Rainy Sunday

Wisconsin Memorial Park

Well, I'm sick of the weather. Cold and rainy here today. We are home in nesting mode, washing clothes, mopping up the bathroom floor that flooded, filing papers, such fun.

Took Mom to church today, Palm Sunday, and the sudden outbursts of the choir's St. John Passion kept us awake. Mom and I were both shocked that the service lasted just an hour; it seemed longer and larger somehow.

When it was done, Mom asked, if I was here without her, would I go upstairs for the first-century meal that was offered-- dates, prunes, boiled eggs -- and I said I would not. So we went to brunch at her place.

I had pancakes, Julie had salad, and Mom had the navy bean soup and a sweet roll. She'd ordered it with confidence as something that would just hit the spot, then after about five spoonfuls said she'd ordered the wrong thing and tried to pawn the soup off on us. I don't think the soup was bad, it's just her lifelong habit of ordering what she thinks she should have, rather than what she wants. It's one of the lovable, annoying things about her.

Not that we all don't have lovable, annoying things.

Our conversation over cottage cheese yesterday sticks with me. We started talking about Mr. Cook, who for probably 20 years came over almost every night for dinner. Mom would call him up, or Dad would stop by, or sometimes even Ole would go get him. "He was so easy to have around," Mom said. He'd been a drummer in a military band, and would tap out little rhythms and sing quietly with a glint in his eye, "Potatoes are cheaper, tomatoes are cheaper, now's the time to fall in love."

"This was a mission for you, Mom, a way you served," I said. She briefly looked pleased, then shrugged it off.

Then we went deeper. The constant flood of people in and out of our house was nearly dizzying, and she made huge meals and accepted all comers, no matter whether they knew each other or not. Cook, Ole, Kenny, Greta, George M, Reza from Iran, a deaf boy named Paul (who lived with us for a week or two and once locked me out of the house), two Vietnamese pilots, a woman whose husband was a soldier in Vietnam (she wrote to him every day and did a lot of ironing), Bruno from Brazil (our most successful guest; "he was so cute," Mom says), friends of her kids who often would come just to see her (she'd have them fold clothes or set the table), and, among many others, the most tragic, I think, L the pregnant girl. She might have been 20?

I think now: Why was she at our house? Who was she hiding from? It must have been the late 1960s, early 70s, and her boyfriend, father of the child, thought that having a child out of wedlock was "no way to start a marriage," so they had it adopted, then got married, then, presumably, went on to have other kids.

I wonder if there has been a day in her life that L hasn't thought about that kid.