Cousins

All Poems, Change, Cousins, Electronics, Emotions, Family, Stories, Weddings

Waiting for the Call

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I started waiting for the call at three.

The first part of the time frame established.

Earlier in the week.

Saturday, between three and five.

I texted, asking if he was ready to talk.

No answer.

So, I continued working on my laptop.

Till Bob suggested a walk.

I guess he forgot, I lamented.

As we spun around the neighborhood.

Upon return, WhatsApp tinged.

Asking pardon for not calling.

He was at the gym.

Forgot his phone.

Can I call soon? he typed.

Very soon, I replied. We’ll be eating in half an hour.

Two minutes, flashed the reply.

In two, the cell rang.

My young cousin from Santiago.

Whom we hosted seventeen years ago.

So he could attend high school in Upper Dublin.

Learn English, see some sites.

Philadelphia, Baltimore, DC, Boston.

Now telling me his wedding date.

Could we come to Chile?

And, maybe in two years, we could meet in New York.

He and his wife, coming to the US for a month in Spring, 2026.

It was a conversation full of details, news.

Lots of catch-up.

Family, career, life in general.

Did I mention?  It was all in Spanish.

Soft tones of Santiago.

Not the jarring sh sounds of Buenos Aires.

Martín doesn’t yet speak English.

I did my best, listening, responding.

In my rusty Spanish.

I think I got the gist.

The important information.

The sense of being remembered.

Not mislaid in life’s press.

Joy of reconnection.

Soul-warming blessedness.

 

Lynn Benjamin

June 9, 2024

Aging, All Poems, Change, Cousins, Emotions, Family, Gardens, Health/Illness, Loss, Regret, Stories

Sitting with Libby

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I’m glad we went to see Libby today, said Bob.

Bustling around the kitchen.

Reflecting on the afternoon.

I’m glad we visited, too.

A chance to sit outside with her.

Under Japanese lilacs.

Perfuming breezes.

Sneaking through open doors to sweeten corridors.

In the residence where she now resided.

It was peaceful.

Not a word about politics.

Conviction of Trump.

Just being together in the garden.

Three of us, alone.

Talking about her soon-to-be ninety-first birthday.

Her new great grandson.

Mention of him filling her eyes with tears.

Scrolling photos on her phone.

Stopping at azaleas outside her former home.

Pictures, she requested from her son.

Still living there.

Blooming bushes, a place, a season she misses.

Trading them for needed care.

Knowing the choice, right.

But wistful for what she left behind.

We sat in shade.

Just present with each other.

I, commenting on her pink nails, short haircut.

Simple, unhurried conversation.

Plying her about my maternal grandparents.

Her aunt and uncle.

Whom she knew growing up.

But who didn’t survive past my second year.

She, the last link in the family to remember them.

My turn to feel melancholy.

Not getting to know them.

I wish my parents told me more.

Or maybe I hadn’t heard.

Tenuous my history.

Who’s left to pass on the word?

 

Lynn Benjamin

June 1, 2024

Adolescence, All Poems, Change, Cousins, Emotions, Family, Memories, Regret, Wisdom

Then and Now

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That was then, this is now, said my ninety-year-old cousin to me.

At her baby brother’s eightieth birthday party.

The then, my adolescent behavior at her parents’ overnight camp.

Fussing, crying to leave.

Return home.

To play according to my own whims.

Out of step with community activities.

The now, over sixty years later.

Still taunting me.

In the presence of this family.

Wanting to erase this episode.

Delete it like a paragraph in a Word document.

Wishing I could have blended in.

Enjoyed my time away.

Instead of resisting.

Causing a stir.

But, Selma’s words gave me pause.

Perhaps it’s I, not they, making much of it.

Indeed, time to let it go.

Like all things parted with on downsizing.

The now has no space for regrets.

For childhood embarrassments.

Only for compassion, kindness.

Exhorted by a matriarch.

Able to shrink humiliation

with one simple sage remark.

