Dear David,
I recently read of your death.
Read someone else’s online ‘tribute’/obituary and wanted to write a bit more, the pieces of you I remember. Admittedly they’re few, they’re hardly any with the “family” spread across the continent. Marshall, as Marshall would, makes it spread across the world.
The picture in your obituary was sad to me. Perhaps you were happy but it looked forced which I’m sure someone or everyone will resent me saying but that is what I saw, what I see and thus was not only sad to read of your death because I recognize that smile, the I-am-trying-so-hard-to-smile smile. Your face in photographs so often seemed to be saying I’m trying so hard to smile and be what you or someone or anyone or everyone wants and it is breaking me. I recall seeing a lot of those on your face in the family album, pictures from weddings or school shared and sent between the Olson sisters.
At least that’s what I read on your face in that photograph and perhaps because of the angle and Martha , there was a picture of Martha with a very similar, eerily similar trying-very-hard-to--smile smile with those same family angles in her and your check bones, jaw lines and something in the eyes.
But too,
I have tales of you,
in my head,
lovely bits of you
just small threads that do not make a yarn but
moments and nuances of your person, always emotionally so very gentle.
You/David, were the gentlest in and of your band of giants.
Martha’s favorite story about you/David, one she told over and over again and every so often I see a bug, especially a particularly interesting looking one and I think of: ”He’d never seen bugs before”. According to Martha you were blind- okay not blind but apparently couldn’t see hardly anything from a very young age and needed glasses terribly and once you got them could barely keep your eyes off the ground and loved watching the bugs. Martha loved remembering you seeing what you had never seen, fascinated.
Of course I can not speak to the validity of that statement because it came to me second hand but I can speak from my own memory: who you are/were in my memory.
Ridgefield, Connecticut- early fall, Greenwich and those stone walls leading to your house, the smell of skunk weed. The screened in porch, the lazy-Susan on the kitchen table, the pool table in the basement and my very cool cousins with whom we always felt so safe and comfortable we never wanted to leave. Once when Martha locked the keys in the trunk I and my sister yelled “Horray” because we got to stay with you guys/all an extra day.
Was it that day? That visit or another the you told us a perhaps tall tale from Field and Stream magazine?
Was that the day we three went fishing? You, our big man of the world in high school cousin took us fishing. Where was the rest of the tribe? In and out -Monica with Barbazon (sp?) Eric and Erica somewhere or another and most certainly in a state of play, for the Morgensons could play, were encouraged to and do things whereas, well that was one of the wonderful things about coming to Connecticut and then of course there were the geese and the dog named Popcorn.
I’ve had quite a few geese around me these last few years but of course these geese can fly unlike the pair in Ridgefield, the pair metaphorically tied to the pond. A good sized pond with fish and frogs, two surly geese and right across the street from your house. That was a special day because you took us fishing?
Yes and no.
It was special because you were so kind, sensitive and not at all mean.
I don’t remember what kind of fish lived in the pond but that there was a tackle box and fishing poles and my sister or I caught one!?
“It’s tugging at the line - reel it in nice and steady, nice and steady-” you/David readied the net and then the bend in the fishing pole was gone at the sound of a snap.
“Line snapped,” you said and soon began untangling the mess of fishing line while shaking your head, clearly bothered as you/he explained how hooks pierce and catch fish “That fish’ll have that hook stuck in his mouth for the rest of his life.” You may have even said it twice explaining how important it is to reel a fish in correctly or else -and then you David were completely alarmed, panicked.
Your little girl cousin/s had started crying. Crying hard at the thought of having hurt the fish.
Flustered at this turn of events the gentlest giant said “But it’ll fall out,” you/David said which made us cry harder because
“You said -you just said an article in Field and Stream -and it’ll never come out and hurt the fish, it might starve - that might be killing the fish right now, and now it’ll longer for it to die.”
You/David paused, stumped and there was silence as your little girl cousin/s cried until we heard you say “Oh now I remember,” you/David said and apologized because you‘d forgotten something “they disintegrate”.
