A particular image of my father has taken up residence in my mind recently. I see him sitting at our kitchen table in our house in Atlanta. He has a map open–a fold-up highway map, the kind we used to buy at gas stations and welcome centers–those old ones that today’s young adults have rarely seen. He has a pen in hand, and he’s cheerfully planning the route for an upcoming trip. The destination is likely to be one with which he’s very familiar. Probably it’s a town in central or eastern Kentucky, to visit family. Even near home, Daddy didn’t like to follow the same path twice. Mama said that was one reason she never learned her way around Atlanta. Daddy enjoyed driving, and he was good at it. He’d had considerable practice, as he’d been driving since he was twelve or so. He was born in 1929, and he learned on a Model T. I always knew that if I needed a ride somewhere–anywhere accessible by car–Daddy could, and would, gladly oblige.
Mama remembers how Daddy poured over such a map while my husband and I were on our way to New Jersey after our marriage in the fall of 1995. I was moving away, and this time, it seemed likely to be for good. Before, I’d always returned after a few years. H and I were in a packed U-Haul, with my little Rabbit convertible behind on a trailer. Because we left later in the day, we spent a night on the road in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. When I called home to report our safe arrival, Daddy quickly picked up the phone. He’d been worried about us. (He didn’t yet know that I’d perhaps married as capable and confident a driver as he.)
My husband and I with the moving van in Atlanta, November 1995.
“I’m so relieved to hear your voice!,” he exclaimed. “I think I drove every mile with you!”
Daddy was not a man who cried easily or often. But Mama said she remembers him shedding some tears that evening, as he worried over the map.
H with the van in Carlisle. The trailer for my small car was huge, and could easily have held a Cadillac. As H said, “We were long.”
On this Father’s Day, and every day, I’m grateful to be my father’s daughter. I know that wherever life takes me, no matter how treacherous the road, Daddy is there beside me, every mile.
My husband and my father in Atlanta, December 1996.
Somehow now the years have spun by like the numbers on the oven timer, and H and I are a married couple past middle age, with a daughter of our own. She’s twenty-five, a young career woman, living in another state. But it’s Maryland, and she’s still nearby. So far, we’re lucky that way. I know that she, too, counts herself fortunate to be her father’s daughter. She can be sure that her Dada, like her dear Papa, will be forever at her side, driving with her every mile.
One of my favorite photos of Mama and me, in St. Augustine, Florida, 1968.
My first post of 2024 was about how I started the year off on a walk wearing mismatched shoes, or one wrong shoe. Just two days later, my mother started the year off with one wrong step. A seriously wrong step. As she was preparing to head upstairs for the night on January 5th, she fell. In recent years, she’s been quite the frequent faller, and her attitude toward falling is best described as cavalier. She rarely complains about the bruises and occasional cuts she acquires with each tumble. But this fall was different. She was unable to get up, or to contact us, and the pain in her leg was intense. Her little red Jitterbug phone lay just out of reach. Her emergency call pendant was by her bed. She spent twelve hours on her family room floor. I had checked on her around 6 PM, as I usually do, and she’d been fine. My husband or I should have noticed that her bedroom light never switched on. But we didn’t. We didn’t find her until the next morning.
Every time we hear the urgent wails of approaching ambulances and firetrucks (and we hear them often) we know that at some point, they’ll be coming for someone in our family. January 6th was one of those days. That morning, my mother was carried out on a stretcher, and I sat in the front seat of the ambulance. The paramedics couldn’t have been kinder or more thoughtful. We’re grateful to live within easy reach of excellent medical care.
Mama and me, 1970, in Atlanta. We’re wearing our of-the-moment midi and maxi fashions, sewn by Mama, of course.
Surgery to repair a badly broken femur was followed by four days in the hospital. On Day 3, Mama remarked that she was rather enjoying the stay; it felt like a rest in a nice hotel. Anesthesia and pain meds were masking the discomfort, no one was bugging her to try to stand up, and I was a constant presence in her pleasant private room. The staff was attentive and capable. Over the years, she has spent time in three Northern Virginia hospitals, and she found this stint to be by far the least miserable.
