Hello from a low-key Friday afternoon
The metaphor of seasons is well-known, and its use across the genres of art is extensive. Immediately, Vivaldi’s classic Four Seasons, comes to mind, or another Italian, artist, Giuseppe Arcimbold painted four paintings on the seasons given to HRE Maximillian II. Scottish poet, James Thomson composed poems on tue seasons in the early mid-1700s. Perhaps our interest in these Trimonthly transformations is both sense of familiarity and the comfort of predictability. I know that mid-September into early October is my most comforting time of year. The cool nights and crisp mornings, the sun-kissed warm afternoons and the beauty and crunch of the leaves gives me a sense of comfort and hope like nothing else, save perhaps the season of Advent, which of course is liturgical. My significant appreciation for that particular liturgical season was first realized when I was in Germany during the month of December in 1985. I think my love is because of the kindness and generosity of Christmas, a combination of childhood memories and the reality of what the preparatory season of advent does to focus us.
Certainly there is more to say about seasons, but I would also like to address the idea of siblings. Growing up, I was the middle of three children in the adopted family. In my biological family, something I have not been part of since before I was two, my parents would have three children, another girl after my sister and me. To this day, I know her name when she was born, but I do not have an exact birthdate. I was the eldest in that biological family, and after my parent’s divorce and subsequent remarriages, their would be three more children to each of them. So that means I have 6 half brothers and sisters. I have not met all of them, and there has been a significant number of them who have passed on. If you are keeping track, that is a total of 10 siblings of various degrees of relationship. Of the 10 half of them are no longer alive. It is a strange thing to consider, but I have lived the longest of any, and I was the not the first born as well as certainly not the last. My thoughts about siblings is because today would be the birthday of my younger, and closest sibling, Kris (also known as Kristy growing up). We were 14 months apart, and when I see a picture of her in her early thirties, me in my high school graduation and the only picture of I have of our mother (in her teens), you can certainly see the resemblance. It was a year ago today, I had arrived back in Iowa, having left Bloomsburg after 15 years. Today, I am back in Bloomsburg for the time being, but spent some significant time in Iowa during the past year, including visits back to Sioux City. During my time there, I had the opportunity to meet or chat with Kris’s two closest school friends. It was quite wonderful to spend time with them and hear their memories of her. Kris was an incredibly kind and terrifically intelligent person. She was passionate about and loyal to her friends. When I think of how I understand her, I think she was intensely private, but needed to be so for a number of reasons, from her desire to protect herself from our mother’s abuse, and she was the one who endured it most often, to what I know believe was her struggle to figure out who she was. She was also the one of the two of us who was intent on reconnecting with our biological parents. She and I had very different needs in that way. What I remember most vividly was her intense desire to care for the other, her deep care for animals, and how proud she was that she became a mother. I still remember clearly the morning she called me to tell me she was pregnant. Her daughter just turned 30.
Kris passed away at 51 from a heart attack, though it was not her first one. She also had other significant contributors to her dying so early. She was her own person, and no one nor any external factor would change her mind. And yet she had a deep-seated need (as do all humans) to be loved. I am not sure she ever felt loved in a consistent manner, with perhaps, the exception being her daughter. Over the years, as we were no longer in the same town nor often even in the same state, I believe we learned to love and appreciate each other in ways we did not as children or teens. I have noted in other posts how close she was to our older brother, who was not biologically related at all. I think his early death probably caused her to feel like whatever anchor she might have felt was lost. As we aged and went down our own paths, I think our mutual admiration and respect for the other grew. I remember she would always introduce me with whatever title I had earned at the time, and it was something she said with profound pride. I am still grateful to her for that. I think she would be outraged at many of the things that are currently happening in our world because her sense of social justice was deeply engrained in the person she was.
It brings me back to the concept and understanding of seasons. How many seasons will we experience? There are no promises, and in spite of our best laid plans there is little that we can do to plan beyond the next corner we will encounter. I was 21 before I realized that as more than a conceptual understanding. That was when Bob, the older brother referred to above, passed away 35 days after being injured in a construction accident. He was an electrician like my father, the husband of Carolyn, for whom I still have incredible adoration and appreciation, and three children, again with whom I am still an uncle. He was only 26 years old. Later that same year, my grandmother, again my hero, would pass unexpectedly at 64. In both cases, the seasons they had were not nearly as many as any would have predicted. What is consider the be the spring of someone’s life, their summer, fall or winter? Is it an age or experience? Is it primarily related to health? These are all things I ponder as I write and I struggle with the concept of retirement and identity. As I believe I am certainly in the Autumn of my life, how will I know when Fall turns into Winter, or do you? And is winter something to avoid? I am not sure I feel that it is. It is a progression and realizing and accepting that progression allows for someone to see the beauty of each season. I wonder when I transformed from Summer to Autumn? That is something I need to try to determine (or do I?). I think my figuring out my seasons might give me some sense of both accomplishment as well as planning or imagining what is to come. I think how we respond to others because of our sense of seasons is something to consider. I Know recently, my willingness, and hence my ability, to entertain the drama of another has all but disappeared. Am I being selfish or rude? It is certainly outside of what has been the more likely response in those earlier seasons.
Outside, the Fall is fleeting; most of the trees are bare and the wind has a bite that is a harbinger of what is soon to be characteristic of our daily life here in NorthCentral Pennsylvania. Understanding the change and anticipating the consequence is life, and life, as this very writing reminds me, is unpredictable and sacred. Kris, I realize more and more how much I regret the distance that typified most of our life, be it geographically or behaviorally. I know your daughter is much like you, creating her own path, standing up against odds, and yet loving and creative. She has an incredible beauty to her as you did. I know she still admires, loves, and misses you. Each minute as this amazing piece from the musical, Rent, reminds us is precious, and there are no promises. Happy Birthday, younger sister. I love you.
Thank you for reading,
Michael
thewritingprofessor55 