Category: Ang

The Day Before February 5 [2021]

[Note:  This entry is an example of two SSW sessions written during workshop with my freshman writing class at the start of Spring Semester, 2021.  SSW stands for “silent sustained writing,” a weekly practice of 40-minute writing sessions conducted throughout the semester where the entire class, including the instructor, “looks at the world as a writer,” selects genres and topics of the author’s interest, and writes.  The weekly sessions build into a “writer’s notebook,” that explores what Nancie Atwell calls an author’s “writing territories,” and that approaches the task of “teaching” writing through a process of “cultivation” of a writer’s identity, rather than through specific instruction in teacher-chosen skills.  Early in each semester, I try to model how the process works for me–and how it has evolved for me as a writer over time.  It’s about writing as a way of being, rather than something learned, mastered, and checked off….]

Clearly, this notebook project is inseparable from my grieving process for Ang, which now approaches that magical mark of 10 years, and the restarting of living. At least my notebook in recent spring semesters has functioned this way. Last year, my first ENGL 120 SSW entry was on Ang’s birthday (January 23), and this year, we’re five days later, and just about dead center between the January 23-February 5 nadir of the year for me. And by a moment of grace the past weekend, I was given a story to write about by Ang’s brother, Terry.

Terry deserves, as do all my kids, his own writing notebook. He’s been impressing me so much this past year, as he wrote both a book (A Wonderful Waste of Time) and an eleven-part pretty massive podcast called “Chicago’s Civil War”—a documentary on a little-known Chicago treasure, the baseball city-series between the Cubs and Sox that ran from the early 1900s to 1940s. We had Terry over for dinner on Saturday the 23rd, when we celebrated Ang’s birthday, and he surprised me—with something I knew, but had forgotten. He told the story so well, it made me laugh and cry—and appreciate in his telling and his memory, just how present Ang is to him. Ang’s spirit is there, and in different ways, in each family member’s little and big stories.

Terry actually told us the story in the morning of Ang’s birthday, when Loretta and I drove over to his apartment to finally deliver his Christmas present, a brand new, leather recliner. Terry needed some moving help to clear space in his apartment. So he and I first had to throw out his very junky blue reclining chair. We carried it to his alley, and looked at it there, and then he sat in it, almost as though to say goodbye, almost as though this were all wrong—this throwing away of that chair that had been in the family since 2000.

Terry, as always, knew the exact date we had gotten the blue recliner. He sat in the chair, and rocked, and we wondered if this would be the last time he or anyone else would sit in it. The weather was nice for January 23rd, with a bright sun, and Terry began his story. It just seemed so right to see him there, in his chair in the alley, with the sun on his face telling the story of Adriana’s chairs—plural, for they started out as two chairs in 2000. I began to wonder if Loretta and I made a mistake in buying him a new recliner for Christmas. Before we delivered it to his apartment, we set it up in our living room, and kept it there for the four weeks between Christmas and Ang’s birthday. And we grew to like it there. We teased him that he wasn’t going to get it—that it seemed to fit our house pretty well. Well, looking at Terry, telling his story in his old chair in the alley in the sun—led me to think, maybe we should have just let well-enough alone, and kept the new chair at our house for Terry to use when he came over, and for him to just hold onto Adriana’s blue chair…

Adriana was a nurse, a co-worker of Loretta’s at NMH. Back in 2000, she offered Loretta two blue rocking recliners that were in really good shape. They were swivel recliners (an important detail to get the full effect of what follows). Adriana had to move cross-country, and so she had to unload lots of possessions. We had a big old Chevy Astro van with removable bench seats, so I said, “Sure, I’ll pick up the chairs.” Thankfully, I could enlist Terry, Age 12, just the right age to be of real use in moving furniture. Terry recalled every detail of the ride to Adriana’s northside condo on that morning 21 years ago. “It was a Monday,” Terry said. He commented that the ride to Adriana’s was uneventful—because he had a seat in the van—the passenger side seat in front. However, his seat was not guaranteed for all the driving we had to do that day. Since the day of the pickup was a Monday, it was my day to pick up my mother, Terry’s grandmother, from her afternoon dialysis treatment. So, Terry and I were, first, an efficient moving team, and then a ride share. And then we had one more stop, even after dropping Grandma off.

We got to Adriana’s condo, made pleasant small talk, and loaded the two chairs into the van, upright, as though they were Captain Kirk’s command chairs from which to control the fate of the universe with placid ease and resolve. They took up the whole back of the van, so there was no question we made the right choice in removing both benches.

