Tag: United States Page 2 of 3

Lightning flashes and the movies

On January 10, 2012

“How are you doing?” people ask me. “Are you OK?” And in all truth I can answer them, “Yes, I’m OK, I’m doing fine.” I suppose they expect that I should be feeling grief, or great sadness or be suffering a terrible case of mourning after the death of my mother. But I don’t really feel that way. I sort of feel… just…normal. I think it has to do with the fact that for many years now I have lived so far away from her – across an ocean. I maybe only got to see her once a year for about 2 weeks at the most. While we often talked on the phone during that time away, she wasn’t a constant physical presence in my life. I find myself still thinking and acting as though she is still just “over there”. But sometimes I see something or hear something or do something and like a lightning flash through my brain, I think, “oooohh, I have to tell Mom that.” And equally fast, I realize, “Oh, I can’t.” Then comes this deep sadness washing over me momentarily. But soon enough I am once again back to normal until the next time lightning strikes.

I have lived so far away from old friends and family and for such a long time now that I’ve become like one of those old movie projectors. And I have become a repository of old films. I carry around in my head short clips from movies recorded during my life – in Budd Lake, in Brooklyn, in Manhattan, on trips upstate to the Catskills or to Maine or California or back to New Jersey. They replay suddenly against the inside of my skull without warning. I’ve been collecting those clips a long time now – scenes of friends and family I rarely see – frozen in time. A few years ago I met someone who reminded me very much of an old friend in New York. The friend here in Stockholm was in her late 50s but the friend she reminded me of is now in her 70s. If I were to tell the Stockholm friend she reminds me of someone in their 70s she might get insulted. But in truth she reminds me of my friend as she was 20 years ago before I moved away and when the image of her was captured in the movie in my head.

Until I can capture new scenes upon my next visit to the States, I just replay the earlier versions I have stored in my memories. But now, I’m starting to gather a small collection of films that no longer can be updated. My grandmother, my father, and now my mother are among those films. There will be no sequels made of their stories. They remain the same, etched in time and memory – classics. Waiting for me to turn on the projector light and replay them.

A good man

By Hilarie

On October 7, 2011

In Autobiographical, Family, Life, Uncategorized

October 15 is the yahrtzeit or anniversary of my father’s death. He died in 1997. My mother called me here in Sweden a few days before, to tell me that the doctors had said there was nothing more they could do for him and she had decided to unhook him from the machines he was attached to. My husband booked me on a flight to the States the next day. Mom picked me up at Newark airport and we drove directly to the hospital. I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening sitting there next to my dad, holding his hand. I don’t know if he knew if I was there or not, but I like to think he had been waiting till I came. That night, sometime around midnight or so, the hospital called to say my dad, Milton Cutler, had peacefully passed away.

me and my dad

While my mom kept herself busy making funeral arrangements, I sat down at her computer and wrote a eulogy for my father. I thought those words had been lost long ago on some old hard disk. Recently, while I was helping my mom move, I found a printed copy of the eulogy and brought it home with me to Stockholm. Now on the anniversary of his death 14 years ago I want to give that eulogy once again. Here it is.

My father was not the kind of man who created a stir when he entered a room. He was a little man, almost petite, and spoke softly. He wasn’t the kind of person who could tell riveting stories or captivate an audience. But I remember when I was little, he used to read to me before I went to sleep. He didn’t read to me ordinary run-of-the-mill bedtime stories. He read me Kon Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl and Aku Aku, the book about the statues on Easter Island. He liked those kind of stories and that was what he found interesting to read to me. For my tenth birthday I received a subscription to National Geographic from him and long after I moved away from home, the issues kept coming every month to the house, with my name on them, but not really for me.

He also loved Science Fiction and that love I’ve inherited. I read my first Sci Fi book when I was 11 – The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury, it was Daddy’s book. After that I read every Sci Fi book Daddy had till I started to buy my own.

He was a quiet man who rarely voiced his own opinions or demanded to have things his way. I think he came from a generation for whom the expression “self-fulfillment” would cause a feeling of discomfort and the idea of “doing your own thing” was an alien concept. For him, it was more important, to do the right thing. He didn’t drink, he didn’t gamble, he didn’t chase after women. His life wasn’t easy but he stuck with it. He worked hard and tried to give the people he loved in his life as much as he was able to. And when his time came, there wasn’t much time left to do the things he had wanted to do.

My father was one of those small, inconsequential men that the world out there doesn’t take much notice of. But he was a good man and in this day and age, just simply being a good man is something worthy of our respect, deserving of our praise and should be cherished in our memories.

