Back on the bus, we saw many more Pest landmarks, such as the immense Hungarian Parliament building, its tall central dome surrounded by a flurry of lacy Neo-Gothic turrets. In a drastic juxtaposition of scale, not far from the Parliament, is Budapest’s intimate and moving Holocaust Memorial. Sixty pairs of 1940s-style cast iron shoes are anchored to the promenade along the Danube. They memorialize the Jews who were shot near the spot during World War II by Fascist militia. Before the execution, the group was ordered to remove their shoes. Their bodies fell into the river and drifted away.
Fisherman’s Bastion.
We crossed the Chain Bridge toward the hills of Buda, where our next stop was the Citadel. One of the city’s highest points, it affords sweeping bird’s-eye views. From the Fisherman’s Bastion, a Neo-Romanesque collection of gleaming white towers and ramparts, we began another walking tour. Immediately adjacent to the Bastion is the Matthias Church, known for its single, ornate tower. The first church on the spot dated from the eleventh century, while the current building was begun in the high-Gothic style of the 14th-century and completed (and heavily restored) in the 19th. The nearby bronze equestrian statue of St. Stephen, patron saint and first king of Hungary, looks as though it may have escaped from Heroes’ Square. Street entertainers tend to cluster around the statue’s monumental base. A falconer with his falcon was commanding some attention during our visit.
View of Budapest and the Danube from the ramparts of Fisherman’s Bastion.
The Matthias Church, named for Hungary’s King Matthias.
Statue of St. Stephen, Hungary’s first king and patron saint.
As we headed away from the Matthias church, our guide stopped us by a small white car parked in what appeared to be the center of the cobblestone street. A Trabant, an East German relic from the Communist period, it made the Datsun 1200 my mother drove in the 70s look as luxurious as a Jaguar. Our guide spoke passionately and eloquently about the difficulties of day-to-day life during Communism. For decades, the Trabant was the only car the average Hungarian could hope to afford. It was notorious for its tiny engine, heavy black exhaust, and hard plastic body made of recycled materials. Months and sometimes years passed between the time of order and delivery. But it could carry four people and some luggage. Our guide clearly considered the sad-looking little car a symbol of the daily indignities the Hungarian people suffered during the totalitarian regime.
The East-German-made Trabant, a relic of the Communist period.
After parting with the Trabant, we had free time to walk on our own. Just steps away from the busy area of the Bastion, the narrow streets were quiet and serene on this beautiful Palm Sunday morning. My parents accompanied D and me for a while, but before long they headed back to the bus, leaving us for more adventurous exploring. We like to go “off road” when we have the chance. I’ve learned that beauty often hides in unexpected spots. Winding around behind the rather sleepy Budapest Hilton, we found a secluded brick and stone stairway of medieval appearance that led down to the wild and overgrown banks of the Danube. Through window-sized openings in the massive stair wall, the distant towers of Parliament could have been Sleeping Beauty’s spellbound castle. Much like during our meanderings through the Four Seasons the night before, we seemed to have Budapest to ourselves. We had stumbled upon another marvelous secret in this ancient, enchanting city. My daughter and I will always remember Budapest as a gracious place that seemed eager to greet us, to reveal something truly special when we took the time to really look.
The towers of Parliament glimpsed through the stair wall.
The Chain Bridge, seen from the Pest side of the Danube. Thanks to my daughter for her night photos.
After dinner, my father, daughter and I went out for a short night walk to see Budapest in all its illuminated glory. We felt lucky to have the chance to stand on the pedestrian walkway of the Chain Bridge and gaze at the panorama that stretched out all around us. The city was decked out as if for a fantastic party, its many towers, domes and statues bathed in a silvery glow, the bridges dotted with small white lights.
From the roadway of the Chain Bridge. The domed Buda Castle is illuminated at left.
Just beyond the grand arches and reclining lions of the bridge was the magnificent Art Nouveau façade of the Gresham Palace, since 2001 the Four Seasons Hotel. It beckoned, and so we wandered through the soaring public rooms of the ground floor. Amiable doormen and staff greeted us warmly, evidently happy that we were ambling freely through the sparsely peopled space. There was no pressure to buy anything or to defend our right to be there. The hotel’s peaceful, rather dreamlike atmosphere was the perfect prelude to our first night’s sleep on the ship, which would remain docked by the Chain Bridge.
The dramatic Four Seasons Gresham Palace Hotel, built in 1904.The vast expanse of Heroes’ Square.
