An X in the Circle of Life

Bequeathing Incognito

And the man begat man begat another

begat the father no son remembers,

a tissue-covered residue

molding in a grey photo

extinct by resounding

years and blood

replicating hollow mirrors of himself.

And each man breathed a boy breathed another

breathed men abandoned to foretime,

a foreshadowing legacy

inherited by surviving sons

reproducing generations,

men and boys

breaking old apparitions and creating new ghosts.

And each sire bore his sons bore his son

bore his boy who buried the bequeathor

except for the blood

grey eyes stretching from a page

into a breathing likeness

foreseeing future

failing to recall men and years

before he shatters.
                                -Me

-something I wrote at age 22, after Grandma had given me a stack of tin-type photos of relatives I’d never known

I don’t know about you, but thoughts of midlife, of looking ahead and behind, are familiar friends to me.

My dad was 36 when I, his first child, was born in the tumultuous year of 1968, and his mom was 31 when he, her first son, was born a few years into the Great Depression. My paternal grandma took over many mothering duties for me when she was 71, serving as something between mom and grandma, remaining my strongest female influence until she died at age 91 during the first year of my marriage.  

Every summer Grandma prepared me and herself to celebrate her last birthday, but one summer kept following another with yet another last birthday cake. My lifetime of memories of her begin after her first stroke, when she started using a walker to get around, when her toenails grew thick, her bones ached from arthritis, she talked about blood pressure, and her flesh bled and bruised easily. She lived alone on the farm where she had raised her sons. Dad told me that Grandma was crabby because it was difficult for her to give up the control she’d always had over the farm, her adult sons, skills she’d always been strong at, and her body. He was sandwiched between raising two kids, farming, and looking in on his mom.

The spring after I was married, her body just slowed down enough to stop one day, not quite getting her to one more last birthday cake. She was a strong, stubborn woman who spent laborious but fun hours during 90 degree days without air conditioning teaching me to can green beans, tomatoes, pickles and whatever other food my dad grew to keep the two of us busy. She taught me to make pies from scratch, scrub floors, fold laundry, hammer nails, prune rose bushes, and grow flowers. She let me parade her old hats and dresses from the 1920s during my one-girl fashion shows and practice walking with her walker or cane or feeling my way around her downstairs with my eyes closed, practicing being blind just in case I ever accidentally poked my eyes out. We laughed, sweated, and rested a spell outside under the shade trees with lemonade or cold tea together.

Once, frustrated that I’d been made the gatekeeper to prevent her from literally crawling up to the second floor of her house to clean, she uninvited me to her funeral, and we cried and raised our voices through the experience because each of us sure had a mean streak. I never doubted she had the ability to make me go find and cut a hickory switch for her to whip me with if I ever got out of line, and while I’d never seen her use the shotguns hanging above the washing machine near her front door, I could easily imagine her aiming one at strangers, probably chicken thieves, who may have come to her door from time to time as she was raising two boys and tending to a bed-ridden husband out in the middle of rural Illinois.

Pictures on Grandma’s walls were black and white. Pictures in photo albums were made of tin. We would sometimes rummage through trunks with wedding bands, obituaries, letters, and family secrets all tied together with old strips of aprons. She would let me select musty-smelling books I had to be gentle with while reading, belonging either to people she’d loved who had ceased living before I was born or to an earlier version of herself that I’d never known.

I left home for college at age 17, venturing into territory not experienced by the people who raised me, and I certainly felt as though I’d arrived in a new and strange land. It wasn’t until then that I really experienced unburdened youth or many influences of my own generation, which, as it turns out, weren't exactly unburdened. When I reached somewhere around age 35, I felt as though I’d finally arrived at the age I’d been most of my life. I’m still pretty much there.

Human developmental theories are based on the idea that, as we grow and change, we’re still all the ages we’ve ever been. Somehow, I don’t expect any age I reach to seem like foreign land. Through my family, I think I’ve always been all human ages that keep on cycling. I got to relive childhood when my boys were little, and now I’m reliving adolescence with them. Today my dad is the age Grandma used to be, and I’m the age in middle. Life and death is rich when generations walk together; through such life I’ve tasted eternity where life continues anew forever.

Once Upon a Time

Once Upon a Time, little girl,

Grandma was little like you.

I ran all around

And jumped up and down.

Yes, what I’m saying is true.

Once Upon a Time wasn’t long ago.

“Behave yourself,” I was told.

I never sat still

And couldn’t swallow a pill.

No, Grandma wasn’t always this old.

Someday soon, little girl,

You will be tall and full-grown.

The years will go fast;

They’ll go speeding past;

Someday, you’ll have a 
“Once Upon a Time”

 Of your own.

-written by me during the second year of college after Christmas break with family 

God be with each of you through the circle of life.


This blog post is part of a series of writing (April 3-May 14, 2011) by Tammy Fletcher Bergland about Generation X facing midlife.   tbergland.blogspot.com