Seasons in the sun - or thoughts and memories of life

 

With sleet coming down from a winter grey sky, with bitter cold temperatures and wind chills, it may seem an odd time to reflect on the sun or seasons in the sun but I am.

There's an old adage that says happy the bride the sun shines on, blessed are the dead that the rain rains on but despite that folk wisdom, on a beautiful September day, when the sun shone and the sky was so blue, at the breakfast table that morning my Granny said, "I'm glad it's a pretty day. I'm glad it's not raining."

It was the day of my Uncle Roy's funeral in 1974.

By that stage in my life - I was twelve, soon to turn thirteen - I had said farewell to two great-grandmothers and my beloved grandfather, Pop. But my uncle wasn't really old, just fifty two so it was different as well as sad.

I think of him often, on February 4, his birthday, and especially in September, the month where he died and when I do, I think about a song that had been popular earlier that year, "Seasons In The Sun", by Terry Jacks.

It's a poignant song, perhaps a little heavy for the pre-teen girl that I was but I loved the song and after he passed, I wondered if he had felt similar emotions as he watched the world from his bedroom. Uncle Roy spent the last years of his life in a single room, after a double amputation of his legs. At first, I had shied away from going into that room but on the last time I saw him, he asked for me to share a few bits of family history with me and I went. I looked only at his familiar face and realized he was the same uncle despite the major physical changes.

I have never forgotten the song and still, on occasion, listen to it. This stanza has always stood out for me among the others:

"We had joy, we had fun

We had seasons in the sun

But the hills that we climbed

Were just seasons out of time."

The song has brought me comfort at times of loss, including as a widow.

Widowhood is like a new garment, one that doesn't quite fit and isn't quite right. I've found you have to wear it for a while to get used to it. Even then, like some worn out or ill-fitting shoes, it still occasionally brings moments of pain. Those often creep up unaware.

In the last months of my husband's life, he was at Seneca House because his health had deteriorated until he was also bedfast. He had a window, though, that looked out over a small line of trees and a patch of sky. And, as often as possible, when the weather was fair, we rolled his wheelchair out to the front porch.

I ran across a photo I'd snapped of him there, a good likeness, and shed a few secret tears. It's probably the last picture I ever took of him so I treasure it.

Those days on the porch were our last season in the sun together but at the time I didn't know that.

Another verse from the song says:

We had joy, we had fun

We had seasons in the sun

But the wine and the song

Like the seasons have all gone."

In the four years since his passing, my life has changed and continues to do so. In the earliest days of my widowhood, other widows told me to take baby steps. I have and at last, I make slow progress.

Our seasons together are gone and I accept that now. While I still mourn the loss of both husband and uncle, both named Roy, and many others, I embrace the seasons in the sun that remain for me.

 

Bloody Sunday remembered

 

 

 

 

Sunday January 30, 1972. Fifty-one years ago.  An event known as Bloody Sunday or the Bogside Massacre occurred when occupying British soldiers shot 26 unarmed citizens, all Catholic, during a protest march. Thirteen died immediately, another died later for a total of 14.  Some were shot trying to get away, some shot trying to help the wounded. Many were also wounded by shrapnel, rubber bullets, or batons. British Army vehicles ran over another two and some protestors were beaten.

The march – intended to be peaceful – had been a protest against internment without trial. The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association had organized the event.  The British soldiers were attached to the 1^st Battalion, Parachute Regiment and had been involved in the Ballymurphy massacre a few months before Bloody Sunday.

Two investigations were held – the first was The Widgery Tribunal which absolved both the British soldiers and British authorities of any blame. Although called a whitewash by many, the results stood.

In 1998, Lord Saville opened what's known as The Saville Inquiry. Although the report was not made public until 2010, the conclusions were that the murders were both unjustified and unjustifiable.

The event is one of the most well known during The Troubles and remains the largest mass shooting in Northern Ireland. It fueled anti-British sentiment and brought membership increases for both the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA)

Although I did not yet know the depth of my heritage, by my teens I had become an ardent supporter of Irish freedom, especially in the Six Counties. One of my great-great grandfathers slew an English lord and fled to America to avoid being hanged. On another branch of my family tree, a father and son were the sole survivors after the Great Hunger (The Famine of their large family. To the end of his life, the son would say, "Aye well if things get too dear, we can all eat grass" – because he had, to survive. My Granny said the same to the end of her life.