The next day we boarded Viking Cruise buses for a tour of the city. These are the vehicles that my husband so detests, perhaps because he associates them with old age and being trapped in a confined space with other old people. I have no such complaints; I thoroughly enjoyed the buses, with their comfy seats, wall-to-wall windows and high vantage point. We began on the Pest side, proceeding at a leisurely pace along the wide Andrassy Avenue, Budapest’s Champs-Élysées. We passed magnificent homes and the palatial Neo-Renaissance Opera House, famed for its near-perfect acoustics. The street ends at the vast plaza of Heroes’ Square, with its dramatic Millenium Monument commemorating the city’s thousandth anniversary in 1896. Its many statues, in green oxidized bronze, depict tribal leaders and rulers of Hungary throughout the country’s exceptionally long history. With their flowing hair, exuberant drapery, fierce and determined gazes, the Hungarian heroes resemble fairy-tale figures rendered in three dimensions. Bordering the square are rambling Neo-Classical temples which house two of the city’s large art museums.
Partial view of the Millenium Monument, Heroes’ Square.
Before we left the bus to explore Heroes’ Square, our guide, a native of Budapest, warned us to ignore the gypsies that target tour groups. Sure enough, a dozen or so women seemed to appear out of nowhere, sidling up to us silently, exhibiting macramé sweaters crocheted from gilded and brightly colored yarn. They nodded solemnly, looking from sweater to tourist, as though to suggest that the purchase of such a flattering garment might be one’s supreme fashion decision. As roaming city vendors go, to us they seemed respectful and non-threatening, a far cry from the loud and aggressive sidewalk merchants of Paris. My mother and I both considered buying a sweater simply because the women were polite and looked so hopeful. Our guide had said the gypsies tend to overcharge and have been known to give change in counterfeit bills. I might as well have made a purchase, since we needed cash only for our admission to the baths. I returned home from the trip with enough, presumably real, Hungarian currency to have bought several of the low-cost sweaters. Those unused forints are stored somewhere in a drawer, awaiting a second chance to rove with Budapest’s Gypsies. I hope they’ll get that opportunity.
It was such a relief to be on the plane that the physical discomfort of an overseas flight in coach couldn’t really touch me. I was no longer worried. D and I synchronized True Grit on our seat-back video screens, pausing at regular intervals to try to decipher Jeff Bridges’ mumblings. At the Munich Airport we made our way along endless meandering hallways, up and down countless stairs, to reach the gate for our flight to Hungary. Several hours later, we were at the Budapest Airport, where the cheerful Viking Cruise staff awaited us.
Our ship was docked in the heart of this ancient and strikingly beautiful city, immediately adjacent to the majestic Chain Bridge. The room that D and I shared looked out onto the bridge and the hilly Buda side of the city, with Buda Castle and the medieval Matthias Church nearby. A bit farther away, we could see the sleek new Elizabeth Bridge and the statue-topped Gellert Hill. My parents’ room was across the hall facing the flatter Pest side of the city.
Hungary is a land of abundant hot springs. Budapest has more than twenty thermal baths, all owned and operated by the government. According to every guidebook I consulted, the quintessential Hungarian experience is a trip to one of these baths. In the most celebrated baths, indoor and outdoor pools are grandly enclosed by elegant nineteenth-century architecture. We chose to visit the recently renovated Széchenyi Baths, which attract fewer tourists than the more upscale Gellert Baths. The friendly young woman at our ship’s concierge desk happily called a taxi when we inquired about getting to the baths. Our driver, a pleasant, talkative woman about my age, was soon whisking D and me through the city in her spotless white Mercedes. We left my parents to relax and unpack on the boat. In a quick ten minutes, we had arrived at the ornate entry building.
To foreigners, the entry procedure at the Széchenyi baths can be befuddling, to say the least. Few attendants speak English, and the notoriously difficult Hungarian language can hardly be picked up in a weekend with the help of a phrase book. Rick Steves’ e-book on Budapest offers a comprehensive guide to negotiating the baths. I had reviewed it on the plane, but we were still confused. Upon entering, one pays admission and rental for either a locker or a changing cabin. In anticipation of a trip to the baths, I had exchanged some dollars for Hungarian forints (a currency I find just as confusing as getting into the baths). Like a child, I paid by laying out the money and letting the attendant point to the required bills. I thought I had rented a changing cabin, so we wandered through the complex until we found that area, only to be told that we had paid for a locker. We roamed through additional subterranean corridors and finally located the women’s locker room. An attendant attached a wristband to my arm and showed us how to activate the lock using the attached metal disk.
Having worn our bathing suits under our clothes, it wasn’t long before we were back in the labyrinthian halls in search of the towel rental station. In an effort to be upstanding guests, we hadn’t smuggled towels with us from the boat. Next time we will not be so virtuous. The rental towels bore little relation to typical American terrycloth towels. Made of smooth heavy cotton, they were more like tablecloths. For those desiring further adventure during their baths experience, bathing suits can also be rented.
