Two Memory Observances

(I am breaking my own resolve and interposing a blog about this present moment.  More flash fiction stories will show up later.) 

This year we have back to back observances which have been acknowledged yesterday and today, both rooted in memory.  Both are related to the past but look to the future with hope.  One is based on the experience of international conflict and the violence of war, the other follows a different sort of violence to announce new life and the welcoming of a new age.  The one observed yesterday is related to two faiths rooted in the same tradition, Jewish and Christian, and is called Pentecost.  The other is a remembrance of the end of a war nearly a century ago that has continually emerged again and again without any signs of ending, Memorial Day.  All the wars of this nation have now merged into that one day of remembrance, honoring those who served in the military, multitudes of whom died in those conflicts.

Pentecost in the Jewish tradition marks 50 days after Passover; in the Christian tradition it is celebrated 50 days following Easter.  This year they happen to occur at the same time with our Memorial Day, two days in tandem.  Such an opportunity heightens the impact of both observances. 

In regard to Pentecost as a faith event, for Christians it marks the moment that the Holy Spirit descends upon the faithful believers, something that Jesus is described as promising his followers prior to his death.  The day becomes a celebration often referred to as the “birthday” of the Church.  Just how well we continue to observe that tradition depends on a variety of interpretations, from extreme religious beliefs to a brief nod by others not deeply involved in church life.  However it is observed, the inherent promise of new beginnings, new life, and hope for a future lived out in a discipleship that follows the call of the Christ to serve the “least among us”  invites hope for a future of peace, justice, and integrity of life.  The details are varied, depending on the particular faith tradition.

As for Memorial Day, it is a time when those in this country remember the dead, whose lives were cut short by war.  These are ones who have not bodily risen from the tomb, as Christians believe about Jesus, but their lives are memorialized in ways that honor the nation they have served.  The meaning of this day has become broader now to include all those, the living as well as the dead, who serve or who have served.  With the observances comes the hope that a day will arrive when war is never considered as an option.  It will be a time when peace between nations is practiced and enemies are not killed but become friends.  Understanding the other will be the norm.  The time is not yet, as we well know, and it will not come in the lifetime of anyone now alive, but it remains a hope for the generations who will inhabit this tiny planet in this vast cosmic arena, in ways we cannot imagine as yet.

As for my family, my father was nearly killed by wounds in France during World War I.  He was a battle surgeon, but after losing parts of several fingers was not able to follow that path, and eventually became a pathologist, but served in the Army during World War II and the Korean War, until retirement.  He then continued in a civilian hospital here in North Carolina.  Both of my brothers served during World War II, one in the Navy and the other in the Army.  My husband Charlie then gave four years of service in the Air Force when we were first married.  It is because I have witnessed the strains of war and of serving in the military that I am a strong advocate for peace.  It is also because of the kinds of ministries I have participated in that I am a strong advocate for justice.  The two seem to go together.  Somehow it is like the coming together of two annual observances, Pentecost and Memorial Day.

Turning the Corner

Just about dusk.  Headed home from the grocery store.  Considering too many things and listening to All Things Considered on the car radio.  All of a sudden, as I turn our corner a car races around me, doesn’t get the car straightened out and wham!  Right into the sign to our sub-division.  Big cement square post crashes.  It was too large to get my arms around if I had tried, but then, why would I want to?  The crash can be heard all over the neighborhood, but nobody bothers to investigate the noise.

The driver is gone.  But soon he’s back with a tow truck and the wrecked car is gone.  All that remains to show what happened is the crumbled post, and the big sign leaning against a tree.  The other post still stands, supporting nothing but air.  “Forest Edge,” the sign says, an address which seems pointless now that the streets are paved and houses sit on the many lots along the way.  I go home.

Next morning I see a police car at the scene.  An officer is writing in a book.  Another person, likely a detective, stands beside her, in civilian clothes, then walks the tire lines in the pavement.  And back again. What’s he trying to figure, I wonder, as he traces the pattern several times.  I  stop my car to watch this crime scene.  It’s better than half the plots on TV, at least during summer re-runs.

The plainclothesman talks with the police officer.  I watch her reaction: concentrated listening and then she nods her head in understanding.  The research is over.  They’ve come to some sort of conclusion about who did it, the reason, and how to resolve the situation.  I don’t know what decisions they made because they spoke quietly, eyeing me every now and then as I tried to eavesdrop.  Then the officer got in her police car and the detective heads for his car.  I overhear his parting comment:  “Yep.  I’ve think we’ve turned the corner on this one.”

The Change

I have decided to redo my blog, and for the time being write a few pieces of flash fiction instead of my usual commentaries.  I hope that what appears here in future installments will be of interest to my blog readers.  So here goes, with apologies for the long hiatus without any new blogs appearing.  This first one was published online recently with awordwithyoupress.com and now I share it once more with others:

The Change

            The news brought them out of the barn into the field just after dark.  One of the older cows spoke.    "She told us to meet Her here when the mist begins to clear the pasture."

            “What does she want with us?” wondered her companion. 

            “I don’t know for sure.  Look.  Edith is joining us and I see Barb too.”

            “This is very strange, sending us that message after milking time last evening.”

            “Don’t you realize?  It’s about the Change.”

            “Oh. Yes.  I had forgotten.”

            “Tell me, do you still want to go through with this?”

            “It would be an improvement, I think.”

            “Edith! Hurry!”

            “You know I can’t move as fast as you.  I must preserve what energy I have left for . . .

 the Change. . .”

            “Yes, of course.  Barb!  Come on!  She’s almost here!”

            They look past the rising mist on the field to the dark figure approaching, Her cloak waving with her movements.  She carries the Book. 