Off we went to Howard and Ridge on the north side to pick up my mom. And here’s where Terry’s storytelling kicks into another gear. With Grandma in the car, he couldn’t sit up front. So the only place for him to go was in the back, and the only place to sit was in one of the recliners. His description of that trip to Grandma’s house from dialysis had all the joy and terror of a 12-year-old driving home in a bouncing van, in a recliner, no seatbelt; it was priceless. It was one of those new, weird experiences that becomes memorable when one is at that threshold age. To me, I listened in a mixture of delight and horror at my decision to let him travel in such a dangerous way. I think back now on how I tried to be efficient—pick up chairs, use son’s help, pick up Grandma—and, last on the list, pick up Ang who, in his summer before high school, was at his first cross country practice.

Part of the delight of Terry’s story was the memory of my mother’s reaction upon her first realizing the situation. She was like, “Oh,” and she nodded and got in. That “Oh” spoke of an accepting disposition of the chaos of “life with people”—of a regular ride home with a reckless/responsible son she trusted; who was in the midst of that busy, insane time of raising numerous children, some small; who himself was raised by Italian, voluble, chaotic parents. She said “Oh” acceptingly, got in, and began talking.

There may have been a comment from her, or even a judgment, but all I remember was the typical, water-off-a-duck’s back, opposite of non-plussed reaction of my mother to the antics of, well, just about everyone about her. In her later years, my mother was serene. Accepting, not pushing back. She had been through it—whatever “it” was—the Depression, WWII, emigration and immigration, a difficult marriage, five kids, widowhood—and at the end she exuded grace and gratitude for all she had—her kids, her grandkids, and her health—such as it was. Terry’s story didn’t delve into all that feeling, but his story, as my kids’ stories so often do, brought the memory of the “Oh,” back to me. I heard it. Truth be told, she might not have said “Oh” that way that time—but it was her signature gesture and attitude in that last, blessed phase of her life, about 4 years’ worth of widowhood and weekly, shared pickups and drop-offs for dialysis. In telling the story in the alley, Terry was activating so many memories of our family—my role as beleaguered parent/son, his role of a 12-year old mover/adventurist, and Ang’s role as a cross country novice that summer before high school, dutifully taking on a summer activity, not necessarily the one of his choice, but something that kept him focused and purposeful—a responsible oldest child transitioning to a new phase in his life.

What Terry did tell about Grandma was the way she invited us in when we reached her home, and told us that she had some leftover pizza from the night before. “Did we want any of it?” Of course! So we ate and talked and soon it was time to embark once again on our multi-pronged mission of the day: Leg 3 of our cross country extravaganza, driving to Fenwick to pick up Ang from that first cross country practice, that, by now, had ended quite some time ago.

I think back now, as I must have thought then: it all made sense: Fenwick was on the way home from Grandma’s house, so why wouldn’t we plan it this way? As we were leaving, my mother said, “Do you want to take the rest of the pizza with you?” Of course! This was before the time when Gen would develop the theory of the “pizza clock” and how it resets (or doesn’t need to). But we knew even then, you just don’t say no to a box of pizza you could take home with you.

The ride to Fenwick was uneventful. Terry was back in the front seat, in a seatbelt, and we were just two moving guys driving home, with a short stop to pick up Ang. Ang needed to be picked up, and not just for transportation. His practice was a rough one. While he was never in horrible shape physically, he was not especially conditioned for long distance running either. This was Ang’s introduction to the Fenwick way, the competitive, “we’re distinctive,” we’re special kind of aura of that proud institution. So of course, a first workout was going to be … challenging to the point of being brutal, and brutal it was.

Here’s where we need Terry’s deadpan narrative style. He painted a picture of Ang’s appearance or mood or state at that time. First, Ang wasn’t all that enthused about having to do an activity—any activity—that summer. But as the oldest child, he often got, as is common, the rawest deal in “requirements,” strictness, and toeing the line. He had to get a job in high school, whereas the younger ones didn’t. He had to run errands and give up his time for various family responsibilities. He had to organize his pursuits around the family’s schedule in ways not so focused on in later years. And on it went. So Ang was a little dispirited to “have to” go to cross country in the first place. And on this day, as Terry told it, there were so many compounding factors: the hot temperature, the workout, the lateness of our arrival, to name a few. And so, we arrived to see a completely defeated new member of the Fenwick community—wilted and annoyed, slouching to the car.

