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Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Boston On My Mind
Sometimes, timing is everything.
My mother called me this morning and said, "I was standing in front of the hotel where that bomb exploded, just a couple weeks ago."
My mother was born and raised in the city of Boston. Her grandfather was a streetcar conductor from the poor neighborhood of Paisley, Scotland who came to this country seeking an opportunity.
Somehow, through a turn of fate, his daughter met a sailor boy from the wild, exotic "Indian Territory" that became Oklahoma and a few years later, my mom was born.
Yesterday I got a package in the mail from a cousin in Arizona. Inside where some photos I've never seen before.
A short while later, I heard the news of the Boston Marathon bombing.
I found myself wanting to escape all the ugliness of the world, into the soft flowers of the coming spring... like I did this past weekend... but my mind kept dragging me back... but... I can escape backwards in time. At least briefly.
A Christmas holiday in Jamaica Plains, Boston, Massachusetts, 1949. My mom is holding a guitar on the far left, her older sister holds an unknown little girl with a doll. My grandmother sits behind my grandfather who is playing with one of my cousin's toy. My boy cousin looks like he has a ray gun or something aimed at the camera. My cousin Belle (Isabella, my grandmother's sister) sits with her father and my great-grandfather Robert McPherson on the sofa. ...Pondering who the mystery girl was... another photo fell out of the package...
A simple scene. But so powerful to me. My mom's mother stands in the snow, having shoveled out to the clothesline behind the farmhouse in Milton Mills, New Hampshire. My best memories of her are from this very place. The field behind the farmhouse, heading out to the trees (and a stone wall) were not farmed, but held wild clover and strawberries that smelled so good in the basking heat of the summer sun.
My grandmother had a twinkling eye and a low chuckle she would use to express her obvious glee and delight she took when me or my brothers did something "cute."
Her last 10 years spent with failing memories as her numerous strokes to away her personality and in fact, her very being, were very hard - especially on my mom - who visited the nursing care facility she was in, faithfully week after week. My seeing her with such life in her eyes was a special moment and a treat indeed. I can't thank my cousin enough for this...
What my great-grandfather would have thought of the bombing of a race on Patriot's Day, I do not know. I scarcely know what to make of it myself. I hear that many of the citizens of Boston have opened their homes and wallets to those that are far from home and stunned and shocked by this ugly event. I saw in the videos shown all over, over and over again, a large number people running towards those that were hurt and maimed to offer help and aid... Knowing Boston as a "removed Bostonian," I'm not at all surprised. The people there are "Yankees" in the best and most admirable sense of the word.
My mother called me this morning and said, "I was standing in front of the hotel where that bomb exploded, just a couple weeks ago."
My mother was born and raised in the city of Boston. Her grandfather was a streetcar conductor from the poor neighborhood of Paisley, Scotland who came to this country seeking an opportunity.
Somehow, through a turn of fate, his daughter met a sailor boy from the wild, exotic "Indian Territory" that became Oklahoma and a few years later, my mom was born.
Yesterday I got a package in the mail from a cousin in Arizona. Inside where some photos I've never seen before.
A short while later, I heard the news of the Boston Marathon bombing.
I found myself wanting to escape all the ugliness of the world, into the soft flowers of the coming spring... like I did this past weekend... but my mind kept dragging me back... but... I can escape backwards in time. At least briefly.
A Christmas holiday in Jamaica Plains, Boston, Massachusetts, 1949. My mom is holding a guitar on the far left, her older sister holds an unknown little girl with a doll. My grandmother sits behind my grandfather who is playing with one of my cousin's toy. My boy cousin looks like he has a ray gun or something aimed at the camera. My cousin Belle (Isabella, my grandmother's sister) sits with her father and my great-grandfather Robert McPherson on the sofa. ...Pondering who the mystery girl was... another photo fell out of the package...
My grandmother had a twinkling eye and a low chuckle she would use to express her obvious glee and delight she took when me or my brothers did something "cute."
Her last 10 years spent with failing memories as her numerous strokes to away her personality and in fact, her very being, were very hard - especially on my mom - who visited the nursing care facility she was in, faithfully week after week. My seeing her with such life in her eyes was a special moment and a treat indeed. I can't thank my cousin enough for this...
What my great-grandfather would have thought of the bombing of a race on Patriot's Day, I do not know. I scarcely know what to make of it myself. I hear that many of the citizens of Boston have opened their homes and wallets to those that are far from home and stunned and shocked by this ugly event. I saw in the videos shown all over, over and over again, a large number people running towards those that were hurt and maimed to offer help and aid... Knowing Boston as a "removed Bostonian," I'm not at all surprised. The people there are "Yankees" in the best and most admirable sense of the word.
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