Hearth

When I was a kid, we didn't have cable. I was raised by two intense bibliophiles and there were books and newspapers everywhere. When I look through photo albums of my childhood, any photos taken in our home show strewn pages of the New York Times, the local paper, and books. It was a house covered in words, and while we had a television, it wasn't really the hearth of the home, as it seems to be for most living room set-ups. This is probably why I've comfortably not owned one in three years.

I had a television during my first marriage. My ex loved it. We had cable, and extra football channels, and a plug-in for his video games so he could play over the internet with others. It was indeed the hearth, leaving little room for the heart, of the home. It was like turning on the lights when you enter a room. Come home, set down your bag, pet the dog, turn on the TV. Even if it was CNN just as white noise during dinner. That glow was always spraying forth from the corner of the room.

Last week in Vermont, we didn't realize there was a television in the house for the first two days. To the left of the fireplace, and really too far removed from the sofa to be completely watchable, was a squat wooden armoir. The fireplace ablaze with split birch trees, books in both of our laps, my husband said with genuine interest, "What do you think is in there?"

I love this guy.

We ended up watching a bit of TV. Conan was filming in Chicago that week, afterall. But we were so out of touch with what was on and when, and what channels we might enjoy. So we'd eat dinner, read, watch Conan until the musical guest, and then grab the binoculars and head out to the balcony to star-gaze, the hearth of the home appropriately blazing with flame rather than newsreel.

With the television the unappreciated novelty this time around, growing up, the fireplace was a curiosity in that house. Our family home didn't have one, and it brought images of Santa Claus, of course. In the early June when we always go to Vermont, it still gets cold enough at night to warrant a fire. And while the TV sat unused, my father would go find three long sticks outside when he went to the wood shed, and we'd roast marshmallows. This is one of the few memories I have of my father eating sweets. Actually, Vermont holds most of my limited memories of him at all.

My father was 54 when I was born. In traditional Irish culture, there is a saying that "the kitchen isn't big enough for two women." A lot of men will wait until their mothers die to marry. My dad did this exact thing. Not consciously, I don't think, but he was her caretaker. Before she was sick and dying, he was her caretaker. When he was 13 years old, he kicked his father out of the house after a particularly brutal beating he gave to my grandmother. Since that time, it was just the two of them against the world, as they say. They had always been poor, living in an Irish tenement neighborhood of New Jersey. They didn't have medical care. So when my father contracted scarlet fever as a young kid, they didn't get to a medical professional until it had really taken a toll. My father's organs were all permanently damaged and weakened, most notably his heart. He spent the rest of his life eating as healthfully as he could. But Vermont was a little different.

It was different because he would eat s'mores, yes. But it was also different because there, he could relax. For a whole week, no doctor appointments. No mustering the energy to complete household tasks. Just a book and a view of the mountains. Many of my memories of him at home take place in a hospital setting. His hospital stays were so frequent, that I could probably still return to that hospital and navigate my way around it. It was part of my terrain, part of my life. Christmas mornings spent there, most afternoons after kindergarten. White walls and Jello cups, the excitement when he didn't have a room mate so there was more space for me to play while we visited. It was all very normal to me.

Finally, his heart just gave out. To the adults involved, this was inevitable, and a clear conclusion to this rarified existence. But to me, it wan's rare. And his death was sudden. I went to bed one night, dad away in the hospital, mom at home with me. I woke in the middle of the night and rather than finding her in bed, I found my great aunt sleeping on the sofa. She told me that my dad needed her, and that she'd be back in the morning. I went back to sleep. I woke up to hear my mom on the phone, and abruptly ending her call when she saw me emerge from the bedroom. She sat me down and told me that my dad had died during the night.

I know now that she was "making the calls," going through an address book in a newly deceased person's handwriting, calling those close and those you barely know, knowing that with each call, you're ruining someone's day. Knowing that you almost don't care though, because your life feels ruined. I know that now. I did it last summer when she died. I did this two months ago when a friend died. You don't get better at it.

Last year I would have said that you also don't get better at grieving. When my mom died, it was the third major loss I had experienced in five years, and probably the fifth in my relatively young life. Yet it wrecked me the most. I'm getting worse at this, I remember thinking.

But one more loss sustained, and somehow, I'm still here. Still functioning, still eating, still going to work, still laughing once in a while. Over the past year, I've done a lot of reflecting on my mother's life, and the losses she encountered. Somehow she remained one of the most positive human being I've ever known. Somehow, she raised a daughter to the age of six while also caring for a dying husband. Somehow, she raised me on her own while grieving the love of her life. Somehow, though she is gone, she is teaching me how to carry on.

And I think she would have loved that fire and listened intently to my husband explain how to identify the Milky Way through binoculars.