Link - family stories

An amusing link that somehow reminds me of when my mom with a laugh says 'let's hav sum kwa-fee!' in a thick new-yorkan accent, reminiscing the time she lived there with her parents. In a modest light blue house, in West Islip on Long Island, with apple and plum trees in the well-kept garden laden with heavy vegetables resulting from the labour of my grandfather, and thick beige carpets and dark wood furniture, lace curtains and a little collection of jewellery and other trinkets my grandmother had found on the way to work in the cafeteria at a local school.

The stairs led up and doubled back on themselves, turning the corner to the children's section; two smallish rooms filled with the wonder of memories of my mother and her sisters' lives as children, in a dusty, heavy air somehow permeating the house even though my grandmother went to great extents to keep the house airy and clean. That was before she fell ill, of course, before her diabetes and other ailings made her bed-ridden, before they sold the house and moved away from her beloved ocean. Before she passed away.

In her childhood space, the story of how my mother as a child collected baseball cards with gold markings emblazoning Joe DiMaggio and all the other heroes of that time spilled from her lips in an impassioned whisper, the story of a treasure collected and expanded over years and years and stored in a shoe box in the depth of her room. Once, when my mother returned as a grown woman, the shoe box was no longer there and it had been given to the son of family friend.

My grandfather would take me shopping, we got into the car and turned down the quiet suburban street and the local mall of shops would appear, one-storey buildings along a way too wide road. Or we would go to the large supermarkets to buy dinner, to buy the few things that my grandmother would eat, after her operation. No cheese, not even on a pizza. And still, she'd pick at what was on her plate, seemingly not interested but knowing that she should, she really should.

White and blacks and primary colours were restricted in the paintings my grandfather produced, an extreme geometric tightness of circles and squares in harmonious compositions. Grandma painted in naturalistic style, soft, warm, intense colours, and often with the seagulls that for her personified freedom and liberty. She painted my mother on several occasions, and on one occasion she let me bring home with me a painting of a woman in a green dress, seated in a warm orange and red tableau with a cup on a table. My mom wasn't sure, but it is a picture of her. Grandma has included some of my mom's facial features, and to me there can be no doubt. Grandpa wrapped it in bubble foam, one, two, three layers, wrapped it in brown paper card and secured it with a coarse string, holding the painting in its wrapping and providing a well-thought handle for the long transportation across the ocean to its new home.

They would sometimes go to the sea promenade, with grandma painting and both selling their paintings, or so my mom has told me. I can just imagine them in the crisp sunshine, carefully crafted paintings in hand, near the sea, seagulls soaring over their heads as they gently speak to people browsing their paintings. Grandpa does the negotiating while grandma, perhaps, simply continues painting.