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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781466947429 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Trafford Publishing |
| Publication date: | 07/19/2012 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 467 KB |
Read an Excerpt
Seasons of the Tree
Legacy of a Treasured SoulBy Kristin Ottolino
Trafford Publishing
Copyright © 2012 Kristin OttolinoAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4669-4744-3
Chapter One
The Planting
NANA WAS KNEELING AT THE edge of the rock circle in my front yard. She was planting the flowers in the middle of the circle of rocks, her hands muddy from the freshly-dug black dirt, her hair disheveled. I couldn't help but notice the dirt on her face as she wiped her brow with the back of her muddy hand. The smudge looked so out of character on her, I couldn't help but chuckle. There was no point in telling her. With the task at hand, and the outside temperature, she was just going to do it again.
"This is it. This is the place I want to be buried when I die." Nana pointed downward with the trowel, directing my attention to the spot in the shade near the twisted branches of the Harry Lauder's Walking Stick dwarf tree that Nana and my father had once given to me as a gift. "Then," Nana said with a smile, "I will always be near you and you can come here to talk to me anytime you like."
Oh, the talks we used to have. In my youth, Nana was always my mentor, my "go to" person when I needed advice. Nana was important to me, too important to lose. Nana and I would have many delightful conversations throughout my lifetime. I haven't really been out there to speak to her very much since her death. I have to admit, I do feel a little guilty about that.
Nana was my favorite aunt. Nana had two siblings, a younger brother, and my mother who was the youngest of the three. Many years after my mother's divorce from my father, and with my mother's approval, Nana married my father. Nana and my father loved to come to my house to visit.
My house is surrounded by mature trees that must have taken generations to grow. Located in such a serene setting, there is a great deal of privacy. Nana really liked the property and loved helping me with the small tasks that seemed too huge for a city girl like me to tackle, especially if it involved bugs.
I tried sitting out there once after Nana died, for a one-sided chat. I sat on the rocks that edged the circle of pastel colored flowers, but just as when I tried my hand at planting flowers, there were too many pesky insects crawling around. They made me lose my train of thought. I couldn't get Nana's advice anyway, so I would just get depressed.
Those talks were just not as productive as they used to be. Because of that, I haven't been out there as much as I had originally thought. I do occasionally walk past the rock circle and say hello. Having Nana's ashes near me and all my wonderful memories of her seems quite enough.
I never thought about Nana dying. I guess I knew it was inevitable, but I refused to think about it. I don't know what I was thinking. I thought she would live forever. Having Nana in my life was just how things were meant to be. Nana was there when I was born and I assumed she would be there all of my life. I never pictured my life without Nana. What a wake-up call I had.
It seemed like some sort of cosmic joke when Nana died. It was surreal. I felt like I was watching a movie. This could not possibly be happening to her. Nana couldn't die, she was supposed to live forever. How could this happen? I was unprepared for it. We all get sick, but Nana always recovered after a bout with illness. Mentally, I had turned her into some type of super-hero. She was bulletproof. Nothing was ever going to happen to her. In my mind she was indestructible. That didn't work out so well for me.
Nana had a plethora of health problems. Nana was, after all, seventy-eight years old. Her health had been failing for a few years before her death and grew progressively worse towards the end. Nana had both kinds of arthritis, probably from living in a cold damp house in Michigan for years.
Nana had diabetes, tumors on her spine that made it painful for her to even sit in a chair, and a heart problem as well. It was difficult for Nana to walk and she suffered a lot because she refused to take the medicine that would stop the pain. Nana would say, "The medicines make me sleep too much, and if I try to stay awake, they make me groggy." This was not how Nana wanted to live out the rest of her days.
Drugged or in pain, those were Nana's choices at the end of her life. No matter how bad the pain, Nana would not complain, ever. She no longer had to live in pain, Nana was finally at peace. What happened after her death was nothing short of miraculous. I thought her death was the end. It wasn't.
* * *
I'll never forget the day Nana's ashes were delivered to my house. A courier came to my door. I was expecting Nana's ashes to arrive, but not like this.
I am a licensed nail technician and do client's nails out of my home. Sitting at my manicure table with one of my clients, my doorbell rang. Apologizing to my client for the interruption, I answered the front door.
The delivery man handed me a box that felt heavy for its size. I had no idea what it was, but thought I had ordered something from a catalog. The courier asked me to sign for the carton. This was the norm when mail ordering. Looking down at the clipboard, I saw the origin of the package. It was from the institute where my father and I sent Nana for the donation of her organs and cremation.
What a blow. I felt as though the air had been taken from my body. My knees were weak and I clung to the doorframe for a moment. I was cradling Nana in my arms. Not in a good way either. When I instructed the institute to ship the ashes to my house, I never dreamed of a delivery such as this. I suppose I anticipated a more formal ceremony to the presentation.
I needed to maintain my composure because my client was waiting for me. The courier simply smiled and said, "Have a good day!" The messenger was way too cheerful to have known what it was he had just delivered. Thanking him, I closed the door.