Getting out to the pools was easy, and it was wonderful to be in the open air again. Surrounded by the golden yellow Neo-Baroque buildings housing the entrance area, indoor baths, saunas and massage rooms, there are three spacious outdoor pools. The afternoon temperature was in the high 60s, and the warm water felt amazing. We spent most of our time in the semicircular “Fun Pool” which has a current circle in the center. We kept to the less populated edges.
The “Fun Pool” where we spent most of our time.
The clientele was primarily Hungarian, although we heard various other languages, including British and American English, French, German and Russian. I have never before seen such an eclectic variety of swimming attire. And no, this is not one of Budapest’s several “clothing optional” baths. Hefty grandfatherly men strutted about in tiny Speedos. Svelte young model types posed at the water’s edge in daring bikinis and spike heels. A number of older, well-covered women protected their hair with puffy shower caps. In the center lap pool, a cap is required. While some swimmers wore actual bathing caps, others sported baseball or shower caps.
The water began to feel cooler after a while, so we decided to have a look at the indoor baths. I was hoping for warmer water there. These pools were far more crowded than those outside. Along the edges, people, mostly men, stood shoulder to shoulder, staring unabashedly at any newcomers who ventured in. I was determined to test the water, so I made a quick circuit of the interior until I found a spot where the multitude was less pressing. When I dipped my foot in, the water was no warmer. We gladly returned to the unintimidating outdoor pools.
As the time approached to meet our taxi driver, the late afternoon air was taking on a serious chill. The abject deficiency of our rented towels made it difficult to emerge from the water. Our completely saturated tablecloths were icy and offered no comfort. Other towels, real, fluffy towels, folded invitingly, temptingly, seemed to mock us. I hope to never again feel such overwhelming towel envy. The comparative warmth of the taxi was especially welcome. We were invigorated by our plunge into the warmth and local color of the Széchenyi Baths. And we were glad to return to our floating haven on the Danube, which appeared even more inviting than it had at first sight.
The “Relaxation Pool” where some bathers play chess.
Helpful note on payment: Mastercard and Visa are accepted at the baths, which allows you to avoid dealing with forints. Our taxi driver preferred to be paid in Euros.
I still find it hard to believe that a little over a year ago, my daughter, my parents and I were on our way to Budapest. We had decided, uncharacteristically, to use spring break for a Danube River cruise. Typically, we go no place more exotic than Atlanta during this time. Even more typically, we rest, recharge and sleep late. But the European river cruise was highly recommended by several friends, and we had been considering it for a few years. The time was right, it seemed. None of us, after all, was getting any younger or healthier. The longer we put it off, the more medications we’d have to drag along, and the less sure-footed my parents and I would be on ancient, uneven cobblestones and cathedral steps.
My husband opted out, as I had expected. He likes to remind us that he doesn’t get a spring break. He had accompanied me and my parents on a trip to France when our daughter was three. One European vacation with the in-laws, he decided, was sufficient. The river cruise, with its set itinerary, didn’t appeal to him; he preferred a more free-ranging vacation. Had he come, we would have needed another stateroom on the ship, or a suite. Traveling in uneven numbers isn’t ideal for river cruises.
The previous September, when I had asked my parents about the Danube cruise, they responded enthusiastically. I had found what looked like the perfect trip, with a stop in Regensburg, where Daddy had been stationed with the American occupational forces after World War II. His time in Germany had been cut unexpectedly short, when his father died suddenly. Daddy had not returned, and he was beginning to think he never would. While Mama, a dedicated Anglophile, would have preferred another trip to England, she was fine with Germany. My daughter’s top vacation choice would have been a bustling Caribbean cruise, but she was happy to be going to Europe for the first time. I looked forward especially to accompanying my father to Regensburg, an unspoiled medieval town that was spared wartime damage. I loved it that he would be returning with his wife, daughter and granddaughter.
As the departure date approached, my excitement gave way to anxiety. I would have worried less if my husband had been coming with us. While we disagree about the highlights of travel (I prefer historical sight-seeing, he goes for action and adventure), he has a gift for keeping a clear head and making good decisions when adversity arises. As Mama once noted, while H drove us calmly out of Paris, after negotiating various bewildering aspects of French bureaucracy at the airport and rental car agency, he would be a formidable contestant on The Amazing Race. Not long after we had begun dating, we were on our way to Newark Airport in my VW Rabbit, when it broke down on Route 1. I was headed to Michigan for a friend’s wedding. H spotted the office of a car service, persuaded the owner to awaken the off-duty driver (her son), and got me back on the road in no time. As I waved goodbye to H, who waited beside the Rabbit for a tow truck, I had complete confidence that he and the car would make it back to Princeton safely. From that moment, I began to see his potential as a permanent feature in my life.
