Mother’s Day came and went this year without a sound. I didn’t think much on it. Maybe because I work on Sundays, though I’ve worked weekends for most of my life. I think it had less to do with my mother, having died more than a decade ago. She is always, at the very least, in the back of my mind.
====
In 1971, when I was 12, my grandmother, Reggie (pronounced with a hard “g”, like tug), died while I was away at summer camp. She had battled breast cancer years before. If I recall correctly, this time ovarian cancer took her out, painfully and rather quickly. The year it was first approved, Chemo was administered as a method to fight the spreading disease. It made Grandma feel so sick, she refused to continue the treatment.
Simultaneously, my sister, who was attending Carnegie Mellon, was having surgery on her wrists in Pittsburgh, PA, and Mom wanted to be there. When my mother visited her mother, who was in a hospital close to our home in New Jersey, Grandma looked Mom straight in the eyes and sent a wordless message saying she’d had enough. My mother said to her, “Mom, you wait until I get back.” My mother traveled to the hospital in Pittsburgh to stay with her only daughter. From what Mom told me, Grandma Reggie did hold on. When my mother returned home, her mother closed her eyes and passed away.
I wasn’t told she had died until a couple of weeks after she was gone. My friend for most of my life, Rebecca, was at the same summer camp as I. She was told the news but asked not to say anything to me until my parents could tell me in person. Mom and Dad were coming to see me during Visitors Weekend.
The day Grandma died, I was suffering from a severe ear infection that caused me to practically hallucinate. I dreamt or had a vision of Reggie coming to me to say goodbye. Later that day, I phoned home for two reasons. First, to see if my father, who was a physician, approved of the ear drops I had been prescribed, and also to see how Grandma Reggie was doing. Though I have no recollection of it, I must have known she was not feeling well, but I had no idea she was at death’s door. On the phone, my father said something equivalent to “she’s resting comfortably.” She had died hours before I called.
Over Visitors Weekend, my parents, accompanied by my sister, came to see me. When we went to the Bed & Breakfast at which they were staying in Middlebury, VT, I thought it was odd that my sister stayed down in the foyer while my parents took me up to their room. When they told me about Grandma dying, I threw myself on their queen sized bed and wept.
For many years, I was angry at my mother for not bringing me back for Grandma Reggie’s funeral. As an adult with a less narcissistic personality than I had as a 12 year old boy, I now see how untenable that would have been to arrange. My parents would have had to drive to central Vermont from New Jersey, more than a six hour drive, to pick me up. The funeral was in Philadelphia, another hour and forty five minutes added to the car trip from camp, if we didn’t stop for a bite to eat. And in keeping with the Jewish tradition, Reggie’s burial was to take place within 24 hours of her death. All of this chauffering would have to happen without delay, culminating with returning me to camp.
A year later, I attended a family ceremony at the grave sight in the Philadelphia area to unveil Grandma’s head stone. One of my uncles read the 23rd Psalm aloud. I had never heard it. The passage brought me to inconsolable tears.
====
I was a two summer camper at Point Counterpoint, which was set at the edge of Lake Dunmore, on a gorgeous evergreen property in Brandon, Vermont. By its name, the camp was clearly for musicians. It was owned by the parents of David Finkel, a cello player who later became well known for being a member of the a classical string foursome, the Emerson Quartet.
I played viola — and not well. I was very lazy. But when surrounded by a camp full of musical artists, I practiced more each day than I ever had when taking private lessons at home.
Campers were not allowed to listen to or play rock or folk music of any kind. Though some of us would sneak into the practice cabins: the ones that housed upright pianos. I remember singing songs from the Judy Collins Songbook.
That first summer, my three closest friends at camp all were women. Debbie, age 16; Maggie, age 17; and Connie who was 18. I felt particularly close to Maggie. As an adult, I tried to contact her. I knew she went to the University of Vermont, in Burlington. By the time I tried to find her, she had already graduated. I was never able to locate Maggie. And I have no idea if she’d even want to hear from me.
At the time I went to camp, Rebecca, who played violin, was only a friendly acquaintance. It came that we would attend junior and high school together. We remain “the family chosen” to this day.
The only person at Point Counterpoint who was not a classical musician was one of my counselors, Chip. He was a family friend to the Finkels. He played drums, but I don’t remember ever witnessing that ability. And other than tympani, I don’t think percussive instruments were part of Bach’s orchestrations.
I have a few clear memories of Chip.
1: rowing out into the middle of Lake Dunmore to talk to me privately, when I was having a hard time adjusting to camp life.
2: getting into terrible trouble with two other boys for writing dirty words in a Mad Libs booklet. Chip screamed at us with a fury that was not artificial. That happened during my second summer. I was not invited back to camp the next year.
3: seeing Chip take a leak. When he unzipped his fly and pulled his jeans down, he wasn’t wearing underwear. I was nowhere near understanding or following through with my sexual desires for other men, but I had always thought that 17 year old Chip was gorgeous. And I had never seen blond pubic hair before…
A few years later, I gave up playing viola.
====
I have very few illustrative memories from that era, beyond being angry with Mom for not bringing me back for Grandma Reggie’s funeral. It wasn’t until I was in my twenties and was still admonishing my mother for that neglectful behavior, that she finally said, “Andrew, enough! I’m sorry I didn’t bring you back. I did what I thought was right at the time. I was wrong!” That’s what I was waiting to hear. I finally felt settled.
All these years later, I feel completely different about the entire thing. I hadn’t taken into account that Mom had just lost her mother. And even though she would have been justified, she never threw her personal loss and pain at me.