The Cousins

   My father, Arsene, was descended from French Canadians who had crossed the United States border several times, heading south or north in search of land and work. Thus it was on the American side that he was born. Not long after this event, my grandfather heard the call of the Canadian west. He was a machinist on the railway who one day bought a book on farming, an ironic purchase, as he had never learned to read. He hated school within a few days and ran away to hang around the shipyards. He never went back even though his mother was a teacher.
    My grandmother probably read the book for him and he decided he wanted his growing family of one girl and five boys, Arsene being the youngest, to be raised away from the industrial smoke of the city. Arsene was just five years old when they boarded the train that took them through the mountains and far away to northern Alberta.
   My grandmother was the eldest of her family and her widowed mother went north with them. They left behind her other children and grandchildren, including Arsene's cousin Gregory, who was ten years his senior.
   Gregory was the only son in his family. I heard tales of an unhappy childhood with a strange and aloof father. There would come the usual shaking of the head and shrugging of shoulders, as if to explain Gregory. He had the ability to spin entertaining yarn and delighted in being an eccentric.
   Arsene grew up a farm boy with cows to milk and horses to ride. He endured the tumbling that he got from his older brothers when his father was away on the railroad working to pay for the homestead, became an expert rider and joined the Canadian cavalry just before it was disbanded.
   Gregory showed up when Arsene was about thirteen; he came north to visit his grandmother. He took the only picture in our photograph album that showed all of Arsene's family together. They all looked at the camera from in front of the little lake by their home. Within six years both the grandmother and Arsene's mother had died and the siblings scattered.
   Gregory traveled many places with the railroad and settled in Washington state in a little town. It was the era of the automobile and my family had a little trailer that Arsene built to spend their holidays camping. One of those trips was down to Gregory's place. There was a picture of the cousins standing together. Arsene did not look very athletic next to Gregory who had gym sculptured muscles, Hemingway style, in a white muscle shirt, leaning against his motor cycle.
   By the time I was born a small farm tied my parents to the land and it was Gregory and his wife Kate that came north with a little trailer to camp in the summertime. There are pictures of the small me with Kate but I don't remember her, as she died soon after.
   Gregory continued to visit. It was at this time that Gregory's restless energy set Arsene to work to build me a small swimming pool. Gregory, the muscular Christian, thought I should have a place to safely swim away from the deep waters of the lake.
   I  have no idea why it was thought I should swim. I vividly remember the panic the gripped me as I floundered in deep water trying to negotiate around a boathouse. My mother had rescued me. I might have refused to go near the lake again. Perhaps Gregory had heard the story of my near drowning.
   So the little square pool was built. There was a lot of dirt to remove and cement to pour. Arsene did a lot of muttering when the "idea" man had departed. The water intake was from the nearby creek that flowed cold and clear from a spring high up the mountain. My chattering teeth and shivering frame found ways to avoid its chill. It sat empty until my older sister designed a fountain in the middle- a beautiful copper butterfly gracefully sprouting delicate plumes of water from its wings as it sat on a rock pillar above the offending temperature. Whatever Gregory thought of the result never reached my ears.
    I always loved to listen to Gregory's stories at bed-time. They were filled with Indians and railway adventures. The natives were revered for their forest skills and Gregory swore we had a Native ancestor of our own but no-one else had ever heard of him. The most dramatic story that haunted my imagination told of a man being caught on a railway trestle. He lay down on the track as the on coming train passed over head leaving him unharmed.  I pondered its imagery many times in my mind. It haunted me in a quiet way.
   Gregory drove a big Cadillac with huge tail fins, left over from the big statements of the fifties. Our old Dodge didn't flash in the same way. One year, Arsene got caught in a snowstorm, went over a steep bank and walked away unhurt leaving his footprints on the ceiling of the car for me to ponder. He later rebuilt the car out of two old ones and the paint job never betrayed its mixed origins.
   Gregory used to speculate that  he could have been a priest. He was devout in his reading and delved into some of the classics popular at that time. Arsene wouldn't say much when he heard all this. He was extremely suspicious of anything out of the ordinary. Gregory used to tell me we were related to the Little Flower as she and our great grandmother had the same last name. It impressed me no end that we might have a canonized saint in the family.
   When I myself later entered into the difficult paths of the spiritual life I soon grew to love her as a role model. This was fortunate as the story was a fragment from Gregory's imagination.