Without H on this upcoming trip, I would be the Adult in Charge, and that was frightening. It had been nearly ten years since I was in Europe, but, as I tried to remind myself, I was no travel neophyte. I had spent a summer in France during college, and as a grad student I had become accustomed to traveling throughout Europe, with friends, family, even alone. I had enjoyed it. I had not been riddled with misgivings. As for my parents, they are sturdy and capable travelers. They visited me during the year I lived in England, and we zipped around the countryside for three weeks in a rented red Ford Escort. We explored out-of-the-way castles and hard-to-reach ruins that only the locals knew about.
But we were all younger then. So much younger, it appears, when I see the photos from those trips. Still, none of us is ancient, doddering or especially fragile, and we have my daughter to help us. Even as a baby, she was a spirited and adventurous traveler. While fellow airline passengers crossed themselves during bouts of turbulence, she was all smiles, clapping her chubby hands and yelling “Whee!.” She had grown into a highly competent traveling companion. Like most of her peers, she has a facility for technology. She is her father’s daughter, and she would be a good stand-in for him. We would be fine, I told myself over and over. We would have a wonderful trip.
But then again, what if? What if one or more of us got sick? What if someone fell or met with an accident? I remember taking a flying fall on the marble steps of a Renaissance church in Italy. I couldn’t afford to do that now. What if my parents’ passports, which expired in five months instead of the recommended six, led to some difficulty? This point caused me extreme consternation, and after many calls to various European embassies that should have eased my mind, I was still worried. What if, after all these plans, we couldn’t make this trip? Or what if we did, and disaster struck? What if, what if. . .. The what ifs were exhausting me.
Meanwhile, in Atlanta, similar worries dogged my parents. Our family tends to make plans eagerly for a date that appears comfortingly far-off. As the actual event nears, the second-guessing starts. It’s tempting to say, “Oh, never mind. Let’s just stay home.” Stay safe, be comfortable, avoid the risk.
But the time was ticking by, and it looked like this trip was going to happen. The day arrived when Mama and Daddy drove up from Atlanta, healthy and looking good. We would be flying overseas together, first to Munich, followed by a short connecting flight to Budapest. I expected that once we were on the plane, my worries would vanish. The river cruises cater to a predominately elderly clientele because so many of the usual travel worries simply disappear. We would be in the capable hands of the Viking River Cruise staff. The ship would be our well-equipped floating hotel. On land, we would, no doubt, be herded onto “motor coaches” like preschoolers on a field trip, but unlike H, I was fine with that.
The weeks of worry were at an end. We would soon be flying to Hungary.
On the left bank, the hills of Buda. On the right, Pest, with the dome of the neo-Gothic Hungarian Parliament Building.
Despite the considerable time and effort my mother put toward beautifying our home on a budget, I never had a doubt that I was her main priority. Mama organized her busy day so she could be with me as much as possible. She often volunteered in the classroom and served as room mother. When she felt the need to supplement my father’s salary, she took a series of part-time jobs at my elementary school so we could have similar schedules.
She began as crossing guard at the school. Her uniform was a trim navy skirt, jacket and hat, identical to those worn then by Atlanta police women. It suited her well, and she made quite an impression. An old friend, who walked to school each morning, summed it up in a recent Facebook message: “I can never forget your mom. That’s one woman who could stop traffic everywhere she went.” Most of her patrols, all boys back in the 70s, had crushes on her. One student’s father took regular photos of his little girl posing with Mama by the crosswalk. Unfortunately, we never saw any of those pictures, and we never thought to take a photo of our own.
After a few years, she added other jobs inside the school, first as money manager for the cafeteria, later as substitute teacher. I liked it that Mama came to know the primary figures in my world. She became friends with the school staff as well as most of the teachers. Our principal was a large and towering man, a Herman Munster-like figure in a big black suit. His quiet, looming presence in the hallways transformed chaos into orderly quiet. Mama got to know the sweet soul that took refuge behind his foreboding façade. Everyone at the school liked and respected my mother, and I basked in her reflected glory. The principal, custodians, librarian and the office administrators knew me as my mother’s girl, and this was a good thing. Because she was such a fundamental part of the school, school for me became, in a sense, an extension of home.
The money from Mama’s part-time jobs came in handy for purchases my father felt less than enthusiastic about, such as bolts of fabric, flea-market oil paintings, and old furniture she would renew with paint and upholstery. Most of these items have proven to be good investments; they are still with us, either in my parents’ or my house.