It was a different story altogether when she was moved to a nearby rehab facility. I could no longer be with her every minute, day and night. She had a roommate, whose demeanor vacillated precipitously between angelic and menacing. There was an ongoing, simmering dispute over the ideal room temperature. Mama could neither see nor hear the TV on her side of the room, yet her roomie’s TV was always on, too loudly, tuned to a station Mama would certainly not have chosen. There was considerable difficulty in ensuring that she received her prescribed medications, especially those for her asthma, and wasn’t dosed arbitrarily with unnecessary ones. As in any such facility, the staff are too few, and they’re doing difficult, often disagreeable work for low pay. It’s a place where no one wants to be. Mama described it simply as a house of horrors.
Atlanta, 1975
Not quite three weeks later, insurance abruptly decreed that her time in rehab was up. Thanks to a wheelchair-accessible transport van, Mama was summarily deposited back in her own home. For her, it was not a moment too soon, although my husband and I were not sure how we’d care for her effectively when her mobility remained so limited. There’s a good reason that babies are smaller than their parents.
We’ve all managed, somehow. Mama has learned to walk again. She’s progressed through a series of walkers, from wheel-less, to partially wheeled, to a rollator (a word I’d never heard until recently), the kind with four wheels and a little seat that can be used for carrying things. Several times a week, we do the exercises together that I watched her learn in physical therapy at rehab. She is getting somewhat stronger. She can do a few things for herself, including preparing simple meals.
Her falls, though, continue. Since her return from rehab, she’s fallen about twice a month, typically while making a transition from sitting to standing. Her legs simply “give out,” she says. With each episode, we make some changes and many suggestions. I remind her that I sleep in her guest room and can hear her summons on the baby monitor if she needs me in the night. She never expects to fall. So far, she’s suffered no further major damage. But we know that may not always be the case. The next broken leg, or arm, or worse–awaits.
Wales, 1988
Throughout her life, Mama was exceptionally active, involved in multiple projects–sewing clothes for everyone in the family, upholstering and refinishing furniture, decorating, gold-leafing, crafting–all while working part time at various jobs, reading voraciously, teaching Sunday School or Bible study, doing the housework, cooking, and being a devoted, compassionate wife, mother and daughter. (She and Daddy gave up their bedroom to move my grandmother into their home and care for her at the end of her life. ) Mama was generally too busy to consider physical exercise for its own sake.
Or for her own sake. And mine. If I could turn back the clock and change anything, it would be to encourage Mama to start weight training around the time I discovered it, in college. Why didn’t I try harder to get her to join me in regular work-outs, at home or at the Colony Square Athletic Club when I worked at the High Museum? Because she had too much else to do, of course. She would remind me that there was a time, when I was in grad school, that she and my father walked for exercise in the early mornings. At least they did that. Every little bit helps.
The frightening truth is that we’re all one small misstep away from catastrophe. That’s life. Our circumstances can change, for better or worse, in an instant.
So we keep on, doing what we can. I’ll continue the PT sessions with Mama. I’ll keep to my weight routine in our basement gym. My husband will, too. I’ll walk the neighborhood with my dog-mom friends, and he’ll use our treadmill. We’ll do our best to maintain our strength and balance. We’ll think of it as a gift to ourselves, to our daughter, and to anyone who may need to care for us one day.
One of the things I like most about living in Northern Virginia is experiencing the change of seasons. I enjoy looking out for the many small signs that herald the end of one season and the beginning of another. This year, as usual, I was paying attention as spring yielded to summer. And certainly, it feels like summer, with the heat and humidity expected during a DC-area July. Most afternoons, a storm threatens, typically with lots of bluster and thundery build-up. Sometimes a pounding, torrential rain follows, or maybe it’s just a few sprinkles. Considerable drama, either way. That’s summer, with moods that are shifting and short-lived, rather like those of a fiery teenager with no homework and time on her hands.
Summer is here, without a doubt. But for me, something is off. I’d like to blame it on my broken thumb. Maybe my sense of timing is out of whack because of the injury? During those two months with a cast, followed by a splint, most tasks required twice as much time to complete; that’s true. But it can’t explain my occasional tendency to suddenly forget what season we’re in. It’s more like I’m waiting for some special signifying cue that tells me: Now this is Summer.
