I'm re-watching True Blood while I knit lately, not because I loved it but because it's entertaining and I can divide my attention between Eric Northman, Lafayette, and my yarn equally without missing too much of any of it. But because of that limited focus, I can't remember which character responded to a question about whether they were grossed out by staying in a house where people died, but the paraphrased answer is what twanged through my head like a banjo string this weekend. "I don't figure there's anywhere on this earth where somebody hasn't died."
I was back in the town where I grew up this weekend for my 30th high school reunion, and my brain was a constant flickering filmstrip of memories. D.N. peed against that church wall when we were walking the dog once. That's the playground where S.B. ran to turn the car radio up in the dark (Manic Depression came on!) and slammed face first into the monkey bars, resulting in immediate buzz-kill and a trip to the ER. That's where D.S. and I ran through the sprinklers. Here's the park where M.F. and I drank 40s of malt liquor and made out and I made him giggle by demanding to suck his lock and then lasciviously licked the little metal plunger on his car door. There's the tree my mom planted to celebrate my high school graduation, which was up to my hip back then and now obscures the window of the bedroom where she died.
Buffeted by waves of nostalgia and heartache and happiness. It was a really good trip. I'm still turning the reunion stuff over in my mind and can't find the words for it yet, but Saturday morning was something else altogether.
My eldest sister L., #1 of 10 and fifteen years older than me, lives back in GR now, and I'd promised her Saturday morning to go see ArtPrize. L. has incredible taste and is a consummate estate sale shopper, so her condo is filled with magnificent things, beautifully arranged, each item with a story attached to it. I truly enjoyed seeing her home and talking to her beau, and then she big-sistered me by insisting upon driving us around to see some important GR sites (the street where our Dad grew up, gorgeous houses near Garfield Park, some inexplicably fancy lawn art, the piano bar where our Mom used to go sing her heart out after Dad passed....). She took me to my very first estate sale - a house FILLED with player pianos and piano rolls and that Grand Rapids basement smell. I resisted buying up three delightful old man caps because I knew my luggage space was taken up with the yarn and books I'd bought on Friday. Then we headed downtown and walked around the fringes of ArtPrize, some of which was astonishingly good, some just .... like lawn art. We saw the building where our Dad's advertising agency had been, we checked out the old Herpolsheimer's department store which is now a police station. We took a picture of the creepy old wig store and where the teensy little staircase used to be nestled between two buildings. We went to Fountain Street Church and I showed her where I slow-danced with C.B. to "Stairway to Heaven" forgetting that it stops being slow halfway through. She took me through the public library and we cried together when she showed me the spot where someone who knew our Dad told her stories about his days as "MadMan of Grand Rapids." It was a glorious day - sunny and crisp and between the flashbacks and new stuff and time spent with a sister I so rarely see, I was giddy.
Right up until the moment we were walking back to the car and her foot hit some uneven pavement right across from the Cottage Bar and I helplessly watched as she went down HARD, face first, onto the pavement.
So. Much. Blood.
It was clear the moment she hit that this was not just a "oh my god how embarrassing let me brush myself off". She didn't lose consciousness and didn't even make a sound, but laid there for a moment while a pool of blood grew under her face. A couple and a single woman close to us saw and rushed over to help - the couple went and grabbed napkins and the woman stayed with us while I called 911 and told me the street names. L. was able to sit up slowly, with a huge cut on her face, still so quiet it scared the hell out of me.
The hospital is right around the corner and three stereotypically-smoking-hot paramedics were there almost immediately, checking her out, putting a collar on her, helping her into the ambulance. The hospital staff was great (though in the chaos I didn't get a chance to hug the paramedics before they left, dammit.) She was in enormous pain and embarrassed, but her biggest concern seemed to be getting me to my reunion on time. They ended up doing a CT scan and finding broken bones in her face, had to stitch up the cut next to her eye, but ruled out a concussion or any other broken bones. Her boyfriend got there, as did my brother #8 with his girlfriend, and we did some complicated finagling of cars and keys and pet transfer and then I headed back to my brother's to get dressed for my party.
She's going to be okay, she's got a surgical consult coming up today. What I can't get past, though, is that horrible feeling of helplessness - watching her go down and being absolutely unable to stop it or fix it or make it better. It's the same feeling as my recurring nightmare of Mom being sick and running to the bathroom to vomit, but there's so much puke the toilet overflows and the bathroom floods and all I can do is stand and watch and cry.
But that's the way this all works, right? We have so little control and so little real influence. Old friends end their own lives while we're busy navigating our own. Cancer takes over people we love. Everything changes, everything dies, the burrito you loved at 16 doesn't taste the same with a 48 year old tongue.