Lynn Benjamin

May 8, 2024

All Poems, Birthdays, Cousins, Friendship, Homages, Prose/memoir, Thank-You

Lessons from My Cousin (To Aaron on your 80th)

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Aaron, do you know how much you’ve taught me?

Giving me lessons for many of your eighty years?

Twenty-nine thousand, two hundred twenty days?

My cousin from the country.

Only son of Cel and Lee.

Brother to three sisters.

Husband, father.

Only five years older than I.

Though, when small, age gap, enormous.

You, a strapping teen.

While I, a child.

Through the years, you instructed me.

First, at camp, to float.

A feat failed by others.

Only accomplished by you.

Because I trusted you.

Then continuing to educate me from a distance.

Mentoring from afar.

Transmitting lessons.

How a gentle man acts.

Relates to family, wife, girls.

Values engagement.

With relatives, friends, colleagues.

Stays in touch.

Purveys news.

Displays curiosity about roots.

Takes time to make a genealogy.

Invites others to contribute.

Updating, sharing it.

Writes a memoir.

So others can understand.

Your background, context.

Offering a peek into you early life on the farm, at camp.

Honors the nation.

Making it a goal to visit each state in the union.

While your children, young.

Admires other cultures, customs, mores.

Seeking adventures in many countries.

Makes friends everywhere.

Recognizes limitations.

Still travels, though alternating two destinations.

Keeps physically fit.

Participating in, organizing golf tournaments.

Aaron, teacher, historian, athlete, family man.

Kind, honorable, thoughtful.

Our age gap has diminished,

though I’m still five years behind.

Your many worthy lessons

enlighten, guide my mind.

 

With lots of love,

Your cousin, Lynn

May 5, 2024

Aging, All Poems, Cousins, Family, Friendship, Stories, Time

What Could Rejuvenate More?

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What could rejuvenate more than meeting with cousin/friends?

Who invited you to join them?

Catch up over dinner?

Then to a movie.

Perfect combination of socializing, analyzing.

On an April evening beyond compare.

So, we agreed.

Tackling old topics.

Jumping into new ones.

Plumbing unexplored depths.

Like teens chatting the night away.

Not pausing to take a breath.

Quick, animated, with gusto.

Halting when the film started.

Resuming on the sidewalk after.

Even though not possible to finish.

Having to text and email into the next day.

Very simply, too much to say.

Time raced ahead, invisible,

leaving four of us behind.

Perhaps sending a strong message

meant to penetrate, remind.

Rejuvenation,

a sensation in the mind.

For time travels one direction only

to which all of us, destined.

If feeling youthful for an evening,

old age we undermine,

then even for an instant,

let the clock rewind!

 

Lynn Benjamin

April 27, 2024

All Poems, Cousins, Death, Family, Health/Illness, Humor, Loss

Gallows Humor

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I was introduced to gallows humor in high school.

Alas, poor Yorick…, said Hamlet.

Holding his jester’s skull.

But, dark humor upset me.

When, Bob and other med students used it.

Which, they did, many times.

Laughing instead of crying over tragic events.

Encountered so regularly, they’d be in despair.

Without anxious chuckling.

But, only now, as I age, do I, too, engage.

As I, with others, approach expected unknowns.

Illness, accident, death.

I listen with new ears.

When my older cousin laments.

She, the last survivor of all her friends.

Talking about her pulled tooth.

Which procedure to fill the hole?

Bridge, partial, implant?

She’d have the priciest mouth in the burial park

choosing implant at ninety-one.

Should I laugh or weep at her musings

as she concocts macabre fun?

 

Lynn Benjamin

March 13, 2024

 

 

 

Aging, All Poems, Cousins, Death, Family, Loss, Time, Wisdom

Excellent Visit

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It was an excellent visit.

With my ninety-year old cousin.

At her Assisted Living Residence.

Where she maneuvered a walker.

To a seating area by a window.

With white wicker chairs.

A place to converse.

Catch up on goings-on.

Her children, grandchildren, mine.

Her first great-grandson.

Her sister, my siblings.

Discuss trips, past and present.

Her grandson’s visit to London.

