Hard Times: Chapter 3 "Perseverance"

“Perseverance”



I’ve never been one to look back in life. Even as I’ve grown old I pride myself in looking ahead. Lately, however, in quiet moments I discover my mind traveling to the past, seeking refuge in better days.

I never thought I’d outlive my husband. Bill was strong and I was less so. He was hardly ever sick and I was often. Growing up we both knew hard times. We were the children of refugees, uprooted from our Oklahoma homes and dropped in the great central valley of California where there were no jobs waiting. We knew what it was like to go to bed hungry. We knew what it was like never to buy new clothes. We grew up knowing what hard times meant but our children had no idea.

When my daughter and her family first came to live in my house I had the impression they thought it was as much for me as for them. They could not understand how an old woman who spent the bulk of her life in the company of others might want to be alone. I suspect many old people feel as I do but their children cajole them into giving up their solitude for the security of having someone there to call the hospital if something unfortunate should happen – like falling and not being able to get up. There comes a time of course when that may become necessary and more often than not it is a rest home we end up in, hardly ever our children’s homes. A rest home is the last place I would want to rest – especially if it was my final rest stop.

But I welcomed them into my home recognizing that what was happening in the world had happened before when I was a child. I was neither surprised when Madge’s family was followed by Carlin’s family nor when Uncle Bud showed up with that drunken harlot Mildred. I try not to judge but they make it so obvious. Uncle Bud is harmless enough and often amusing; he was just a waste of space. Mildred is something less than that – a waste of good alcohol I should think. In fact I do think.

So I took them all in without complaint. I took them in and shared what I had just as relatives and friends had taken us in when our time of need arrived. It was hard times and we had to look out for one another. Hard times make the family grow stronger if it doesn’t break us apart. I sought solitude in my room and considered it being thoughtful until Madge informed me the family was concerned. They thought I was spending too much time alone. They thought it meant I was unhappy. I tried to tell them that my happiness really wasn’t their concern. Sometimes I enjoyed happiness; other times I enjoyed solemnity. It was not a concept they could wrap their minds around so I ultimately relented.

I grew to appreciate their children – even the spoiled little ones that Joan created like Frankenstein’s monster. Like pets there is no such thing as a bad child, only a poorly reared child. In the traditional roles, grandmothers are supposed to be the spoilers. In the new world, where grandmother and children are constant company, this grandmother had to assume the parental role of disciplinarian. It was not a role I took pleasure in but someone had to do it. The children needed guidance.

When Stone left Madge was shattered. She shared the note he had written and my heart went out to both of them. Stone was always a good man. He worked hard all his life. He put the needs of his wife and children before him. I understood how he must have felt when he decided he had to leave them for their sake. That is what hard times do to us. They make us confront choices we should never have to make. Madge was so angry she could hardly think. She felt abandoned at a time of need. She blamed Stone for abandoning the children. Nothing could have been further from the truth. He sacrificed everything he treasured. He gave his place in the home and his share of the family’s food to them.

It took a long, long time before Madge healed enough to begin understanding. That’s when she began looking for him. I felt it was a sort of madness but it was something she had to do. She tried to do what was right for the children. She took them to school every day and when the schools shut down she taught them herself. She worked hard on the garden and did more than her share of the cooking and cleaning but her mind was divided. A part of her was always thinking of Stone. I think she came to blame herself for the anger she initially directed at him. When she finally learned what became of him, that he had lived under the bridge until he left town, it was as though her lungs filled with fresh air. She was convinced that he was all right and that he would return home eventually. I was not so sure. It was a cold harsh world out there. In hard times, there is nothing one can be sure of.

I kept my doubts to myself and welcomed the change in my daughter’s heart. As only old people know, there is always a blessing in misfortune – especially if one is lucky enough to survive it.

Madge became the center of our home. She was a peacemaker and eventually her efforts shaped us into a caring, loving family. She became a social activist, organizing the neighbors, making sure all the children were cared for, handing out books and inviting neighbor children to school in our living room. When the tornados struck, a horrifying sight and one that I never thought to see in sunny California, followed by the sickness that claimed some of our neighbors, Madge saw to it that those who lost their homes, their gardens and loved ones had shelter, blankets and enough to eat for the winter.

