Anne Frank: A Global Tribute… Tuesday 14th April, 2015.
Thanks to Rowena for posting about this special tribute to Anne Frank on the 70th anniversary of her death. I would participate if I weren’t so technically challenged on the video-recording front, but hope that some of my friends will consider taking part.
2005 was a difficult year. I lost a great and good friend, my long-time church community, and my father-in-law all within a few months.
Today is the first of the major tenth anniversary dates. Ten years ago today, which was Good Friday that year, my friend Angie died from cancer, leaving behind a husband, two sons, a daughter, her mother and siblings, extended family, and many, many, many friends.
I’ve written about Angie before, including here, so I won’t go on too long about her awesomeness. Her legacy includes not only her wonderful family and friends but also a charity fund that gives scholarships, supports cancer patients and their families, and supports The Discovery Center, our local children’s museum, which Angie blessed with her artwork. There is an art gallery, memorial tree, and butterfly house dedicated to her there, as well as an art gallery near the African Road/Vestal Middle School auditorium, which I will always think of as Angie’s Auditorium because it was a long-time dream of hers that she helped fulfill when she served on the Board of Education.
What I am thinking about today, though, is the ten years we have been without her physical presence. The high school graduation of our daughters, the college commencements, her son’s law school graduation, passing the bar, getting married. All the little moments – hanging out in the kitchen, going out for lunch, taking the dog for a walk, attending seemingly endless committee meetings.
Because I do believe in the eternal life of the soul, I believe that Angie is still able to be present in our lives spiritually. For those who don’t believe, Angie is still present through her role in shaping the people whom she loved and who loved her, as well as through the art she left for us to enjoy and the legacy projects I’ve already mentioned.
In some ways, we have been without her for ten years. In other ways, she has been with us all along.
Early this morning, I was driving to 7:30 Mass at a church that was a bit further afield than usual, so I put the car radio on and caught the cadence of an organ prelude. I immediately thought it was J.S. Bach, although I did then think, perhaps it would be prudent to withhold a conclusion until I had more than two measures to go on.
As soon as the fugue began, though, I knew it was Bach – and one of the preludes and fugues I had learned while I was at Smith. (For the other organ geeks out there, it was a Prelude and Fugue in G major, although I am not sure of the BWV.) Next, they spoke about how composers often borrowed themes from their own work or others’ work and played a choral movement that used the fugue theme, transformed into a minor key. (Maybe the US court system needs to hear a bit more about this long-time compositional practice.)
It was odd for me to think about my playing Bach on the organ. There is even a bit of wonder that I ever could. It’s been almost ten years since I have played on even a limited basis and even longer since I played such complex repertoire. Long-standing tendon problems in my right elbow led to years of physical therapy and finally surgery which we had hoped would fix the problem. However, I developed calcifications that caused the symptoms to recur, so I could only play for short amounts of time, not nearly enough to practice Bach fugues.
I had been still doing some accompanying for the choirs at our church, but almost ten years ago, we lost our church home, and I have barely so much as touched an organ since.
This spring and summer will be the tenth anniversary of a string of really painful life events, the aftermath of each still present in my life and the life of my loved ones in different ways. I have the feeling that these upcoming tenth anniversaries will be as complicated as a Bach fugue, but not nearly so organized.
In the US, money is denominated in dollars and cents. We still have a one-cent coin, called a penny.
People tend to ignore pennies, but they have a special meaning for me.
My elder daughter was an early reader and we were always on the lookout for stories that matched her reading ability without being too grown up in content. Her elementary principal suggested “The Hundred Penny Box.” The story is about a child and an elderly relative who has a box with a penny from every year of her life. We decided not to let our daughter read it because no other adults in the book really listened to either the child or the elder, but I loved the idea of having a penny for each year as a memento.
I have given penny boxes to family and friends for milestone birthdays or anniversaries. My parents’ 40th wedding anniversary. My friend and now spiritual mentor as a memento of her 40th birthday sweat lodge ceremony. My college roommate’s 50th birthday. I give a new penny for the current year each year on the anniversary or birthday date.
The only penny box I started that is no longer being added to was the one I gave my friend Angie for her 49th birthday. With a doctor-husband and many friends in the medical community, she was worried about turning 50, knowing that the fifties is a dangerous decade, health-wise, with many serious health conditions cropping up. Because the penny box commemorates the beginning of a year rather than its completion, the penny box for 49 contains 50 pennies. I thought it would be a good way to ease into her 50s the next year.
Within weeks of her fiftieth birthday, Angie was diagnosed with lung cancer, a shock as she had never been a smoker.
She fought hard and we added pennies for her 51st, 52nd, 53rd, and 54th birthdays.
We knew the 54th was going to be the last birthday she would celebrate.
As 2005 began, I wanted to find a new penny to add to the box while she was still alive, knowing her October birthday would not see her alive. I even went to a coin shop, hoping to find a newly minted penny, but it seemed that the mint had not yet started making them yet.
Angie died on March 25.
