Red Chuck

Mamá

I've been thinking of my grandmother today, Edythe Wyrick, or Mamá as she was know to her grandchildren and great grandchildren. Mamá passed away last Saturday. She was 90.

Today my family is gathering in the First Presybyterian Church in Greensboro, North Carolina for her memorial service.

Today I've taken some time to remember.

I remember Mamá's laughter. She had a wonderful sense of humor. She laughed easily at her own stories and at those of others. Even though her speech was severely affected by a stroke she suffered in her 60s, her mind stayed sharp for many years. Communication with Mamá could be difficult at times but her laughter spoke for her in ways words could not. In laughter, she was eloquent.

I remember her house at Christmas. When I was a child, we always spent Christmas eve at Mamá's house. We ran up and down the carpeted stairs, we slid in our socks on the tile and linoleum floors, we squealed and screamed til we were put to bed and then in the morning we snuck downstairs before dawn and gasped at our good fortune. These memories are filled with textures. Her white pebble rock gardens, the spongey soft beds in the guest room, the wood back chairs at the dining room table, each adorned with a picture of food from a banquet. I remember scurrying from her grumpy schnauzer Ludwig, who always snarled when children got near. I remember her hallway of wedding pictures, my aunts and uncles, all so young, and happy, and my parents too, Dad in black frame Buddy Holly spectacles cutting cake with Mom.

I remember Mamá at the beach. And now it strikes me how my memories of my grandmother exist at these polar coordinates of the calendar. In the happiest days of winter and especially in the full freedom of the summer, Mamá's prescence is inextricably entwined with these things, winter things and summer things — fishing and crabbing and surfing and swimming. She seemed always happiest at the beach, on the porch of her cottage. She loved to while away the hours on the porch in the shade. As I sit surrounded by the faint whirrs of computer fans here at work I can hear the cicadas and crickets and the hum of speed boats and the cries of gulls from the past. I am with her in these sounds. They passed through us alike. We share in that being, that past landscape, that lost season.

I know that today and tonight my family will be telling stories and sharing memories. I wish I could be with them. With my father in law's sudden illness, I have a renewed appreciation for every second we, as families, have together. As families we all participate in a collective memory. We each carry a piece in a collective story. We inform that story and in turn it imbues us. Especially at times of crisis and grief. We come together to share our story with each other. No one knows it like we do. It is our story. It makes us laugh. It makes us cry. And when we part, we continue to carry our individual pieces of this collective with us.

I especially want my brother and mother and father to know that though I am physically far away, I am with them in spirit today. I am thinking of them too as I remember Mamá.

Posted by Red Chuck at November 4, 2005 09:30 AM