The day of the twisters was something to behold. I was transported back in time to when I was a little girl. It must have been October because I was standing in the pumpkin patch playing drums on the pumpkins when my mother yelled at me to come in. I thought I was in trouble for wearing my Sunday dress outside. I looked up and froze. It was the most beautiful sight I had ever seen: a magnificent sky full of colors and wild shapes formed of clouds. My father swept me up in his arms and took me down to the cellar where we all hunched together, holding our breaths and feeling our beating hearts. The whole house shook and it sounded like we were standing underneath a jumbo jet as it took off. Only then I didn’t know that sound. It sounded like the end of the world. Somehow it steals the oxygen right out of the air and leaves you gasping. The pumpkin patch was a mess but we were unharmed. Carlin was strong in a pinch but Madge was our rock. They got us all in the bathtub and covered us with a mattress. It was horrifying but we survived. After that I think we all felt we were stronger. We were survivors and we could handle whatever god had in mind.

Though I gave up organized religion a long time ago, I am a very spiritual person. I prayed that day. In the event that there was a god and that he could hear our prayers, I prayed.

At a time when no one else could have done so, Madge saw to it that our Christmas was something we would always cherish. We had all been so serious for so long it was as if we forgot how to laugh and sing and play. She got every neighbor on the street involved. She even talked the stodgy Bannisters into hosting the event in their spacious home. It was a glorious event. There was music and dance and games and every face wore a smile that lasted the evening. There were gifts for every child and old man Bannister played the unlikely part of Santa. Scrooge would have been more fitting. The sound of laughter was the sweetest music of all.

We were contented then and full of hope. The hardships we had overcome together made us closer. Our family was secure and we were a part of our community. We had confidence that our neighbors would help us as we would help them. The winter was mild and our stores of fruit and vegetables were more than enough to see us through.

I dare say we were beginning to enjoy the richness of our lives and that is when the gangsters came. We knew what was happening. It was not difficult to put the pieces together. They closed down the prisons and jails. What point was there in having a jail when half the population would volunteer? Free meals and roof over one’s head outweighed the bars that prevented escape. So the hardened criminals were released into the world where there was no place for them to survive. When the food ran short and they had no shelter, they took what they needed in the only way they knew how.

We all agreed we had no choice but to fight back but we were not the kind of people who could fight effectively against criminals. There were too many old folks like myself and too many children. We were so relieved when we received word that the military would come to our aid. Neither they nor the police had ever done so before so I had my doubts until the evening they showed up with transport vehicles.

We tried our best to make it an adventure for the children. The younger children didn’t know what was happening and we didn’t know how to tell them there were people who wanted to hurt us and take our homes. I’m sure the older children understood. Nathan and Denim had seen enough of the world to know how dangerous it could be but they pretended along with the adults that everything was fine. We were just taking a little vacation. There would be plenty to eat, clean water and the brave soldiers would take care of us and keep us safe.

We were so disappointed when they kept us inside. People weren’t meant to live as captives. It warps our senses. Children were meant to run and play in the sun and breathe the open air. I still don’t understand that decision. What were they hiding? What were they afraid we would see? I could think of no rational reason for it but there was no means of challenging the commander’s authority. When we talked to our information officer – a misnomer if ever there was one – he simply informed us it was camp regulations. We were going stir crazy. The children were restless and the adults were short-tempered. Madge did all she could to establish a routine for the children. There was school every morning, walks around the enclosed walkway three times a day, and a variety of games.

I remember one day some of the older kids snuck outside and Denim was among them. He had a quiet but defiant spirit that I always admired. Some soldiers caught them and hauled them back inside. The kids were scared half to death. The soldiers apparently told them they would be locked up in a cage if it happened again. They ordered us to discipline them and of course we agreed but the punishment amounted to nothing. They were not allowed to participate in the games that evening but they didn’t seem to mind.

I asked Denim what he had seen. He told me they snuck into a warehouse filled with rifles and ammunition, stacks and stacks of them from the floor to the ceiling. This was after all a nation of guns before the fall. All those guns and the all-important ammunition had to go somewhere. I understood then why kids could not run around unsupervised but it was unrealistic to expect children not to be children.

I spent a lot of time reading and thinking about my late husband. I rather thought he would have enjoyed this new world. In many ways he was suited to it. He resented that kids today had all the modern comforts, computers and video games and portable music players with thousands and thousands of songs, and cell phones that meant you were never really alone with your thoughts. He thought we were losing touch with the things that mattered most: family and good friends, picnics and camping in the great outdoors, trips to Yosemite and the Grand Canyon, the wonders and mysteries of nature. He lamented that we were losing our sense of the earth beneath our feet, the soil that gave us life. He would have loved building greenhouses and gardening. He would have loved evenings without television and young people without devices attached to their ears every waking hour.

