Where Geese Become Swans -

A YEAR AT BROOK HOLLOW FARM

 

by Julia Ryan Meservy

 

Dedication

 

Dedicated to the memory

of my mother

Priscilla Ryan

and to my father

Paul Ryan

who gave all of their children

the greatest gift any parent

could bestow upon a child.

They loved each other.

...........................................

 

Remembering Mama

 

The cycle of life is nowhere more apparent than on a farm. Our children witness life's end and renewal as a matter of course in the barns and in the garden. This past week, however, that unspoken acceptance of a life's inevitable end was shaken by the news of my mother's death.

 

I have so many memories of a mother who was always there. A mother who insisted that a child be a child unhampered by anything from the adult world. Childhood was a precious time, a time to be sheltered from the world's darker side. She loved to hear us laugh.

 

My mother always had time. Time to make homemade dresses, time to bake cookies so they were waiting fresh and warm when we came home from school. And always time to play.

 

I remember being not quite five and feeling left behind when everyone left for school. My mother would see the others off, then take me by the hand and together we would climb aboard the old green lawn swing and travel to exotic places. "Where shall we go today?" she'd ask. I always chose the North Pole. So off we'd go, swinging faster and faster, passing icebergs and walruses. Our white dog, Porky, was instantly transformed into a polar bear when he happened across the lawn, and we!d have to swing even faster to make our escape.

 

My mother never drove - she never got a license. During school holidays, while my father was at work, she'd take us children on the bus to Boston. I especially remember Christmas. Every year, we'd go to see the mechanical figures in the windows of Jordan Marsh then she'd take us to one of those commissaries for lunch. It was an amazing place where you put coins into a slot and opened a little window to retrieve a sandwich or a bowl of soup. I remember getting a Waldorf salad one time and feeling that we were very rich indeed.

 

But most of all, I remember home, a home so strong and safe with two parents who were in every sense a team. Their love and devotion to each other were so strong that, even as a child, I recognized it.

 

Shortly after I heard the news of her death, I stood looking out my kitchen window, I looked over the pond, past the ducks and geese flapping and splashing happily about and my eyes fastened on the woods beyond. I felt an overwhelming urge to be there, to feel the soft earth beneath my feet and smell the earthy dampness scented with pine and spruce. I needed to hear the brook chuckling along its way and to listen to the unseen birds chattering high in the treetops.

 

It's not surprising that I should be drawn to the woods while thinking about my mother. She loved the woods and many a long walk we took there as a family - we children tagging along after my parents. I could tell even then that they were transported in time. As my father held aside a branch for my mother, I knew it was his eighteen-year-old sweetheart stepping carefully through the briars. My mother told wonderful stories of meeting my father in the woods and of their young romance - wonderful memories of the truest of loves.

 

My mother was a talented and avid gardener. She and my father spent every good day in their gardens with occasional breaks for tea under the ancient oak tree in the backyard. On the rare occasions when we were able to leave the farm for a day to visit them, we'd return home with loads of gorgeous flowers from their gardens. All this past winter, my mother longed for spring. "Oh, this nasty weather!" she'd scold during our phone conversations.

 

It seems cruel to me that she should die on a beautiful spring morning - yet it was that springtime day that showed me how to tell my children of their Gramma's death.

 

While I was still reeling with the initial shock, both kids came running through the front doorway, spilling sunshine all over the hall. "Mama, come and see - hurry!" they shouted, their faces flushed with excitement. I followed them out to the doorstep. They reached down and parted the branches of a rhododendron and there, beneath it, was a splendid purple crocus - the very first thing to bloom this spring. It had been hidden there, unnoticed, until the children found it.

 

Later, when I finally broke the news to them, I used that discovery to soften the blow. I asked them to remember how much their Gramma had loved flowers, then told them that now she was in Heaven and, while she was looking down watching them play, she had noticed the little crocus trying so hard to be seen and admired as the first flower of spring. So she whispered into their ears to go peek under the bush.

 

"Show me how she whispered," breathed our four-year-old. I leaned down and said softly into her ear, "Julianna, go and look under the bush by the front door."

 

A look of wonder lit my daughter's face, and I felt a warm, tingly rush from my head to my toes. I realized that my mother is still here. I see her every day in my children. I hear her sweet voice and see her cheery smile. I see her stubbornness and her sense of fair play. I witness her strength and determination and her courage.

 

I thought of the story I had just told my children. Suddenly, my adult skepticism was swept away, and I knew in my heart that it had really happened. My mother, who touched so many lives in her 77 years, really had whispered to them that day, helping them welcome spring. I believe she will continue to guide them - and all of us who loved her - for the rest of our lives.

 

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