The Stories of Our Mothers and Fathers
“It is not until much later, as the skin sags and the heart weakens, that children understand; their stories, and all their accomplishments, sit atop the stories of their mothers and fathers, stones upon stones, beneath the waters of their lives.”
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
It all started with photographs. Recently I was told that if you hold down a live photo, your iPhone records what happened 1.5 seconds before and after you took the picture. Earlier this week, I suddenly thought, do I have live photos of my mother?
The ‘live’ photo of my mother that made it possible for me to hear her laughter.
I scrolled through my photos, searching. And there it was, the only live photo I could find, one of my smiling mother, taken just after her first surgery. I pressed down, watching with amazement as her smile widened and then I listened to her laughter. It is the only sound I have of her; three months later, she was gone.
The photo of my mother, and the sound of her voice, hit me hard. Through tears, I scrolled again, thinking I must have other live photos, but there was nothing. There is not even a single video. My mother could never stop talking long enough to take a decent photo. We would often take five to ten shots of her, attempting to snap a decent one! Why did I never consider taking a video just so I could hear her talk? Then I could be listening to her whenever I longed to hear her voice. What a lovely memory that would be.
I am on the island right now, in the house we purchased twenty-two years ago. My parents lived here for the first ten years. Their memories still live on - in drawers, cupboards and bookshelves. My mother’s tattered Dutch cookbook, Margriet Kookboek, lives between a spiral notebook crammed with her recipe clippings and a Louise Penny mystery. Open the cupboard under the window seat, and you will find the floor tiles my father stored away over twenty years ago. I have no idea what he was planning to do with them. Even after all years, we still find random treasures. A handwritten note in a pewter vase my mother gifted me. A box tucked far back in a cupboard, full of tools and drawings from my father’s work and hobbies. Scraps of paper with my mother’s words, written in Dutch.
The afternoon sun, beaming through the skylight, casts light and shadow over many other items in our living room that evoke warm memories. By the fireplace hangs a painting of Degnen Bay, a gift from an artist friend who came for a visit. Deep burgundy oriental rugs that once graced my Oma’s house now add vibrancy to our living space. A handmade wooden wagon sits on the windowsill, with a handwritten note by my mother taped underneath, ‘handmade by J. F. Ouwerkerk (my opa) in 1987.
This island home will become our permanent home next summer. My husband’s retirement was officially announced on Monday. No longer do I have to write vague words about our future. Our future now feels very real. It is one thing to dream and plan, but soon we will be crafting our own memories.
We have begun our Swedish death cleaning, knowing that soon, we will have to combine two households into one. We are already running into obstacles. Practical items are easy to disperse to thrift stores, friends and neighbours, or the recycling depot. However, items handed down, collected, or purchased for special occasions are more difficult to part with. I have already written about our first foray, getting rid of our 30+ cookbooks (which I now think may be closer to fifty!). My husband, the cook, is adamant we keep them. There is a story behind nearly every cookbook, and he remembers them all.
I think of other items close to our hearts. Books are the first that come to mind. My husband may have a story for every cookbook; I can relate a story for almost every author and book on our many bookshelves. And then there is my mother-in-law’s china. It sits in three large boxes in the buffet. We have only ever used it a handful of times in our thirty-six years together. But the china is one of the only things we have left of my husband’s mother, and I’m not sure if either of us can part with it. In the attic are boxes and boxes of LEGO®, snow globes, porcelain dolls, and beanie babies. A collection of T-shirts, sports equipment and paperwork, including report cards, diplomas, achievements and trophies, are also stacked away. These items are an easier decision. They are finally going to the girls; they should have gone to the girls when they moved out over ten years ago! Now they can make the decision of what stays and what goes!
I reflect on all we have amassed. Then I think of the memories we will be accumulating in the coming years. We have already decided that the memories we want to keep as our legacy are adventures, experiences, and travel. We also want a garden full of abundance that we can share, a house where our children, grandchildren, and friends feel welcome, and we want to contribute to our community. Along the way, we plan to continue dispersing our belongings so our children won’t have to make difficult decisions when we are gone.
What strikes me as I write this is that I don’t think I felt this way ten years ago. Then I would have wanted to hold on to the material items that had once belonged to my family. I saw value in things. But no longer.
The memories I now wish I had are the stories. I know little about the lives of my parents, grandparents, and ancestors. I wish they had kept journals and diaries. I wish they had felt comfortable talking about the past. If only I had written the stories I heard as I sat in the corner of the room when I was younger, eavesdropping. The stories I remember are now fading. I am also beginning to question some of my memories. My memories are different from what my brother remembers. Even my mother, who became increasingly forgetful as she aged, would scoff when I recounted a family story, saying, I don’t know where you heard that!
And so I come full circle back to my mother. Full circle to the photo that allows me to hear her laughter. I wish I had been able to nudge her memories, as I do in my life story workshops. I wish I had videotaped my mother as she re-visited memories, especially her years as a young mother in a new country, isolated and lonely. I think of the memories I would have to hold on to, stories I would now be able to my children and grandchildren.