THE BAY WINDOW

THE BAY WINDOW

Our big old farmhouse held so many wonderful memories for me. I’ve always counted myself lucky to be brought up on a farm. We were a big family, five boys and four girls. My parents worked hard and although they didn’t have much money we never lacked anything. Holidays were filled with family and friends. It was the most wonderful place on earth or at least I thought it was until that summer. That summer changed everything not just for me but my whole family.

The focal point of the farmhouse was the big bay window in the front room. Bay windows stuck out from the house, and it is there we placed our different holiday decorations. At Christmas time we placed our tree so everyone could see it with its bright sparkling lights and homemade decorations. Our tree was big and filled the whole space. In the Spring Mom would place mason jars full of forsythias on the shelf of the windows to remind us that Spring was coming to western New York despite the heavy winter snow that was still laying in pockets on the ground. In the Autumn, my favorite season of the year, she filled containers with the brilliant color-soaked leaves of orange and red and yellow from our big Maple tree that grew not far from the window.

I remember nothing but good until that summer. That summer the bay windows held something that it had never held before . That summer they held my baby sister’s casket. She was four years old and I was five. At that time there were only five of us. Mom had just had my baby brother, and I had an older sister Pat and brother Bill; all under the age of 10. We were wild kids always getting into something as kids do and we were quite the handful. They say memories start with the first traumatic event in your life; some say they remember their birth as their first trauma; I think that is bullshit. My first trauma started that summer with Elaine’s death. My sister was run over by a drunk driver in the middle of the afternoon and that day I will not forget.

Pat, Bill and I were playing on the front porch while Mom, holding her new born was cooking while Elaine played at her feet. We were always told to stay on the porch or in the back yard. We were told constantly not to go by the road. We knew that but we were kids. We watched the cars go by, which for some reason was very exciting to us. We had dragged all our toys on the porch, something we had done daily. Our only neighbors lived across the street, and they had two daughters and these girls had everything, we thought. That afternoon we saw them playing on a brand-new fancy store bought swing and slide. We had a tractor tire tube tied to that big maple tree I told you about as our swing. Our sled was the hood of an old pickup truck that our uncle tied behind his tractor and pulled us around. We watched as the neighbor girls swung on their swings laughing and calling us to come over. We looked at each other, realizing Mom was busy with the food making and watching the baby and Elaine so off we ran across the street, the one place we were told never ever to go. I’m sure you guessed by now, Elaine saw us and ran out the front door crossing the street just as a drunk driver speeding down the road missed the curve and ran over my baby sister, killing her.

What happened the next few days was like a trailer to a movie, short snapshots of events. At some point Pat, Bill and I were put in the care of an aunt and uncle. I remember my uncle screaming at us, pointing his finger and saying it was all our fault. He kept repeating this repeatedly while the three of us stood in front of him crying. I guess it was our fault, but we were so young. It was a harsh thing to say.

My mother’s mother flew in from California. Mom had no real friends in the neighborhood, and everyone was pointing fingers at Mom too. She was blamed for having so many kids and not caring for them, blaming her for working (she was a nurse and worked the 11-7 shift at the local hospital]. I think now how lonely she was feeling.

I can relive that time instantly when I smell the scent of gardenias. For whatever reason there were vases and baskets of gardenias placed around the coffin. Were they in season? It seemed everyone sent them. My mother would never allow gardenias to be brought into our home after the funeral and to this day as beautiful as they are I can only think of sad times. Someone had removed all the furniture in the living room and set up folding chairs like in a funeral home. There was one large mirror in the room which my father covered with black cloth. I never understood where that tradition came from until later in life when someone told me it was typically done in Jewish households. Folklore had it that it was meant to prevent the deceased from getting trapped in the glass, to avoid evil spirits from entering and to foster inner reflection. It wasn’t until many years later that we learned that our grandmother was most likely Jewish.

My mother was also in black. She sat in one of the folding chairs in front of that casket for three days, never leaving to sleep or eat. My father became like a ghost going in and out of the room without saying anything. I don’t know who took care of my baby brother. Pat Bill and I were shuttled between people’s homes.

The day of the funeral I see a snapshot of little girls carrying Elaines’ coffin out the back door of the farmhouse. At the cemetery people walked by the coffin but my mother just sat staring at the coffin. Later I heard she wouldn’t leave the cemetery saying she couldn’t leave her baby alone. After the service people came back to the farmhouse as was the tradition and everyone was sitting at our long dining room table; I could picture them as if through a narrow lens, they were all laughing and eating and drinking. I didn’t understand.

The last visual I had of that event was Elaines socks hanging on the clothesline. It was now the start of winter and she had died during the summer. My mother had refused to take her little socks off the line until one day I looked out the window after the first snow I saw her unclip the socks hold them to her chest and cry.