Tag: family

May, 2025, Story

A Night Walk

Time to take that nightly walk, Olivia thought.  The night was still warm from the heat of the summer day. and there was hardly any breeze.  No need for a sweater or a scarf.  As usual, she used the toilet before going out.  I don’t want to have to rush home and risk a fall even though I’m just going around the block. It’s a long block and I walk slowly.  I guess I could wear one of those adult diaper-type things, but I like to think I haven’t got there yet.  But someday who knows.

Her cane was by the door next to where Lucy’s collar and leash still hung from one of the clothes pegs on the left wall in the entry way above the bench where she sat to put on her walking shoes.  No laces she thought, glad they came out with these velcro straps.  Old Lucy, I miss you.  Fourteen years old.  You didn’t pull hard anymore like you did when you were a puppy, after you became slow, just like me.  We were two old dogs out for a walk.  If Tommy had heard me say that he would have laughed and said, “Glad you didn’t say two old bitches.”  Well now there’s just one, me.  Check and double check to make sure I have the key before I close the door.  Don’t want to lock myself out.  Turn on the outside light. 

She carefully descended the two steps to the cracked concrete walkway leading to the sidewalk; holding on to her cane with one hand and the stair railing with the other.  How did I ever manage this with Lucy too?  That was two years ago, and I was steadier on my feet then.  Just two years, what a difference.  And long before that, I walked with Tommy every night, no problem.  Lucy was a big support for me when you suddenly died and left me, Tom, and it’s been thirteen years.  No warning, Tom, that was the worse part.  When you didn’t come in for lunch, I went to the garage and found you stretched out on the ground next to the car.  Gone.  I think I hated you for doing that to me, even as I cried and loved you and missed you.  Oh Tommy.  We had a good life together, didn’t we?  Except for the ending. 

It was a safe neighborhood.  Not gated, but with neighbors who had been mostly living here a long time; who’d raised families and stayed even when their children had grown and gone.  Just like ours Olivia thought.  Jerry.  Gone to the Big city where the jobs and opportunities are.  How’s that song go—‘New York, New York it’s a wonderful town?’  Not many kids on this street now.  Though that nice new family moved in down the street last month with two young kids.  Linns.  Said they left the big city so their kids could grow up with grass and they could walk to school by themselves safely.   Guess that’s why I still stay here.  Even though Jerry keeps telling me I should move to a retirement community.  Said there’re some in the City so I could be closer to him.  Or at least one in Connecticut that would be nearer to him than I am here.  Our home with so many memories that are hard to leave.  And our town where I can walk safely at night by myself.  Try doing that in New York.

The street lamps cast their light through the canopies of the elms that lined the street making a pattern of shifting light and dark shadows on the sidewalk and street.  Olivia knew every crack and uneven rise in the sidewalk by heart.  But she still walked with her head bent slightly forward so that she could watch where she stepped.  She seldom met anyone else.  She preferred it that way.  Not that she was unfriendly, but standing still and talking was really hard on her back.  Walking during that in-between hour when dinner was over for most people and they were watching TV and too early for the dog owners taking their last walk before winding up the day.  Like I did with Lucy.  

I used to be able to hear the programs that each neighbor was watching, especially during the summer with the windows open.  But now, even with my new hearing aids, it all sounds muffled and distant.  Bad ears, bad eyes, bad back, bad knees.  Like they say, ‘growing old is not for sissies.”  Tommy, you were no sissy, but you didn’t stay around long enough to find out if that was true.  Just seventy six.  And just retired eight years.  You left me to find out about growing really old all by myself.  You were so active and strong,  Tennis three times a week.  Gardening.  Volunteering.  Still liked sex.  And yes, I did too, and I didn’t need to take a blue pill.  Well, I still think about us.  Dirty old lady—ah, if they only knew.  It took me a while to get used to not having you around.  When you were first gone, I’d start to say something to you when my back was turned and then realize that you weren’t there.  And I would ache all over again.  Who ever said time heals all things?  Baloney.  But we learn to adjust and cope and survive.  If it had been me to go first, how would you have done?  Would you have found someone to replace me?  Like trading in a car?  I wear the wedding ring you gave on a chain around my neck.  Fingers got so arthritic that it wouldn’t fit on my fourth finger any more.  Funny, I still feel for it there every once in a while.  I put your ring and my engagement ring in with your ashes.  Ah Tommy, I like to think that you’re still around me somewhere and you can hear me.  Guess that doesn’t fit with  Rev. Mathew’s idea of Heaven.

She’d made her way around three sides of the long block, and was now rounding the fourth corner and heading home.  Up ahead, under a street lamp, Olivia saw a person in a black hoody walking towards her. But all in black?  Not the safest way to dress at night.   A young person’s walk, she thought.   She decided it was a man, feeling a momentary worry.   Not many young men in our neighborhood now.  Maybe back from college, visiting parents or grandparents?  Should I cross the street?  If he plans to hurt me, I couldn’t out run him anyway.  I’ll just say good night as we pass.  Hs face was still hidden by the hood as they drew closer. 

He spoke first, a pleasant tenor voice, “Good evening, Olive Oil.”

That stopped her.  “Wait.  What?  Why I haven’t been called that since I was in high school!  Do I know you?”