A part of me, I think, is waiting for my own fiery teenager, or elementary schooler, or Kindergartner, or preschooler, to finish her classes for the year and be here, at home, on summer break. It’s similar to the way I felt in mid-December. How could the “Holiday Season” have been upon us without our girl home for the holidays? And how can it really be summer without her here?
I’m not complaining. I’m grateful that our daughter has found a career that she enjoys; it’s why my husband and I encouraged her to work hard throughout her many years of schooling. And we count ourselves fortunate that she lives nearby in Maryland. Right now, she’s on a work trip, in Tacoma, Washington. She flew there immediately after returning from Scotland and England with friends. She’s making her own choices, living her life, and we celebrate that.
My husband and I have not been especially clingy parents. We made a conscious effort not to shelter our daughter, or to keep her to ourselves. Growing up as an only child, my small family warmly welcomed others, and we tried to do the same. We encouraged D to forge strong friendships, yet to be unafraid to claim her independence at times. She was among the few students to attend her college orientation on her own. H and I were skeptical of the University’s entreaty, earnest and emphatic, for parental attendance at orientation. Seemed too much like a marketing ploy. D said later that she felt a bit awkward when she sat beside someone else’s mother on the shuttle bus from the parking lot, but other than that, our absence didn’t bother her. When we dropped her off at UVA that first August, (and yes, we helped move her in) we left teary-eyed. We didn’t expect to see her for quite a while, and that thought made us sad, but we tried to keep it to ourselves. We visited her on grounds only rarely, and we didn’t push her to come home on weekends. I have friends who headed to Charlottesville for most home football games and the accompanying all-day festivities. Not us. H, especially, was concerned about interfering with D’s engineering studies. When his sister, her husband and their little boys drove down from Rochester to spend an Easter weekend with us, we didn’t tell our daughter. She’d already said she had too much work to do, and wouldn’t be home for Easter. We took her at her word. She was upset with us. And then the pandemic prevented our visiting during most of her final two years at UVA (with the exception of her graduation, which we happily attended).
All this may make us sound like cold, unfeeling parents. We are not. If we were, I wouldn’t be walking around in the July heat, wondering when summer will begin.
Our daughter in her Jar-Jar pool, July 2003, in her nightgown.
I’m not bemoaning the loneliness of an empty nest. But neither am I unmindful of and unmoved by our daughter’s absence. Images of summers past, when she was with us, are never far away in my mind’s eye. I have sudden flashes of leisurely breakfasts with her on the screened porch. I see her jumping into the blow-up wading pool first thing on a summer morning, in her nightgown. I see D and her friends dashing through the sprinkler spray in the front yard. I see her happily cuddling our young dog. Those were summer days that felt like summer. I miss them. But I have them with me, too. And always, I will count them among life’s treasures.
D and a good friend at the pool club, August 2007.
D and Kiko, June 2009, on our then-unfinished back porch.
A wreath once again adorns the remains of the maple tree in front of our house.
Mid-December has arrived. I tell myself that I’m getting used to not expecting our daughter back home for an extended winter break. I tell myself again, and again. I speak with considerable authority and firmness. I listen, and I hear, but I quickly forget.
Last year, I faced this reality for the first time. December of 2021 seemed especially unreal. With our daughter working and living in Maryland since the fall after her graduation from the University of Virginia, she would no longer be with us for most of the month, and well into January. It’s a tricky concept to accept. I still can’t quite wrap my head around it.
I’ve had another twelve months now to get acclimated to being the parent of a young person with a career. Most of the time, it’s been a very pleasant situation. We’ve seen our daughter often on weekends, thanks in large part to the fact that her boyfriend lives near us. We have the luxury of knowing she’s only about an hour away. No long plane ride separates us. Only a hair-raising ride on the Capital Beltway, which I do not attempt on my own. And, I’ve been busy, as always. I never lack for things that need doing, or things I want to do.
My husband and daughter, hanging the central wreath at my mother’s house, December 2017.