Choices

By Hilarie

On January 28, 2011

In Autobiographical, Family, Life

“You shouldn’t feel guilty for not being there to help her. You shouldn’t feel guilty that she is ill and elderly and alone, without family near her or many friends nearby. She made her choices and you do what you are able to do, when you can do it, to help her as much as you can. She’s where she is because of the choices she made.” This is what a friend told me recently.

But what kind of choices do we make in our lives? How much thought do we give them? How free to choose are we? And how responsible are we for our own choices and the choices of those near and dear? And even those far away?

I go into the supermarket to buy food for dinner. If I’m just coming home from working hard all day at my job and its getting late and I’m tired, Ill be looking for something quick and easy to make. Perhaps I buy a package of Bratwurst, enough for all of us and a box of instant mashed rutabaga. The bratwurst just goes in under the broiler for 10/20 minutes and the powered rutabaga only needs to be poured into boiling water and stirred and allowed to sit for 5 minutes. Voila! A tasty meal in under a half hour. Add some sliced raw carrots and you are all done.

But if I know that Ill be home most of the day and can spend some time and energy on making dinner then I will buy a different sort of ingredients. Perhaps I want to spend the time making a stew or even a roast. Maybe with a creamy potato casserole to go alongside the roast. For those kinds of meals I buy different ingredients. For the stew, I need to get enough stewing meat, a lot of nice potatoes, a bag of carrots, some onions, preferably the red kind, and maybe even mushrooms. For the roast and casserole I need to find a nice chunk of beef, a bag of potatoes, onions, cream, and a nice cheese to grate into the casserole. Ill also pick up veggies to include in a good salad and maybe even stop off at the local bakery to pick up a nice crusty fresh baked bread.

But for all three of these meals, the fast food and the slow food, I’m required to make choices. For the slow food dinners I might use a cookbook to guide me. It will tell me how long the roast should be in the oven and what temperature for it to come out good. For the fast food, I might read the ingredients on the package of the bratwurst and decide which brand of bratwurst based on what it says on the package. The box of rutabaga will give me instructions on the side of the box and might even give me ideas how to improve it.

But where’s the instructions for life? Where’s the cookbook that tells us what to do, in what order so that when we’ve cooked our life we haven’t burned the meal and ended up hungry?

When I moved to Sweden 23 years ago, both my parents were still alive, still living in the house I grew up in and still working. I admit I didn’t give them much thought when I decided to move so far away. I was more concerned about leaving my friends behind. Now things are different. My dad is gone since 1997 and my mom has moved twice since I moved to Sweden. The 10 years she and my dad had at the 55+ place called Homestead were good years for them and the 10 years there after my dad died were also pretty good. She had lots of friends and activities to keep her busy and I would come to visit once a year, usually dragging my family with me. Two years or so ago, she graduated from Homestead’s 55+ to Independent Living at Monroe Village. There she started off her stay by editing the Resident’s Newsletter, following a life-long love of writing, and she met Marty. Life was good and still independent was a key idea. But last week she ended up in the hospital because she had trouble walking. Now she is spending some time in Monroe Village’s health care center where they can keep a close eye on her and give her physical therapy to get her legs working again. I try to call her everyday. But life in the health care center is pretty boring. While she still sounds cheerful when I talk to her, she also sounds tired. Like life is getting too complicated, with all the medicines, and doctors and feeling in pain and not being able to walk or be in her own apartment. And I feel guilty that I’m not there to be of help to her. And here we come back to the choices we make in life.

I don’t mean only my choice to move to Sweden but also my mother’s choice to live where she lives. She chose long ago to live in Budd Lake NJ. That was pretty far from much of her family which were centered closer to New York. But it wasn’t really her own choice. It was made more by her parents who had bought a summer cottage there and eventually both my parents and grandparents decided to permanently move there – away from the rest of the family. Then when my grandmother died, my folks found Homestead and moved there, even further away from New York. But they loved living there so it was a good choice and an independent choice. Now she lives where she lives. Still independent.

And I feel guilty that I am so far away.

Dirge time

By Hilarie

On January 27, 2010

In Uncategorized

The politics of fear has won another battle: those who fear the immigrant who speaks with an accent; those who fear that government will force them to do things they don’t want to do; those who are afraid of the power of women; those who are afraid of gay people; those who are afraid of people of another color than themselves; those who are afraid of the poor and those who are afraid of the rich; those who are afraid of the bigger world out there filled with different countries and different cultures; those who are afraid of intelligence and the ability to think. All of these people have won another battle. And once again, it’s time for America to be afraid and to start worrying.