Later that spring, when I found a 2005 penny, I sent it to her husband to complete Angie’s penny box.
However briefly, 2005, her 55th year, was Angie’s year, too.
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This post is part of Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturdays. Join us! Details here: http://lindaghill.com/2014/11/28/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-november-2914/. This week’s prompt is sense/scents/cents/sent.
Badge by Doobster @Mindful Digressions
In commemoration, I am sharing a poem I wrote about the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
September 11, 2002
~~~ by Joanne Corey
Last year
sky
clear
blue.
Today
wind
swirling.
Bells
ringing.
Names….
Names…..
Names…..
New York
Arlington
Shanksville.
Their dust
spiraling
heaven-ward.
Soul-wind.
When I started this blog, I reserved the right to post some older essays or poems that have been hanging out on my hard drive. I wanted to share this today because the rose bush is flowering now. Various changes have happened since I wrote this. My parents have a new senior community where they don’t have a deck and there have been other complications, but we do have a (relocated daughter) rose bush blooming in our yard.
***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****
Today, April 19, 2007, is my parents’ 53rd wedding anniversary. It is also twelve days until they move from the cozy, two-bedroom bungalow they have owned for 18 years into a two-bedroom apartment in a senior living community a few miles away.
The move is their own choice, not precipitated by any health emergency. They want to settle into a place with transportation, meals, housekeeping, recreation and other services, available to use as they need them in the coming years.
They have been going through their attic, basement, garage, and five rooms, choosing what to bring with them, what to send to our home, what to give to each of my two sisters, and what to donate to charity.
There is one important heirloom that they can’t bring with them or give to anyone – a rosebush.
Beside every home that they have shared for 53 years, my parents have transplanted a rosebush that grew next to my mother’s childhood home in Hoosac Tunnel, Massachusetts.
This is not a spindly, delicate, high-maintenance, hybrid tea rose, but a rose bush that is only a generation away from its wild cousins. Its stems are thick with thorns and its leaves are more abundant and a fresher, brighter green than the florist kinds of roses. Its blossoms have deep pink petals, which open in the sun to reveal a large cluster of yellow stamens, heavy with pollen. Unlike highly cultivated varieties, these roses’ scent is intense and attracts many bumblebees, who drink the nectar, busily fill the pollen sacs on their legs, fly to their nest, and then return for more. In testament to the work of the bees, when the petals flutter down to the ground below the bush, it produces large, bright red rose hips that decorate the branches for months.
Planted at their current home with its slightly warmer climate, the bush has grown very large and often produces a second round of blossoms in late summer. It is also part of the landscaping of their house, and as such, is being sold along with it. Given its current size, it also could not be transplanted again without serious damage to its roots.
This heirloom rose bush will still be close to our family, though. Fifteen years ago, we transplanted a shoot from the rose next to our own home, where it has thrived. Now we will propagate a new bush from it and put it in a container that my parents can keep on the little deck off their living room at the apartment.
It should be ready to bud a few weeks after their 54th anniversary.
Today is my parents’ 60th wedding anniversary. The whole family feels blessed that they have achieved such a rare milestone. Most couples are not blessed with such longevity combined with mutual love and regard for one another. It’s not that there haven’t been challenges over the years, including health issues, especially with my father, who has survived three separate types of cancer and a double bypass, while dodging a strong family history of Alzheimer’s. But they always persevere and get back to their routine with each other, taking walks, going to exercise class, running errands, lots of conversation and a healthy dose of laughter.
They are not, however, big party people, so their anniversary celebration has been a family affair. Because they retired near us twenty-five years ago, we see them often, but my sisters live further afield, so the celebration has had several parts. It started last month with a visit and special dinner with my older sister and her husband, who travelled up from Maryland. The main part of the celebration began yesterday with the arrival of my younger sister and her family from NYC and featured a lot of gaiety as they presented my parents with a part pre-recorded, part live presentation of sixty things for their sixtieth anniversary, culminating in the cutting of celebratory wedding cupcakes with Italian soda toast in (plastic) champagne flutes. For the big day today, we had a lunch out at one our favorite local places and tonight my parents will have a table for two at their favorite local Italian restaurant.
Their marriage and their love for one another is an inspiration. I wrote this poem for the occasion and they gave me their permission to share it on my blog.
For Mom and Dad – On Their 60th Wedding Anniversary
April 19, 1954
Easter Monday
Patriots’ Day and
Your wedding
Elinor married Leo
“One of those Americans”
(Translation: Irish-American,
not Italian-American)
But that didn’t matter
There was plenty of love to share
By December of ’62
Three daughters and
Friends and neighbors and
As years went by
Daughters’ friends
(including a dance company
or two)
Still plenty of love to share
The family grew
Adding heritage from
Asia
Africa
more parts of Europe
Canada
Constructing our version
of the United Nations
With plenty of love to share
In retirement
in JC
at Castle Gardens
at GSV
Still encompassing
Others in your circle of love
Sixty years
With plenty of love to share
Joanne Corey 