During my college years, I did a report and reading of Thomas Kinsella's poem, "Butcher's Dozen." If you're not familiar, look it up or listen to Donal O'Kelly's reading, done a year ago on the 50^th anniversary. He does it far better than I ever did.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bZfRb0aaso&ab_channel=MuseumofFreeDerry

 If you'd rather read it, you can do that here:  https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/events/bsunday/kinsella.htm

Be aware, it's raw and violent and harsh - and real.

As a reference what it was like in the United States in 1972, at the time of The Troubles and the escalation that was the result of Bloody Sunday, here's a brief look:

 

January 1972. I was ten years old and still lived in the same house where I'd lived all my life, an old brick home dating back to the late 1800's. My neighborhood was the center of my universe, with relatives within a few blocks. Although my beloved grandfather, my Pop, had died the year before, I still had a loving circle of family. I was in the fifth grade at Webster Elementary School, St. Joseph, Missouri, a huge brick building a few blocks east of the house.

This is how I looked in those days, knee socks and all.

 

 

January 30 was a Sunday but I have no major memories that pinpoint that exact day. There was most likely church followed by a Sunday dinner. In 1972 most Sundays Granny, now a widow, would come to eat with us. We had grown up with roast beef or fried chicken for Sunday dinner, maybe a good pork roast or ham but by then, my dad worked as a route salesman for Zidell Sales Company.  The money wasn’t as good as when he had worked for Swift And Company so our basic standard of living changed and so did what we ate.

Later my entire world would shift on its axis and on the very day school dismissed for the summer, we got word that my dad had been hired to work for the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) as a poultry inspector. Having spent his years at Swifts in the beef chiller, he had to be trained. Within days, he was sent to far Southwest Missouri for some hands on at a poultry plant, then on to Georgia to inspector school, then back to Missouri where we settled in a small town.

But my life on January 30, 1972 had not yet changed but around the world, in a cause that I would come to care very deeply about, everything changed.

 

 

I hear America singing....listen close!

This a reprise of a column written more than two years ago – now more than ever, our nation is troubled with rising prices (with no seeming end in sight), the haunting lingering threat of COVID and other diseases, unease and war in the world, weird weather, political division…the list seems endless. It seemed time to share these lines again.

In eleven short lines, poet Walt Whitman captured the spirit of a nation. His poem "I Hear America Singing" is part of his poetry volume, Leaves of Grass. The poem was first written before the Civil War and updated afterward with only minor changes. Although written more than a hundred and fifty years ago, the poem describes a nation of workers, each marching (or in this case singing) to their own beat.

Whitman describes a nation made up of varied people, each with their own song, as he writes "each singing what belongs to him or her and no one else".

In reading over the poem again, I was struck by the contrasts between our time and Whitman's.

I wondered whether or not America is singing. This year is a troubled time in our nation. Racial tensions, a Coronavirus pandemic, economy worries, destruction of statues and monuments, and a presidential election have the United States on edge. Are Americans singing? Right now it doesn't seem like they are. I hear a lot of voices but if most are singing, it's discordant. Too many songs have harsh notes. And many more aren't singing at all.

As a society, we probably don't sing as much as Americans did in the 19th century. We still have music, however, and maybe if we carried the ideas of this poem forward into the 21st century, it would be safe to say we hear America's music. We're singing along to the tunes.

Some of the occupations may sound a little outdated today. I don't know too many who call themselves a boatman or a woodcutter or a ploughboy. But still in the evenings, the young gather to sing - or hear - their songs.

Maybe it's time to start singing a new song - one of unity, not division, one of heritage and history, one of the nation we call home.

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,

Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,

The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,

Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,

The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,

The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,

The wood-cutter’s song, the ploughboy’s on his way in the morning, or at noon intermission or at sundown,

The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,

Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,

The day what belongs to the day—at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,

Singing with open mouths their strong melodious songs.

-Walt Whitman, "I Hear America Singing".