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| Christmas at my brother's house. |
| 12.07.04 (8:01 am) [edit] |
|
This year we will be having Christmas at my brother’s house. I guess that I need to spend some more time there… to see traces of him in his surroundings. To me, it is still Ellie and Fritz’s house. It is the house where the davenport was covered in plastic. It always looked the same, smelled the same, and felt the same… warm and cozy… a shelter in the storm of every day life. Grandma Ellie would not argue that I "got away with murder" at her house. When I played restaurant, I used real dishes and served real food...can't remember who cleaned up. I'm doubting that it was me. I played in her dresses, wore her jewelry, perfume, hats, and shoes and put on red 'rouge' and lipstick. We made pizza and homemade malts and she always kept maple leaf cookies in a Tupperware container by the basement door. For a mean-spirited, evil Republican… Ellie definitely had a bleeding heart when it came to me. Following my infamous carrot experience (see my first blog), I was excused from the table without the benefit of dinner. Knowing that I would soon be hungry, I took the three block trek to Grandma Ellie’s where I knew I could share the details about my horribly nasty parents and I would get a sympathetic ear, as well as, something to eat that wasn’t apt to make me vomit. She greeted me at the door with a hug and a smile. Ellie always smelled like Lillies of the Valley. She started filling me with food even before I had begun divulging the details of the cooked carrot atrocity. Every once in a while she would take a break from her preparations and run her hand over my hair… shaking her head in sympathy. "Fritz", she would yell, "Lori’s here… come give her a hug… she had a fight with Jim". Grandpa Fritz had a heavy German accent and a thick head of black wavy hair. He was the most agreeable man that I have ever known and I’m fairly sure that he died without ever having a single enemy. Ironically, he lost his arm to cancer in the 70s… the same year that their beloved cottage was lost in a flood. When he retired as a machinist from Chrysler, the line for his retirement party went on for three hours. Every Sunday, Fritz would take me to Sacred Heart Church for mass and then bowling. Three games…four if I pouted. Grandpa had bowled at least two 300 games in his life. When he lost his arm he had to learn all over again. He never complained. Patiently he would show me where to stand and dutifully he would cheer me on. Occasionally he would slap his hand against his forehead and shake his head… "you turned your wrist again" he would say with his accent, "you aren’t ever gonna get a strike it you keep throwing that back-up ball!". I never knew what a back up ball was but I knew that it always made him slap his forehead. In the summers we would go to their cottage on Lake Erie. It was small and smelled faintly of ivory soap and mildew. The walls were covered in pine paneling and the curtains were a beautiful 50s floral pattern. Ellie and I would water the lawn in the evenings and when it was dark we tiptoed with a flashlight and a coffee can digging up nightcrawlers for fishing the next day. I would sit for hours on a giant rock and fish… all by myself. I never tired of it. Looking out at this seemingly endless mass of water and daydreaming. At night I would lay in bed with the screen door open and listen to the fog horn and the waves… turning on my light every once in a while to check for spiders. There were always parties at the cottage, not fancy parties, but they were filled with raucous laughter and a level of hospitality that Martha Stewart never dreamed of. They had one of those giant brick barbecues and it always smelled heavenly. On July 20, 1969, I was just one of many faces crowded onto the tiny screened-in porch, watching intently as two men walked on the moon for the first time. First there was a sense of quiet awe and then a great deal of cheering and clinking of beer mugs. Drifting through the heavy German accents came the sound of American pride. The American dream… not without cost, struggle or pain…but even at the age of eight I was drawn to a light in their eyes that I rarely see any more. One day I went back to the cottage after the flood. My bedroom was perched just past the rocks where I used to fish. We lost so much more than a cottage that day. They are both gone now. Grandpa died several years before grandma. She found ways to fill her time but she never got over it. One year, I gave her a computer and she cursed it and feigned a little anger with me. She insisted that she was much to old to learn something new… but every day she was on that computer emailing her Congressman, pulling up the Drudge report or ranting to me about democrats. One night she, my mom, my sisters and myself all started a private chatroom and she was blown away by the possibility of it all… a childlike fascination, like watching men walk on the moon right before your very eyes. After grandma died, I took two things from her house… a little cuckoo clock that I would wind each time I visited and the Tupperware container where she kept the cookies. Christmas at Ellie and Fritz’s. The tree will be different and so will the smell. We will still serve the pink fluffy stuff, the baked beans and the German potato salad. It is still a shelter in the storm of every day life but, I won’t be snooping through the drawers anymore looking for clothes to dress up in, covering myself with her Muguet cologne or chowing down on maple leaf cookies. It is my brother’s house. It is my brother’s house. Yet, somewhere in between the stories and the card games, we will think about Ellie and Fritz. We will almost be able hear their voices…arguing over the placement of the video camera until someone waved their hand in the air with a loud "Ach!" and walked away. I imagine that it doesn’t matter what we call the house. We will be together at Christmas. Ellie and Fritz would have like that, I think. |
posted by: Linda (reply)
post date: 12.07.04 (9:33 am)
You made me cry.
posted by: Sue in Toledo (reply)
post date: 12.08.04 (6:09 am)
This story touched my heart and brought a tear to my eye. It reminded me of Christmas past with my Grandparents. I too am the oldest granchild so much of it was similar. It also made me realize how much things have changed.
posted by: LoriSchuster (reply)
post date: 12.08.04 (12:40 pm)
Reply to: Linda
Linda Linda... you've been saying that for 32 years! :) Thanks. Glad you liked it... even though I was grammies favorite :) Love you
posted by: LoriSchuster (reply)
post date: 12.08.04 (12:42 pm)
Reply to: Sue
Hi Sue... I know... it's hard to look around and see who is missing from around the table. Every day that you can love someone is really a gift. If I don't talk to you before then... have a great Christmas. It's so nice of you to be reading! Lori
posted by: Sue in Toledo (reply)
post date: 12.15.04 (5:17 am)
I read this one to my Mom over the phone. As I said it reminded me of our family Christmases past. She said "Wow! She's really good! Are her stories always this interesting?"
posted by: LoriSchuster (reply)
post date: 12.15.04 (2:00 pm)
Reply to: Sue
Thank you :) and tell mom thank you too!
Hard to imagine two families in the world like ours!
Grace, beauty, humor, strength.
Alison Haley Cloud
Nov. 16, 1987-March 1, 2005
