Sunlight on the Surface

After my Dad died, my Mom wrote a poignant poem:
          "Love Remembered"
Remembered love is golden
Refined in crucibles of pain
Those golden moments linger
Like rainbows after rain.

God knows how much pain was mingled with the love, how much darkness overshadowed the glimpses of light our family had.  Yet there were those sweet and golden times, intermittent but treasured, like sunlight dancing on the waters of my river.

My first vivid memory of my father was a night when we were getting ready to go somewhere.  I was probably about 3.  He was leaning over me from the back in the darkness, lit by the hall light, helping me into the leggings of my plush snowsuit.  A huge dark warmness over me, protective.  How did he later become a force to fear and to dread?  How did those strong gentle hands become hard instruments of pain and punishment?

My parents bought a rundown farm in 1947.  It was after The War (WWII) and Dad had a good job for a while.  He had an Army surplus Jeep--4WD--he and Mom rode in front, my little sister and I sat on the wheel wells in back, holding onto baby David as he lay between us in a wicker basket with a big pillow for a mattress.  I remember the smell of hot sun on the canvas top, the cloudy isinglass windows, the bouncing ride down the hill through the fields to our dirt road.  We were truly living in "the country" although you could see the lights of NYC far to the north from the hill at the back of the farm.   No more dingy parsonages, no more power struggles and political manipulations by church people, no more raging arguments in the night with my grandparents while we lived in their house between churches...

They were busy renovating the neglected old farmhouse.  Planting strawberries in the front field.  Buying goats and chickens.  Making plans.  It was one of the happiest times of Dad's life, and consequently, ours.

I remember the odd little room at the top of the stairs.  Mom lovingly decorated it for me:  Pink gingham wallpaper, her own white iron bed from her childhood, a patchwork quilt from her great aunt.  And that is where she sat beside me while the others were down for their naps, sharing the quilt, teaching me to read long before I entered school. In those early years, I knew I was loved.

Another vignette, summer of 1949:  I was in the damp cellar, watching Mom (pregnant with my second brother Paul) coming down the rickety steps from outside, carrying (I think) a basket of tomatoes.  Dad was following her, singing a song:  "I love you, a bushel and a peck, you bet yore purty neck I do!" since she had been explaining to him the difference between bushel and peck baskets.  (She had grown up on a farm, Dad just loved the beauty of the countryside.)  I think she twisted her ankle as one of the rotted steps gave way, and Dad rushed to her side.  I don't recall the ankle--she told me years later--but I vividly remember the love and joy of the moment.  Where did it all go wrong again?

Another happiness when we were small:  The Sunday drive.  No more churches.  We were free!  We children would pile the quilts from our beds in the bed of the pickup truck, set up our pillows against the back of the cab, climb in and cover ourselves with more quilts--then Dad would head out for the Colt's Neck General Store far, far away.  Mom, Dad and baby Robert in front, the four of us in back.  An exploration, an adventure, an expedition over narrow, winding country roads.  Google says it's only 13.6 miles, but it took most of the afternoon back then.

The store was huge to me.  Cracked cream paint with dark green trim.  High and wide concrete steps across the front, pipe railings to grip on the steep climb, and a rusty screen door at the top.  It smelled of oak counters, country ham, penny candy and kerosene.  We could each choose a glass bottle of soda pop from the water cooler-- I could barely see into it on my tiptoes--or the aged refrigerator with the round motor on top.  And our choice of cupcakes--a whole package each!  Two cream-filled chocolate Hostess, or three plain chocolate TasteeCakes with thick fudge frosting.  Maybe even three butterscotch for a change...  I'm sure our family seemed like an invasion to the old couple who owned the store.  But it was a paradise for us.  We sat in the sunlight on those concrete steps and feasted.  Pure delight!

Then came the all-too-familiar fights with employers, loss of jobs, Mom and Dad working day and night shifts in a sock factory to pay the mortgage; loan companies, unpaid bills; and the raging arguments and tears in the night. Dad was never wrong.  It was always someone else's fault.  Hunger, fear, anger and frustration spilled over into beatings for us children.  The woods became my refuge and I dreaded coming home at dark.  

O yes, there were good times again, then bad, in a vicious and darkening cycle.  Life slowly became stranger and more weird, until we as a family became an isolated cult.  The good memories--few and far between--were held onto with an iron grip, hoping that they were the truth, the reality, and the rest was just a bad dream.  One that lasted for 43 years of slavery...
  
Next I will tell you of my personal rainbow, the gift of God, that became my emotional bridge. Be sure to read the next episode...