Terry got out to greet him. He told him, “Ang, there’s no place for you since the back is filled.”

Pause. Then with the flair of a game show host, he opened the side van door with outstretched hand. And there it was, positioned just right: a reclining chair and a box of pizza waiting for him. And it was one of those moments … when the harp plays, the slant of light glistens, the hand of God touches you, and salvation opens up before you.

I remember such moments with Ang when there’s a turn: things are going so bad, but then not so much anymore. And then the storytelling starts happening (the “best of all breathing,” Faulkner called it), and the smiles start coming, and all the “what happened before” is just part of the setup of the joy and fulfillment that will become a story, years later, told by a guy in the alley with the sun in his face, saying goodbye to a worn-out, over-used recliner.

There’s that. But there’s also Angelo’s way: the way things would work out for him up until the very end. All of that sweat and responsibility and grousing led to a comfortable chair and a pizza. Like the man chased by tigers in Kahn’s story (another family go-to meme), Ang found the strawberry on the mountainside, and “it was the sweetest tasting strawberry he ever had.” Angelo, and I bless him for this, could turn on a dime, and let go of a bad moment and lean into the new thing that was happening and inviting a smile and a different conversation. And Terry’s reaction to it was something of a unique possession of his alone (for it was completely lost to me till he told the story and brought it, and my mother’s “Oh,” back to me). Terry has held on and helped us remember, and on February 4, I couldn’t be more grateful to both sons, to all my children, to Loretta, as we close off, this very day and in SSW, our first ten years of life after—and still with—Ang.

The Day After February 5 [2020]

[ Note:  This entry is a companion SSW (silent sustained writing) to the previous posting two weeks earlier.]

February 6, 2020

Is there such a thing as a grief hangover?  Is the whole thing a hangover?  Two weeks ago, on Ang’s birthday, I wrote that I had to power through to February 5, and then start breathing again.  Today is February 6, and I’m breathing, but it’s a bit labored and troubled.  I was thinking about the “getting through” or “getting to”—but not the “getting beyond.”  What does February 6 and beyond look like?

I think such things because today had such prominent features to it—a mixture of (1) the world in your face (snow day in February) and (2) entrenched defiance on my part not to let the world interrupt who I was, and wanted to be, and what I wanted to do today.  I’ve fallen into a solitary morning routine the past year or so, and, like an old cranky person, I’ve grown protective of it.  I wake up early, stay off the computer (the only time of the day that’s true), and I engage in an increasingly regular ritual of getting ready.  I make lunches;  I brew coffee with the French press;  I leave a full thermos for the girls to have when their day starts hours later;  I clean up the night’s dishes and run the dishwasher, hoping to earn some credit (and to help the kids avoid censure for the mess they left);  I put on WFMT, and find accompaniment in the soft tones of both the music and the through-the-night announcer;  I shower;  I dress, my clothes having been laid out the night before (another old-person tendency creeping up on me—way over-preparedness about trivial things, obsessiveness in procedures);  I look through the house to see what the others will wake up to, and I try to smooth out what could disturb or inconvenience them.

Today was just another one of these mornings, but everything was amped up, all these tendencies put on steroids. First, I woke up way early.  Was it the worry over the weather?  I wish I could say it was, but the truth is I’ve been waking up earlier and earlier—to such an extent that I wonder if I sleep at all at night.  It’s become just another brief nap—that I, of course, need more of, since I’m not sleeping at night.  Is it the January-February grief cycle that’s disturbing my sleep?  Maybe.  I think it’s more the grief I feel over my broken heart of life at SXU—the stress of committee and department work, the inability to hit the stride of making things work, finding the truth, living our mission, bonding with colleagues, transitioning out of past roles, and on and on.

The morning routine has been a kind of retreat for me into my own solitary peace.  I’ve felt so alone—whatever the cause—be it Angelo or the sorrows of SXU—and I’ve found comfort in the quiet and regularity and interiority of computerless/deviceless domestic procedures, followed by the zoned out, but purposeful drive in, with minimal traffic (so important to beat the traffic, and my earlier and earlier start to the day was motivated by a quest to find that time that was early enough to beat the rat race.  I’m not sure I found it, but I know it’s before 4:55 AM.  At some point I’m going to begin hitting up against the prior day’s late traffic rather than this day’s early traffic).

