Taking Time
I remember writing my Great Aunt BeeBee every week, when she
was nearing a century of living and had moved into a nursing home. She had left
the house she’d lived her entire life, had grown up in with her mother and father,
sisters and brothers, and since she never married, remained there mostly alone for the next nine decades. But sometime in her early to mid 90s, her health declined and she
spent her remaining years at a Nursing Home called Guardian Care. And somewhere
in that urgency of her move, as a young teenager I started to write her every
Sunday night.
She was a magnificent presence in my life: a piano teacher,
a bible scholar as only staunch Presbyterians could be, a genuine and
mysterious old person with wrinkles and a curved spine, and a keeper of M&M
in the candy jar in the top compartment of the old oak antique refrigerator,
referred to as the icebox. BeeBee, as she was known to all family, would lay down in
the back bedroom every afternoon for a nap, had a picture of a very young Queen Elizabeth on
her living room wall (a tie to her Cornwall, England roots) and her garden was full of Crepe Myrtle, Sweet Peas, Camellias
and Richard, her old and tired black gardener.
On our visits to Henderson, to see my mother’s family, my mother's sister, would walk through her adjoining back yard to see her father (my grandfather), who was BeeBee’s younger brother by ten years. After checking on her father, she'd go on to the next house to
check on her Aunt BeeBee. This was a morning ritual. So naturally every morning as our day began on these visits south, My
Mom would join her sister (my aunt) and Carol (my sister) and I would tag along on the short stroll up to the next house to visit
or check-in on BeeBee.
It was less than a football field away, but on our visits to Henderson, North Carolina, going to BeeBee’s in the morning was like going back in time. It was fascinating to enter into her home, and to smell, and to look, and to listen.We’d spend twenty minutes or so there every morning, hearing about BeeBee's day, listening to family updates she’d received in her mailbox, making sure she
was stocked from the grocery store, and a bit of world affairs and local news,
and then we’d leave. She would take a nap every afternoon before teaching piano to neighboring children after their school day ended, her source of income and only joined my grandfather for the occasional Sunday noontime
meal or family gathering.
BeeBee was simply what we called her, but her name was Bertha Mabel Bunn.
She died in March 1980, four days after her 99th birthday. I was a
freshmen in college. She always said: “March was the worst month of the year,
because you were waiting for Spring. If you could live through March, you would
make it another year.”
Writing those letters every Sunday night to BeeBee when I
was a teenager, was incredibly important to me, there was a sense of urgency in it, and yet I anticipated no reply. It connected me to her and it
felt as though I was just doing a bit more to keep her connected during her
final years at Guardian Care, just one more family member feeding her mailbox,
of news and activities.
Sure enough, once BeeBee moved into Guardian Care and
started having three “square meals” a day, she got stronger and thrived for a
few years in her wheelchair, heading down to the community room and visiting
and making new friends. I remember on one visit south, I took my piano music
and I played Chopin: Waltz #1 In E Flat, Op. 18, "Grande Valse
Brillante" to her and a bunch of other residents. For a 16 year old to be
playing Chopin was a worthy afternoon recital, and I had been working all year
with my own piano teacher back on Long Island on it.
My sister and I always played the piano
for BeeBee during our visits to North Carolina, usually a special afternoon
visit in the living room where she taught music lessons, She'd get up early from her naps, to listen to us play. Her living room was adjacent to her sitting room, where our morning visits would occur while Queen Elizabeth watched over us, unless we sat in her dining
room near the icebox, because perhaps we were having a piece of cake or potato pasties she'd made.
BeeBee loved to hear our
musical progress. So years later, in the sunny Community Room of Guardian Care,
I plowed through Chopin, and BeeBee praised my ambition to take on Chopin, and
gently reminded me to slow down and reflect, to take time with the music, in
order to avoid stumbling over my own fingers.
And so today after reflecting on the last two years of my own life, I am reminded some 30+ plus years later,
that BeeBee’s advice to take time is a worthy endeavor. In these days of
instant texts, finishing all emails within the day, urgency to keep moving forward, there doesn’t seem a lot of
value in taking time. We expect results instantly. I loved writing BeeBee every
Sunday night and knowing about Thursday of that week, my letter would arrive in
her room at Guardian Care, and knowing she'd then share my news with others. I loved the short walks to visit her, and receiving permission
to reach into that candy jar, I loved knowing that it is okay to take a nap
every afternoon to get to 100 and I loved looking at the Crepe Myrtle, Sweet
Peas and Camellia’s and hearing her talk about her garden, which by the time I
knew her, she just watched from her window. She encouraged me to dig up some Scottish Bluebells to plant at home on Long Island.
Taking time.
I stepped aside these last two years. After
what was probably the most difficult year of my life, I withdrew to take some
time. Not many really understood it, many were scared to ask about it and yet, a few even challenged it. I stumbled a bit in life and ran over my fingers, and when I
attempted to get back up, I was either knocked down or fell a few times. I
retreated and worked quietly on myself. Losing your business, your mother, your
financial security and your best friend was a bit too much for me to
comprehend.
I spent a lot of time looking for the Crepe Myrtles, Sweet Peas and Camellias. I lost all grounding and laid low and licked my wounds. I took time
to grow my flowers and to walk Oslo. I played my piano. I took time to try and listen to my friends
in need and share news of others and I took time to heal and exercise and
become stronger physically and mentally. I stopped and paused and didn’t work, didn't advance my professional career.
Was it luxury? Was it necessity? Was it right? Was it wrong?
Not sure any of us can answer that. But bit by bit you
start to rebuild and you start to thrive again, you see yourself again in the
mirror and you like what you see and you are ready for another adventure, a new
challenge, a new course of action, or the next piece of Chopin.
Taking time in life can be a good thing and then
one day you are ready again. I think BeeBee would have understood my last two years.
