A few years back, maybe 2000? 2002?
I'm not sure, but it was in the land before digital pictures;
I took dad down to Lake Village to Pauline Sioris' home.
Pauline's sister Ruth was down from Minnesota for a visit and Pauline and her daughter Carolyn invited Dad and Aunt Gladys West over for lunch.
It was a table full of first cousins catching up and telling stories about the old days.
Cousins...now...and then...
How I WISH I would have had my LiveScribe pen to record the table talk that day!
I remember some of the stories, but at that time I had not studied the family tree enough to know who all they were talking about. I also remember trying to translate much of what was being said to Dad who was not wearing his hearing aides.
One thing was for sure.
Pauline was the go to cousin for the details of the stories.
If you ever met Pauline, you know she could talk a blue streak....
and once she got to talking she started flitting around the house, pulling out props for her stories and showing off family heirlooms.
I remember her opening a hall closet and pulling out a black cape, draping it around her shoulders and spinning around. She said it belonged to (and here my memory fails me) either Great Grandma Hattie or Great Grandma Effie....and it was the cape that Grandma would wear to keep warm when they traveled by horse and buggy.
One of the most touching moments was when everyone was saying goodbye...
Ruth gave Dad a hug and held his hands and said in a voice that sounded just like Great Aunt Lulu, "Do you think we'll ever see each other again?"
It was a memory keepers moment.
One that gets burned into memory.
I forgot a lot of what I heard that day, but I did not forget that moment....and I watched and kept track of the answer.
They did not meet again.
Ruth reached the point that she could no longer travel.
And Dad passed away without ever seeing her again.
Pauline is someone I should have revisited....
She was always happy to talk and to tell story after story.
Her health started to fail and she spent short stints in Lowell Health Care until her fate, the same fate that took Aunt Lulu's memory caught up with her and Carolyn was no longer able to care for her at home and she moved to the Nursing Home.
Last year Ruby and I went to visit Pauline.
We found her near the nurse's station in a wheel chair.
I had been told that she constantly talked....and made up rhymes and songs (just like Aunt Lulu did....but not much of it made sense. ( This was also how Aunt Lulu was once she moved to the nursing home).
I knelt down next to Pauline's wheel chair and said:
"Pauline?
I'm Bob Vandercar's daughter."
She turned to look at me and studied my face with her clear blue eyes.
I thought I was seeing a ghost as she had the same furrowed brow that my dad would get when he was trying to come back from the land of far away.
I had never noticed how "Vandercar" that look was...until I saw it on her face.
I waited a few seconds and asked her,
"...do you remember Bob?"
She smiled and said..."
(hay was the word she inserted at the begining and end of every sentance and what she used when she couldn't remember a word).
I laughed out loud and said...
"Yes...that's right! I brought someone else to see you.
Do you remember Phebe and Keith...."
and she broke out in a sing songy voice...
"Phebe and Keith Dinwiddie....hay."
I said, "do you remember Ruby?"
...she nodded and said "Dinwiddie...hay."
I pointed up to where Ruby was standing in front of her and she said,
"Ruby and Norman and Betty...hay."
I was SO glad that she recognized Ruby.
What a gift and a memory for Ruby to take home with her.
To be remembered.
I looked over at the nurse's station and they were all watching and listening and seemed a little amazed. One of them said...
"do you know the names she is talking about?"
and I nodded yes.
We rolled her back to her room and listened as she strung together names and rhymes and hay...and Jack...hay and Jeanette...hay....and Carolyn....hay and Grandma Effie....hay.
I asked her if she remembered Grandma Effie and she said....
"Grandma Effie....hay....the cookies...hay...and the red dots....hay."
Ruby slapped her knee and explained that Grandma Effie used to make cookies with red cinnamin candy in them.
I took note to tell all the Grandmas that I know...
that all those little things you do for your grandkids will stick in their memories long after their short term memory fails them.
She talked about "Norman being ornery and getting a lickin'....hay (laughing a little)....and I felt so bad for him....hay....and Jeanette...hay...(and here she started to cry a little...remembering Jeanette...who had died very young)...and Jack was so handsome....hay....and her babies. And all this seemed to be interspersed with actual poems and little songs that she may have at one time memorized.
It was clear that Pauline still loved to talk.
The stories were not as understandable as they were on that day we sat around her table at lunch,
but it was comforting to know that even tho her day to day memory had failed her, she still had and held onto memories of people she loved and good times she had lived.
I was sad to leave her there.
But was glad for the visit.
And even tho it was not said out loud, I thought once again of Ruth's question to my dad, when Ruby and Pauline said goodbye.
"Do you think we'll ever see each other again..."
As it turned out....it was another visit for a memory keeper to treasure.
They did not meet again.
Pauline passed away 4 months short of her 99th birthday.
I hope Great Grandma Effie and her are enjoying a plate of cookies with red dots.
Til we meet again, Pauline.
Rest in peace...hay.