Still, December is different, because of that winter break that won’t be happening. Seasonal prep tends to be more fun with our daughter around. Her presence, and her youthful enthusiasm–they add an element of festivity. Without her, it’s more like we’re just doing chores. Ever since she was a toddler, she’s enjoyed adorning the house for holidays. I remember her, as a four-year old, sitting amidst my gingerbread houses on the dining room table, exploring boxes of baubles and chanting, “Decorate! Decorate!” Once she was old enough to climb the tall ladders and strong enough to help move them, it became her job (and not mine) to assist my husband in hanging the outdoor wreaths at our house and my mother’s. Together they set up the electric candles in every window, positioned the floodlights and programmed the system. But not this year.
I’m not complaining. Not really. She’s been with us several times this month, but never long enough to help with the usual Christmas tasks. My husband and I both felt her absence as we stood in the front yard to watch the lights click on for the first time. Never before has she missed this family countdown-to-Christmas signal. But she was doing her own holiday prep in Maryland, where she has an apartment, a meaningful job that suits her, and friends. She is building a life that is, for the most part, separate from us, her parents. That’s what we raise our children to do, right? I don’t have to tell myself that I’m happy for her. I’m more than merely happy. While parenting is a job that never ends, it’s a job with numerous stages. Or seasons.
Wreath hanging at my mother’s, December 2017.
And now, my husband and I are in a season in which there is no long college break to anticipate with our child. On the down side, for me, it’s one with fewer chances to sit up late together, laughing at the quirks of foreign-language Netflix shows. Fewer mornings to chat unhurriedly across the breakfast table. For my husband, it’s fewer opportunities to work with D on what, a generation ago, might have been considered father-son projects. Or to hit the ice, in hockey gear, together. And it still sneaks up on me that there will be no time at all to see our daughter cuddling on the sofa with our soundly sleeping elderly dog. Maybe this December feels doubly “off” because we’re not only post-college kid, we’re also post-dog. Between dogs, more accurately, I tell myself. Another dog will join us, in a while.
But even this season has its advantages. Our daughter was home for part of last weekend. We dropped her off at the Kennedy Center to meet friends on our way to a DC hotel for my husband’s company holiday party. How cool is that?
And while our daughter wasn’t here with us to add a bigger dose of cheer to some of our holiday chores, she’ll be present for others. And she knows that as twilight falls, our old farmhouse glows like a beacon, as it always does during this season. She knows that it waits to welcome her home.
As we do, too. Our daughter will be home for Christmas. Not only in our dreams.
Four more people were shot dead on Wednesday, this time at a hospital in Tulsa. Yet again, the gunman used a military-style semiautomatic rifle. He bought it that very day. This is the 233rd mass shooting in the U.S. so far, in a year that’s not yet at the halfway point. Guns have replaced car accidents as the leading cause of death for children. In the light of our country’s ceaseless gun violence, the need for real progress toward a solution becomes ever more urgent.
Is there really no common ground? I continue to pray that it does exist. We might find it if only we could step out from the confines of our ironclad political ideologies for a moment. Of course, this is difficult because we don’t want to leave the safety of the familiar. Maybe imagining ourselves in a hypothetical situation can help. Let’s say we’re students, working together on a final group project. We’re tasked with arriving at a plan to curb gun violence. We don’t agree with, or like, everyone in our group. But we all could really use an “A.” Our teacher reminds us that no plan can possibly stop all gun violence, humans being what we are. She suggests that we pretend, for the duration of the exercise, that the two major political parties as we know them do not exist. A fellow classmate suggests that a real solution may be hiding in plain sight. He proposes starting with some basic questions for discussion. Here they are:
You’re a parent, and you learn that an active shooter is threatening your child’s school. Which incites your greatest fear?
To hear that the shooter wields a small handgun capable of firing a limited number of bullets before reloading is required, or
To hear that the shooter wields a semi- or fully automatic assault-style rifle capable of quickly firing hundreds of rounds of ammunition
2. You’re a police officer, responding to a call about an active shooter at a school. Which gunman would you prefer to confront?
One wielding a small handgun, as above.
One wielding an assault-style rifle, as above.
3. Does it really seem good, right, and appropriate that any eighteen-year old, unable to legally buy a beer, is able to purchase not one, but two AR-15 rifles for immediate use?
4. Think of a particularly immature, hot-tempered teenager whom you know. Would you want this person to have easy access to multiple such weapons and a huge cache of ammunition?