I sympathized with his point of view but I realized – as I’m sure he did deep within – that it was the natural cycle of life. Every generation of old folks laments the lost ways of days gone by. Every generation wants to stop the clock and move backwards in time. Until this generation it was only a futile wistful dream but here we are. I think Bill would have liked to witness it. He would have thrived in this harsh environment and he had knowledge that would have been valued. He had a good working knowledge of electronics, mechanics and gadgetry. He could fix everything from a transistor radio to an old truck.

I don’t remember when my mind began to lose its agility. Maybe it happened years ago when Bill passed away but no one noticed because I was alone, free to think as I pleased and do what I wanted. Now no one seems to notice because I’m old and that’s how old people are. There are no health centers, hospitals or doctors to tend to old people losing their faculties. We are what we are. There are no more drugs to fight back time or stop the aging process from taking its toll.

I spend days on a single track of thought, so much so that I hardly notice the days passing. Being enclosed in the cavernous space of a military warehouse was making my condition worse. I spent so much of my time in memories that when I awakened I often thought that Bill would be beside me.

I didn’t know how much time had passed when they informed us it was over, the gangsters were defeated and we could go home. I’m not sure I fully understood what was happening or what had happened. I was in a daze when they helped me out of the truck and showed me the burned out rubble that used to be my home. I cried and Madge cried with me. I hadn’t realized how much I still had to lose: my mementos, my photographs, artwork and trinkets that had little meaning to anyone but me. Furniture and appliances I could take or leave but how those mementos pulled at my heart. When we went through the rubble, there was so little we could salvage: a charred vase, some jewelry, a framed photograph. Each item came with a memory and each was linked to countless other memories, fading memories of things lost. We put them in a box, climbed back into the transport vehicle and went back to the military base. I wondered then how long I could keep going.

But I did keep going. I kept going because I felt the love of my family. I kept going because I believed, rightly or wrongly, that they needed me. In some ways I suppose they had lost less than I had. It was my home and my memories. But they were young and I was old. They had their lives to live and it was my job to help them get on with it.

When the commander heard our story and saw our long faces I think he took pity on us. We were given new quarters to live in. It wasn’t much but it was a place we could make our own. We were allowed outdoors where we could mix with the military families. Our children were welcomed to their school – or rather what made do for an education. Between the bible lessons and stories of glorious battles, at least they were learning the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic. When Madge offered to help out and began introducing literature and science we were surprised that they gave her free reign. They were mostly mothers, not educators, and they were willing to admit the shortcomings of their knowledge and experience.

We all helped out in the schooling, the kitchen work, cleaning up and gardening. Whatever needed doing we pitched in and did our share. Carlin proved quite resourceful repairing trucks and machinery. I spent much of my time in the gardens where I was left pretty much alone to let my mind wander where it wanted to go.

As that odd man Albert Einstein discovered, time is a relative concept. Well, it was for me as I wandered the rows of fruits and vegetables, weeding, pruning, hoeing and mending fences. At some point I realized my thoughts were leading me on the journey of my own life. It was then that I determined to write it all down. If I could leave nothing else, perhaps I could leave the story of my life, shaded of course by my own peculiar perspective. I gathered up paper and pen – not so easy a task as it once was. Today it seemed there was little demand. I thought and thought, that first blank sheet of paper staring at me, until I finally arrived at the word that summed it all up, nice and clean: Perseverance.

It may sound harsh or crude and for that I apologize but it is the only word that satisfies my sense of honesty and truth. It is not that I’m applying for sympathy though I have rarely refused that charity. It’s just that life is a series of hardships and there’s no use denying it. I was born and raised in the hardship of a sharecropper’s toil and it gave me an inheritance of strength. I was uprooted and displaced a dozen times before my tenth birthday and it gave me what my father called grit. I met and married my husband as we were both struggling to find our place in the world and it made us determined. I have walked the picket lines of a labor strike alongside my husband, raised my children through a decade of wanting, suffered through years of war, not knowing if my husband would return, and never stopped long enough to give doubt a chance. I mourned the sudden death of my first child and comforted my husband on his deathbed. I have persevered.

