Ms. J and The Grapes of Wrath

 

    I have a thousand other things I should be doing this Sunday morning, but I find that there's a memory stuck in my head that I can't let go. 

    I have always, as long as I can remember,  a lover of books. I use them to escape reality. It's not that there's anything in particular that I NEED to escape from, it's just that I WANT to escape. I want to immerse myself in someone else's world and think about someone else's life. I want to travel to different places and learn about other lives. And since the budget doesn't allow a lot of travel, and honestly never has, I do it by reading. I'd rather go to the library than Target. I'd sit in a bookstore from open to close before I would sit in a movie theater. 

    When I was in middle school, I had an English teacher who took a passing interest in whatever I happened to be reading at the moment. I had a much used Wahoo Library card, back when the library was next to the police and fire station. One day, I pulled a book off the shelf and checked it out. The book was The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck. I don't remember how I came across it. I just know that I started reading it, and keeping in mind that I was somewhere around thirteen years old, it was a bit of a struggle for me to understand the themes in the book. But I do love a challenge. When I showed up with the book at school, sitting on top of my text books and notebooks in English class, Ms. Jacobsen noticed and commented, "That's quite a book." And I must have kind of smiled? And she said, "I worry that this book is going to break your heart a little. Come talk to me about it if  you want."

    We all know I love the dramatics, but when I say to you that the book changed my life, I leave the drama behind and mean every word. I didn't know how to talk about it. I didn't have the words for what I felt, but Ms. Jacobsen was absolutely correct. And some days later, when she asked me how it was going, I all but burst into tears. She said, "Jenny, (because I was Jenny in those days) do me a favor and read this book again in a few years. You'll be surprised at what you learn from it all over again." 

   So. Shout out to Ms. Connie Jacobsen, wherever she may be. I have my doubts that she would even remember this, but I am happy to report that I took her advice, and not only reread the book once more, but actually several more times throughout the years, each time I set it down I learn a little something new. She could have told me not to read it. She could have suggested a more appropriate book. She could have called my parents and insisted they be a little more careful about what I checked out at the library. Instead, she said, "Come talk to me about it if you want". We really don't give teachers the credit they deserve for what they do. Ms. J. knew enough about her student to know that a little heartbreak might be necessary. 

    As an aside, Steinbeck's novel met with controversy. It was burned and banned and criticized. But, years later, when I pulled it off the shelf of my local library, I didn't know any of that. I sat down in Small Town, Nebraska, in a bedroom carpeted in green, on a twin bed, and absorbed a story that had the power to break my heart and fill in all the gaps in one fell swoop. I had a teacher who was willing to help me understand it. 

"I ain't gonna try to teach 'em nothin'. I'm gonna try to learn." John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

Small Word

 

    When I open my eyes, I know, from the feeling in the pit of my stomach, that it is Mother's Day. I take the dogs out in the budding light of the day, stand and look at the sky and smell the Spring air. It rained last night. It feels like the perfect day to visit my mom. 

    I get dressed and go to a graduation, because someone, somewhere, decided that the day wasn't fraught enough for some people. A graduation for a boy who never met his grandma. I cry, because I met this boy at the hospital, hours after he was born, and I would put money that that event was just a few weeks ago. I take pictures. I wipe my eyes and find the top of Zoe's head. She's playing in the band today. This time next year, it'll be her graduating. Zoe, who never met her grandma. After the ceremony, I hug and laugh with my brother. Who barely remembers his mother. 

    I go to the store and pick out flowers. Coral pink roses for my mom, purple for my grandma. I don't know if they will like them, but I think they're pretty, and festive and appropriate. The short drive down a paved county road leads to their place. It's quiet and green. There's a little noise from traffic, but mostly, what I hear are the birds. I exit the vehicle, walking with flowers in hand, seeing the different granite markers. Some with flowers, some without. There's someone new, just a row behind my mom. There's a huge old tree, and the wind whispers through the branches. 

    My mom's place is marked by rose colored granite. It's got dirt and grass clippings and John goes back to the truck to get a rag and a bottle of water to clean it up. And I stand there, staring at her words and listening to what's going on around us, and I wonder. I imagine. I pray. I wash the stone, the middle part, where her words are, gets darker with the water. The few minutes it takes to clean up the stone offer me something active to do for her. And so I spend just a few more seconds on it. It's not her arms wrapped around me, but it's the best I've got. John goes and does the same for my grandparents, resting next to their daughter. I think maybe they would appreciate it? Maybe someday, a long time from now, someone will do the same for me? 

    When I've stood there, staring into the words on the stone for awhile, I read them for what must be the hundred-millionth time. Loving Wife and Mother. I focus on the word Mother. It's a small word for such a title. It means so much. It means that I exist. That my brother exists. It means that my family is. But it also means that I will never know so many things during my life. It means that I will always wonder and think and grieve. I say goodbye as I always have. I kiss my finger tips and run them across the granite over the word. Mother. 

    I get home and find the picture I have. The one of twenty-seven year old Mom. She's a month from turning twenty-eight. A month from giving birth to me. She's wearing a white. long sleeved shirt with a plaid sweater over the top. If it didn't say on the back, in her loopy handwriting, that she was four weeks from having me, I don't know if I would be able to tell that she was pregnant at all. It's physical evidence to hold in my hand, that once upon a time, forty-four years ago, she and I were together. 

    I have dinner with my son and his fiance, with John and Zoe, and I open the gift they give me. Inside is a small wooden sign. It reads Best Mom Ever. And I don't think that's true, but the tears come falling down because I focus on the word Mom. I focus on all it's brought me, and all it's cost me. And I know, down in my soul, where my connection to my mother still lives on, that it's a small word for such a title.