5. Would you feel comfortable knowing that the volatile teenager above is armed and roaming your neighborhood regularly?
4. Is it really likely to impact your rights as a responsible gun owner to protect your home if the person mentioned above is unable to purchase an AR-15 or similar gun without a background check, waiting period or any red flag laws in place?
5. Do you lock the doors of your home at night and when you’re away? Or do you not bother because, if someone wants to rob or harm you, they will find a way?
The next victims of gun violence will likely not be members of our own families. But let’s act as if we expect them to be. Let’s quit bickering, acknowledge our shared humanity, and take real steps toward lessening this horrific epidemic.
Christmas is five days away. Every year around this point, I ask myself: how can this be? How can Christmas be upon us? But this year, more than ever, time seems slippery, unreliable, prone to eccentricity. Yesterday seems like a month ago, yet wasn’t Halloween just last week? Is it because of my advanced age? Is it because of sudden and broad temperature fluctuations? In a typical seven-day span, here in Northern Virginia, we experience weather appropriate for all four seasons, sometimes in a single day. Is it because we’re approaching our third Covid winter, and the weeks and months are draped in a veil of sameness?
It’s certainly not because I’ve neglected the usual Christmas prep. I haven’t, and it’s kept me too busy to write. The evidence of the season is all around me, but still, this mid-December has an air of unreality. Something just seems off.
After further reflection, I think it may be this: the back-of-my-mind awareness that our daughter will no longer be joining us for an extended winter break. The Christmas season, in recent years, has begun in earnest for me with her arrival home from college. Last year, it started with her final online exam, as she was already here. I think what I’m missing now is the anticipation of having her back with us for about a month. That extra spark of excitement is absent.
At this realization, I had a mental pep talk with myself. Our daughter will be coming home soon, for about a week. She can’t stay longer because she’s gainfully and happily employed. (I’ve never held a job that ticked both boxes.) She’s embarked on a career that relies upon her training. This is why she went to college. At least it’s why the time, trouble and expense of college can be justified. All those demanding classes in aerospace engineering and astronomy are being put to good use. And while she’s a Maryland resident now, she’s closer to home than she was in Charlottesville. When she first began applying for jobs, my husband and I both feared that she’d find it necessary to move to the West Coast. In the rare absence of traffic, she can drive home in about an hour.
So I’m a lucky mama. We should see our dear daughter in two days. And then Christmas Vacation will officially begin.
As my mother reminds me, having recently watched a PBS show about the medieval origins of the twelve days of Christmas, December 25 is only the first day of the festive season. I’ve got plenty of time to get that spark of excitement back. In fact, I’m starting to feel it already.
The spirit of the season is popping up in unexpected places. Here, for example, is a radish that resembles a little head in a pointed elf cap.
The halls have been decked. It’s time to savor the joy of Christmas.
The last time our daughter was home for Halloween was in 2017, her senior year in high school. Her return for the recent holiday weekend therefore seemed extra special. Slim was eager to see our daughter, as well. He recognized her as his ideal partner in preparing for all things Halloween. She is nearly as big a fan of the day as he is. Ever since she was a toddler, Halloween anticipation has begun for her in the summer. (See Friendly Ghosts of Halloweens Past, October 2013.)
In 2020, because of Covid, young parents in our neighborhood organized a Halloween parade, with all trick-or-treating outside. The kids progressed from one end of the neighborhood to the other, to tables set up by families in front of their homes. It worked so well and was so enjoyable that they decided to do it again this year. I liked it because it made it easier to appreciate the costumes and gave more time to chat with kids and their parents.
Our daughter was determined to make our Halloween display as thorough as possible. Slim was equally zealous, of course. Together, they hauled out all the old, mostly homemade decorations that D recalls fondly from her childhood: Fred, the stuffed dummy, the tombstone and graveyard fencing, various skulls and bones, jack-o’-lantern votives, spiders and spiderwebs. They festooned our tables for treats in appropriately witchy garb. They set up the fog machine and an outdoor speaker for projecting spooky sounds. They rolled out the love seats from the garage so we could be comfortably seated during the parade. This persuaded even my mother to join us. When we began to see the children approaching, Slim climbed up in a cherry tree, and D, wearing the gorilla costume that we just happen to have, hid herself from view.
Our daughter, quietly channeling her inner gorilla. A tense moment.
