Stewart

The Receiving Line

March 11, 2014March 12, 2018 Sally5 Comments

One by one they took my hand.

“I’m Sally, Stewart’s sister,” I would say. Then they would tell me their name and how they knew Stewart.

From the food bank. “I volunteered with Stewart at the food bank. We could always count on him.”

From Habitat for Humanity. “Stewart took the minutes for our meetings. They were always precise and thorough.”

From the church in Tarentum. “Stewart had been our pastor.”

From the Presbytery. “Stewart served on a committee with me.”

From his apartment complex. “Stewart sat in the gazebo with us every night and we talked.”

From a coffee shop that had become his family. “We didn’t even know he was a pastor for the longest time.”

A young couple said, “Stewart performed our wedding.”

One man told me, “Stewart changed my life.”

A man named Buster stood in front of me, humble, awkward. He was as tongue-tied as I felt all day, his eyes watery as they looked at mine. “Stewart was a good man,” he finally said.

“Thank you,” I said, over and over and over.

I wished I had more words.

No, I wished they had more words. I loved hearing about the lives he had touched.

“Stewart drove me to the doctor.”

“Stewart drove me to the store.”

“Stewart loved that skate park.”

“Stewart listened.”

“Stewart helped.”

The two hour receiving line became almost unbearable. All these people. All these names. All these words — good words — but I couldn’t hear any more..

After the service, while people were still milling around and chatting, I sat by myself a short distance away. Maybe I seemed uncaring. I only knew that I was exhausted. Mary came to sit beside me and I hugged her.

This may sound crazy, but instead of a two hour receiving line, I wished for a two month one, where I could sit, one day at a time, with the people, share a cup of coffee with them, and really hear their story.

I have so many questions for them.

Did Stewart laugh a lot? I always liked his laugh.

Did Stewart cook for you? He was a pretty good cook.

Tell me everything you can about Stewart and his life here. Please.

I’m so hungry for more.

A Month of Remembering

The Teakwood

January 22, 2014July 23, 2017 Sally3 Comments

Where did you spend your happiest memories with your loved one? Before all this, of course, were there special places you lived or traveled to that you can look back on and feel good about?

I forget how the topic came up. The way my parents used to tell the story, we were all begging to go to Myrtle Beach, because everyone else was, which just sounds wrong, because our family was never particularly susceptible to peer pressure. The way the story goes, though, is that we were all begging to go to Myrtle Beach so my father told us to pick out a place to stay and show it to him.

This was all back in the dark ages, before the internet. With a AAA membership, we were able to obtain a two-inch thick tourbook for the South Carolina. There was pages and pages of motels and hotels on the Grand Strand. Those little listing were hard to decipher, so my father suggested writing to the Chamber of Commerce in Myrtle Beach. I wrote the letter, and then had the thrill of receiving a whole bunch of mail. (Parents, if your children ever ask why they don’t get any mail, suggest they write to a chamber of commerce somewhere.)

With the stacks and stacks of brochures that arrived, we began culling through and narrowing down the search. I wanted a swimming pool. And small. Even then, I wanted someplace small and homey. Twelve stories simply doesn’t appeal to me, even if the rooms could face the ocean. Small, homey, swimming pool — yes, those were the criteria.

I found the perfect motel. It was called The Caravelle. It wasn’t huge. It had a swimming pool. It was right on the beach. Perfect.

Except they had no vacanices for the week we wanted to go.

So I went back to the pile of brochures and found our second choice. Small, homey, evening bridge games in the lounge (something I thought my parents would enjoy), a swimming pool, and a vacancy. We went to Teakwood Motel that year. And every year after that for about thirty years.

We patronized The Teakwood through several different owners and watched its decline. The last year we went the roof was covered with blue tarps and one of my children found an insulin needle under the bed. Now a parking lot for a high-rise hotel has replaced that motel.

In its heyday, though, The Teakwood was like family. We saw the same guests year after year. We knew the owners well, and one owner actually became family, in an extended sort of way.

There are so many, many memories of The Teakwood — an annual picture by The Teakwood sign, a bagpiper practicing in the Teaky Forest, cookouts, swimming in that pool, sliding down the slide into the pool (until they removed it for insurance reasons), kids freely going from room to room as we often booked four or more rooms in a row, crossing Ocean Boulevard to get to the ocean.

1989 -- picture by the Teakwood sign -- see the bottom of the "D"? — 1989 — picture by the Teakwood sign — see the bottom of the “D”?

Wandering from room to room at the Teakwood

The Caravelle is still in operation today. I would drive past it whenever we went to Myrtle Beach, just down the road from The Teakwood.

I’m thankful that the Caravelle was full in 1972.

Would my mother have gotten lost trying to find the post office from The Teakwood. (see Six Ways to Anywhere)? Probably not that year. That would have happened further down the Alzheimer’s road; The Teakwood was like a second home.

If there’s a special place for us, it’s a little mom-and-pop motel in Myrtle Beach called The Teakwood that has now gone to motel heaven.

Faith

Communion

December 2, 2013July 2, 2017 Sally3 Comments

Communion is a joyful time at our church.

For so many years, I was used to a different way of celebrating communion. A somber, sober way. A stay-in-your-seat kind of way. A contemplative, inward-looking way.

Not that those are bad things. Communion — eating the bread and drinking the cup — shows forth the Lord’s death until He comes again. Death is a somber, sober thing. It calls for contemplation and looking inward.

At our church though, we walk to the front and receive the bread, a chunk torn from a small white loaf, with the words, “This is the Bread of Life.” Next, we dip our bread into the challis and hear “This is the Cup of Blessing.” The bread, now soggy with grape juice, must be eaten immediately, unless it is so large that it takes several bites. Children love this.