I am a proud survivor and that is the gift I wish to hand down to my grandchildren. I want them each to know they come from good hardwood stock. Our people have lived through every hardship known to humankind. We have survived the plague, the great influenza epidemic, earthquakes and hurricanes, economic collapse and general misfortune. We have always overcome. We have never given up.

Perhaps I wanted to remind myself as well. I was not on the front lines of the Great War or at the back of the line in the Great Depression but I know what they were. I remember.

The hard times that have knocked us back on our heels and made us wonder how we manage to get up every morning will not last forever. We will survive and like the poet says it will make us stronger. I only wish it could make us wiser as well.

It’s not as if this is the first time our economy has collapsed like a blown tire. Every time it’s the same. A select group of elite men on Wall Street think they are above the law of gravity. Governed by greed they buy the politicians so they can operate on their own terms. It took JP Morgan to save us the first time and Franklin Roosevelt pulled us back from the brink in the thirties and forties. You’d think we would learn but you’d be wrong. Again and again we allow greed to govern greed as we march straight over an economic cliff. So it seems we never quite acquire the knowledge we need to prevent the fall but we do acquire the lessons of perseverance. We survive.

It may be the hardest lesson to learn, especially when you’re young and so full of drama, when the universe evolves around you and every moment is celluloid – or so it seems. I was young once, so long ago even the memories are worn, and I know well the depths of the human soul. I know how hard it can be to walk out the door and how difficult to ask for help. I know that for most of us there is help waiting to be asked. That is what I want the young ones to learn. We have a family and a community that is yearning to help and nurture them. We will survive. We will persevere and thrive. It is the way of our people.

I love the gardens. The greenhouses are so regimental and orderly. They lack a woman’s touch. There is no flair, no style and no sense of the aesthetic. The camp is in command of the greenhouses but the families are in charge of the gardens. For most people in these troubled times there is no more room for the aesthetic. There is no water or soil for roses and lilies and petunias. But here at the base there is plenty to eat. They yield a surplus that they distribute to local communities. So they allow their wives the indulgence of growing flowers and the flowers are in bloom. I breathe them in and lavish them with attention. I sing to them and recite poetry about the beauty of nature, the lost arts, the diminishing aesthetics. I learn new poems so that they don’t grow bored with the mad ramblings of an old woman.

I miss the arts. I don’t know how many times I suggested that we should start a theater. They always nod and go about their business. There is always far too much to worry about, too many plans and emergencies, to devote one’s time to frivolous activities. Madge was sympathetic of course but I understood her resistance. She was unwilling to entertain the notion that we might not leave this place for a very long time. She was pleasant and giving to everyone around her but beneath the surface she suffered. She hated this place. Even after they moved us out of the warehouse it was far too cold and impersonal for Madge. She did not want her children to grow up in a military environment. She also expected Stone to return but he would not be able to find us here. No one could find us here.

She would never say these things aloud of course. She held them inside. It was not her nature to criticize other people for whom they were. She reserved her judgment for what people did and these people were kind to us. Of course they were not so kind to the criminals who invaded our neighborhood. That was another thing that held her beneath a shadow. She did not believe they deserved to be killed. When Carlin confirmed her suspicions that darkness of knowing that we were all in some way complicit in a massacre fell over her. We all felt it but she felt it as a mother feels the pain of her child.

It was strange how we all pushed it from our minds. What did we think would happen? How could we not know? But we didn’t know or at least we guided the knowledge to the darkness of our minds where we would never have to look at it – or so we thought. But we always have to look – even if we wait until our dying day. Each and every one of us holds some responsibility for a horrendous event – one that we would never sanction or defend but one that we could have prevented but didn’t. The other side of it of course is that some of us would undoubtedly have died. Some would have been raped or terribly wounded if we had chosen to fight on our own. If we had chosen to give them what they asked for and they asked for no more than they needed, then tragedy could have been averted.

Who can tell? We are only human. We act more out of raw instinct, out of fear and prejudice, than we do out of reasoned deliberation. That we are guilty to some degree of acting too swiftly, of presuming too much, is beyond doubt. They are the kind of questions we should have asked before we summoned the cavalry but we did not. That is what tears at the soul of considerate and decent human beings. It should have torn at mine far more than it has. Perhaps I am too old and too close to death to consider all sides of the equation. There are the children to consider. Even Madge cannot get by that consideration. The children come first and no risks can be taken that put them in danger.