To see the Harry Potter village.

The same month she and her late husband used to go.

It was, indeed, a pleasant meeting.

With smiles surpassing sound.

Till she said with wistful eyes

all her friends lie in the ground.

She has always been a magnet

for mates to flock around.

So her statement from the blue

sent a message most profound.

Savor all relationships.

Clocks don’t cease counting down.

Who knows who’ll be left above,

who’ll be buried neath a mound?

 

Lynn Benjamin

March 12, 2024

 

All Poems, Birthdays, Cousins, Family

Flowers for the Florists

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Flowers for the florists, said Aaron.

Brother of the birthday hostess.

Celebrating her ninetieth.

With family and friends.

Guests entering with large bouquets.

To deliver to Selma.

Who owned a flower shop.

With her husband before retiring.

The blooms brightened the room.

Already decorated with poinsettias on tables.

Little chocolates and bells.

Cards with positive affirmations.

Amid settings for brunch.

Counterpoint to the petulant, gray day.

Steadily spitting showers from low lying clouds.

But, who on the inside noticed?

With addresses from Selma, her children, husband.

Grandchildren, siblings, in-laws.

Photos from all stages of her life.

Singing to the tunes of ukuleles.

Played by son and niece.

Invoking old camp favorites.

The scene could have been a painting by Chagall.

Couple enveloped in a cocoon of love.

Fruits of their union.

Village surrounding them.

Selma’s parents, floating in a corner.

Her late youngest sister in another.

The farm, camp, inhabitants swirling about.

The canvas, grand, monumental.

A visual masterpiece.

Conjuring sounds of joyousness.

Synesthetic energies.

 

Lynn Benjamin

December 9, 2023

Aging, All Poems, Cousins, Death, Family

How Could I Forget?

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How could I forget to take photos?

I, the one who snaps them everywhere?

Who keeps the iphone handy to whip it out?

Catch a flower, bird, butterfly?

In parks, on beaches, at parties.

How did I fail to capture a portrait?

Of my cousins, my husband and me?

In a local restaurant or back at our house?

Were we so engrossed in conversations?

Aging, downsizing, cemeteries.

Deaths of contemporaries.

Now the elders, should we do a family reunion?

Revive an old cousins’ club?

How would we go about it?

Organize it?

Convene young and old?

Bridge generations?

Get them to know each other.

Swap stories.

Maybe that was why.

The gravity of the exchange

extinguished my photo plan.

Instead, my mind tarried

on how unsure our life span.

 

Lynn Benjamin

October 28, 2023

 

 

 

 

Aging, All Poems, Cousins, Disappointment, Family, Health/Illness

Begging to Go Outdoors

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My ninety-year-old cousin begged to go outdoors.

She could see the sun slanting sideways.

Just outside the window.

She had been inside too long.

First, in two ER cubicles.

Undergoing procedures to reaffix leg to hip.

That is, to push the ball back into its socket.

After it slipped out during sleep.

Days later, transferred back to the residence.

Where she recently moved in.

But, not to her usual room.

To a convalescent wing.

Can we go outside? she asked a second time.

It was disappointing as much for me as for her.

Having to explain that heat laid heavy like a weighted blanket.

Maple leaves and ferns turned orange, burned from high temperatures.

Squirrels and chipmunks sought shade.

Frogs stayed submerged in ponds.

Bees moved in desultory circles.

Finches and robins were nowhere to be seen.

Even cicadas went silent.

Too hot to drum for rain.

So, we remained inside.

Moving to a corner away from her room.

A small change of scene.

Where we could reminisce about trips.

For my cousin was well traveled.

Her memory sharp for details.

Asking to see my summer photos.

From the Netherlands, Maine.

Commenting on each.

Saying she loved to look at photos.

Unlike many people she knew.

So, we passed the time

inside rather than out.

I marveled at her attitude

despite the heat, the drought.

Hoping I could, too, one day

be good tempered and so kind

when reverses pile up,

and I find myself confined.

 

Lynn Benjamin

September 9, 2023