Mama realized a more pressing need for her money when my permanent teeth began coming in. It was clear that I had inherited her teeth, which she had always hated. She hadn’t had the benefit of orthodontics, but she was determined that things would be different for me.
In order to get me to the orthodontist, she took up driving again, which she had completely given up when I was a baby. The last straw had been when she was rear-ended in Lexington while sitting at a stoplight. I was strapped loosely into a baby carrier that was in no sense a car seat. The impact knocked me to the floor, but amazingly, I was unhurt. She suffered whiplash and badly bruised knees. For many years afterward, our only car was a 1965 Dodge Polara station wagon. As Daddy liked to say, it was the largest station wagon ever made, and he loved it. He relished zipping up our narrow, curving driveway in it, with only millimeters to spare between the car’s shiny blue paint and the rock wall. I remember a couple of hair-raising sessions in the church parking lot when Daddy was trying to reacquaint Mama with the mechanics of driving. My mother vowed she would never drive again in that car.
When she returned to the roads, it was in a new pale yellow 1972 Datsun 1200. Mama felt an affinity with the car; she said it looked scared, just as she was a timid driver. But it got us out to Decatur for my appointments, and it got Mama to the school. Clear as day, I can see that little car parked in its customary spot under the trees. And I can see my mother stopping traffic, leading children into the crosswalk, looking capable, strong and beautiful. I was proud to be her daughter then, and even prouder now.
Mama & me, one Christmas in the late 1960s, at my grandparents’ house.Mama & me, on the day of my UGA graduation, 1983.
My mother suffered from severe asthma throughout most of this year’s mild winter. It began when she and my father took a walk in early February. The day was unseasonably warm, even for Atlanta, and evidently the pollen was equally unseasonable. Mama’s allergies were triggered, which soon led to asthma that lingered and developed into pneumonia. While her doctor advised hospitalization, she resisted, knowing that her chances for recovery, if armed with the proper medications, were better at home than at the hospital. She has spent time in the hospital with asthma, and it was an experience she didn’t care to repeat.
In March she was only marginally improved, forcing her to miss a family wedding in Kentucky. For the first time in decades, Daddy made the eight-hour drive to his old hometown by himself. My parents rarely speak during long car trips, since my mother typically sits in the back seat. As a child, she was a passenger in several serious car crashes, and she saw her brothers hospitalized multiple times after accidents. In the back seat, she feels a little less vulnerable, not quite so close to the edge of disaster. Despite the silence that reigns as the miles tick by, Daddy has come, understandably, to count on Mama’s presence in the car. He felt her absence sharply during the drive to his brother’s house in Kentucky, where H, D and I met him. Fortunately, Mama had recovered by late April and was able to be with us for the much-anticipated school musical in which my daughter was performing.
The strides made in treating asthma over the ages have not been particularly dramatic. A sudden attack can still quickly accelerate into a desperate situation, as the death of the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anthony Shadid several months ago demonstrates. He was on assignment in Syria, escaping from the war-ravaged country, when his asthma was set off by an allergy to horses. He used his medication, but it wasn’t up to the task. My mother has known this fear all her life.
Mama’s every illness tends to be exacerbated by her asthma. A mild cold, easily shaken by most people, can become a serious concern for her. Exercise and sometimes even routine daily activity can be problematic. Breathing cold air may lead to a sudden, severe attack. She has emerged from two life-saving surgeries only to be set upon by life-threatening asthma. Mama was frequently sick as a child. Once, after a long absence from elementary school, she returned to find that her desk had been removed from the classroom.
Well into the 1940s, many doctors saw asthma as a psychosomatic condition. Those suffering from it were often considered somehow personally responsible, perhaps due to a general weakness of spirit and body. Anyone who has ever experienced the panic of an asthma attack or the persistent annoyance of mild, chronic asthma knows that, on the contrary, asthmatics require greater strength, determination and coping skills.
During Mama’s childhood, her asthma was combatted with a variety of treatments, most of which had little effect. A common folk remedy prescribed horehound candy (a naturally flavored, sharp-tasting hard candy that was a fixture in old-time general stores but rarely seen now) doused with a small amount of whisky. Although horehound candy continues to be explored as a palliative for respiratory ailments, it merely led to Mama’s lifelong dislike of horehound candy and whisky, served together or separately.
Goat’s milk was widely touted to alleviate asthma. When Mama was twelve, her family bought two goats for the farm. She never acquired a taste for the milk, but she loved the goats. Cute and spunky, they jumped the fence daily to meet her school bus in the afternoons. She had a particular affection for the baby goat born the next year on Washington’s birthday and thus named George.