We survived and the children are safe. In the end that is all that matters. We move on. We do not dwell on what might have been. We take those steps that will ensure we will not have to face such choices again.

Forgive my rambling. It is not my intention. There are so many thoughts racing through my brain. I snatch them and put them down on paper and hope that someday someone will extract their meaning or render them in a more sensible form.

I thought I would live the remainder of my life at the base. I would have been content to spend my final days in those beautiful gardens with the last glorious flowers upon the earth but it was not to be. Carlin was determined to go back to our neighborhood and rebuild. Madge welcomed his enthusiasm and the children followed their parents. I did not object. I’m sure they thought I was fully behind their decision. That I was not would remain my own private matter. It became my determination to start my own garden of beauty though I would confront a floodwall of objections.

When finally we arrived at the ruins of our home a blessing awaited us. I rather wondered why the neighbors had allowed a bum and his mangy dog to squat on our lawn. But it was not a bum after all. It was my daughter’s long lost husband, Stone.

If it is possible to lift a cloud of sorrow in a single moment it happened that day. Like many elderly people of my temperament and disposition I am occasionally prone to the dramatic, a tendency that most prefer to circular story telling or the common habit of telling the same story over and over again as if telling it for the first time. On this occasion it would be shameful not to allow poetic license to roam unhindered. For though my grasp of time is unsure and feeble I am certain that several lifetimes passed between their parting and this reunion, as the length and strength of their embrace bore witness. It was Penelope greeting her lost adventurer Odysseus or Tristan finally returning to his beloved Iseult only it was real and happening before my eyes. The last time I stood before the wreckage of my former home I cried tears of sorrow; this time there were tears of joy.

He promised her a dozen times that evening that he would never leave again. When he caught his breath and everyone settled down he told us of his experience, the people he had met and the communities where he was welcomed. He had a dream of uniting these communities for mutual benefit and he was burning with a desire to see it fulfilled. He went on for hours and I remembered why Madge fell for him. When someone has that kind of passion you follow him. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a good idea or a bad one you follow.

He told us about the people he met and the communities they formed. The Bridge Camp, the farm and the community of college students: They were forming bonds, developing sustainable energy systems, watering systems, farming and security. It was unfortunate that they thought it necessary but they were building walls and lookout stations to defend their communities from outsiders. Stone believed we should do the same but we should form alliances with the surrounding neighborhoods to increase our diversity, our pool of talent and our defenses.

It was an awkward time in some ways. We had just returned to rebuild our home and now we were being asked to consider much more. We needed schools and community centers and a master plan to develop our resources. We needed government and trade agreements and communications. We were being asked to rebuild society one brick at a time and it all made sense.

I was not alone in thinking so. It all made sense.

Madge and Stone took a sleeping bag and went off to be alone, leaving me with the children. It was a wonderful night, serenaded by the moon and entertained by the muses. There was music and dance and stories full of laughter around a makeshift campfire. It was a night when dreams played out their most fanciful tunes and angels in the heavens looked down on us with grace.

I would never forget that night for as long or as briefly as I should live. I wished my husband were there. He would have taken such pleasure. He loved a celebration and he would have loved to see the children so happy.

And then it rained. The heavens broke open and flooded us with tears of joy. The tents the commander had given us proved sound and we all slept to the drums of raindrops over our heads. I don’t know where Madge and Stone found shelter that night but in the morning they were fresh and full of life.

It was a glorious night and one that I stored in my box of treasures. It is so important to hold on to these moments for that is what sustains us when times are hard.

I only wish my husband could have been here. He would have taken such pleasure. He was a good man and he so loved the children. I remember the first time we met. I was the counter waitress at a diner and he was the first customer of the day. He was looking for work and needed a sympathetic listener. That first day he asked me if I wanted children. I said I did between cups of coffee. It was six months before he asked me out and a year before we got married. He was working then as a mechanic at a local garage and even then he was saving to start his own air conditioning business. It was the future he said.

I remember our first child’s second birthday. Uncle Bud dressed up in a clown costume and little Billy laughed until he was dizzy. We were so happy then. We had next to nothing but we were happy. We were heartbroken when Billy died. No one could explain it. One day he was playing and laughing and the next day…

We were heartbroken. In many ways we never got over it but we learned to persevere. That’s what life is all about: perseverance.