proud to have a sister like you

It's Halloween and Mom and I are looking through boxes. Earlier today, I went to her house there on Clyde Hill and sorted through what felt like hundreds of boxes but which were really more like thirty in number, all stored in Mom's closet. Some of them my brother and I rescued from her attic, kept them safe from the dumpster upon dumpster of garbage the exited Mom's house after she moved. There's a smell of damp or mildew about these boxes and the things contained within. They've been stored for so long back at Mom's old house in Medina that they have a particular odor. It's age and neglect that greet my nose--how objects smell when they've been bruised and forgotten. Like earth but not quite because there's the whiff of human consumption, human need--how we gather, save, forget the myriad of objects that grace our lives. It takes me three hours to sort through and find which boxes Mom might want. I'm hunting for memorabilia of Mom's life and of our life together. Evidence that there was a "her" and a "we" before my conscious memory, a memory that is partial and incomplete of late. She's labeled some of the boxes with sticky-notes that say "keepsakes" or "not sorted" or "keep" but I have to go through all of them, just to make sure. It's become essential, obsessive even, this need to retrieve.

So by 4:30 in the afternoon, I pile the back of my car with eleven banker boxes. Two of them I transfer to Mom's room; the rest will wait in my garage until we are ready for them.

By the time I get to Mom's it's late, later than I intend. We chat for a few minutes, me asking about her day and Mom nodding and saying a few words. When there's a lull I ask her--"Do you want to see what's in these boxes?" Mom nods "Yes," so I open the lid to the one that has gotten my attention, an ordinary banker box except for the extraordinary wealth within. There's a pink-and-brown-checkerboard-of-a-box sitting right on top--three inches deep and about eight inches across. There's a tasteful label on the box's side which reads--"The Topper Shop, West Seattle."

"What's this?" I ask Mom, showing her the pink and brown box from to so many years ago. Mom shakes her head, "No," apparently not remembering the box or its contents. But I know what's inside, or at least a glimmer of it's contents, as I peaked when I was at Mom's house sorting earlier today.

"Let's see, shall we?" I say to Mom, because I can't wait any longer, can't keep myself from knowing what might be inside. As I slide off the lid, the first thing that we see is a ballet program, hand painted, from the Cornish School of Ballet. Lettered on the front is "Ballet Festival, 1964" along with the painting of a dark haired woman in a soft green net tutu, ankle length, with a red rose pinned across her bosom. It's a program from one of my early dance recitals--I am part of the corps from "Waltz from Faust." I feel the paper between my fingers, grainy, fragile--as old as it looks. Nowadays who would paint a program, who has the time or the sensibility? I remember the many ballets I danced at Cornish. For a period of twelve years, my friend Gretchen and I danced seriously and madly and gloriously the demanding rigors of classical ballet. Twice a week our mothers transported us to Seattle, just off Broadway, for our lessons. We saw ourselves as premier ballerinas and had hopes of dancing our way to Balanchine's New York City Ballet, nirvana for every young girl's dreams. Fortunately, some dreams don't come true.

Next there's a silk-screened announcement for my birth--"Peter and Eric are pleased and proud...a new baby sister has joined our 'crowd.'" There's my name in pink paint, "Christine Leiren" and my birthing information; "arrived April 1oth weighing 8 pounds 7 ounces." It's signed "Dorin and Paul." There's nine pink paint flowers scatted over the heavy stock paper and right beside my brothers' names is a dried pink flower, glued to each of the invitations.

"How did you have time to make these Mom?" I ask her. "They're beautiful." I try to imagine myself as several weeks old--what I saw, who I loved. I wonder, at fourteen days do we already know who we love, who to cleave to? Mom grasps hold of the thick creamy paper, bending the grain between her thumb and forefinger as she attempts to keep a hold of it, keep it from falling to the floor.

I dig down deeper into the box, and I find a pair of pink (much-used) ballet flats, about five inches long. The leather's cracked, scaled like a snake skin, but the imprint of my foot is still there--the big toe, the place where my four-year-old heel wore down the back. They look painted really, as the pink color is flaking off, leaving a scrim of residue on my hands and pants. "Look Mom," I say, "look how these were dyed...or maybe painted." Ballet costuming was all about innovation--how to hand sew, hand paint to create the illusions of luxury, beauty. Mom holds out her palm to grasp the shoe, now almost flat as a piece of leather, but for the elastic ankle strap, what every Mom sewed on assiduously to her daughter's shoes. Press down the heel of the shoe, I am remembering, and sew the elastic beginning right at the edge of where the folded heel meets the side of the shoe. It was a formula for success, how to avoid sewing the elastic band too far forward. On this particular pair, my elastic is way to close to the toe--I must have hated this, I think. Must have been embarrassed, looked like a dork.