Like many other asthmatic children, my mother was encouraged to smoke asthma cigarettes made from a mixture of herbs (no tobacco). Breathing the smoke from such herbs is a remedy that dates back to ancient times and may, surprisingly, have some short-term benefit. Mama remembers the cigarettes coming in a round flat tin. They prompted violent coughing fits, and her asthma was not improved.
An elderly neighbor urged a bizarre remedy that he said was sure to work: cut off “a hank of hair” and nail it to a tree. This option was never tried.
The first markedly effective medicine my mother remembers was an adrenaline inhaler, made of glass. This treatment relieved the acute symptoms but worsened Mama’s ever-present insomnia. Weekly allergy shots, which required a drive to Louisville, were of little benefit. Strangely, Mama’s symptoms lessened considerably when she began college at the University of Kentucky and started smoking real tobacco cigarettes. Her asthma was less pronounced for the next ten years or so. With the move to Atlanta, it worsened again, but she was generally able to manage it with inhaled corticosteroids. (She gave up cigarettes when I was young, and she really doesn’t recommend smoking as an asthma treatment.)
Growing up, I never thought of my mother as weak or sick. Typically, she was, and still is, the opposite, a powerful force of nature. She requires little sleep. She doesn’t sit still. She gets things done. She takes on tasks that most people wouldn’t consider or would outsource: Time to get to work on reupholstering the antique sofa that’s been in the basement for years. The porch furniture needs new cushions. I saw this great dress in Vogue; I’ll combine two patterns and get it done so you can wear it on Sunday. Let’s rent a sander and refinish this floor.I’ll repair and gold-leaf these two old frames this afternoon, clean the kitchen floor and then we’ll give the dog a bath. Her phenomenal energy, a product of a restless temperament, is often heightened by her asthma medication. It’s only in the last few years that asthma has slowed her down a bit. Throughout most of my childhood, I awoke to the sound of Mama using her inhaler, and I fell asleep to the whir of the sewing machine in the kitchen. These were the sounds that told me all was right with the world. Mama was there, being my Mama, who loved me, unquestionably.
Mama with a younger neighbor, in the 1940s. Both my parents’ families tended to favor junk heaps as photographic backdrops.
Mama explained this odd assortment of stuff as being due to the little girl’s family’s upcoming move.
Our back yard, when we first moved into our house, was not really a yard at all. It was a rather dismal expanse of cracked concrete. The previous owner was the developer who built the neighborhood in the 1970s. He used the large detached garage to store heavy machinery. There was a small back porch, to which a wooden wheelchair ramp had been added during the last years of the owner’s life. The only greenery was an enormous blue spruce that hid the oil tank and sheltered many bird families.
To my husband, the back of the house and its surrounding concrete pad resembled an old gas station. From the very beginning, he saw it as something that cried out for major changes. I wasn’t as harsh a judge. While the area wasn’t pretty, certainly, I saw a convenient play area for our daughter, a place for hopscotch and exuberant chalk drawings. I envisioned it busy with various toddler vehicles, followed later by a tricycle and a bicycle.
The ramp was ugly, but it served an immediate purpose. Our daughter fought sleep with great vehemence, but motion made her sleepy. She often nodded off in the big Graaco stroller if I walked long enough. When I pushed her very carefully up the incline, she might continue sleeping. I could park her on the porch while I sat at the outdoor table and snacked or read.
Our concrete yard also functioned well for several years. It was a busy highway for a variety of wheeled contraptions, an ideal spot for the wading pool. We bounced basketballs and hit tennis balls off the garage. Chalk masterpieces were created and washed away by the rain. And then one day, we no longer needed all that pavement. We began to imagine what the space could be. We had a very blank slate.
The back of the house, before the re-do.
Lots of concrete.
Unfettered by training wheels, our daughter exults. She put many miles on her first little bike without leaving the back yard.
It took us at least two more years of debate and procrastination before we began our big back yard project. There followed months of demolition, construction and innumerable, inevitable delays. Afterwards, we were left with a roomy sceened porch, flagstone courtyard, and a more attractive garage. There is a little grassy area for Kiko. An old-fashioned wrought-iron fence encloses it all. Unlike the front yard, which is heavily shaded by the big silver maples, the back is an oasis of bright sunlight. Where the concrete once baked white-hot, we now have a profusion of flowering plants. The red double knock-out roses quickly formed a dense hedge along the fence, and the pale pink climbing roses heartily embraced the garage trellis. From May to September, we are surrounded by a riot of roses and other flowers. For those who came by a lovely back yard easily, this might be no big deal. As for us, we still find it hard to believe that all that concrete gave way to such life and beauty.
The re-do begins, and things look worse before they began to look better. Kiko doesn’t care, though.
