History Lost & Found: Reflections on the Death of a Favorite Aunt

     My aunt Edna Finnerty Kelliher died last week at the age of 93. She was bright, funny, smart and outspoken, but almost never unkind. She was a wife (widowed from her beloved Neil). She was a mother to three children, the youngest of whom, Paul, died all too young. She was a sister, cousin, aunt (I want to add the word "favorite" almost automatically) and, by all accounts at the wake and funeral, a very great friend to many. She had that quality of ordinary courage that really is extraordinary. Years ago, whenever my sister and I heard she and Uncle Neil at the front door of our flat in Brookline, we were delighted because we knew we were going to laugh. Edna was a mighty presence on the earth and she will be greatly missed.

     My wife, Nancy, observed that in Edna's passing, I was losing a significant part of my history, and that's true, I thought, as far as it goes. . What's also true, I found over the past few days, is that one can connect with that history in some powerful ways.  Let me explain.

     We stayed as we usually do in the apartment of my sister Betsey. She just moved into a new apartment in Weymouth with a great view and very comfortable layout. Her apartment sits on a peninsula that includes Webb State Park, with many wonderful view of greater Boston and the many islands of Boston Harbor. Thousands of years ago, various indigenous groups fished and gardened and hunted on the shores and islands of this harbor. When the Europeans came, followed soon by Africans and other citizens of the world, they displaced those people with great force and terrible things like infectious diseases against which they had little defense. Africans brought to these shores were mostly brought in servitude and slavery in the early years. Wave upon wave of immigrants made and remade Boston at least a little in their own image. Boston is a very American city and region, with "here comes everybody" an apt regional slogan, with millions of stories of hope and heartbreak, courage, venality, resounding success for many and grinding injustice for some. In other words, life. 

     All that history pushed in on my consciousness as I walked Webb Park in the mornings. Later in the weekend, as I drove through Milton and Brookline, the towns of my childhood, a more personal set of memories intruded, clamoring inside my head for attention and respect. The streets and fields where  I played as a kid were mostly still there, and I flashed back on walking and bicycle riding, the latter an amazing experience of freedom and competence once I mastered my J.C.Higgins Special. The funeral home was directly across the street from the Brookline Public Library, a shrine and a refuge for me when I was young. Edna was buried from the church, St. Mary's of the Assumption, in which I was baptized and received First Communion. Part of my spiritual consciousness was shaped by that building and its leaders -- including my eight year old rebellion against them telling me that our Presbyterian neighbors across the street weren't going to go to heaven: didn't buy it then, don't buy it now.

     As we made our way in the funeral procession to St. Joseph's Cemetary, we passed by so many of the spots that defined my childhood, Everett Morgan's drug store, the reservoir, St. Lawrence's Church, Chesnut Hill. Thousands of headstones with mainly Irish surnames dominated the cemetary, with Edna laid to rest just a little ways from my maternal grandparents' graves, not far from my paternal grandparents and the grave of my father. All that history on a sunny fall morning. Finally, we ended up at a golf course clubhouse for the funeral luncheon -- back in my day a municipal course I had caddied when I was 10 years old.

     Blessed Yogi Berra supposedly said "nostalgia ain't what it used to be." I don't know -- it felt pretty good reliving at least many of those times in those familiar Boston settings. Some day, hopefully not for a great while, my poor remains will go on a similar journey, perhaps on the very same streets. Until that day, I celebrate the ancestors and forebears, related by family and related by common humanity. And I celebrate the current generations working hard to make a living and to make life. We're all of us in a mighty flow. 

    

On the Water

     I had lashed our kayaks down just before the hurricaine last month, so I hadn't had a chance to get out on the water for over a month. Yesterday's holiday and blessed reprise of summer-like weather gave me an opening to bring my boat out and I decided to take advantage of it.

     When we're at home, deciding to kayak is a semi-big deal. I have to haul equipment out of the basement, install the rack on my car, lift the kayak onto the rack and tie that down for the car trip to the water. The kayak is almost eighteen feet long and is an awkward sixty pounds whose weight is tricky to manage because it can shift all too easily in the loading, travel and unloading. Murphy's Law fully applies and usually kicks in.