There I stood in my hallway with the remains of Nana. At a loss as what to do with the box of her ashes, my blood pressure elevated and I began to shake. I was overwhelmed, and to top it off, I had a dilemma. It would be inappropriate to walk the ashes into the family room, exposing my client to such impropriety. Still, it would have been wrong to leave the ashes in the hallway. After careful consideration, I gently placed the container in my dining room on the table, out of the line of sight of my day to day living area, and my client.
Returning to my manicure table, I sat down and looked at my client. She asked, "What was that?" I couldn't believe my response to her. I told her without thinking, "Nana came today". My client knew Nana had recently passed away and the puzzled look on her face made me realize how awkward my statement was. By way of explanation I said, "They just delivered Nana's ashes." Shocked at my first response, all my client said was, "Oh, okay." with a little crack in her voice.
* * *
I wasn't exactly sure how I'd feel about laying Nana to rest in my yard. The plan was to bury her ashes in the rock circle as she requested. I would plant flowers there, also by her request. However, I was concerned about the vibes I would get. It just felt creepy after her remains were shipped. I couldn't shake the malaise until I could get her buried. Having the ashes atop my dining room table was disturbing. There was a horrible guilt about feeling this way, still, it was creepy. Thankfully, unless it's a holiday, my seven year old daughter, Rio and I always ate in our kitchen.
With the ashes in the dining room, it was difficult walking in there, or even passing the ashes. It would send chills down my spine. I knew they were Nana's ashes, but the overwhelming sensation of death remained unnerving. I wondered if my feelings would be the same after laying Nana's ashes to rest in the rock circle.
The entire time Nana's ashes were in my house with my daughter and me, I felt a sense of urgency to get them buried in the rock circle. I had been wondering if I was unsettled because I knew the ashes didn't belong in the dining room, it just wasn't where Nana wanted them to be. The moment I laid the container in its proper place in the rock circle, I felt a tremendous weight lift off my shoulders. Strange as it sounds, it made me smile. I realized everything was going to be okay.
Nana's burial was nothing elaborate. Attending the intimate funeral were the four people closest to Nana when she died. There was my father, my close friend, Brian, Rio, and me.
The four of us walked out of the house, ashes in my arms, down the driveway to the rock circle, in the burial plot of Nana's choosing. In the shade of the dwarf tree, Brian had dug a square hole, perfectly sized to bury Nana, and deep enough to allow planting flowers above her.
Nana loved flowers, and fulfilling her wishes to be buried in the rock circle gave us all a sense of peace. We stood silently as I placed the receptacle into the ground. Because I didn't plan what I was going to say from there, I felt very lost. My emotional compass had been taken from me.
My father and I had spoken of where Nana would be buried, since she took a turn for the worse, but we never did determine what was to be said. The problem was to find an appropriate eulogy at the last minute. There was a long-deafening silence as my father and I looked at each other. I knew I had said to Nana everything needing to be said while she was still alive, and I thought to myself ... what remained to be said?
Deciding to keep it simple, I spoke first. I expressed how much I loved her, that I would always remember her, and that she would be missed. My father was not a man given to displays of emotion. His eyes welled with tears as he mumbled his final farewell. Then, I told Rio it was her turn. Rio simply said, "Goodbye." I put a flower on top of the box of Nana's ashes and Brian covered it with earth. Nana was at rest.
I felt like crying, but I knew Nana was out of pain. I knew even though she was gone, she wasn't in a remote cemetery with strangers surrounding her. Rather, she was right here with Rio and me. There was comfort in that knowledge. The pain of a traditional funeral was lessened because we had fulfilled Nana's wishes.
* * *
Nana never thought she was pretty, but I thought quite the opposite. She was very tall, which she said plagued her as a child, but she always looked statuesque to me. All her shoes had a little heel to them, which was ironic since she didn't like her height. Nana thought she had a large nose and she used to make fun of it. To me it looked just fine. Nana would make fun of herself and she took what she saw as flaws in stride.
Nana wasn't always thin, but as she aged, she became quite frail. She never had nice clothes until she began dating my father; he made sure that Nana could acquire whatever she wanted.
Like my grandmother, Nana had light features. Nana's complexion was normally quite pale, not sickly looking, rather, fair skinned. Nana would rarely lie in the sun that I can recall. Too busy to sit still long enough to actually get a tan, her skin was very soft.
There were crow's feet around Nana's blue-grey eyes, eyes that perpetually smiled, even if she didn't. That, I believe, was from her smiling so much over the last twenty years of her life. Thankfully, her past didn't take the toll on her face that it could have.
Nana's thin lips were always enhanced by the shade of lipstick that best matched the outfit she wore. She had strong fingernails, the kind I never inherited. She was meticulous about her hair. Styled perfectly, she was blonde, but over the years her hair became a beautiful blondish-white color, although it was thinning a bit as she aged. She used to like to go to the beauty parlor to get her hair done. Kept short, she added curl to it with an occasional permanent. Nana took great pains to keep her hair perfectly in place. It invariably made her feel good.
