My parents met in 1953 at the Garden House Hotel in Hurleyville, NY, where they were both employed for the summer. My father was a program director/performer in charge of entertainment. My mom, who’d done everything she could to get out of spending the whole summer in the Catskills away from her friends in the Bronx, had been hired to tend to visiting kids. (My grandmother knew the proprietor; Mom’s quest to ditch the job was doomed from the start.)
It was “like-at-first-sight” between them, but nothing more. Their roomies were the love-birds, falling so hard for each other that one or the other of my parents found themselves locked out of their room on a nightly basis, forced to spend much of the evening waiting for re-entry outside on the playground swings. My parents began keeping each other company, talking late into the night until the door to the room unlatched and they could finally turn in. Soon, friendship blossomed into something more. My sibs and I grew up hearing stories about how Dad, a vocalist, would serenade Mom out there in the summer evening. By the time the season ended, my parents had not only a relationship that flourished despite a Brooklyn-Bronx subway commute, but a song to call their own: the jazz standard “Autumn Leaves,” which my multi-lingual father sang to my mom in both French and English.
My parents married in mid-September 1954, a week after my mother turned nineteen. Their anniversary and Mom’s birthday became two of the September celebrations and new beginnings I looked forward to each year. In addition to those two events, there was a fresh school year and the start of autumn. From there it was a short hop to Halloween, Thanksgiving, and the winter holidays. September launched a happy time that I could ride straight through our household’s February birthdays, making it one of my favorite months of the year.
That’s changed a little over time. Both of my parents passed away in September, my father at the beginning of the month, my mother nine years later at the end. These days, September can be something of an emotional landmine, although it remains as jam-packed with memories and new possibilities as it ever was.
I write a lot about change, because it’s inevitable. No matter how much we wish otherwise, nothing stays the same. We don’t get too many choices in the matter. Usually, we can either cling tightly to what no longer exists or do our best to continue in a changed reality.
My mom passed away after a slow, obvious decline. Her final week with us was a hard goodbye, knowing what was coming but not sure when it might arrive. By the time the funeral and life celebration were over, we were exhausted. While driving my daughter back to college in central New York, I reached into one of my car compartments to blindly pull a CD from the stash kept there. Although I thought I knew every CD in the pile, the one I selected from the middle of the stack was unfamiliar. I inserted the mystery CD and pressed “Play.””Autumn Leaves” filled the car.
Maybe I could find an explanation if I tried. The CD turned out to be the playlist a friend had compiled for the gathering following my father’s funeral nine years earlier. Still, I can’t explain how it got into my car, nor do I know how it remained undetected through two long cross-country road trips, nearly eight years of college dorm/apartment hauls, several trips to and from Chicago, and a few drives to Canada. It’s also unclear why out of the more than twenty CDs in that compartment, that’s the one I randomly chose.
Fact is, I don’t care if there’s a “logical” explanation. I welcome all reminders that no matter how many changes life throws us, love remains eternal.
As strains of “Autumn Leaves” enveloped us, my parents were out on the swings again that first summer, laying the foundation for a lifetime they didn’t know they’d share. And, on the other end of that journey, “their” song let me know that they were together again.
Beautiful story, and beautifully written! Very heartwarming reminder to cherish our past, love the present and look forward to all that life’s future may bring. Salute,
Ben
I wish I had, over the years, kept a record of every strange “coincidence ” in my life like your CD selection. My experience is that others are quick to brush it off as coincidence. As for me, I think not. So, is someone or something trying to tell us something? Often my response to such experiences is that they are unnaturally strange, and even provoke a sense of wonder. But I generally don’t know what they mean. I did have one such experience that was absolutely clear and convincing proof to me that God was asking me to do something. But that’s a story for another day.
Your reminiscence exquisitely intertwined life’s tragedy and beauty in such a tender way.
Given how special both your parents were, Jill, nothing about that ‘random’ CD pick surprises me.
p.s. slight further coincidence: ‘Autumn Leaves’ is a standard my neighbour Rob and I almost always get round to in our odd jams.
My last conversation with your mom was at her hospital bedside. She had just spoken with the rabbi and I think the rabbi had stepped out to talk to you so I sat by her bed to keep her company. She looked at me and said “this sucks.” I asked “because you want to know the rest of the story?” And she nodded yes. She wanted to know how all of your lives would unfold, especially the kids, and her singular regret was that she wouldn’t be around for the rest of the story.
Ben, I appreciate you posting such good advice. I don’t think we can ever have too many reminders of this. (And thank you for your kind words!)
Joe, I would love to hear that “story for another day.”
I don’t think there are too many coincidences out there, either. I like living without boundaries between realities, but it’s hard to do when we rely so much on our five senses to navigate our world. It makes it hard to believe or trust an event that arrives without a logical explanation. I appreciate clear and convincing events like the one you had. I suspect we’d have more of them if we could just silence the doubt that inevitably pours in when something seems out of the ordinary.
Thank you for this, Joe.
Robert, my siblings experienced their own unexplainable events that day, but I’ll leave that for them to tell.
Robert, there’s a reason these songs are “standards”!
Nancy, Mom always said that she could never leave for just that reason — she always wanted to know the rest of the story. She still pops in now and then, sometimes so vividly that I say, “hi.” But of COURSE she does!
Oh, this is so, so lovely.
Thanks for this, Kristina. I’m glad it spoke to you.