Our back yard and new porch, after the re-do.
Double knock-out roses along the fence.
More knock-outs by the screened porch.
Pale pink roses climb the trellis on the garage.
Just one of many perfect roses, within easy reach.
In the early spring of the first year we spent in our house, I noticed green buds emerging from the gray branches of the tall shrub by the front walk. I had wondered about the identity of this large and leggy plant. When I looked closely, I saw the beginnings of lilac leaves. Our new old house was blessed not only by eminent silver maples, but also by a mature, substantial lilac bush. This realization brought me a jolt of happiness more typically associated with an unexpected gift, such as one that arrives in a pale blue Tiffany box. Lilacs have a special place in my heart. Like the maples, they speak of home and loved ones.
Lilacs grew in great abundance around my grandparents’ house, the locus of my earliest and happiest childhood memories. Lilacs surrounded the area in front of the smokehouse and adjacent to the chicken lot. They created a leafy enchanted shelter, a cozy enclave where I liked to play with my grandmother’s kittens.
Atlanta is generally too hot for lilacs. I missed them, growing up in Georgia. For me, the lilac became a symbol of a time long past, alive only in memory and never to be repeated. I didn’t expect to live among lilacs again.
Then I moved to New Jersey, where lilacs, like peonies, thrive. My walks into Rocky Hill took me past a ramshackle former church in the center of town. Built in 1870 as a Methodist Episcopal church, by the early 20th century the building was known as Lyric Hall and used as a community theatre and concert space. I knew the place as the home of a dear friend with the unlikely, romance-novel-worthy name of June Bliss. For many years, June was the warm and capable administrator at the center of the art history department at Princeton University. To anxious grad students she was a calm and motherly presence. To professors preoccupied with the esoteric details of research, she was a grounding force.
Lyric Hall became June’s home in the early 1970s. She rented out the old sanctuary as a warehouse and lived in a warren-like apartment that had been added to the back of the building in the 1940s. June’s girlhood home was a magnificent Gothic revival house near Princeton, where her sister continued to reside. It baffled me that after growing up in such an architectural gem, she was content with her quirky, cramped apartment. I always imagined how the church could be renovated into a striking, spacious, light-filled home. June probably could have easily afforded such a project, but she wasn’t interested. She was thoroughly without pretense, and her unusual living quarters suited her just fine. I think she enjoyed the surprise in the eyes of first-time visitors’ to her decidedly eccentric home.
The old church was set on an expansive piece of property that adjoined what had once been the town green. June had a large garden in the side yard, bounded by a towering hedge of lilacs. She was generous with her bounty of vegetables and flowers. She encouraged me to cut as many lilacs as I wished, which I gladly did, usually under the watchful eye of the neighbor’s hulking pot-bellied pig. Every spring, thanks to June, our apartment was filled with bouquets of lilacs, in addition to the peonies I bought down the road. On a return visit after H and I had married and moved south, June dug up forget-me-nots from her garden to send back with us. I planted them behind our townhouse, where they are probably blooming still.
June was a cheerful person with a lively sense of humor and a keen appreciation for irony. She retained her sunny disposition in the face of the cancer that afflicted her for a number of years before finally claiming her life. I remember very clearly the warm summer day I went to the mailbox and found the kind note from June’s daughter that broke the news of her mother’s death. D was very young at the time, and we had been playing in the yard together. Seeing my sudden tears, she dashed over to comfort me. Our lilac bush serves as a reminder that departed friends, as well as the essence of home and family, remain with us always.
This spring, though, I was dismayed that only one small lilac bloom appeared. For several years now, blossoms have emerged only at the very top-most branches. June’s vigorous lilac hedge, in contrast, bloomed profusely, from bottom to top, for decades. When I asked if she had a gardener’s secret, she laughed and replied that she simply appreciated the plants and left them alone. Our lilac evidently needs something more than admiration. I’ve read that an aggressive pruning can reinvigorate an old lilac plant. We will get the shears out this weekend and go to work.
I recently discovered that upon June’s death, her home was donated to the New Jersey Historic Trust. The Trust sold it, with a preservation easement, to an architectural firm that restored the building to its original appearance and now uses it as their headquarters. The gray asbestos siding was removed, the original white clapboard restored and repainted. The arched windows were elongated to their full height and the sanctuary space’s soaring ceilings were restored. June’s old apartment was replaced with a bright and much larger one.
It’s remarkable to me that even though June didn’t care to restore Lyric Hall for use as her own home, she made it possible that others, later, could enjoy the beauty of the renewed historic building. It gives me hope for the rehabilitation of our tired lilac bush. Lyric Hall flourishes again, a fitting memorial to its former owner, and I’m convinced our lilacs can, too.
