The Ancestral Record
Uncle J crossed over about a week ago, during a big storm that knocked out the power. He’d spent the week prior tangled up in the veil, same as Uncle C had, and to save Aunt L the tiresome chore of reading texts out loud, I sent voice notes instead.
“It’s one of your favorite nieces,” I said one day, “the one who doesn’t want to claim lone-favorite status because the other candidate will put a foot up my ass for doing so, so: Sarah,” and I talked about nothing much and told Uncle J to rest.
“It’s your favorite niece,” I said the next day, and explained that Cousin D had ceded the title to me in exchange for my formally entering into the record the superiority of the Uncle C team in familial wiffleball contests. “This is me, doing that, because I still fear The Foot Of D.” I knew he’d be relieved we’d settled that, I said, and I talked about the weather and told him to rest.
“No need to respond,” I said the day after that, “but you know that sign on the factory floor of this family’s history, the Days Since A Lost-Time ‘Embittered Reference To Grandma Throwing Out The Baseball Cards’ Incident one? Well, I would say that I regret to inform you it was reset to zero earlier today, but I do not regret it one bit and neither does Dave Sr. What kind of super-villain gives a Robin Roberts rookie card to Goodwill, honestly. When you see Louise tell her that was bullshit. Love you, write if you get work.” Uncle J opened his eyes when Aunt L played that one. The next day, the rains rolled through, and when they left they took J along.
Moments later, we cousins believe, the roasting of my grandmother began on the other side – excuse me: “resumed,” not began; I can’t imagine Uncle C waited eight years to tease her about the baseball cards, the lima beans, watering the Cutty, “there are too many pillows nowadays, please eliminate three” crackpot ideas about sleep hygiene.
Of course it never stopped on our side, either; this is why I brought up the cards. Nobody actually cares about the actual cards. (Mostly.) We care about the story of the cards. Performative outrage about dishonoring the Whiz Kids is a family tradition, a reading of names, “A Visit from St. Nicholas.” It is a story we know and share, one we can all live in together as long as it’s still told. It can go on because we do.
Last winter, when Dave Sr. fell ill, when we thought he would pass through first, Uncle J and I told each other these stories and tried to laugh, about the cards and the Cutty, and of course The Ice-Skate Incident. And we told each other that Uncle C and C Sr. and Louise would watch over Dad.
At least one of us believed this; at least one of us, driving the same 30 snow-blasted miles from Brooklyn to Jersey every day, had to believe this, asked the ancestors to assemble, to protect Dave Sr., to give us strength and grace. To come back into the story with some sipping whiskey and keep the pipes from freezing until Dave Sr. got back to the house. Just one more baseball season, get him to spring training, give us another summer of exchanging Mets bloopers and “bunting: why the hell would you do that” headlines. Give me that. Give me more story.
I spend a lot of time thinking about narrative and grief, if a story aims to reflect the world or perfect it, and specifically in true crime – is this story a whodunnit or a whydunnit, a “what happened here” or a “why is ‘here’ the way it is, and how might we never return.” A lot of the genre is straightforward accounting, a chronological report of a case.
And a lot of it is mourning, which has no answer or uncomplicated end. A lot of books, crimoirs, with a murder at their “centers” have at their hearts something else – simple sorrow. “This is the story of my friend, that ended too soon”; “once upon a time, I had a brother, but now, I only have all the funny/dumb stuff he said.”
So, we tell all the stories we have, to fill the space left by the ones we didn’t get. We repeat them to each other, because they create the “we”s and sustain the “each other”s. We believe the ancestors remember how the stories go, know their parts, hear that anecdote about the Shibe Park bleacher bums inducting three gleefully scandalized Bryn Mawr boys into the Creative Curse Words Society, and fold their hands of cards and come out from the horizon to see what’s needed.
We wait for them, and we go on, with and without them.
And we assemble the candles for Don once more. That cake’s getting crowded, friend.
Tags: September 11th
Thanks, SDB, for another beautiful commemoration. Sending my love to you and your family in your time of grief.
A tip of the sipping whiskey to Uncles C and J, may ye rest well.
Happy birthday, Don.
Checking in again, as every year, from Australia. Happy birthday Don, and thinking of you & your family, Sarah. Thanks for your words, as always.
As long as you write these, Sars, I’ll read them.
Happy Birthday, Don.