As each group of children chose their treats, my husband, holding a heavy chain, would ask, “Has anyone seen my pet gorilla?” Then D would pop up from behind the love seat and jump around. The performance was well-received, usually with genuine surprise. No one was overly frightened, which was as intended, but one little boy asked his mother to remain close by his side as he got his candy. Several trick-or-treaters, and possibly one parent, wearing an inflatable T-Rex costume, engaged in high-spirited dance-offs with the gorilla.
Thanks to our friendly neighborhood, the parade, to the presence of Slim and our daughter, this Halloween was one of the happiest I can remember. It was rewarding to see just how many children live among us. We were impressed by the innovative costumes, on both kids and adults. How satisfying it was to see neighbors out socializing as they provided treats. As Slim likes to remind us, Halloween has evolved from an ancient Celtic harvest festival into a day when we affirm our common humanity through a love of sugar. It’s a day to welcome back, unapologetically, the child that abides within us, no matter our age. A time to share some sweetness and joy with others, simply because we’re God’s children here together. After all, it’s the custom to give candy not only to those we know personally, but to everyone who stops by.
It was a perfect top-off to the evening when a small Superhero jumped out of a highly decorated SUV and brought us a festively wrapped bottle of sparkling wine. We’d won one of the prizes for best display. Our daughter’s and Slim’s efforts had paid off. We’d given treats, and we got a treat. That, my friends, is Halloween, isn’t it?
Our family’s long-time summer destination sits on the skinny finger of land between Cape Cod Bay and Route 6A, or Shore Road. When seen from the water, the small cottages appear to be nestled between the sea grass and a low hill of dunes that rises along the banks of Pilgrim Lake.
As the aerial photo above shows, the complex resembles a miniature village. The look is classic Old Cape Cod. Basic, simple, absolutely without pretense. On each side of the central pool, two rows of white cottages, built in the 1940s, face a grassy, rectangular courtyard. Six additional cottages are covered in weathered cedar shakes. Constructed in the 80s, these are off the greens, clustered in the sand. In the broad expanse that leads to the water are two narrow boardwalks and a fire pit enclosed by a semi-circle of sturdy wooden chairs. The wide beach, unusual for the area, has grown much bigger over the years. When the colony was new, the high tide mark reached all the way up to the line where the beach grass begins now. It would seem that every bit of sand that’s continually swept away from the rest of waterfront Truro is being deposited here.
A trellis-topped archway and white picket fence mark the entrance to one of the greens.
The cottages farthest from the water have the benefit of being surrounded on all sides by a grassy lawn planted with bountiful hydrangeas.
The photo above shows the cottage that my family will probably always think of as “Grandma and Grandpa’s place.” It’s the one that my husband remembers as the vacation home from his childhood, beginning in the 1970s. His parents last occupied it in 2018. Sadly, that visit made it clear that their health issues had become too daunting to make the trip worthwhile.
There are several models of the white cottages. Those across each green are mirror images of one other.
The cedar-shingled cottage above is the one our family returns to in early August. It sits just in front and to the side of H’s parents’ old place.
A sandy lane separates this row of cottages from the pool. There are no paved roads in our summer village.
Just as I often expect to see my husband’s parents planted in their beach chairs every time I approach their old cottage, I can’t go to the pool without recalling the way our daughter, as a baby, delighted in the glistening, chilly water. The photo above shows her with my husband in 2001, on her very first visit to the Cape.
Nearly every spot in our pleasant village conjures an image of our daughter as she has been, over the years. I can see her at two and a half, sitting happily outside our cottage, talking to herself while pouring sand into a cup.
I remember her as a little girl, pausing on a sandy path leading to the water, a wistful expression on her face.
I see her as a young teenager, the summer before she began middle school.
All the while, I see and give thanks for the strong, compassionate, intelligent young woman she has become. Here she is this August with Dozer, one of the owner’s dogs.
As our daughter has grown, and as my husband and I have simply aged, our summer village has changed only minimally. Here in this timeless place, more than anywhere else, I hold simultaneously in my mind’s eye the various stages of our family’s life. With our every return to this sliver of sandy ground that floats serenely between sea and sky, I feel what it means to be young, to be old, and everything in between, and even beyond. The day will come when H and I, like Grandma and Grandpa, no longer make the trip. Will there be a time when our daughter gazes at the sunset over the Cape while watching her own child contentedly pouring sand into a cup? I think I can see that, too.