The big crystal pins Nana wore, with long necklaces, always matched her outfits. With a strong fashion sense, she used color well, and received many compliments. Her clothes were neatly pressed and well-styled. The best attribute of my Nana was that she was as beautiful on the inside as she was on the outside. It's hard to find a lady as special as Nana.
* * *
I found out a lot more about Nana after her death than I knew when she was alive. Nana never spoke much about her past, but following her death, I ran across a journal Nana had given to Rio. It triggered quite a few memories for me. I was elated Nana had left her memoirs for my daughter.
When Rio was born, I went to the bookstore and picked up a Grandmother's Journal. I asked Nana to please fill in the blanks of the journal for Rio. Nana completed it, but it took her five years. Nana completed it two years before her death in 2009. Words cannot describe how incredibly special that journal was for Rio, not immediately, because at that time, Rio had the understanding of a five year old child. However, two years later, following her Nana's death, the journal took on new meaning for my daughter.
Reading through the journal, I found out my hopes for my daughter had come to fruition. When asked what the best thing about being Rio's grandmother was, Nana wrote: "The pride I have for you. You are so beautiful. The joy that fills my heart just thinking of you makes me smile. We have so much fun, our little talks, & our hugs, you snuggling with me. Your love—Our love for each other—Even when you're being a little creep." Nana used to call Rio her "little creep" in fun all the time. I was so elated to find out Nana and my daughter had the same kind of talks as I did with Nana when I was a child.
Just hours after Rio was born, Nana held her for the first time and I thought how wonderful this was; Rio will be a very lucky little girl to have Nana in her life. As Nana held her for that first time, Nana smiled at me, and I will never forget that joyful smile ... ever. When the journal asked about what Nana felt the first time she held her grandchild, Nana said: "So happy. I was hoping for a little girl & your mommy made me very happy. Love-I felt love for you."
Rio became the love of Nana's life just as Rio is the love of mine. Rio is a sweet and sensitive little girl. That is my father's influence in her. Rio has a big heart and is very creative. She takes after her Nana in that regard. Rio has blonde hair. Her blue-grey eyes mimic Nana's. Rio's eyes are almond-shaped, in that, she resembles me.
My daughter is a thinker, taking after my grandfather. Her facial features are petite like the rest of her. My childhood pictures look very much like Rio's except mine had darker hair. Rio is tiny, but by no means fragile. She is a tough cookie when she needs to be. Rio is bold and has no problem telling you what's on her mind, yet she can be very loving. I believe that is my mother in her.
Although I am not religious, I have a sound moral code. I have taught it to Rio. My code is: "Never tell a lie, never steal, and never hurt anyone on purpose. However, if anyone does any of these three things to me, all bets are off." Rio understands my household's moral code of standards clearly and lives by them as I do. She is like an adult in a child's body, an "old soul" Nana always said. Rio's passion for dance has been apparent to us since she was old enough to walk. Nana loved to watch her dance. Rio feels so free when she dances, so vibrant, she loves dance, and it shows. Rio also loves animals, dogs and horses in particular, but she is truly a lover of life. Rio is so full of life, and oh, how she loved her Nana! Nana wrote this about Rio: "There are a lot of things I admire about you, your beauty, you are a thinker, you're smart, & you are a well rounded little munchkin full of love. You achieve success in what you do, dancing, singing, being an actress, getting top grades in school. Everyone loves Rio—teachers, friends, adults. I believe you could do anything you want to do if you want it bad enough."
Rio loves my father and he is wildly in love with her. I believe she gives him a reason to continue living. Rio is his only grandchild, as I am his only child. My father once told me, "I wasn't around much when you were growing up, but I'm going to make it up to you with your daughter". Without fail, he has. He looks forward to picking Rio up from school three days a week. I believe it makes him feel needed.
My father's eyes are hazel and he wears glasses. His hair is thinning. The little hair he has left adorns the sides of his head. The grey gives him a look of wisdom, not age ... at least not to me. Not as tall as Nana was, my father is taller than I am. He is in his upper seventies. He is filled with the zest for life. He is mild-mannered and well kept. He neatly presses his clothes, showers, and shaves, even for something as small as a run to the store. It is an old military habit that he has never lost over the years.
My father is a man of great character and high standards. The best word to sum up my father would be; honorable. I am proud of my father. He's a veteran of the Korean War, earning the rank of Staff Sergeant in the United States Army. He has a medal for being a sharp-shooter.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Seasons of the Tree by Kristin Ottolino Copyright © 2012 by Kristin Ottolino. Excerpted by permission of Trafford Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Introduction....................xiAcknowledgements....................xiii
Dedication....................vii
Prologue....................xix
Chapter I — The Planting....................1
Chapter II — Sapling Frost....................12
Chapter III — A Time of Weeding....................17
Chapter IV — In Full Bloom....................39
Chapter V — Wilting Foliage....................55
Chapter VI — Strong Winds....................60
Chapter VII — Leaves Descend....................69
Chapter VIII — Long Winter....................76
Chapter IX — Branches Bare....................89
Chapter X — Sprouting Buds....................93
About the Author....................03