The front porch was framed by a fledgling chestnut tree on the north corner, while a noble copper beech dwarfed the neatly trimmed privet hedges along the back boundary. The flower garden to the south resembled a riotous splashing froth of incoming colors washing up against the intricate railings and newels of the back porch. A proper brick garage of later vintage contained the recognizable symbols of a knowledgeable mechanic: leather tool bags filled with an array of wrenches, whose silvery patina had been honed by competent hands. The piîce de résistance, however, was a spotless 1939 two-door Chevrolet coupe with wide white walls and a hand-buffed mirror finish.
The house itself was a meticulously maintained Queen Anne Victorian. It straddled a high ridge in the Prattville section of Chelsea overlooking the blossoming young skyline of Boston. The year was 1952 and this was our home, although actually it belonged to my grandmother's brother, Jim. Like many other extended multi-generational families of that era, we were bound together by what seemed like a natural inclination, rather than pure economic necessity.
Jim and his wife never had children. They were educated professionals who had traveled the world and lived an adventurous life with grace, dignity and class. They filled their home with art, oriental rugs and tapestries from Africa, Asia and the fine cities of Europe. There was an exquisite art nouveau curio cabinet filled with an eclectic array of rare gems, artifacts and these finely carved African ebony elephants no bigger than a thimble with tiny inlaid eyes and perfect little white ivory tusks. Sliding mahogany pocket doors, a grand piano, double parlors, a butler's pantry, blue tobacco tins, a telephone closet, marble sinks, stained glass windows, worn banisters and treads, leather-clad binoculars, safari hats, folding accordion cameras, Tiffany lamps, a creaking back staircase, turrets, a black walnut grandfather's clock, books and the wonderful pungent aromas of pipe smoke, Narragansett Ale, leather mission chairs and large family meals.
Vladimir Nabokov once said that the purpose of storytelling is "to find in the objects around us, the fragrant tenderness that only posterity will discern and appreciate in far-off times." I would suggest that the objects are mere vehicles for invoking the sinewy threads of memory of our loved ones: That is the real treasure of such personal archeology.
For me, the memories of Jim sweep in effortlessly. Here was this widower in the winter of his life, who graciously opened his heart and his home to his extended family. In exchange for his intrepid generosity, he received the gift of ebullient and mirthful children scampering into his life and into his arms, at the age of 80. There was no greater treasure or adventure for Jim. Incongruous images abound: He could be seen squeezing into in an inflatable wading pool with three children or playing "Red Light" in the driveway with them in his seersucker suit and straw hat.
We moved after I had turned 5 to our own house in the suburbs. It was shortly thereafter that Jim fell ill. I remember the day that they brought me to see him with remarkable clarity. He was a thin, frail shadow of himself. The dimly lit room in the middle of the afternoon, the unfamiliar odors and an unseen hand guiding me slowly across a worn oak threshold: How many times had we crossed over that board and jumped into his waiting arms? Now, there was only a chill of foreboding. The blur of hushed voices and the awkward postures of nearby adults did little to inspire hope or to quell a spreading sense of apprehension. Even a 5-year-old child can recognize the irrefutable evidence of mortality, when it abruptly intrudes into the peace of a balmy summer day. That was the last time that I was to see "Uncle Jim."
It is and can never be anything else but blunt emotional trauma for a very young child to say goodbye to a dying elderly relative. It has the surprise, poignancy and unfairness of that first bee sting. Somehow, though, the daily effervescence of childhood dulls the enormity of the pain for the moment and suspends it for later contemplation.
That sting — that tiny sliver of sharing the final moments of a life well lived — of a widower who had unearthed an unfathomable love for children in the twilight of his days is an inviolate link to the past. One realizes that it is the tenderness of a loving heart and the realization of its loss, that tills the soil of the time and spawns the flowers of remembrance.
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Kevin W. Lawless is an attorney at law and a real estate broker in Newburyport.