I dig deeper still. There's the hospital announcement card, "Room 307," it reads, "Compliments of Pet Milk Company." It states my weight, my length--"30 inches"--and the fact that at this point I am known as "Girl Schuler, Sex F." Interestingly enough, it also states my time of birth, something Mom has been unable to remember--3:25 am." Mom shakes her head "No" at this, insisting that I was not born in the middle of the night, but hospital records don't lie, at least not usually. There's my birth announcement in the Seattle Times--"Mr and Mrs. Paul A. Schuler have a daughter, Christine Leiren Schuler, born Sunday, April 10th, at Swedish Hospital." In the second paragraph the announcement reveals--"At the Schuler home on Evergreen Point, two brothers, Peter, seven, and Eric, five, welcome their first sister." Third paragraphs reads--"Maternal grandfather, Mr. Eilert Anderson, lives with them. Paternal grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. A. A. Schuler, reside in Portland, Oregon." A lot of information, I'm thinking, for just the record of one baby's birth. I wonder if this is still done--the publication of births and the details about a family's existence. There's even a button in Mom's box, round and pink with a fat-cheeked (ugly) girl baby grinning madly, the button reading--"It's a girl." On the reverse side of the button is--"Complements of SWIFT'S MEATS FOR BABIES." Lot's of commercialism going on here in the baby birthing business. When we get to the hospital anklet, I almost cry--a misshapen plastic band that has my sex, weight and doctor's name (Dr. Rice) written in blue ink. It's about the size of quarter. I don't remember being this small, this helpless. So in need of my mom.

Then we find progress reports from "Bellevue Children's Clinic" and a 'Dr. D. W. Boisseau" recording my physical achievements over a period of 3 1/2 years, how at 2 1/2 weeks, for example, I weigh 8 pounds 15 ounces (only a measly gain of 8 pounds from birth) and have a recorded height of 21 3/4 inches (have I shrunk from my 30 inches recorded at Swedish?). There's a formula written down--10 evap. 18 ou water, 1-2 sugar"--so I wonder if Mom's being told to step up the feeding. I'm to be fed "6 bottles at 4 1/2 ounces" each as well as "Gerber Rice Cereal."

"Mom," I say, "did you not breast feed?" She looks startled at my question and says--"Well I tried..and...'" "Tried what?" I ask. "Tried, you know..." But I can't get her to say what the issue was--did she not really want to breast feed, was there no milk, did I not want to latch on?

By 8 1/2 weeks I weigh 12 pounds and my condition is reported as "excellent." But on the back of the doctor's script is an admonition to make sure I have "no eggs, oranges, tomatoes or chocolate." When I ask Mom why, she can't remember. I wonder...what can be wrong with these food....was I allergic, because I don't remember having food allergies as a child?

Then we find a dozen cards or so, some of them congratulation cards for my birth, some of them birthday cards for my first and second year birthday celebrations. "For a very nice Girl," one predictably reads. Or "Hear that your new baby Has turned out to be a Daughter--Bet you're mighty pleased and proud And happy that you've got'er!" I've forgotten how ridiculous traditional greeting cards can be--"poetry" at its finest. There's even a card from the Sigma Kappa Alumni Association (my mom's sorority at the UW)--'The members of the Seattle Alumnae Association of Sigma Kappa extend best wishes you you on the birth of your daughter. We hope she too will someday wear this ribbon and will come to know and enjoy Sigma Kappa as we have." Dream On, I'm thinking--I tried that sorority route and didn't find it to my liking. I was not a sorority girl at heart.

Our favorite card, though, is one that reads--"A New Little 'Crooner' 'pon my soul." When you turn the card over, it finishes with--"Now you'll really ROCK 'N ROLL Congratulations." When I read this one out loud, Mulu and I burst into laughter, the kind of combustible sound that explodes from a rifle, leaving a patter of shot to fall to the ground. The image on the front flap is as tacky as it gets--a diapered baby strumming a ukulele. Inside are a husband and wife, presumably, kicking up their heels. Mom reaches for the card, wanting to understand where the humor lies. With the help of her reading glasses, she is able to see what amuses Mulu and me. Finally she laughs along too. We need this laughter, amidst the grimness of diapers, doctors, declining mental functioning.

At the bottom of the box are petals from a shriveled red rose, and a small (dirty) white pom pom ball. There's even a supply of pink four cent stamps, what Mom used to mail my birth announcements.

And there's something else there too, resting on the bottom of Mom's "Topper Shop" box--a small, hand penciled envelope declaring "Peter to Cristine." There are five Christmas stamps stuck to the top fold of the envelope with the date 1960. The white envelope itself has yellowed, almost to the color of noodles before they are boiled. When my fingers close around the envelope's edges, I can hardly breathe. In 1960, my brother would have been seven. He was still beautiful, dutiful, not yet missing. I sit there, in Mom's room at the Mirabella, with Peter's letter between my fingers. I sit for seconds, maybe almost a minute. Mom and Mulu haven't noticed, as they are still busily looking at the ukulele greeting card. I sit and feel my skin goose pimple, shrink to chicken-skin, as Mom would call this. There's a shudder of cold that starts at my toes and moves up slowly towards my brain--I could swear there's an ice flue in my veins, something steadily turning my body numb, senseless.

When I gather the courage to open the flap, I find there' s a half-sheet of ruled paper--off white with straight green lines and holes pre-punched like we had in grade school. Lettered in pencil is the greeting "Dear Cristine" (misspelling of my name, but never mind) followed by: "I love you. I am proud to have a nice sister like you." He signs his letter, "Love Peter."

My tears are what get Mulu and Mom's attention, that and the way my body shakes in my chair. I can't stop weeping, shivering. And I can't explain why. When I read Peter's greeting out loud, Mom cries right along with me. At least we are not alone in this.

When I get home, all I want are my cats. To love and be loved. I check my text messages, something I'd forgotten to do earlier. There's two from Lora, my girlfriend-turned-detective--"Call me," she texts, "and be sitting down." Her second message just has three words-- "I found him."

My brother is no longer missing.

Deeply, a mother's daughter
--this is alifewithmom--