So this morning—out of a desire to protect the routine, which was threatened by the snow, and to increase the psychological medicine of “being of domestic service” to help the family get started on their days, and to lean in a bit hard to the “man of the house” father stereotype (but in a good way?), I woke up an hour early, not planning to do all I did, but just falling into it.  I decided to unbury three cars, get them started and warmed up (not that they’d stay warm, but so that the windows could all be cleared, at least for the time being).  Loretta’s car had a broken scraper, so I switched that out with mine.  That was hard to do, since mine is like the most luxurious, most functional scraper-brush on the market.  But I felt so proud to surprise her, and so proud of my sacrifice, which seemed to say, “I will do anything for you, dear. (Yes, even this.)”

This morning, in some kind of productive frenzy, I even turned on the computer before going out to dig out the cars.  I thought, “I could start the cars, brush them off a bit, leave them on, come back in the house and read a report, then go back out and finish up the cars.”  I was moving—and I wanted to get ready for SSW, about which I had changed my mind several times (write about grief?  write about SXU’s troubles?  write about this afternoon’s committee meeting and our lost way?).

It was later when I got in the car and started driving that I realized what was going on with all my productiveness that morning.  A song came on—as it often does—and a miracle of emotion and utter stopping of what was going on, and a transport to the Other Place (where you needed to be all along) takes place.

I came to realize there might be something wrong with my morning routine, that I might be escaping from life, withdrawing inward, trying to control the uncontrollable, trying to secure some inner peace—but maybe leaning in too far with it.

I have an image from long ago of me wiping the kitchen counter in a circular, repetitive motion, in a Zen-like way, while the kids, all five of them, when they were young, were in the other room, being joyful and crazy and annoying and impossible.  My wiping motion was control:  “I’ve pushed back the forest, and this space is mine, and it’s clean, and it’s regular, and look, it’s clean…and round and round, it’s clean, see…?  Peace.”  There in the kitchen was my little clearing of counter—and the radio or little under-the-cabinet mounted TV with the ballgame on, quietly providing other context, giving me the illusion of not complete escape into the interiority of my own circles and clean space…:  “I am still connected (and how could I not be, with those five dervishes of energy, just in the other room, bursting with so much growth and drama and other reality?).”

So much of my dream in life has been the quest for such peace, and I wonder if my current morning routine—justified in this way, is still just a little too much.  Am I out of balance?  Did the growing of the kids, and their movement into other rooms, farther away, allow me to fixate too much on my circles?

Yesterday we had Ang’s godparents and his cousin Jane and her husband and three dervishes of kids over to have a celebration of Ang.  I’m grateful for the bustle of life in such an event.  Loretta’s day in the setup was nonstop—a full day beginning with a work out, Mass, a trip to the cemetery, shopping at Costco, shopping at Jewel, going to Freddies (yes, Freddies) to pick up the chicken parmesan, gnocchi, lasagna, ravioli, meatballs, and salads.  I am grateful for the way the kids all chipped in, the way everyone came over, the conversation, laughter, storytelling, and reminiscing.  I was a happy and sociable participant in the gathering—but also a little quiet and off to the side.  Was I thinking about my morning routine, that was just a few hours away?  I was a bit.

Was I feeling the grief hangover then?  Was the hangover the result of the social interaction or the intense inner withdrawals and worries over getting things done?

One big lesson I learned from Ang was that “we’re not in control”—and a version of that lesson came home to me when the song came on.  Without planning, without setup, the transport took place.  It was Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly in a duet of “True Love,” from the movie High Society (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fl5EPEzukNQ).

When the song came on so many of my prior—and unperceived—anxieties and preparations became apparent.  I had been stressing out about how to honor this 9-year anniversary;  maybe I would write about random and brief Ang memories in SSW (the stoplight at 58th Avenue that starts up a conversation with him every day?);  maybe I would focus on the gratitude I felt for the text message from Lorenzo, “thinking of you today”;  maybe I would write about SXU’s leadership, and how they are pulling the rug from so many supports that have enabled SXU to grow and be strong over the years—i.e., maybe I would not write at all about Ang, because it’s just too hard, too involved—next year will be the year, that ten-year mark, and my “tenure” in grief will have been earned, and then the turning point.

The song brought Bing Crosby’s silky smooth baritone that alone in itself is miraculous.  But the duet is with Grace Kelly, who is more than “royal”—what is Grace Kelly?  Magic is too harsh a word;  there’s something softer, more beautiful, more transient and eternal, hopeful, and absolute about her, or the symbol of her.  Together they sang:

For you and I have a guardian angel
On high with nothing to do
But to give to you
And to give to me
Love forever true.