   The happiest times with Gregory would be on summer afternoons when he would retreat up the hill to a hammock he had strung between two small trees, next to a little meandering brook where the wild spearmint and pale blue forget-me-not grew profusely. At a suitable time I could join him, his nap over, and I would climb up into the hammock and we would sing together. He knew lots of old songs, the Mitch Miller type, filled with folksy images of American life. He brought me a Melodica, a funny little keyboard instrument I could blow into and I began to pick out tunes from memory. It sounded a bit like a duck, but its simplicity made it easy to learn.
   Arsene never ventured to sing or play an instrument but he loved music and was always humming. When he listened to his few classical records he would be the conductor for the invisible orchestra. It would always make me smile to see this side of him.
   Then one year Gregory arrived with a new wife. A soft spoken Irish New Yorker who had been a single working girl all her life, with a warm heart that won us all instantly as friends.
   We visited them in their little house across the border surrounded by fields and a quiet rambling creek called the Icicle, well named for those who tried to swim in it. I still wasn't endeared to ice water. When I was eleven I went to stay there for a month. Mostly to get out of my mother's hair as she was busy moving from our house up on the hill to a trailer next to the service station that Arsene had built next to the highway.
   The visit south was fun at first. An adventure. We had bicycles to explore the gentle countryside. Gregory had lots of interesting things left over from raising his family and lots of games to play. One day the games got personal. Suddenly I was trapped with an adult who had become a predator.  I recoiled from his obscene advances and would no longer spend time with him. I sat in the kitchen with his wife and ate my way through the remaining time before I could return home. His wife always said I kissed the ground when we crossed into Canada. Home was so badly missed. She mentioned to  my mother that something had happened, but I was never asked.
   A couple of years later Gregory came to visit with his grand daughter a little younger than me. He lavished attention and money on her and it felt like he was punishing me for my refusal to cooperate with his filthy games.  For the first time in my life I hated an adult. It was a sickening feeling and I couldn't find words to tell my parents or my spiritual director. It was one of those events that live beneath articulation. I was happy to see him leave. He never returned to visit.
   Briefly, years later, I traveled with my parents to visit Gregory and his wife. He was almost blind and smelled old. He was surprised at my lack of so-called worldly airs. No thanks to you I thought. He told me to look through his books and take what I wanted. I found some spiritual classics, but as I was gathering the books I was not happy to have him enter the room. The look on my face as I prepared to bolt must have told him of our lost friendship. No words were exchanged as he handed me a hundred dollar bill. I said thank-you and left.  I suppose it was a token of atonement and regret which I could not dwell on. That would belong to a higher power.
   My own life entered upon a spiritual journey that brought me into conflict with Arsene. When I turned nineteen we shook hands like those who have fought a bitter battle, and then agreed to a truce.  I was now an adult and would have to answer for my own choices.
   Over the years we exercised an uneasy peace.When he was old Arsene became a widower and for the next nine years, no longer shielded by my mother, we were face to face with each other.
   Before he died we learned to speak the same language. At times he, too, would become a story teller with tales of growing up on the farm and his boyish giggle endeared him to me. As he neared death his parents became visible to him. He told me that he could see them, but I couldn't. I was happy for him in his waiting. One day when I draw near to the leaving, I hope he will be waiting for me.

Winter Grace

The turn of the seasons
Unpredictable at best,
This cold winter wind
With snow in its arms
Descends upon the mountain valley
Bitter, cold, dry snow
Caught in whirlwinds
Circling the evergreens,
Swooping along rocky cliffs,
Picking us up like a mother cat her kittens
Moving us quickly against onslaught,
Reminding our small creature selves
Might is not ours,
In case we hadn't noticed.

Thus winds of grace
Flow floods through our lives,
Leaving us turned upside down
Overwhelmed, often helpless,
The gusts of this Divine author
Leaving all asunder.

Or perhaps in other moods
This same Artist lets the early snow
Settle around the landscape,
To show off this time of brown
All shades and shapes,
Against the dark blue green waters,
With the occasional red bark or
Brilliant yellow,
The lingering sandy grass
Grey green tufts accenting
The last few golden leaves clinging to
The top outlines of bushes and trees,
The Artist's brush must dapple it seems
In many colored strokes.

And then the white snow
Dominates all forms
Clings to the exposed tree's bark,
Decorates delicate branches
Tiny red berries glow beneath,
Thus heaven makes all white,
Shining clean and wholesome
Nature enveloped in whiteness of light
In the working of Divine graces.