Now, the past week has been marked by my having one hot mess of existential crises - not one, multiple. How John survived their blast, I do not know, but he appears to still be standing & - wonder of wonders - still loves me. From the time I got the e-mail to inking it on my calendar to driving down to Mt. Airy with a driver's side window stuck half-way down with rain in the forecast, those two hours - 1:00~3:00 p.m. - felt like a promised oasis of calm.
The gathering - four regulars, two guests, myself included - took place on the second floor, up a narrow steep open staircase. The regulars were all from Philadelphia, with the farthest one coming from the Fairmount/Art Museum neighborhood. The other guest, a fellow from India, was visiting his son.
I've listened on rare occasions to The Moth, NPR's storytelling hour, but never by design. I've never been part of a storytelling event, let alone a swap. I was there to listen, soak it in, see if it clicked.
Two of the regulars told stories, one long, one short. I enjoyed both tremendously - was stranded overnight on a Welsh moor, protected against wind & rain by a small umbrella & a serendipitously placed cairn, then guided a small plane in for landing with a hawk alongside, two sets of wings tip to tip - loved the storyteller describing that while he needed a variety of instruments for a maneuver, the hawk handled with a flick of a feather.
Feeling emboldened, I asked if they minded an amateur taking a stab at her first storytelling. Everyone encouraged me to take the plunge - they made me feel safe as I told my story, something I never would have imagined sharing with total strangers yet seemed like what I was there to do.
Here it is, as best as I can recall...
I am the baby of our family, the youngest of five. My brother, Peter, is fourteen years older, followed by Mike, Mim & Ian.
I feel particularly tender toward Peter, who lost Ian almost sixty years ago & Mim in 2015.
Mom always described Ian, ten years younger, as Peter's heart delight. The family tale is that when I was born, Peter informed our mother, "You will have take care of this one." One of my favorite family photos is of Peter at his 8th grade graduation, blue jacket, white pants, necktie, diploma in hand, with 4-year old Ian at his side. I can't imagine what he went through on that Easter Monday, when he was 21 & out in California, getting the call that Ian, just turned eleven, had been killed; can't imagine the long lonely airplane ride back.
And then he lost Mim. Mim was six years younger than Peter. Although they'd never gotten along all that well growing up, they'd gotten very close over the past 20+ years, talking almost every day by phone.
I remember the late July day John rang me on my cell phone - Mim had called from the emergency room & wanted me to give her a ring. Alarmed, I called right away, immediately soothed by her upbeat voice.
"So," I asked, "What do the doctors say?" Mim replied, "I'll be gone in ten days." "You're going to be in the hospital for ten days?!" No, she replied- "I'll be GONE in ten days."
And she was, after a hospital stay that left the staff amazed with her good humor, great smiles & awesome presence - they didn't know, as her family did, the Mim's dread wasn't death but a long dwindling dying. She was abuzz with happiness to be spared that horror.
But Peter wasn't prepared. While Mim had been open from her first phone call that she'd be gone in ten days, he didn't see it coming. I ached at his confused grief, another loved one's death taking him by surprise.
I feel for my oldest brother. First his boy of boys died, then the sister with whom he'd become great friends. Always the wrong siblings. Never me.
As far as I can tell, Peter didn't have any use for me, not from Day One. When I was a little kid, he'd complain to Mom, "Why must she speak such drivel?"
Then there was the summer after my own 8th Grade graduation. Mom & Dad & I visited him in Indiana, where he was an up & coming exec junior at RCA. One evening is burned in my memory - Mom & Dad had taken the two of us & Peter's incredibly elegant date out for a special dinner. I can still see the look on his face when I requested catsup - he was mortified that I'd slather it on my filet mignon; in that moment, I knew for sure that he saw his little sister as a social clod. Even in my fifties, he lectured me on how to act around "people of quality." This is not me imagining familial hobgoblins - many years back, someone asked if he'd always been close to Mim; oh, no, he explained, it was fairly recent, a friendship forged when both discovered neither liked me. Ouch!
Today, I find myself Peter's only nearby family member. Am torn - - does being a good sister mean being there for him, going over to visit, taking him out to lunch at his favorite family restaurant ~or~ is my presence an irksome irritation? A tough call.
Mim was a bridge to his days of academic & athletic glory, a mirror in which he could see himself at his perceived best. Me? One look & he sees reflected back a person he's worked mightily to deny disavow disown.
Mim was a bridge to his days of academic & athletic glory, a mirror in which he could see himself at his perceived best. Me? One look & he sees reflected back a person he's worked mightily to deny disavow disown.
Yep, it feels like the wrong sibling always dies. First Ian, then Mim. Never me.
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