“It’s . . . It’s that Book,” Edith whispers, sliding her tongue over the word ‘Boooook.’  Barb has nearly reached the others when She joins them from the other direction.  She drops Her cloak, and lays the Book on top of it.

“Hello girls,” she says softly, almost inaudibly.  “I see you got my message and all of you are here.  Are . . . are you ready?”

 Holding up her right front hoof, Barb challenges, “Is this gonna kill me?  I'm not a young calf any more."

The Dark Cow gives no answer.  A nervous padding of other hooves on old meadow grass is the only response.  She begins to sing the strange melody.  Then, all joining Her, their song rises into the chilled air like a hymn, in a synchronized chanting.  They toss back their heads, letting their mystic music rise into the disappearing mist.

She opens the Book with her hoof to a page near the middle, and begins to read.  The words are unintelligible syllables.  The cows keep singing, keep singing, keep singing, until they are gone, transported into another realm, another universe, another existence.

 

 

Hugh and Mabel: A Tudor Romance

 The following story, one shared with me for my book-in-progress about rescued animals, Bebe & Friends, is told by my sisterwriter with All Things That Matter Press, M.J.Neary.  She has written two novels about the Irish Uprising of 1916, Brendan Malone and Martyrs and Traitors, as well as other historical novels.  This story will go in my book:

I have always been partial to adopting older animals. When my husband and I got married, we were 21 and 31, both working crazy hours and trying to make most of the flourishing economy under Clinton, in hopes of building a financial fund for the future baby.  After a long discussion, we realized that the most we could handle in the case of offspring would be a guinea pig.  We went to a local family-run pet shop to look at some babies, but it was not the babies that caught our attention.  In the corner we saw a giant black two-year old boar (the designation for male guinea pigs), perfectly healthy, free to a good home.  As it turns out, the original owner had lost interest in keeping him and put the pet up for adoption.  To us it was a no-brainer.  We brought him home the same night and did everything to ensure his comfort.  He turned out to be extremely active and affectionate, grunting and squeaking in delight.

Among guinea pig breeders, it's customary to name their pets after various Shakespearean characters.  I have always been fascinated by Irish history, so I named the new guinea pig Hugh, after Hugh O'Neill, Ulster's legendary chieftain, the Earl of Tyrone, who defied Queen Elizabeth.  Naturally, every earl needs his countess, so we started looking for a suitable bride for Hugh.  The trick was to find a female who had already given birth by the age of six months.  If a female has not been bred by then, it's better not to breed her at all, as her hip joints become stiff, and it may be hard for her to give birth.

Hugh's bride was also a rescue pet. We saw her at another pet store where she was kept with her two grown children. Apparently, their claws were never clipped, so they continued rough-housing with their mom, leaving scratches on her belly.  When we picked her up, her underside was covered in scabs.  The store manager gave her to us for $10. We took her home, gave her a time to heal and placed her into the male's cage.  You should have seen his reaction!  He started purring, vibrating, huffing and puffing at the sight of a beautiful female of childbearing age.  He spent the whole night chasing her around the cage.  In the morning we found them snuggled contently under the log.  We named Hugh's mate Mabel, after Mabel Bagenal, O'Neill's hapless child-bride, wife #3.  According to Sean O'Faolain, O'Neill's biographer, "women married early, and men married early and often."  So we had a great Tudor-era romance under our roof. 

Just a few weeks after bringing Mabel home, we noticed that she started expanding horizontally.  Soon we were able to feel little kicks and twitches through the thin walls of her stomach.  I used to flip her on her back and rub my nose against her warm belly filled with babies.  For those of you who don't know, guinea pigs are born fully formed and fairly independent, like miniature adults. They are not pink, blind and helpless.  Far from it.  They eat solid food and run around.  When we came to check on Mabel in the morning, we found her surrounded by her newly born children scurrying all over her.  She looked tired, and Hugh looked mildly annoyed, as he was not used to little ones crawling over his back and sniffing him. 

The thing about guinea pigs is that the females ovulate an hour within giving birth.  So by the time we removed the father from the cage, Mabel was pregnant again.  Apparently, they had mated in that brief segment of time.  Before we knew it, Mabel was expanding again.  We had no trouble placing the little ones.  She had four in the first litter with Hugh.  Two went to a pet store, the same one that let us adopt Hugh, and the other two were placed with a family.  Mabel's subsequent litter was huge.  Out of six babies, one died.  Still, five  surviving pups is an impressive litter.  This time we gave them away to various Catholic schools in Pennsylvania as classroom pets. Two of them went to stay with one of the students for the summer, and the girl fell in love with them so deeply that she refused to return them at the end of the summer.  They stayed with her as house pets. 

In the summer of 2001 we decided that Mabel deserved to retire.  I knew a friend of mine in Philadelphia who was looking for a pet, so I decided that Mabel would be perfect for her.  Before handing Mabel over, I kissed her tummy one last time and asked her to wish me luck in getting pregnant.  I was already 22, with a steady job and enough in my savings account to support a baby, and to me Mabel represented motherhood and fertility.  A few months later I was pregnant!  That was not the end of Mabel's work as a fertility lucky charm.  She had helped two other women get pregnant.  Both had struggled with infertility, but after coming in contact with Mabel, after stroking her fuzzy sides and her belly that had produced so many babies, they ended up having babies of their own!  The gentle piggy was humorously canonized as St. Mother Mabel.

She died peacefully of old age on Easter in 2006.  There is only one place she can be, and that's on the lap of St. Francis in heaven.  Her legacy of gentle love and maternal joy continues on.

(Then there was also the legendary Sooty, who escaped from his cage and impregnated 23 females, who all gave birth at the same time.)

Marina Julia Neary         Stamford, CT                                                        

                                                                                    

                   Mabel 
                    and                                                                         
              Mabel’s Babies