“The article said“, our cousin would almost entirely convincingly allege “I forgot, the hooks disintegrate,” which was a new vocabulary word David defined for us and described how gradually the metal breaks down, the hook breaks apart and the wound heals.
We stopped crying, we could stop crying and not feel as badly for the fish as when all I could see in my minds eye was all the long suffering because the line snapped. And David assured one or both of us that it was no one’s fault: the line broke because they just do sometimes.
My sister and I talked about it later because we kinda’ figured you/David might have made up the hook disintegration thing so we’d stop crying and wouldn‘t feel bad. That was strange to us, and really nice- nice to know someone like that.
And really strange because you were big and a grown up comparatively AND a big male person and instead of trying to make us cry or liking to see us cry or getting angry because we were crying you tried to make us feel better. In the world of my sister and I this was and would be very strange, very unusual behavior, very special behavior. A big kind hearted giant.
That and you defended us from the geese. The two geese who lived at the pond who did and would attack. Who could blame them? their wings having been clipped and now trapped only able to watch as other geese whose wings weren’t clipped could still fly and fly off without them.
Was it you who pointed that out?
Wouldn’t surprise me if it had been- would be in keeping with you, the little of you I got to know.
Those weekends were like escaping to a dream and then your tribe moved, you guys/all packed up and moved and we wouldn’t see you again until I was nearly or in in high school myself.
I still have pictures of when you and your tribe rolled into Albert Lea, Minn. all those years later - exiting a van on your collective way to another reunion too, stopping at R & N’s for basketball, a chow down and then roll out. None of you would talk to my sister and I, seemed to avoid us even- every one in your family really except for you/David.
Why? It had been odd to my sister and I, we’d been so excited to see the Morgensons and then they were so very cool, distant, uncomfortable to be around us. That was the word you used to describe your lot at seeing us: “uncomfortable”.
And I’ll never know if it was like at the pond in Greenwich: entirely true, possibly true or not at all true but said to make us feel better, to take away some of the sting? I know I was disappointed, hurt.
All I know, all I saw and how I see it in hind sight: No one ever asked to speak to my sister or I on the phone, never. Everyone called to talk with Martha “my family” she used to say with the same tone of things we weren’t allowed to touch. Were we the untouchables? Or because we were half him, that thing she was married to? Or was it simply because we were like puppies cute when little but after that who cares really?
Either way we’d been so excited to see the Morgensons who had disappeared to Texas for marriages we couldn’t attend, only details passed second hand and then a reunion of a few hours. Mattie’s picture taken with every person who in her having children had children and so on and so on and the Morgensons would barely look at us and then you/David came over and said something to us before you all left (for the Hedstroms?).
I wish I could remember exactly and precisely what you/David said but just like at the pond it did made us feel better .
“I’m sorry,” you/David said ‘none of us have really(?)…we’ve been avoiding you?’ What was it exactly that you/David said?
That you- a grown up person- were apologizing to us?! Would even use the words “I’m sorry” that was stunning in and of itself. You used a feeling word and that was nice to hear again because those used in our house. “Uncomfortable” and I hate to tell you/David but used the words “young ladies” during what you were the only one kind enough to do.
“I’m sorry…we were expecting two little kids?- we still think of you as little kids” and it was “uncomfortable” seeing I think you used the term “young ladies” right about then. The tribe couldn’t wrap their mind around it: one a high school hottie and one in braces- they’ve actually grown up.
On the other hand Martha I doubt ever had much good to say about us. I have some of her letters from that period and I remember what was occurring so-. Maybe you just took the sting out of our being on the outs and even if that was the case entirely, though I don’t believe that. You never struck me as a particularly good liar- but then again as no one ever did: what do I know?
I know there were always laughs and laughter and that your tribe could and did. The next time I’d see you was during a split in pieces Thanksgiving in St. Louis.
Martha’s pies.