It’s romantic love they’re singing of—but it’s another kind of love, too.  The love of a protector.  Is Ang the guardian angel?  Or is there a guardian angel unseen keeping him close to me?  The words and feelings of these lyrics swell up and fill me.  Time, leisure, love, protection, generosity, sharing, and eternity:  Bing and Grace sing it, and I drive on snowy streets without a word from Ang these long nine years, but with a guardian angel’s efforts, breaking through, giving me a forever that might be, maybe?, redeemed.

January 23, 2020

[Note:  This entry is an example of an SSW session written during workshop with my freshman writing class at the start of Spring Semester, 2020.  SSW stands for “silent sustained writing,” a weekly practice of 40-minute writing sessions conducted throughout the semester where the entire class, including the instructor, “looks at the world as a writer,” selects genres and topics of the author’s interest, and writes.  The weekly sessions build into a “writer’s notebook,” that explores what Nancie Atwell calls an author’s “writing territories,” and that approaches the task of “teaching” writing through a process of “cultivation” of a writer’s identity, rather than through specific instruction in teacher-chosen skills.  Early in each semester, I try to model how the process works for me–and how it has evolved for me as a writer over time.  It’s about writing as a way of being, rather than something learned, mastered, and checked off….]

So it begins again.  Another writing notebook.  Today is a special day.  You can tell so much about a semester’s writing from how it starts.  I hope my students can grow into this routine … I feel I need to help it work for them, to model, to get them started.  But today is special for other reasons, or rather one big reason.  Today is Ang’s birthday, and there’s so much to remember—so much to think about.  Loretta will be going to All Saints cemetery this morning to be close to him.  It’s her tradition on January 23rd, one that was never quite right for me, and as she says, we all grieve in our own ways.  For me, one of the most healing things I could do, one of the best ways for me to “be with” Ang is to write about him, and so the two worlds meld.  I’ve had so many SSW sessions thinking about Ang, being with him.  I look forward to today’s.

Thirty four, and just under nine years since he left us.  That other anniversary, February 5, is in two weeks, and so I’ll need to power through till then, and then start breathing again.  Is it this time of year—the doldrums of late January?  Or is it the need to reach 10 years beyond losing Ang—that theory of mine that there would be a 10 year adjustment to the loss of him, whereby my life could slow down, stop, turn, and then slowly start up again—with new memories, new foundations, new hopes….  One more year, and I’m feeling that my suspicion was right—the time was needed, is needed.  Ten years is about right, at least as a minimum.

On Ang’s birthday the past few years I find myself going back to 1986 and that experience of childbirth, or rather witnessing childbirth, for the first time.  That was an eye-opener.  But then, everything about Ang was an eye-opener.  I feel a need to convey something of Ang to my beloved students.  He was so special to me, and they are all special, or becoming special to me, the way students always do.  I hope they let themselves go places today that surprise them, touch them, and open up new possibilities.

That day in 1986 was about five days before the Bears played in and won their first Super Bowl.  I was a huge fan that year—as was just about everyone in Chicago.  I was scheduled to work my security job that Sunday and miss the game … but Ang was born and so I was able to take off.  That was his first gift to me, and it was a good one.  On the day of his birth, while I was at Walgreens picking up some needed things (diapers?), I saw in the checkout lane a very expensive (to me, at that time) commemorative magazine previewing the big game.  It was $5.00.  I was very poor at the time and couldn’t justify spending that much on a frivolous thing like a Bears magazine.  But Ang gave me the excuse!  It was a present for him.  And it was, and when I told him about it when he reached the age of reason, he cherished it, he read it, and he kept it close (till it became tattered and lost).  But really, standing there in Walgreens, I just wanted that magazine.  On Super Bowl Sunday, I placed him in his baby seat, put him in front of the TV, and told him, “Ang, you’re about to see something that no living person has seen, or could appreciate.  You’re starting out life well, young man.”  And he continued well, becoming a huge Bears fan and sports fanatic, in the healthiest way.  He died on February 5, 2011, the day before the Packers won their last Super Bowl, and I thought, wryly, what Ang would do to avoid seeing the Packers win….