What is grief, if not love persevering? Sars, thank you for guiding the way, as always.
I’m sorry about your uncle’s passing, Sars. I can’t believe it’s been 25 years.
(I don’t quite remember my original screen name for here, but I think I’ve got the jist of it lol)
Thank you for writing. Much love to you and yours.
Stories…..Randall was a storyteller……we share and grieve…it doesn’t make it better it just makes it something.
Happy Birthday, Don.
…Randall! xo
Much love to you and your own ones, Sarah, in a sad time. Thank you again for twenty-five years of commemorations and observations, graceful, true, heartfelt and funny. Hello to all my old pals and happy birthday to Don.
Happy birthday, Don. Checking in here for a quarter century is a strange comfort. Best to you and yours, and all the abiding Tomato Nationals.
Has it been this long? Really? How can it be? But it is.
I guess it’s because stories always bring us back to the now, even if the story is literally one we have heard all of our lives, and our kids’ lives, and our cousins’ lives. It’s always that one patch on the quilt that your hand finds in the dark, always there.
Twenty five years and Sarah has remained faithful, and we all come to hear the story again. Happy Birthday, Don.
Happy birthday Don, from a time zone where it’s the 11th. Thank you for holding space here Sars, and giving us reflections over a quarter century.
Not sure what I will do if these yearly remembrances end. This is always my first stop and I always reread your initial post. You have an incredible way of drawing the parallels of grief and making sense out of the senseless. Thank you for
This gift every year and for being part of this journey of life with us all.
Hi, old friends. Glad to see you tonight, as I think tomorrow the phone should maybe just be shelved for the day. I’m going to touch grass and snuggle with kitties and get in a workout and maybe bake a cake for our dear Don.
It’s been a long time and nothing but a blink of an eye.
Take care of each other. Happy birthday, Don.
Checking in another year like clockwork. Glad to see you’re still writing. Happy birthday, Don
Reading between the lines, I hope Dave Sr. is doing as well as can be reasonably expected, and perhaps as well as can unreasonably be expected.
Happy birthday, Don.
A quarter century. Unfathomable.
I’ll always return here, as long as I’m turning at all.
Thank you, and happy birthday to Don, wherever he may be.
Fare thee well, Uncle J. Fare thee well. And as always, Happy Birthday, Don.
Every year I’ll be here. I’m so sorry for your loss Sarah. And happy birthday Don.
I was listening to a true-crine podcast the other day, as I often do, and toward the end of the episode the host did something I have never heard a true-crime podcaster do before in all my years of listening: she started to cry.
I haven’t been able to get that out of my head. The fact of it. The unusualness of it, and the fact of that. Why aren’t we crying every time? These are stories of awful things, and they’ve become just how we waste time when we’re stuck in the car or doing yard work.
But then I thought, if we cried for everything that’s awful right now, or perhaps any time, we’d probably never stop, and you can’t really exist that way.
But some well-timed tears can be respectful and appropriate and remind us that the stories happened–they’re not just content to be consumed.
I’ll take some time today to re-read “For Thou Art With Us” and think about everything we’ve lost, then and still, with the appropriate solemnity. Thank you.
25 years. Happy birthday Don.
Sitting here at 6am before heading in to work at the high school where I’ll tell the story 6 times straight today. The teenagers need to hear it, but I need to hear it from you first, Sars.
It’s not going to rain today. I often prefer when it does.
25 years. A quarter of a lifetime. A moment.
Happy birthday, Don.
How has it been 25 years?
How has it *only* been 25 years?
Thank you SDB
HBD
Still here. Still wishing Don a happy birthday.
I should have specified, I’m sorry! Dave Sr. rallied in stubborn Bunting style. (My exhortations to hang in for one more Mets season are now objects of derision but we work with what we’ve got.)
Nice to see you all here.
I cried the whole time writing this one; sometimes it’s like that. Sometimes it’s a valve.
At the same time…you know, “cry and cut.” ;)
25 years. I’m old enough that I lived in the “before times” and yet.. it seems I can hardly remember the before times. Thank you, Sars, for faithfully holding this space for us every year. Happy birthday, Don.
Thank you, Sars, once again. Grief finds us all, and the stories are so important.
Happy birthday, Don, I hope you’re well.
Happy birthday, Don.