The competition as to whose elbow skin was the most elongated? Whose was hanging the lowest naturally and who could stretch their elbow skin the silly puddy farthest?
“A Wonderful Life” was on, a holiday classic, a holiday survival tool for some. None of you had ever seen it, none of you had ever had to.
The story of your youngest brother who had been so involved in making out with a girl the car had begun to move and he had just felt like the earth was moving- except it was the car that was moving was recounted and everyone - even Jack could laugh about it. Snow, ice and perhaps some crashing involved?
The next time I would see you was at Martha’s funeral, after and actually while I was being interrogated, questioned about one of the very things I had asked be prevented from happening but no had listened.
You came though. Thank you.
I’d always intended to send a thank you note to New Hampshire but I never got around to it. Heard only snippets of your life- many children and they lost you so early.
“Brain cancer” I read.
I suspect I’ve seen over the last decade some of the places that might have taken you. Me- the brain injury and you -the brain cancer-ed. I hope you went fast. But from the little I read it doesn’t sound as if you did, sounds more like you were that fish having to drag a hook around the pond.
I could write more. I could almost always write more. There’s so much I don’t know like what you were doing in Texas? Last I knew New Hampshire.
I hope you found peace? More, I hope you are somewhere wherein the kindness - and going out of your way to make sure feelings weren’t hurt and if hurt soothed- I hope that is where you are. Where all the hooks that pierce one here disintegrate or fall away.
And should any of those who lost him ever come to find this - I hope the portrait does him justice and that’s its good to read him remembered in such a way and that you too knew these shades of him, that gentle giant. I hope he was that for you too.
-Martha's Daughter
PS: AND you and Karen(?), your girlfriend DROVE my sister and I and took us to an ice cream parlor or nady shop? We we convinced you two would get married and someday and then we'd come live with you:) That was about the neatest and greatest thing that had ever happened ever and made us both feel really specially- all I can hopr know is that you knew that OR that they have google and blogger in the sweeter hereafter.
I recently read of your death.
Read someone else’s online ‘tribute’/obituary and wanted to write a bit more, the pieces of you I remember. Admittedly they’re few, they’re hardly any with the “family” spread across the continent. Marshall, as Marshall would, makes it spread across the world.
The picture in your obituary was sad to me. Perhaps you were happy but it looked forced which I’m sure someone or everyone will resent me saying but that is what I saw, what I see and thus was not only sad to read of your death because I recognize that smile, the I-am-trying-so-hard-to-smile smile. Your face in photographs so often seemed to be saying I’m trying so hard to smile and be what you or someone or anyone or everyone wants and it is breaking me. I recall seeing a lot of those on your face in the family album, pictures from weddings or school shared and sent between the Olson sisters.
At least that’s what I read on your face in that photograph and perhaps because of the angle and Martha , there was a picture of Martha with a very similar, eerily similar trying-very-hard-to--smile smile with those same family angles in her and your check bones, jaw lines and something in the eyes.
But too,
I have tales of you,
in my head,
lovely bits of you
just small threads that do not make a yarn but
moments and nuances of your person, always emotionally so very gentle.
You/David, were the gentlest in and of your band of giants.
Martha’s favorite story about you/David, one she told over and over again and every so often I see a bug, especially a particularly interesting looking one and I think of: ”He’d never seen bugs before”. According to Martha you were blind- okay not blind but apparently couldn’t see hardly anything from a very young age and needed glasses terribly and once you got them could barely keep your eyes off the ground and loved watching the bugs. Martha loved remembering you seeing what you had never seen, fascinated.
Of course I can not speak to the validity of that statement because it came to me second hand but I can speak from my own memory: who you are/were in my memory.
Ridgefield, Connecticut- early fall, Greenwich and those stone walls leading to your house, the smell of skunk weed. The screened in porch, the lazy-Susan on the kitchen table, the pool table in the basement and my very cool cousins with whom we always felt so safe and comfortable we never wanted to leave. Once when Martha locked the keys in the trunk I and my sister yelled “Horray” because we got to stay with you guys/all an extra day.