At first, I was critical of this method. I mean, really, everyone knows Jesus didn’t use leavened bread, I would scoff to myself. But the reality is that Jesus also didn’t serve wine in cute little cups that could be used later for VBS crafts. No, modern communion only recalls that Last Supper; it doesn’t replicate it. And that attention to the outward details is exactly the pit into which the Pharisees fell. What’s important is what’s going on in the heart. More precisely, for me, in my heart.

Once I set my inward Pharisee aside, I could laugh and enjoy communion. It’s a little chaotic. Children grin broadly and sometimes laugh when they are handed a large piece of bread. More than once bread has fallen into the challis. One parishioner’s guiding eye dog, not always in harness, but still in church, sniffs the floor hopefully for a few crumbs.

Yesterday, I went forward for communion. The pastor said, “This the Bread of Life,” and tore a piece from the loaf. I looked up into eyes that were warm and tender. This was someone who knows me and loves me. The young acolyte lifted the challis for me. His little voice was timid and sweet as he said, “The Cup of Blessing.”

Afterwards, as I sat in my seat, I thought about that last supper Jesus shared with His disciples. I’m sure He looked them in the eye and smiled at them as He gave them the bread. Maybe it was a little messy sharing the cup. I know for certain, though, that the love was palpable.

It reminded me of something Frederick Buechner once wrote about a communion experience. I’ll leave you with that.

… I was receiving communion in an Episcopal church early one morning. The priest was an acquaintance of mine, and I could hear him moving along the rail from person to person as I knelt there waiting for my turn. The body of Christ, he said, the bread of heaven. The body of Christ, the bread of heaven. When he got to me he put in another word. The word was my name, “The body of Christ, Freddy, the bread of heaven.”

…There was nothing extraordinary about the priest knowing my name — I knew he knew it — and there was nothing extraordinary about him using it in the service because he evidently did that sort of thing quite often. But the effect on me was extraordinary.

… For the first time in my life, maybe, it struck me that when Jesus picked up the bread at his last meal and said, “This is my body which is for you,” he was doing it not just in a ritual way for humankind in general, but in an unthinkably personal way for every particular man or woman or child who ever existed or someday would exist. Most unthinkable of all, maybe he was doing it for me. At that holiest of feasts we are known not just by our official name but by the names people use who have known us the longest and most intimately.

from Spiritual Quests: The Art and Craft of Religious Writing,
edited by William Zinsser

Food for thought the next time you partake in communion.

Alzheimer's

“They were young once. They fell in love…”

March 19, 2011January 26, 2025 Sally8 Comments

A number of years ago, I was able to accompany my father on his trip to his hometown. He was meeting with his siblings and their spouses to inter my grandparents’ remains. My mother was planning to go with him, but got sick just before they were supposed to leave. I filled in for her.

I had no idea what a special trip that would turn out to be. We went to the cemetery and sat on a little knoll while my father and his brother and sister reminisced about their parents. They each shared memories of how their parents had made their house a home. They talked about my grandmother making elaborate Halloween costumes for them, her competitive side coming out, so that they could win the town’s contest. They talked about their cousins and their pets and their school and their growing up years. Then my uncle said something which I will never forget.

He said, “They were young once. They fell in love. They had dreams and passions just like we do.”

I don’t know why that was so profound, but it hit me squarely in the heart.

My grandparents were old the whole time I knew them. My grandmother had Alzheimer’s. She smoked and drank martinis. I have seen her wedding picture and she was once beautiful.

My grandfather had Guillain-Barre syndrome in the late 70’s or early 80’s, I think. (Perhaps one of my siblings has a better memory for these details.) It transformed him from the robust, fun Grampa that I loved to go see, to a weak man confined to a wheelchair. I have wonderful earlier memories of him throwing the Hollywood brick (it was made of foam) at us, and tricking us every time with it. In fact, I think we all (the grandchildren) wanted that brick when they were emptying out the apartment, but no one seems to know where it went.

Unfortunately, my mind doesn’t always go back to good memories. Why these memories? My grandfather weeping in a wheelchair when I came to visit when I was pregnant with Philip. My grandmother smoking and sniping.

“They were young once. They fell in love…” I chose, then and there, to replace my memories with happier ones.

Yesterday, I caught a little glimpse of that with my mother. We were sitting at the table, with a full plate of marmalade sandwiches. She had made ten or so before I got there — for the others. She looked up at a window ledge, and asked my father, “What’s in that vase?”

Now, you need to know that my mother has always a way with plants. Her home was filled with them. She had the most beautiful Christmas cactus I have ever seen. She would take little pieces of the Christmas cactus, stick them in a cup of water, wait for them to send out little roots and then move them to pots. She started so many plants that way. And the house is still littered with pieces of Christmas cactus stuck in water. That’s what was in the vase.

My father looked up at the milk-glass vase with the sad little piece of Christmas cactus drooping over the edge. “Well, that’s a genie in a bottle,” he said. “If you rub it, he’ll come out and grant your wish.”

My mother giggled like a schoolgirl. She looked at him and smiled.

When he left the room, she said, “I’m so lucky I found him.”

Oh, Mom, you have no idea.

“They were young once. They fell in love…” She was back to that point in her life. I want to remember her that way.

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This picture is from Christmas 1981. I chose it because it’s one of the few pictures I have of my grandparents. That’s them in the front row. I love the fact that my grandmother reached over and put her hand on my grandfather. They were in love still.