     Putting the kayak rack securely on to the car is one of those groaner chores that I can try to skimp on, but end up inevitably paying the price for if I do skimp. Fine finger-eye coordination and hand strength combined do not make my skill-set list, so getting the Thule rack fit to receive my boat tests my patience and my ability to defer gratification, neither of which qualities I have in any abundance.

     Suffice it to say, I managed to load up the kayak and make the fifteen minute journey to the Scallop Pond waterways in the woods and wetlands along Peconic Bay. Stepping out of the car, I was immediately struck by the sunshine and warmth, the clear and fragrant air, and the medium strong colors of early fall -- the green grasses going sere and golden, a few russet leaves and the diamond sparkles on the water.

     I reversed the loading process and managed to get the boat down off my car roof without hurting me or the kayak, no easy feat. I put on my spray skirt and PFD (personal flotation device) and stuck my cell phone in a waterproof holder I hung around my neck, got into the boat and pushed off.

     Sometimes I am so stressed and hungry for a workout that I paddle hard without interruption for a half hour or more. Not this day. I kept stopping and gliding, listening, looking, smelling and feeling the air around me as the sun warmed up the morning. I listened to birds and insects constantly sound their various signature noises. I watched the even ripple lines my boat carved as I paddled forward. I smelled the salt tang in the air and the marsh aroma, redolent with life. I saw lots of birds and crabs and fish, big and small. A flock of wild turkeys patrolled the marshlands, aware of me but not unduly agitated by the glide of my boat thirty feet from their foray in the grass. Several times during the two hour paddle, beautiful small bright yellow moths buzzed my head. And six cormorants set up a picket line on separate navigation buoys, carefully following my progress and ready to blast away if I came too close.

     I was tired at the end of the two hour paddle (and grateful I could do that much after my illness earlier this year), so I got careless in reloading the boat onto the top of the car. Predictably, with the iron laws of gravity and Murphy combining in perfect coherence, I almost lost the boat off the car driving on the highway. So I had to stop and resecure the kayak with a great deal of effort and some extra twine fore and aft. Home safe, I reversed the process of earlier in the day and put everything away. Whew.

     The lessons and gifts of the day are many. Time spent in readying things for safe transport is time well spent -- shortcuts can be costly. Beautiful early fall days are fleeting and need to be grabbed and experienced before they give way to gray, cold winter days. Colors and movement and aromas on a day like I had on the water are occasions for prayers of gratitude, of course, but also opportunities to just be aware and take it all in. To be one being in such a wide canvas of creatures feels like a blessing, and that mends the frayed ends of my over-stressed nerves. It was a good day to be alive.

This Morning's Walk

     Here on Long Island,  we're still getting the edges of a pesky low that has unsettled our weather all week. Looking up the neighboring yard, I just saw a brief, beautiful little sun shower that made the grass brilliant and glossy. More often this week, it's been gloomy or humid or rainy. One break this weekend was a drop in temperature, so the nights have been great for sleeping under a blanket or two, and we even had a fire Sunday evening, the first of the season.

     When I walked out at 6:00  this morning, it was cool and still early dawn, with just the edges of light. I was walking alone, so I had my i-Pod Nano on shuffle to make the walk easier. The mix was unusual, like my eclectic taste in music. Bob Dylan, The Christ Church Choir of Cambridge University, Aretha Franklin, Mumford & Sons, etc. I love the surprises of the shuffle, particularly when the tune has a beat that picks up my step -- this morning a couple of pieces featuring the Irish skin drum, the bodhran, really worked for me. Johnny "Ringo" McDonagh of Arcady had a sure and insistent hand on the beater that made me walk stronger and almost feel like I was dancing a good quick reel.

     The clouds in the building light of the dawn were at first pale silver,  and then became almost mauve in the first color the as yet unrisen sun provided. "How can I keep from singing?" goes the old hymn. How, indeed. It's easy to feel gratitude and expansiveness and connection on such a morning. The poets and psalmists of all the traditions have variations on moments like this, with all of creation "glorifying" the Maker. I think the experience they're reflecting is one of wonder, joy and awe at such a beautiful moment -- and gratitude seems the most natural of emotions.