But that was not really true.  Though he did have a healthy and playful sense of rivalry with the Packers, he wasn’t bitter about their success.  Terry reported grousing to Ang about the Packers in one of his last conversations with him.  Not only had the Bears missed a very easy late-season opportunity to eliminate the Packers, but they proceeded to be eliminated by them in the first round of the playoffs.   As he often did, Angelo transcended the dynamic saying, “Yeah, it sucks that the Bears aren’t in it, but it’s the Super Bowl!”  And so, on he moved, with joy and purpose, commencing one of his last organizational acts, collecting baht, and running a pool for the Super Bowl for his friends in Thailand.  (We got the winnings the next week when we traveled to Thailand to bring Ang home.)  We have pictures of him running the show, organizing things, at a bar, of course, looking as though he were conducting significant business, but really just making squares.

I wish I could create a picture of Ang for my students.  I think of my longstanding reflection of “no explanation needed”—the great comfort in there being so many people who knew Ang intimately, and who “got him”—who would remember actions and gestures and stories and tone of voice—immediately, instantaneously—deeply and expansively, without any words.  Angelo was a landscape, and the memories of him are the flash of lightning that illuminates the entire territory in an instant, giving you a view of more and more dazzling imagery than you could imagine unless you had first seen it.

In so many ways, he was just an ordinary college-type kid—funny, self-absorbed, conscientious, concerned about social justice, concerned about social outings, tireless, indulgent, generous, the center of attention, the guy in the background, the bursting through life of life itself.

His friends still visit him on Facebook, posting links to news and culture that remind them of him.  Sometimes they just call out to him in longing for him.  I don’t visit the page much, just as I don’t visit the cemetery, I guess.  I’ve been fearful of locking down on one experience of him, becoming dependent on it, and then having it go away.  The part that doesn’t go away is my own memories….  The store is limited … but he’s still so alive in those moments.  He speaks through them, in a way that seems new and changing.  He was such a presence for me, and he always surprised me—so I’m missing those surprises—but I still have the smile, the wryness, the energy, and the illuminated landscape that makes me feel “wow.”

We’ll celebrate tonight, with cake, and one of his favorite meals, probably pizza—though we’ve been debating what he would choose, since his diet changed so much in the last few years.  We will gather and be the normal, well-adjusted family we always are.  We might tell some Ang stories, but maybe not.  We all will continue grieving for this lost landscape—so known, so understood, so appreciated—in our own ways.

October 3, 2019

Today my mother would have been 90.  For the past few years on October 3rd, I’ve had one strong thought about the date and the remembrance of my mother.  Odd:  When my mother was alive, I never once thought this thought.  She was just my mom (or “Mother” as we kids referred to her—never to her, but only years later when speaking of her;  another oddity.  Could you imagine addressing her as “Mother” to her?  Are we British or East Coast aristocrats?).  But since she died, there’s something about that date, October 3, 1929….  Today I learned it was a Tuesday, as I looked up the more famous date in that October than the third.  It was exactly three weeks later than October 3rd—October 24th—that that Tuesday happened:  Black Tuesday.  A Tuesday with its own epithet.

For the past few years, I’ve been thinking about how my mother was born before the start of the Great Depression.  I wonder what those three weeks were like?  Did she take full advantage of the Roaring Twenties?  Did she, in Vicari, Sicily, bask in the success of the 1929 Cubs?  That’s another new dimension added to my mother’s memory bank, and it comes by way of her grandson, Terry, baseball historian, my son, and lover of the 1929 Cubs, as ill-fated a team as ever in the history of that ill-fated franchise.  So … it seems most unfair for my mom to have had those three weeks but to have been too young to really indulge in the party.  But my mother was not selfish or self-absorbed, and she never complained about that missed time.

When I think of my mother, I think of her caring for me … and I think of every shameful thing I did.  Such guilt … I have to let it go.  I really didn’t do anything shameful in a big way, but it’s those little things, stupid kids’ pranks that haunt me.  I remember a particularly dumb one I did, probably about the age of 12.

“Mom, not everyone can do this.  It’s a test of dexterity and concentration and mental capacity.”

[I probably didn’t use words like “dexterity” and “capacity.”]

“Okay, tell me what to do,” she said.

She was always ready to help.  I recall that whenever I asked her for something, she gave it—and not only for needed things, but for my hobbies and interests.  When I became a model builder and science geek, she helped me with the Visible Body—the painting.  I could do the major organs—the liver, stomach, colon, intestine—but it was the veins and arteries on the plastic, clear skin that required dexterity and precision.  She painted the red and blue along the lines indicated on the inside shell of the skin—and the finished model was a piece of art to me, fit for an anatomy class.

