Explanation of Yesterday's Four Things Post

Michelle Melania was curious about the entry under Four Place I would rather be, and my response: Clearwater Inn, Lake Sunapee, NH, August 1962.

This is a reference to my childhood. A few years before I was born, my parents bought a little rustic country inn named Clearwater Inn, on the banks of beautiful Lake Sunapee, NH. Lake Sunapee is an alpine, spring-fed lake, and at the time, it was also a Class A reservoir, meaning the water was fit for drinking straight from the lake. In fact, many summer people had a pipe that went to the lake and that's exactly what they did!

Our inn was open only in the warm weather, from Memorial Day weekend through the autumn leaf tours in October. My mom's health would not permit her to spend the winter there in NH where the ice on the lake gets to be at least six feet thick - so thick that they drive the salt or sand trucks right over the lake! My Dad used to call NH "Lower Slobbovia" because it was so cold and so very snowy (that's a reference to Lil Abner comic strip for those of you younger than 50).

The inn was right on the water - I joke around that if I fell out of bed I went splash, and that is *almost* true. We had large dock which was set on rocks and cement, but even with that, the ice floes would take half the dock away every single year. The lake is ringed with mountains, most notably Mount Sunapee, with its ski runs clearly visible during the summer, and the camelbacked Mount Kearsarge. In the autumn, the mounts are ablaze with bright reds and yellows and oranges - there is nothing, absolutely nothing like a New England fall. Anyway, the water at the end of our boathouse was 12 feet deep, and at the end of our dock was 25 feet deep, but few of our guests believed that it was so deep because the water was so clear that you could see individual grains of sand. There were many, many times, when a guest would lean over the edge expressing surprise at the depth, and would lose his glasses. Guess who had to dive to retreive them? Me, of course!

Growing up in Sunapee, I actually learned to swim before I really walked much. I was a late walker and a very early swimmer. My Dad made me wear a life jacket, which we called a Mae West for ahem.... obvious reasons. I used to sleep in my bathing suit and put my mae west on the minute I woke up, and then jump in the water off the end of the dock. My mom would call me out of the water for all three meals, and eventually for bed. I'd take my mae west off and hang on the special hook outside the back door so that it could dry for the next day, but it never dried completely. I remember when I was four, almost five, I was swimming around and it was hard to make it back to the end of the dock. One of the guests noticed that I was have a little difficulty, and called my Dad, who used one of his extra long fishing poles for me to hold onto and he pulled me to the dock. When he picked me up out of the water, I remember him making an "oooof" sound and he took my mae west off. It weighed about double what I did because it was waterlogged. He muttered something in French which I was sure at the time was very bad. I was right. Then he asked me if I could swim without the life preserver and to show him. I did all kinds of tricks in the water, dove off the end of the dock, swam underwater, and finally he said I didn't have to wear a life preserver anymore. I felt so light!

In 1962, I was six, almost seven. I had completed first grade, which was a wonderful experience and I couldn't wait to go to school in September. My Mother wasn't feeling very well much of the time because of her heart condition, and my cousins were working for us as waitress/chambermaids to take a lot of the load off of her shoulders. Mom ended up having her first open heart surgery that winter. My grandmother worked for us as well, cooking the evening meal and running the giant ironer. And just plain being HER. An earthmother that everyone loved, just as my mom was an earthmother type as well. I didn't understand how sick my mother was at that point in my life.

This was before John Kennedy was shot, before my mother's first open heart surgery, before Viet Nam's body counts were on the evening news at dinner time, before the world became crazy and cynical.

In June of 1962, my grandfather, Vincenzo Cieri, died of a massive heart attack. I saw him a few minutes before he died, but my family shielded me from death and I just didn't understand. In my mind, he had gone on a trip, and one of these days, I'd look out my kitchen window and see him quickly striding so purposefully down the street, with his magical "finds" from the woods or the market in his hands. He'd smile and wave his cane at me and continue down the half-block to B St where the Catalano family mother ship still is. I didn't understand about death then.

That August 15th, in 1962, I remember that after the dinner service, my grandmother (who couldn't swim), together with my Mom, and my cousins Ethel, Roseanne and Kathy, all walked out of the back kitchen door, down the little wooded pathway to the wooden steps leading to the water, and alked right into the water in their white uniforms! Shoes and all! Grammie said that in Italy, you *always* submerse yourself in water on Assumption, and they were all hot and sweaty, and it just seemed like a good thing to do. It was hilarious - the guests were hanging over the railing on the wide verandah and laughing.

Life was good.

I'm 52 years old now. Life has been hard, but no harder than anyone else's life. We all have our difficult times, our tragedies, our losses, our pain. My grandmother, Josephine Catalano Cieri, died in 1970. My mother, Beatrice Elena Cieri Babineau, died in 2005. Kathy (Kathleen Cieri Perry) died in 2006. Ethel and Roseanne are still feisty, but both are long widowed - I talked with both of them last night. My Dad, Edmour Joseph Babineau, suffers from Alzheimers and has been in a nursing home since 2005, he hasn't known me for a long time.

I miss them all, every day, and others besides. Sometimes I think back to that summer, before II truly understood fear of losing people you love. When my Mom had her surgery, I remember my Auntie Anna helping her get changed into her jammies after she came home from the hospital. I was so happy to see my mom and a few weeks in the hospital. Auntie was helping Mom, and my grandmother was there. I saw the huge red scar that went from the middle of her back, around her "wing", under the arm, and under her left breast, ending in the center of her chest. Auntie started counting the stitches. Grammie had tears running down her cheeks, as did Auntie Anna. Auntie Nettie left the room. When she got to around 70, and wasn't even halfway there, Auntie had to stop because she was too upset. Later, I crawled into Grammies lap and asked her why everyone was so upset. We should be happy because Mama was home! Grammie explained to me that my Mama was her little girl, and she had almost lost her, her baby, and being separated from the people you love best is the most awful thing in the world. I got it. From that point forward, I began to understand about separation and loss and death, and I began to be afraid that my Mom would die. Every day, through every cardiac arrest, every hospitalization, every fibrillation episode, every fainting spell, I would think to myself, is this the day that my mother would die? I understood that just as my grandfather had died, my most beloved grandmother would die too, as would my aunties and everyone else that I loved. I wasn't a child anymore.

But in August of 1962, I was carefree, spending the summer in a beautiful place that I loved, with all the people I loved best in the world. I swam like a fish, learned to water ski with Skippy Lyons, played intricate games of make believe (in the water, of course) and chinese checkers with Lore Browner, spent lots of time with my Aunties across the lake at Blodgett's Landing in the old cottage that my Grammie owned.

Life was good. I miss them. I miss that innocence. I miss that place and those people.

So, that's what that entry is all about.