For the past two weeks or so, the seed pods have been falling from the big maple trees in our front yard. As the wind blows, they hit the roof with a sound like a shower of fat raindrops or forcibly hurled pea gravel. The tiny twirling helicopter blades drift slowly to the ground. Our daughter used to love to chase the flying seed pods. They gave my husband and me a welcome break from hands-on parenting. On warm weekend afternoons, we’d sit in cheap aluminum lawn chairs and watch her zigzag happily across the grass. We all still appreciate those spinning seed pods, despite the legion of tough little seedlings that spring up among the flower beds. We certainly love the trees that send them forth.
It was in the late fall, nearly eleven years ago, when we first saw our house. Most homes in our area date from the seventies through the nineties, and it stood out because of its age. Built in 1920, it was originally the center of a two-hundred acre farm. Unlike most northern Virginians, who apparently put a high value on new construction, I actively wanted an old house. I like the idea of a house with a past, with character, with some history behind it. Having watched my grandparents’ lovely old Victorian slip through our fingers, as well as the demolition of my grandmother’s birthplace, a far more historic dwelling, I wanted the chance to be a good steward of someone else’s family home.
I had all but lost hope of finding a livable old house, but suddenly we had stumbled upon one. It was a little shabby, and it had aluminum siding. But it was a genuine old farmhouse, a classic American four-square, with sizable rooms and a sensible floor plan. While it contained some dated 1970s touches, such as expanses of orange shag carpeting, it was solid and didn’t appear to need structural renovation.
And it had those wonderful trees, a semicircle of six huge trees that shaded the front yard. They were silver maples just like those that twisted their knobby roots through the soft grass at my grandparents’ house in Kentucky. Because it was late November, the branches were bare, but the shaggy gray-brown bark was as recognizable as the face of an old friend. This was the house! I was certain of it. The silver maples offered living proof.
Because my husband is a clear-headed man of business and science, he weighed all conditions carefully and made a low-ball offer on the house. I was anxious, nearly certain we wouldn’t get it, already formulating back-up plans. Maybe that 1980s house (the one annoyingly referred to as an “executive colonial”) wasn’t so bad after all. Or we could give up the search and spend another year in our rented townhouse. But our daughter, a new walker, needed more space and a yard in which to roam. I wanted an old house. I wanted the old house with the old maple trees. The one that just seemed like home.
Luckily, the prevailing local bias against older homes worked to our advantage. We managed to learn that our only serious competition was a developer whose goal was to tear down the house and build a bigger, newer one. Better yet, two. The owner, fortunately for us, much preferred that the house in which she had raised her children continue to be a family home.
During the following December, matters concerning our purchase took off on a wild roller coaster ride. There were complications with the contract, concerns about the foundation, the floors, the septic system, the furnace, the roof, the crazy property lines, and more. During our Christmas vacation with H’s family in Rochester, he was on the phone constantly with building inspectors and legal experts. But by early January, the house was ours. Our realtor, who had decades of experience, claimed that the closing was the most dizzyingly complex one she had ever witnessed.
That winter, while H worked especially late, I often sat by an upstairs window in a rocking chair, holding our year-old daughter. As she nursed, or slept, smiled or cried, I looked out through the somewhat uneven glass at the dark blue shadows the big maples cast on the snow-covered ground. It sure was good to be home. And it still is.
Silver maples are fast-growing trees with limited life spans. We had to remove this tree’s branches when they became fragile and hazardous to passing cars, but we left the trunk as a monument. Our daughter occasionally uses it as a place of solitary refuge.
On an Easter Sunday in the 1960s, my friend Jeanie and me beside one of the silver maples in my grandparents’ yard.
On Good Friday, we give thanks to a loving, compassionate God who suffers with us. Our God is not a remote, impassive being who rules from on high. He came down to our level; he entered into the midst of our messy lives. Jesus, our brother, gave his own life to save us, his unworthy siblings. He died for us while we were yet sinners. He knows our worst pain, because he has endured it first-hand: betrayal, sorrow, humiliation, physical agony, and death. God the Father knows intimately the terrible reality of losing a child. Our God continues to suffer as we suffer. He grieves as we grieve, because we are his. We are family. Our God surrounds us with his Holy Spirit, as close as our own breath, to sustain and comfort us.
Good Friday is good because our God is good. This day commemorates the completion of Jesus’s mission. From the cross, he cried out, “It is finished.” The perfect sacrifice has been made, salvation has been accomplished, and we are redeemed.
A blog about motherhood, marriage and life: the joys and frustrations, beauty and absurdity, blessings and pain. It's about looking back, looking ahead, and walking the dog.
