Judith thinks of marriage for the first time

This is me back in the days when the world was a mystery and all I knew of it was a small part of Lewiston, Maine. Even the other side of our block was a marvel to me when my two sisters took me for a walk to see the chestnut trees in bloom, lining and arching the street in flowery splendor.

We lived on Vail Street, in the bottom half of a two-family Victorian house. I remember a lot of that home, and when I was seventeen accidentally saw it again when I was invited to a party. We were father, my mother, two half sisters, me and a baby sister back then. I have a string of memories, like album pages that don’t connect, but that are things that impressed me in some way unforgettable. I remember walking with someone and at the corner of our street we met a neighbor walking Scotties. I remember eating too many chocolate covered cherries at one Christmas and hiding under the dining room table and being sick. I remember using my mother’s beaded felt hat to dip water from the toilet bowl to water the garden plants. I remember going Christmas shopping with my mother and longing for “The Littlest Angel” but I don’t remember having my picture taken that day sitting on Santa’s lap– the picture exists. I got the book for Christmas.

Things were changing everywhere post-war, but not as fast as people think who weren’t alive then. My mother was on a waiting list to get an electric refrigerator, but we didn’t get one until we had moved away from Lewiston. So in Lewiston I remember the big kids chasing the ice man’s truck and getting big shards of ice to suck on and I remember one of my sisters getting one for me. I also remember my uncle coming in from his farm with vegetables and honey in the comb, which everyone liked but me. I still hate it.

I have such memories of those sisters. They were eight and ten years older than I, and fascinating to me. They walked off into the world I didn’t know, had friends I never saw and could go, I believed, anywhere they liked. I am sure that wasn’t true. I don’t remember that they were ever angry with me, or mean to me, or that they ever called me a spoiled brat. From this point in my life that seems impossible, but if it ever happened I don’t remember it. I loved them absolutely and thought they were the two most wonderful people in the world. The eldest is still alive and I still think that of her. I have had plenty of time to think about it but have never changed my mind. The younger died at thirty-nine of a brain aneurysm after a troubled life.

It is her dress that I am wearing in this portrait. Both girls took First Communion after joining us when my parents married and set up a home together. I’m sure this ceremony was a mystery also to my non-Catholic mother and that my father’s sisters must have helped her figure out what to do. I know that she made their dresses and veils. I can’t ask my mother, because she has Alzheimer’s disease and can’t remember those times. Maybe I’ll ask my eldest sister.

Why did I think they were getting married? I surely didn’t know what that meant. How did I know what wedding dresses looked like? I don’t recall. But they dressed me in her gown and veil and they took my photograph and the first time I saw it as a more-or-less adult I remembered that it was the first time I considered marriage.

Of course I remember some ugly things from those years too. Autobiography is self-editing. You get to hear what I feel like telling.

The thing is that a lot of what I know about love I learned from those sisters. As I struggled through the ensuing years, my eldest sister was my beacon. I couldn’t grow up to be her, but for a long time I tried to. We don’t look alike, think alike or live like each other, but the love I have for her is so pure and uncomplicated that it serves as a standard for how to love. It’s what I try to offer the younger siblings in my family. It’s what I give my child.

Remember, the children are watching. Someone is learning about love from us– you and me.

Thank you, Freddy.