Was it that day? That visit or another the you told us a perhaps tall tale from Field and Stream magazine?
Was that the day we three went fishing? You, our big man of the world in high school cousin took us fishing. Where was the rest of the tribe? In and out -Monica with Barbazon (sp?) Eric and Erica somewhere or another and most certainly in a state of play, for the Morgensons could play, were encouraged to and do things whereas, well that was one of the wonderful things about coming to Connecticut and then of course there were the geese and the dog named Popcorn.
I’ve had quite a few geese around me these last few years but of course these geese can fly unlike the pair in Ridgefield, the pair metaphorically tied to the pond. A good sized pond with fish and frogs, two surly geese and right across the street from your house. That was a special day because you took us fishing?
Yes and no.
It was special because you were so kind, sensitive and not at all mean.
I don’t remember what kind of fish lived in the pond but that there was a tackle box and fishing poles and my sister or I caught one!?
“It’s tugging at the line - reel it in nice and steady, nice and steady-” you/David readied the net and then the bend in the fishing pole was gone at the sound of a snap.
“Line snapped,” you said and soon began untangling the mess of fishing line while shaking your head, clearly bothered as you/he explained how hooks pierce and catch fish “That fish’ll have that hook stuck in his mouth for the rest of his life.” You may have even said it twice explaining how important it is to reel a fish in correctly or else -and then you David were completely alarmed, panicked.
Your little girl cousin/s had started crying. Crying hard at the thought of having hurt the fish.
Flustered at this turn of events the gentlest giant said “But it’ll fall out,” you/David said which made us cry harder because
“You said -you just said an article in Field and Stream -and it’ll never come out and hurt the fish, it might starve - that might be killing the fish right now, and now it’ll longer for it to die.”
You/David paused, stumped and there was silence as your little girl cousin/s cried until we heard you say “Oh now I remember,” you/David said and apologized because you‘d forgotten something “they disintegrate”.
“The article said“, our cousin would almost entirely convincingly allege “I forgot, the hooks disintegrate,” which was a new vocabulary word David defined for us and described how gradually the metal breaks down, the hook breaks apart and the wound heals.
We stopped crying, we could stop crying and not feel as badly for the fish as when all I could see in my minds eye was all the long suffering because the line snapped. And David assured one or both of us that it was no one’s fault: the line broke because they just do sometimes.
My sister and I talked about it later because we kinda’ figured you/David might have made up the hook disintegration thing so we’d stop crying and wouldn‘t feel bad. That was strange to us, and really nice- nice to know someone like that.
And really strange because you were big and a grown up comparatively AND a big male person and instead of trying to make us cry or liking to see us cry or getting angry because we were crying you tried to make us feel better. In the world of my sister and I this was and would be very strange, very unusual behavior, very special behavior. A big kind hearted giant.
That and you defended us from the geese. The two geese who lived at the pond who did and would attack. Who could blame them? their wings having been clipped and now trapped only able to watch as other geese whose wings weren’t clipped could still fly and fly off without them.
Was it you who pointed that out?
Wouldn’t surprise me if it had been- would be in keeping with you, the little of you I got to know.
Those weekends were like escaping to a dream and then your tribe moved, you guys/all packed up and moved and we wouldn’t see you again until I was nearly or in in high school myself.
I still have pictures of when you and your tribe rolled into Albert Lea, Minn. all those years later - exiting a van on your collective way to another reunion too, stopping at R & N’s for basketball, a chow down and then roll out. None of you would talk to my sister and I, seemed to avoid us even- every one in your family really except for you/David.
Why? It had been odd to my sister and I, we’d been so excited to see the Morgensons and then they were so very cool, distant, uncomfortable to be around us. That was the word you used to describe your lot at seeing us: “uncomfortable”.