He laughed, “Oh, I know everything about you, Olivia.”

“Who are you?  Please take down your hood so I can see your face.  What a surprise.”

He pulled back his hood, revealing the face of a smiling young man with head of thick, black hair.

“I don’t recognize you,” she said after studying his face.  “Did I meet you at your parents’ home when you visited?”

“No,” he replied.  “I’m here tonight just to see you, Olivia.  But I think you already know me.”

“I know you?”  Then the slow realization, as she watched him waiting patiently, still smiling.  “Yes, I have been expecting you.  But you’re so young and good looking.  What took you so long to find me?”

“To each in their own time.  And I like not being stereotyped.” he replied.  “But now, are you ready to go?  Shall we dance?”

“It’s been so long since I’ve danced.  I’ve forgotten how to.”

“Take my hand and I’ll lead.  It’ll be easy.”

January, 2025

Ornaments

It was seven days after New Year’s Day and he sighed.  It was time to undecorated the tree and take it down.  The letdown after the Holidays.  Celebrations and parties over.  Kids and grandkids returned to their homes on the Mainland.  Fir needles starting to crisp and fall.  Every year the space between Thanksgiving and Christmas seemed more compressed, and Christmas to New Year’s Eve was just a blink in time.  And now it was January.

He had waited until two weeks before Christmas to get a live tree, bring it home, get out the stand that each year showed more rust, and lift the tree onto a side table with his son’s help.  It was a five foot tree and putting it on the table kept it out of the dogs’ reach when they came over.  What he used to do with his wife, then after her passing, alone, he now needed help with.  You must not use the step stool to decorate the top of the tree; tell me when you want me over and I’ll do the climbing, his son had admonished.  He bowed to common sense and agreed.  I’ll let the tree branches settle for a couple of days and call you, he told his son.
  Before calling to help with that, he got out the tree lights and the two ornament boxes in readiness.  If you can do put on the tree lights, and the top angel, I can do the rest, he said when his son arrived.  No climbing his son reminded him.  I haven’t shrunk that much that I can’t hang the ornaments, he replied, though he was now 5’ 9” instead of the 6’1” he had been when he was 60.  Thank you, but I can do the rest myself more slowly, now that you’ve done the high stuff.  I don’t want to take up too much of your day.  Yes, I’m sure I’ll be careful.  He liked to decorate slowly, remembering.  The former top angel that had been on their first tree, now looking quite worn, he hung from a lower branch.  He unpacked and decided where to place each ornament, an annual trip down memory lane.  Don’t need all of them this year; we used to have taller trees.  Turned on the lights and they looked evenly placed.  There would be some shifting of ornaments for a few days until he was satisfied with their distribution—that used to be fun for his wife.

But all that was over three weeks ago, and now it was time to put things back in storage and start a new year.  He began by getting out the two plastic storage boxes.  I’ll start with the high bulbs that are within reach and leave the top ones and lights for my son to take down.  Now here are the two small glass ones that we had on our very first tree.  That was in a studio apartment on Third Avenue in NYC, six months after they were married.  The tree they bought from a sidewalk stand on First Avenue.  

And these three were from Sears in Boston, two blocks from our apartment, just across the railroad bridge.  Made in Poland, he remembered—which seemed odd at the time.  Survivors of our moves across the country.  We also bought our trees from the lot in the Sears parking lot.  He wrapped each bulb one in tissue paper as he stored them.  

After Boston it was Great Falls, Montana and USAF life for two years.  Where’d we get these two crazy birds with top hats?  From the BX or “The Paris of Montana?”  That was the department store in town where they sold everything including furs coats up front and bought pelts from hunters and trappers in the back.  Our dining room set came from them.  We went to the National Forests in the snow to cut our own trees.  A caravan from the base, hunting trees.  Hunting pheasant was earlier in the fall.  

On to Seattle for four years.  His wife acquired a few more ornaments each Christmas, including the wooden figures from Sweden that he staged in a winter diorama each year.  The store was a Scandinavian shop on University Ave.  Do all college towns have a University Avenue?  Yeah, the kids got a kick out of that and look for it even now when they come back.  The felt birds she sewed as a volunteer with the Children’s Hospital Guild now hang on our son’s tree.  And when we went Christmas shopping at night at Frederick’s, the store had a supervised play room for the kids.  Frederick’s is no more, but I still have ornaments from it.  I guess there are still chocolate mints that sell under that label.

And finally back to Honolulu.  Here are the musical angels that play “Silent Night.”  From Liberty House and bought so long ago that they were made in Japan rather than China.  He wrapped them carefully in two layers of paper towels.  Liberty House.  They had a store in Union Square, San Francisco once.  I even bought a sport coat from that store.  Liberty House.  Sold by AmFac to a Mainland buyer and later bought by Macy’s.  The small wooden creche ornament was from “India Imports.”  Another local store crowded out of Ala Moana Center.  And these bulbs from Germany that we got for our first Christmas back in Hawaii—from Sears.  Gone too.  Wrap them and stow them.  Our tree that year was a local-grown live Norfolk pine.  No odor though.  We planted it at our first house the next summer.

Ornaments and decorations with histories, barely remembered now.  And now I’m the sole curator of these decorations and memories, he thought.  Ornaments, carefully packed away with their stories until next Christmas.