I'm glad I went back. I'm sorry my sweet sister got hurt, but I'm glad I was there to help in my feeble way. I'm grateful for the chance to see all those flickering old memories - the good, the bad, the ugly, the incomprehensible.
I was back in the town where I grew up this weekend for my 30th high school reunion, and my brain was a constant flickering filmstrip of memories. D.N. peed against that church wall when we were walking the dog once. That's the playground where S.B. ran to turn the car radio up in the dark (Manic Depression came on!) and slammed face first into the monkey bars, resulting in immediate buzz-kill and a trip to the ER. That's where D.S. and I ran through the sprinklers. Here's the park where M.F. and I drank 40s of malt liquor and made out and I made him giggle by demanding to suck his lock and then lasciviously licked the little metal plunger on his car door. There's the tree my mom planted to celebrate my high school graduation, which was up to my hip back then and now obscures the window of the bedroom where she died.
Buffeted by waves of nostalgia and heartache and happiness. It was a really good trip. I'm still turning the reunion stuff over in my mind and can't find the words for it yet, but Saturday morning was something else altogether.
My eldest sister L., #1 of 10 and fifteen years older than me, lives back in GR now, and I'd promised her Saturday morning to go see ArtPrize. L. has incredible taste and is a consummate estate sale shopper, so her condo is filled with magnificent things, beautifully arranged, each item with a story attached to it. I truly enjoyed seeing her home and talking to her beau, and then she big-sistered me by insisting upon driving us around to see some important GR sites (the street where our Dad grew up, gorgeous houses near Garfield Park, some inexplicably fancy lawn art, the piano bar where our Mom used to go sing her heart out after Dad passed....). She took me to my very first estate sale - a house FILLED with player pianos and piano rolls and that Grand Rapids basement smell. I resisted buying up three delightful old man caps because I knew my luggage space was taken up with the yarn and books I'd bought on Friday. Then we headed downtown and walked around the fringes of ArtPrize, some of which was astonishingly good, some just .... like lawn art. We saw the building where our Dad's advertising agency had been, we checked out the old Herpolsheimer's department store which is now a police station. We took a picture of the creepy old wig store and where the teensy little staircase used to be nestled between two buildings. We went to Fountain Street Church and I showed her where I slow-danced with C.B. to "Stairway to Heaven" forgetting that it stops being slow halfway through. She took me through the public library and we cried together when she showed me the spot where someone who knew our Dad told her stories about his days as "MadMan of Grand Rapids." It was a glorious day - sunny and crisp and between the flashbacks and new stuff and time spent with a sister I so rarely see, I was giddy.
 |
| Image borrowed from Grand Rapids History site - Herpolsheimer's |
Right up until the moment we were walking back to the car and her foot hit some uneven pavement right across from the Cottage Bar and I helplessly watched as she went down HARD, face first, onto the pavement.
So. Much. Blood.
It was clear the moment she hit that this was not just a "oh my god how embarrassing let me brush myself off". She didn't lose consciousness and didn't even make a sound, but laid there for a moment while a pool of blood grew under her face. A couple and a single woman close to us saw and rushed over to help - the couple went and grabbed napkins and the woman stayed with us while I called 911 and told me the street names. L. was able to sit up slowly, with a huge cut on her face, still so quiet it scared the hell out of me.
The hospital is right around the corner and three stereotypically-smoking-hot paramedics were there almost immediately, checking her out, putting a collar on her, helping her into the ambulance. The hospital staff was great (though in the chaos I didn't get a chance to hug the paramedics before they left, dammit.) She was in enormous pain and embarrassed, but her biggest concern seemed to be getting me to my reunion on time. They ended up doing a CT scan and finding broken bones in her face, had to stitch up the cut next to her eye, but ruled out a concussion or any other broken bones. Her boyfriend got there, as did my brother #8 with his girlfriend, and we did some complicated finagling of cars and keys and pet transfer and then I headed back to my brother's to get dressed for my party.
She's going to be okay, she's got a surgical consult coming up today. What I can't get past, though, is that horrible feeling of helplessness - watching her go down and being absolutely unable to stop it or fix it or make it better. It's the same feeling as my recurring nightmare of Mom being sick and running to the bathroom to vomit, but there's so much puke the toilet overflows and the bathroom floods and all I can do is stand and watch and cry.
But that's the way this all works, right? We have so little control and so little real influence. Old friends end their own lives while we're busy navigating our own. Cancer takes over people we love. Everything changes, everything dies, the burrito you loved at 16 doesn't taste the same with a 48 year old tongue.
I'm glad I went back. I'm sorry my sweet sister got hurt, but I'm glad I was there to help in my feeble way. I'm grateful for the chance to see all those flickering old memories - the good, the bad, the ugly, the incomprehensible.
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