The cicadas of Brood X have fulfilled their mission. They’ve done their part to further the species. The seventeen-year cycle has begun again, and the proof is all around us. It’s in the hanging patches of brown leaves appearing at the ends of tree branches, every day, in greater numbers. The oaks seem to be especially popular as Brood X egg incubators.
The reproductive success of Brood X is evident in the clumps of silver maple leaves that dot our front yard.
A close look at the fallen branches reveals a series of incisions in the young bark. These were made by the female cicada as she deposited her eggs, using a swordlike abdominal appendage called an ovipositor. While it’s often noted that cicadas do not harm humans or animals, this evidently depends on the mama-to-be not mistaking a living creature for a tree. If I’m still around in the summer of 2038, I hope I remember not to sit or stand perfectly still outside for an extended period. One female may lay as many as five hundred eggs, in batches of five to twenty, among several trees. When the eggs hatch about six weeks later, tiny nymphs emerge, fall to the ground and begin tunneling into the soil, launching the next seventeen-year subterranean phase.
Brood X has gone silent and still, but their physical presence will be with us for some time. Cicada bodies, often perfectly intact, are strewn along the ground and nestled into foliage. The cicada above, though deceased, appears to be napping comfortably on its back in a pleasant rhododendron hammock. The insects’ wings and body parts, frequently snapped off cleanly like 3-D puzzle pieces, are all around. The discarded exoskeletons will remain for quite a while, as well.
I’m glad that Kiko got to experience the cicadas of Brood X. They gave our old boy the rare opportunity, in his own little mind, at least, for successful hunting. Many of his fellow canine colleagues immediately recognized the big insects as tasty treats and gobbled them up as soon as they began appearing. My dog, dainty and fastidious in eating as in every activity, took his time to warm up to the idea of snacking on Brood Xers. The mob was on the wane before he developed a taste for their flavor. We would watch as he slowly approached a cicada, stared intently at it for a while, before moving in quickly and decisively to devour it. As far as we could tell, he never ate a live cicada, but he clearly thought he was participating in the thrill of the chase. My daughter noticed that he seemed to relish rooting around for them in the grass like a truffle pig. A cicada wing dangles from his mouth in the photos above and below.
The cicadas of Brood X have accomplished their goal. While tangible evidence of their brief existence will fade, their legacy endures. Soon, their progeny will be underfoot everywhere in our northern Virginia neighborhood, invisible in the above-ground world, but nevertheless thriving as intended. We can read countless philosophical insights into the brief appearance and long apparent absence of these periodical cicadas. I can imagine the question appearing on SAT and ACT essay prompts. One lesson from Brood X that strikes home with me is this: what we see in everyday life is only a small slice of that which is real. And, even more importantly, a shift in perspective may render the unseen visible. As I age, I’m becoming increasingly aware that some things are not what they seem, or at least not the way I’ve previously understood them to be. I’m learning that, to see more clearly and understand more comprehensively, a new and occasionally uncomfortable viewpoint is sometimes necessary.
Brood X also reminds me that the imprint we humans leave on our world and on those around us, for good or bad, may not be immediately apparent. The fruit of the cicada’s short life is long delayed. But with the fullness of time, its effect is significant. And while human actions and words may not produce instantaneous and seismic changes, they will indeed have consequences. May we work for good even when we cannot expect to see the products of our labor. May we strive to build bridges with the blocks at hand. And may better building blocks and methods be developed in the future, by our children and our children’s children, if we consciously choose to guide them in that direction. Our days of toiling, buzzing and flying, like the cicada’s, are relatively brief. May we use them well.
My father and I at my grandparents’ home in Lebanon, KY, ca. 1965.
Hats off to all the men who make the little people in their lives feel welcome, loved and safe, the way I felt in my dear daddy’s arms. Cheers to the good guys who have the strength and courage to be kind, nurturing, supportive, and occasionally vulnerable. May the blessings you provide be returned to you with interest. Happy Father’s Day, fathers and fatherly men!
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.