I can’t watch the memorials, but I always come here. Love to you and your family in your season of grief. I also have to believe in a future in which we can tease people about lost baseball cards because the things that my packrat mom kept while tossing my cards beggars belief. I’m going to a game tonight (the Nats, for my sins), and this one time only, will be rooting for someone to bunt.
Happy Birthday, Don.
This is lovely, Sarah. My condolences on your loss, and may J’s memory be a blessing.
Happy birthday, Don.
How has it been 25 years? I’m an old lady now, or at least I feel like one some days. Hugs to you, Sars, after all these years. Happy birthday, Don.
sitting here at 8:46 reading this as my standup call pauses to remember.
I miss your writing. I’m glad you’re here. I love the idea of sending voice notes in times like these you describe.
Happy birthday to Don.
Happy birthday to Don, and my condolences on the loss of Uncle J.
I’ve started working on a true-crime-adjacent project (my shopping list for Cluster B books isn’t ready yet) and it feels like a lot of the anger and conspiracy theorizing and cynicism, decades later, are manifestations of incomplete mourning. And it goes the other way, where every story of mourning is a true-crime story, where the answer to the ‘whodunit’ is ultimately God, or bad luck, or the forces of the universe, or the second law of thermodynamics: the crime is unsolvable. We’re all Job lamenting in baffled rage, or, if you prefer, saying, “Why hast Thou forsaken me?” But in the absence of a proven divine listener we take comfort from telling the stories to each other.
My grandmother also threw out the baseball cards. My mom was determined not to request her mistake, to the point that I have entire Topps 1991 sets in my closet and no idea what to do with them (don’t look at me, my brother says).
Wishes for a sweet new year to everyone.
May his memory be a blessing. May all of their memories be a blessing.
Happy birthday, Don.
Be well, Sars. Thank you.
Thanks Sars. Happy Birthday Don.
I never know what to write in this little box to express how much I appreciate these anniversary posts. I’m glad you’re still here and still writing.
HBD, Don.
Sorry for your loss, Sarah. Going on without our missing is hard, finding the narrative is the only way I can pick myself up and keep going. When the story doesn’t work is when it really hurts.
Happy birthday, Don.
Checking in here as I’ve done, I realized suddenly, for almost exactly half my life.
Thank you for this quiet spot of never forgetting where we can all be “alone together.”
Happy Birthday, Don.
How the hell can 25 years have passed since that day.
Thank you for still being here and holding space for this.
Happy birthday Don ?
OMG – 25 years. This is my comfort ritual on a day that brings me no comfort. I’m old enough too to remember the before times and mourn for what we lost but marvel at what we gained.
Sars – thanks for 25 years. I’ll be checking every year because your writing brings me back and takes me forward too.
Happy Birthday Don.
<3 <3
Sending lots of love. Happy birthday, Don.
Hello old friend! Thank you, as always, for our moment of reflection today. I always hold my breath as the page loads, but then there you are. Today hits harder than many of the previous 24. As always, happy birthday Don, wherever you are.
@Jessica haha Barb wouldn’t even look in their direction, did not want to hear it. (I think you’re right on with the rest too.)
“once upon a time, I had a brother, but now, I only have all the funny/dumb stuff he said.”
Oh, Sars.
Once upon a time, I had a younger brother. He was the world’s biggest Philadelphia Flyers fan. He didn’t live long enough to see Gritty, which is truly a crime, because he would have Gritty tattooed on his body right now.
When I was going through photos for the funeral, I found a photo of him wearing a hand-me-down, late 90s windbreaker from our older cousins – for the Penguins.
I await my cosmic retribution.
My thoughts are with you in your grief, SDB.
Happy birthday, Don.
I’m so sorry, Katherine. (But Gritty is for everyone, everywhen.)
Happy birthday Don
To all those who should have been able to celebrate more birthdays here with their loved ones.
Isn’t it lovely, how many of us come and find our connection and community each year through this site, this ritual of always coming here–not just the website, but Sars’ writing. It’s the writing that feels like home.
Happy birthday, Don.
Thank you, Sars.
It’s hard to believe it’s been 25 years. I remember “before” with a dreamy, golden tinged nostalgia that’s probably due to the fact that I was young and not much had happened to me yet. Now our children are grown, parents passed on and we’ve experienced the “worse, poorer, and sickness” parts of our vows but we are still here and I’m so glad you are, too.
Happy Birthday, Don. Xx