happiness. I saw in her crystal eyes the deep truth: our children never leave us. Ted chided her a bit, “She’s ready to leave, Maggie! Stop talking!” “I wish you were my daughter,” she said. I sensed the connection, also. I hugged her. Outside, I tried to do some damage control with my oldest son. “Honey, what Margaret said about your dad…” “It’s okay, Mom,” he said, smiling, “She is so cool! They are the coolest people! I love her! She’s just old, Mom. She just doesn’t understand divorce.” He grabbed his skateboard and headed off down the street, leaving me agape.
At Christmas we took sugar cookies and gingerbread men we’d made. I meant to go back in January, but life got in the way. In the back of my head, I knew Ted and Margaret would always be there. I wanted to go talk to them more and record some of their stories. Repositories of so much- several lifetimes between them, well past the usual lifespan, and mental faculties completely intact.
In early February, Chris took some pasta fagiole down. It was a good day for soup, I had loads of extra. I’d meant to take some meals before then, figuring meals were probably the most difficult thing for them. Margaret told him to come back for the Tupperware container. Rebecca went and got it a week later. “I have to get down there,” I thought to myself. I wanted to see them and visit. I knew winter, when they couldn’t be outside sitting in the sun, must be lonely.
Two weeks ago there were a few cars in the drive. I was rushing off to somewhere. I saw a woman outside, in her fifties. In a millisecond, I assessed her facial expression. No tears. Not upset-looking. Of course, I thought something had happened. Interestingly, my first thought was Ted. What would Margaret do? It’s the first thing you think. But that woman’s face, her lack of sadness, no police cars or ambulance- well, they just had visitors, I supposed.
The next day my youngest daughter came down with chicken pox. We were effectively quarantined for ten days. Then, Friday night I took my oldest son to Blockbuster, and to get ice cream for our movie night. When we drove down the street, I looked at Ted and Margaret’s house- 8pm, all the lights were out except the electric candles in the windows that she kept up year-round, as usual. Wait. Just a moment. I stopped the car. “What, Mom?” I backed up. I looked up into their bedroom window and there it was- the shock of white hair, the glasses on the strong face: Ted appeared to be sitting at a desk, writing in the candlelight. They were never up at 8pm. “Something happened.”
“Mom,” my son’s face darkened, “I just remembered. Someone on the bus last week said that the lady who lived in that house died. I didn’t believe them. I forgot to tell you, though.” I took a deep breath. “Let’s go home and make a phone call,” I said.
My neighbor confirmed it- Margaret had departed this world, this body, the Sunday before. “You were stuck home with chicken pox, and the funeral was Wednesday, I didn’t think to call you because I didn’t think you could get out,” she said. Yes, yes. Of course. I want to ask the usual question, “What did she die of?” but it’s moot, right, at 93? I walked back down the street as soon as I started the movie for my kids. I looked up at Ted in the window. I couldn’t knock now, it was too late, and he was in an alone space. How must it be to go to bed without the person who’d been beside you for 70 years? The most terrible divorce, a wretched amputation. I wouldn’t even really know what to say. I walked home, my hands in fists at my sides.
As an adult with ties, I’ve lost two grandmothers, two men who were like grandfathers, a cat, a gerbil (yes, there were ties to the gerbil). I’ve been, in most other cases, a degree of separation from death. Really, that is true in this case as well, but Margaret was a member of my tribe, and I don’t know how we knew it from our few conversations and visits, but we both knew it. She was a firecracker, and I wish all the things you wish when it goes this way. I find my mind on Ted, whom I’ve not yet gone to see, chicken that I am. Afraid of what? Saying the wrong thing? Appearing on the doorstep at the wrong moment? Is there a right thing to say? Is there anything I can possibly say that will provide solace? I think not. Is there a wrong time to appear? What time is not filled with some measure of grief for him?
But then I realize- 93 years. At some point after about 85, you must realize it’s all, to quote Ray Carver, gravy. Every day that you open your eyes, every day you make it down the stairs and put food in your mouth and maybe drive your truck or water your fresh, green grass. Every bit of it just a dollop more icing on the cake. And at 94 now, without his bride, why would Ted want to stick around? Would I? Wouldn’t I just be ready to go with my mate, to “slip the surly bonds of earth?” Since I haven’t checked in, I don’t know what the writing is that Ted is doing after dark in the electric candlelight in the window. I like to think he is writing some of their stories, and finding some joy in their three-quarter-century bond. Peace.
Posted in Uncategorized