“Take this quarter [I handed her a quarter], and starting at the top of your nose, roll it down—straight—to the bottom of your nose.  That’s it!”

What my mother didn’t know was I had taken a pencil and had coated the edge of the quarter with pencil lead.  So she took the quarter, put it between her two index fingers, and proceeded to roll the quarter down her nose.  She did it easily and readily, and smiled at me.  And it was in that moment that the indelible shame set in.  For the trick worked:  she had a stripe of grey down her nose, and she looked perfectly ridiculous.

It breaks my heart these fifty years later, and my eyes well up with tears as I write this in class with my students, all of us typing away.  I think of the simple goodness of a parent who would do anything for her child.  I think of her smile.  I think of the immediacy of my regret, and I wonder why—why does our sense of humor prevent us from seeing the hurt we cause, even when we see it so clearly in the moment after?  My mother didn’t express any anger or disappointment—she just wiped her nose when I revealed the trick.  I wonder if she saw my regret, my horror at being mean to the kindest person in the world?  Did she worry about me living in regret for years to come?

She made things easy.  Her life was hard—but for us, she was there.  We took her for granted, and that was bad—but really, the story was the absoluteness of her generosity.  I don’t want to say she enjoyed it—but it had that feel.  She was my barber for my first 30 years till she gave up her beautician business.  I remember her always being available for a haircut appointment.  It was always my schedule that mattered.  Her schedule?  She was there ready to be available when I needed her.

As I write these words, I’m feeling like a monster.  I was not … I was good.  But I somehow feel a need to exclaim:  I was not good enough.  I didn’t deserve her.  But of course I did.  I loved her, and she loved me.  She loved all of us, in a way that was easy.  And in my life I’ve seen so many mothers who behave so similarly.  It brings to mind my “no explanation needed” reflection I felt when Angelo died.  I clung to his friends and the family members who knew him and didn’t need me to explain his sense of humor, his gestures, his quirky smile and expressions.  They all knew it, had experienced it—and thus there was no burden on me to convey the reality and depth and feeling of the experience of him.

I feel the same with my mother.  So many mothers in the world have precisely the same kind of selflessness, of generosity, of willingness to be and live for her children that my mother had.  So I feel others can relate—can know—just how deep the feelings go, how deep my shame goes for missed opportunities for kindness back, for saying thank you—and for avoiding mean, gratuitous acts that accomplish nothing but etching a pain in your soul.

But stepping back from my malingering feelings, I hear her voice, and I see her smile and her easy way.  She had been through worse.  Her entry into the world on October 3rd meant she had to partake in the fall the collapse of the economic system, even in so far a place across the world as Vicari.  But she took the hit, and it must have formed her with a resilience and strength that were to help her raise and raise well five privileged brats who all, no explanation needed, grew to love her beyond human limitation.

Beyond All Endgames: A Mother’s Love

Many have praised Avengers: Endgame for a range of accomplishments: its spectacular special effects; its light touch in being so spectacular; its deft use of cameos; its fast and loose, serious and ridiculous, forays into the logical binds of time travel; its narrative economy in wrapping up a franchise with story lines mind-bogglingly diverse and intertwined; and the list goes on. My response has been curiously personal and “off topic.”  An unexpected reunion scene amidst the frenzy of the endgame struck me deeply and oddly, articulating for me something larger and more dramatic and more complex than the intense storylines of the Avenger franchise—namely, the power of what it means to be a parent. I was left nodding, yes, yes—easily and gratefully and tearfully (if those things can exist side-by-side)—for a depiction of love and grief and transcendence, and all their resonance and possibility, distilled to a stolen moment, out of time and eternal.

How does one serve up such a poignant moment? Recipe: Start with an archetypal relationship—here, a mother and son. Put them in a difficult, relatable situation involving loss, separation, a reunion after drastic changes, a stolen chance for intimacy, and an effortless “moment” of being together, without frenzy, without agendas, without judgments, without urgencies. Next, enact the moment with perfect pitch, as though there had been no separation. Pack in several archetypal dynamics—parental advice, childish submission, a mother’s acceptance, a child’s need for the mother’s recognition—and through it all maintain the effortlessness of just being together. Make it lighthearted and comical. Deliver it in a rush amidst chaos, in a slow calm so it can be what it is, so it can transcend the rush and rise into the realm of truth and beauty. Fold in a lot of setup.

