Skipping
I was visiting her in her room at the assisted living facility, and she was reminiscing about her college days at Utah State, repeating some anecdote I had heard many times. Now that she is in her nineties, I don’t correct her, confuse her, make her wrong by saying, “I’ve heard that one, “ although I’m tempted. Any daughter who takes care of an old mother knows the forbearance needed to listen to a story one more time, audience to a monologue of memories.
She surprised me when she said, “We were walking downtown to the movie theater and he asked me—we hadn’t been dating that long—he asked me if I knew how they skipped down the yellow brick road in the movie, The Wizard of Oz. I told him, ‘Of course I do!’ He took my hand and we skipped all the way to the movie theater.”
I was delighted by the vision of young Helen and Fred skipping down the streets of Logan, Utah in 1935, the year they met. She continued, “There was something about his taking my hand....” She paused and repeated herself, which she often does, “There was something about his taking my hand.” As she said the words, it was as if she could feel her hand in his.
“Mom, I have never heard that story before,” I said.
“I just remembered it,” she said.
The next day I discovered that the Wizard of Oz was released in 1939 and realized that my mother’s story could not have been true. By that time, my parents were married and living in Reno, Nevada.
So What? I thought. So what if the story can’t be true, at least the way she told it. It reminded me of literary definitions that imply the lies of fiction lead to greater truths. That little story, true or not, was a gift, restoring memories of my parents’ marriage, reminding me that theirs was a happy one.
I remembered long car rides from the sheep ranch near Hayden, Colorado to Colby, Kansas where the livestock wintered. As my dad thumped the rhythm on the dashboard, they sang, “I was born in Kansas, I was bred in Kansas, and when I get married, I’ll be wed in Kansas…”
Later, living on a cattle ranch in northeastern Nevada, I remembered their duets on an old upright piano, my mother playing the bass, Dad, the melody, and both singing, “I like mountain music, good old mountain music…”
I remembered my father ‘s last days of a terminal illness in a morphine-induced state, his expressive hands fluttering above the bed covers, her steady hand feeding him teaspoons of water.
It is a blessing to remember that, after all the anger, blame, regret, curiosity, doubt I have been through, trying to figure out who I am, what shaped my life, I know with certainty my parents had a good marriage, a happy marriage. “Be my life’s companion and we’ll never grow old…,” another song I remember them singing.