And I’ll never know if it was like at the pond in Greenwich: entirely true, possibly true or not at all true but said to make us feel better, to take away some of the sting? I know I was disappointed, hurt.
All I know, all I saw and how I see it in hind sight: No one ever asked to speak to my sister or I on the phone, never. Everyone called to talk with Martha “my family” she used to say with the same tone of things we weren’t allowed to touch. Were we the untouchables? Or because we were half him, that thing she was married to? Or was it simply because we were like puppies cute when little but after that who cares really?
Either way we’d been so excited to see the Morgensons who had disappeared to Texas for marriages we couldn’t attend, only details passed second hand and then a reunion of a few hours. Mattie’s picture taken with every person who in her having children had children and so on and so on and the Morgensons would barely look at us and then you/David came over and said something to us before you all left (for the Hedstroms?).
I wish I could remember exactly and precisely what you/David said but just like at the pond it did made us feel better .
“I’m sorry,” you/David said ‘none of us have really(?)…we’ve been avoiding you?’ What was it exactly that you/David said?
That you- a grown up person- were apologizing to us?! Would even use the words “I’m sorry” that was stunning in and of itself. You used a feeling word and that was nice to hear again because those used in our house. “Uncomfortable” and I hate to tell you/David but used the words “young ladies” during what you were the only one kind enough to do.
“I’m sorry…we were expecting two little kids?- we still think of you as little kids” and it was “uncomfortable” seeing I think you used the term “young ladies” right about then. The tribe couldn’t wrap their mind around it: one a high school hottie and one in braces- they’ve actually grown up.
On the other hand Martha I doubt ever had much good to say about us. I have some of her letters from that period and I remember what was occurring so-. Maybe you just took the sting out of our being on the outs and even if that was the case entirely, though I don’t believe that. You never struck me as a particularly good liar- but then again as no one ever did: what do I know?
I know there were always laughs and laughter and that your tribe could and did. The next time I’d see you was during a split in pieces Thanksgiving in St. Louis.
Martha’s pies.
The competition as to whose elbow skin was the most elongated? Whose was hanging the lowest naturally and who could stretch their elbow skin the silly puddy farthest?
“A Wonderful Life” was on, a holiday classic, a holiday survival tool for some. None of you had ever seen it, none of you had ever had to.
The story of your youngest brother who had been so involved in making out with a girl the car had begun to move and he had just felt like the earth was moving- except it was the car that was moving was recounted and everyone - even Jack could laugh about it. Snow, ice and perhaps some crashing involved?
The next time I would see you was at Martha’s funeral, after and actually while I was being interrogated, questioned about one of the very things I had asked be prevented from happening but no had listened.
You came though. Thank you.
I’d always intended to send a thank you note to New Hampshire but I never got around to it. Heard only snippets of your life- many children and they lost you so early.
“Brain cancer” I read.
I suspect I’ve seen over the last decade some of the places that might have taken you. Me- the brain injury and you -the brain cancer-ed. I hope you went fast. But from the little I read it doesn’t sound as if you did, sounds more like you were that fish having to drag a hook around the pond.
I could write more. I could almost always write more. There’s so much I don’t know like what you were doing in Texas? Last I knew New Hampshire.
I hope you found peace? More, I hope you are somewhere wherein the kindness - and going out of your way to make sure feelings weren’t hurt and if hurt soothed- I hope that is where you are. Where all the hooks that pierce one here disintegrate or fall away.
And should any of those who lost him ever come to find this - I hope the portrait does him justice and that’s its good to read him remembered in such a way and that you too knew these shades of him, that gentle giant. I hope he was that for you too.
-Martha's Daughter
PS: AND you and Karen(?), your girlfriend DROVE my sister and I and took us to an ice cream parlor or nady shop? We we convinced you two would get married and someday and then we'd come live with you:) That was about the neatest and greatest thing that had ever happened ever and made us both feel really specially- all I can hopr know is that you knew that OR that they have google and blogger in the sweeter hereafter.
