Yesterday when I realized my blog post was due I thought, what am I going to write about?
Fortunately, my father has come through for me in this department lately. At that vital moment when I don’t have anything to write about he comes to visit, bringing with him boxes of memories.
In the past it’s been anything from a sketch or painting to a an old school book or other mementos of his, or my family’s, past.
This time it was cookbooks, or, more accurately, my mother’s cookbooks. My mother has been deceased for 21 years, but when Dad brings something by that reminds me of her, the result is instant, full-fledged memories dredged up from the recesses of my mind.
So … cookbooks. Lots of cookbooks. A couple in particular caught my eye: “The Pritikin Diet” and a Chinese cookbook, copyright 1978.
Let’s take the first one. The Pritikin Diet, by Dr. Pritikin (and if you remember this book, you might remember it was one of the first diet programs to become popular for middle class women during a time – the 1970s – when they were just starting to think about looking fit instead of simply curvy).
Inside the front leaf were some scribblings in pen. As soon as I eyed them, I recognized the handwriting as that of my mother’s. Only four short lines: two addresses and two amounts – from $40k to $65k – clearly real estate prices (from a loooong time ago).
Instantly I was brought back to the moment in which my mother had written these short notes. I knew at the time she had separated from my father and was renting an apartment while looking to buy a house. These were obviously notes regarding real estate for sale.
Eventually I ended up inheriting the house my mother ultimately bought. It was beautiful – seven acres outside town with a large, three-bedroom house, barn, and corral – but often it was lonely, and filled with memories of my mother after she died. I sold it mere years after inheriting it.
The next book I looked into was the Chinese cookbook. After my mother had left my father, he was struggling to find things to occupy his time and started a hobby. This hobby happened to be Chinese cooking. He took a course at the local community college while mom was searching for a home to buy, sans husband. This book, I know, had been a gift to him from my mother, several years after they’d separated.
Inside the Chinese cookbook was a playbill from a local theatre. The date: June – July 1986. The movies: Richard Pryor in “Jo Jo Dancer”, Tom Cruise in “Legend”, and the very first “Back to the Future” flick. The note (in Dad’s shorthand which I translated): “Room 612, Las Cruces Memorial General Hospital, Las Cruces, New Mexico”.
Who was in the hospital in Las Cruces in 1986? I was still living there, after graduating from NMSU in 1985, but to my recall I never had to be hospitalized. I have no clue what happened that year, but from those few terse lines, I could recall my father’s angst. I could see it in the deeply slanted lines, feel it just by touching the old paper.
I felt pain. From both instant memories, I felt a reaction as painful as if I’d been socked in the mouth, yet at the same time these memories brought me closer to one parent still alive, and one dead for 21 years. So it can’t all be bad.
Sometimes memories are good. Sometimes they are bad. Sometimes we just wish they’d stay buried. The point of this post is not to bring up sadness, but to celebrate those memories we all carry with us which can be brought to the forefront with one small scrap of paper.
At some point, I have two more boxes of memories to open but I’m going to take my time about it. I’ve had enough memories for one day.