Parenting and good storytelling are all about setup. Telescoped into each moment is all of its past, all the drama, disappointments, joys—all the history that makes the moment a universe of its own.

This reunion is between Thor and his mother, Frigga. Thor has come from the future, and he has a chance to see his mother, on the day he knows she will die, no less. He sees her, but he cannot speak to her. Thor is a time traveler, and there are some strict rules here. You can’t interfere with the past to change the future, etc., etc. So Thor has to keep his cover, not attempt to save his mother, or change her fate. But all the rules get thrown out the window when Frigga sees Thor. She knows him and loves him instantaneously, and registers no surprise or fear or confusion whatsoever, despite his extremely unusual appearance. Her ease of encountering him is the most magical moment of this blockbuster film, with all its special effects. The acting by Rene Russo as Thor’s mother puts to shame all the CGI flight and fight and thunder, even Thor’s, that fill most other moments with unrelenting action and crisis. This is the acting of a “parent’s transcendence of all the mess,” and just knowing, and being grateful for, and being sublimely calm about this chance to connect in the most uncertain of circumstances.

A little more on the setup: The actor who plays Thor is Chris Hemsworth, an apt candidate to embody the Scandinavian God of Thunder. His portrayal was built over several previous movies, and we have come to know him as a boyish, lovable, good-hearted kind of god, prone to rash acts at times, though always with good intentions. Above all, he was so powerful and beautiful, and completely without ego, this god among humans, just breezily being godly. And the voice—a god’s voice, with something of a slur, deep and resonant, and completely unpretentious. Hemsworth originally had to get completely buff to play the role, adding 30 pounds of chiseled muscle to ripple and pop when he held the mighty hammer and channeled the lightning of the universe to show his power and achieve his ends.

But that was all in better days. The current Thor in Endgame—and this is a true spoiler for those who love the godly Thor—has put on a few pounds (70?), as an effect of his, and the earth’s, loss after Thanos’s finger snap had obliterated half of the universe’s population at the end of Avengers: Infinity War. Thor has let himself go, in beer drinking, video-gaming, and general bro behavior. He’s somehow managed to keep his jaunty, comical demeanor through the devastation of both his chiseled body and the general universe. And that is why we are struck at Frigga’s no-surprise reaction to seeing Thor.

While unfazed, Frigga does notice something is wrong with Thor’s right eye. We know it had been put out in an earlier movie, and then restored completely in a later movie. Of all the changes in this broken god, she has zeroed in on the one that is all-but invisible. But the eye is the window to the soul, and his mother knows. She looks at him lovingly and says, “You’re not the Thor I know at all, are you…? The future has not been kind to you, has it?”

Our hearts break, for at once she recognizes what her son has been through, and it doesn’t matter, and her broken heart, if it is broken, is healed by the love she feels, and this opportunity, after so much loss and grief, to look upon, yet once again, the son she lost and had to learn would have such a difficult path ahead. Of course, it’s only we who know all that, but now she knows it too, and we feel her grief and joy, all the more accentuated by the other knowledge we have—that this is her end—and this is Thor’s final chance to be with his mother, a fact he knows all too well.

Thor denies that he’s from the future. This god has powers, and he puts up a good front—for about a second, till he breaks down and confesses, like an errant teen, “I’m totally from the future.” Hemsworth’s comic delivery never lapses here or elsewhere, as he completely avoids the self-pity or loathing that might stem from his fallen nature. But it’s not Hemsworth that brings the emotional focus or magic to this unexpected scene.

It’s the acting of Rene Russo, as Frigga looks so lovingly into Thor’s eyes, without judgment, without worry, without anxiety, and just drinks in this chance to be his mom and talk with him and hold him, in a kind of serene acceptance of what the moment could afford. Despite the transcendence here, she keeps it real, asking “what are you wearing?” She cuts through the nonsense of her child’s excuses saying she was raised by witches; she injects sibling dynamics into the exchange saying he should leave the sneaking to his brother Loki—and on it goes, with a little slapstick humor thrown in. But none of it registers beyond the calm union here, the manifestation of parent-child love, in circumstances that, if absurd, are irrelevant. Love does conquer all—be it death, disappointment, fear, grief, uncertainty, time travel confusions, and the rest. And this subdued scene of love displayed in such a serene and automatic way, despite such distractions, is enough to make Endgame, as a movie, a true “marvel,” all on its own.