In His File

Once a month I work on a Saturday. I clean my dear friend's mother's house. I have just arrived home from Constance Steele's condo brimming with my new post.

Constance Steele, I have known her for 25 years. She is a beautiful 65 year-old retired woman who defines the word "grace" and pure acts of dignity. Connie was born with a facial defect , and has been through hundreds of surgeries to repair. She has grown up with people staring at her... not in a flattering way. My friend , Rocky, can recall many sad and uncomfortable moments that he and his siblings spent with their mom, as the world stared. That story, in itself, could fill a novel. I'll save that project for later.

Today, however, I would like to speak about Christmas and how the season churns up memories. People in the past will bubble up, you'll remember shopping for that person, or seeing the glittering eyes of that excited child, or the warm embrace of your only love. Just today, on my way to Connie's house, I found myself in tears thinking about my mother. I haven't seen her face for so long, and will never again; yet a song on the radio can conjure an image of her like I spoke with her yesterday. I think Connie was feeling the same way today as she put away the Christmas decorations in her tidy space.

Connie spoke of her husband, Burl, who passed three years ago with Alzheimer's, and her cousin and sister-in-law who she lost this very year. As she sorted and folded items into tissue paper, she also spoke of the living. Her son, my dearest friend, was doing cautiously well in his new relationship. Her daughter, Sandy, was changing careers. She told me that Sandy thinks she'd like to go into social work. She said that Sandy would like to work with pregnant teens that are giving their babies up for adoption. I stopped. Really?

I remembered when Sandy was just barely 16....it was when I first met her brother Rocky. Rocky told me quietly that his baby sister was pregnant. Connie and Burl made the decision that Sandy would have the child and give the child up. It was the "Catholic" thing to do. Sandy "went away" as soon as her teen figure showed signs of the mishap. Sandy had a beautiful son who she handed over to the nurse and never saw again.

Today, Sandy is a 41-year old mother of three. She and her husband live in an upscale suburban neighborhood. She works in the health care field and volunteers at PTA. She waits for the day that the knock may come on the door. She left the file open at her son's adoption. When her son turned 18 (which was 6 years ago), he could have a peek inside that file and find his birth mother. Connie waits too.

Today Connie is thinking of her grandson: "He is 24 now, can you even imagine?" she said to me.

I shook my head "no" as I dusted the baseboard.

"We have been wondering if he'll ever look Sandy up....we are all so curious. It's hard to understand why he hasn't already....." she said thoughtfully.

"Maybe he's still too immature to care...or maybe he has an attitude about the fact that he was given up." I said. "I work with a number of adopted teenagers that really don't care about their birth parents...they are too self-centered to have compassion or wonder why. It's a teen/young adult thing. It wears off as they start thinking about becoming parents themselves, then they get curious."

Connie walked down the stairs nodding her head. I heard her speak from below.

"When we gave him up, I put a letter in his file...explaining." she started

I looked down at her from the landing and nodded my head.

"I explained that Sandy gave him up because she loved him. She wanted him to have the right type of parents. I explained that Sandy was too young to care for him. I wrote to him that day to tell him that Sandy gave him up for love." She finished. " It's in his file."

She walked into the kitchen and got busy with the dishwasher.

I hope her grandson reads his file one day and feels the anquished love that was left there.

The Happy Light

You cannot imagine the week after Christmas (Hanukkah) when you clean/ organize homes for a living. Not only is everyone imaginable still around, (owners on vacation, college kids sleeping late, grandma in the spare room (flat surfaces lined with pill bottles and denture cream), but there are many new "additions" to the household.

Today, I was in the Kirby's palatial and most beautiful home (all names on this blog have been changed to very appropriate metaphorical names.)

The Kirby's (Twitter and Wax)-are two lovely folks in their mid 50's whose 2 successful children are recently out of college and moved into their own stylish spaces. Twitter is an attractive woman, thin and wispy, smiley and full of anecdotal verbiage spoken in a sing-song voice. When she is home...I have only witnessed her doing laundry with joy. She puts underwear and towels in the dryer...everything else is hung on elaborate piping run through the basement. Twitter works outside the home (only as a hobby) at a near-by high school. "It's fun and something to do!" she chirps.

Wax is Twitter's very non- politically-correct, sociably adept, type A , executive type who likes his shower stalls waxed in order to repel water. He collects heirloom vacuum cleaners , clocks and watches. The time pieces are all synchronized and the house clocks chime simultaneously. Get the picture?

Today, at the Kirby's, I was greeted by the smiling couple's duet of "Happy New Year!" and a hug and a kiss from each. I have been working for them for over 9 years. These people, like many of my clients, are like my family.

Wax proceeded to take leave, running to the plumbing outlet for a special part. Twitter kissed him and told him to drive carefully ! She turned to me smiling with her tiny hands clapsed. "Gosh it's been a whirlwind week!" she giggled. "You may need to shovel your way through here!"

I made my way through my routine of upstairs bathrooms first, then bedrooms, then hallway. I moved to the first floor and began on the bathrooms there. Twitter was folding laundry as she watched TV. I moved into the kitchen and noticed a large , white, plastic box on the kitchen table. It looked like a miniature tanning bed standing up on it's end.

"What's this, Twitter?" I asked, pointing.

"It's the Happy Light." Twitter said, unhappily.

"Happy Light?" I questioned

"Happy Light." she answered softly

"For Wax....?" I asked

"For me." Twitter said, no sing song to be heard.

I looked at Twitter, our eyes locked. She soon looked down at her manicured hands . There was silence, the clocks audibly ticked.

"I'm depressed...have been for so many years that I can't remember the last time I was not."

"YOU are?" I said...thinking about everything beautiful thing I have just polished in the last hour and 1/2.

"I can't handle the medications, the therapists aren't helping , this is my last resort...I got it for Christmas from Wax. Light Therapy. I'm supposed to sit in front of it for 30 minutes a day. I have been eating my Special K and reading the paper every morning in front of it."

"For you?" I repeated.

Go figure.