| GRAY MATTERS ISSUE |
A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they can never hope to sit. —Greek Proverb
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father yelling from the living room, already watching his favorite show. She’ll eat when she’s hungry. They were not giants outside of time, I will learn later—my father, barely fivefoot-six; my mother, five-two. Sister Paula, our principal, just under five feet. The little generals of my childhood. By the time of this photo, they’ve baptized me unwittingly, initiated me into confession and penance, and now brought me through communion. They’ve broken the bad news in increments. Second grade, and even the pope agrees, I have reached the age of reason. I am coming to realize the snare of mortality—to be born into life without consent and with no good alternative for how to exit. None of this is reasonable. They are all gone now, except my mother, eroded off the edge of a disappearing hillside. The nuns to nunretirement and nun-nursing homes where we would learn, one-by-one, the news of their deaths. No one, not even Jesus, to save them. And my father, gone off the edge of a cliff, never to be heard from again.
Watercolor art by Thomas Rice.
T
hey loom over us like sequoias, our parents. In my first holy communion photos, they flank me, grave and unsmiling in formal black clothes—my father’s wool suit, my mother’s boucle skirt, long gloves, and short jacket. Her lips a bright smear of red. Nuns surround me in the other photos—Sister Jacinta, Sister Paula, my prison guards—their white coifs pulled tight around foreheads, dark tunics heavy and flowing to the floor, drawn tight at the waist by rosary beads. I am the sapling between them in a white dress, white tights, shoes, and a lace veil with a chaplet of flowers crowning my head. My face looks thin and drawn, stricken even. Dark circles under my eyes, the celebrant not celebrating. Have I drunk too deeply of the communion wine? No, by this age I have sampled Grandpa’s rhubarb wine and wedding whiskey. I know the swirl. Have I misunderstood the lessons of transubstantiation, taken too seriously the metaphor of eating the body of Christ? I hate meat. Our dairy cows and their calves are my friends, as are the dogs, cats, and chickens. Sitting too long at the kitchen table has become my nightly ritual, moving steak around on the plate, obscuring it under mashed potatoes and green beans. My mother’s despairing calls from the kitchen that I am too frail. My
