Phyllis
Essay 16, Finite
by gayla mills
Phyllis died in March. She’d outlived even herself. Though she seemed close, she was actually my second cousin once removed. Now she’s been removed again.
Though we’d spent holidays together, I shared my first time alone with Phyllis when I was ten. My parents had bought property out in Louisa County, when you could still buy an old farm house with acreage and a pond for under thirty thousand. We couldn’t spend much time there, because of the tenants, but the times when we could visit shone clear.
The one I remember best was when Phyllis came south for a few days. Somehow she and I were down at the pond, alone, in the water. She was the first grown up I saw go swimming in the nude, with no hesitation or shame. She floated on her back, her round breasts reaching for the warmth of the sun. I don’t remember ever seeing breasts like that before—everyone kept theirs covered. I realized that’s what they were all about, and wondered if I’d ever have breasts like that. Frolicking in the water, she was more like a teenage seal than a grown woman.
When a teen myself, having taken up skinny dipping with my friends in that same pond, I attended Phyllis’s second wedding to another first cousin of my dad’s. We gathered on her farm in Hope NJ. There really is a place named that. The wedding party strode up the hill in the spring air and honored the joining of these cousins. They were in their fifties and had survived the deaths of their first spouses. Their grown children numbered six. The three from Paul’s marriage would decline after years of heartache with Huntington’s disease. But on this day they were tall, handsome, and strong, graduates of the finest colleges in New England, looking toward bright futures. The marriage of Paul and Phyl seemed a fairy tale, and we feasted after the ceremony and took walks past the barn and along the gravel road that took you to the back forty.
They had good years together, Paul, the quiet sort who took care of those things that needed a man’s hand, and Phyl, the one whom everyone listened to because you damn well better if you knew what was best. Now her hair was short and gray, but thick and lustrous too, swept to one side. What you really noticed, though, were her eyes, an intense blue that could shine with the rest of her face. Since no one else in our family had blue eyes but me, I wondered if I would look like her when I got to be old. That’s how I imagined it.
People always noticed when Phyl walked in the room, as the air became electrified and the colors grew sharper. When she turned 80, years after caring for Paul as he suffered through Alzheimer’s and lost his strength, she bought a bright red VW bug and zipped along the back roads in it, going much too fast. No one dared take her keys away. She found a boyfriend and wrote us about him too.
Two years ago, the family rendezvoused in Rhode Island at HD, the family camp that had been given away a decade ago to the Audubon Society. It was another loss to the family, who had spent much of the last eighty years meeting there for summer fun. The older generation, the parents of our parents, were gone, and now the property that held the family together was slipping away too. But we were still allowed to meet there sometimes, and so we’d gather from up and down the east coast. Only these years, instead of spending summers, we’d grab a free weekend to get reacquainted.
And there she was. It was startling to see Phyllis in a wheelchair, but her blue eyes were as brilliant as before. Sunday rose hot, and we all went down to the dock for a last swim. Phyllis told me she wished she could go swimming, but she hadn’t brought a suit. I thought for a moment about that.
“Do you have to wear a suit?” I asked.
“No, I don’t, but I’m going to need help getting in.”
When I sprung the plan on my cousins, they were game. Her burly male nurses were not pleased, however.
“We can’t do that. It’s just not possible.”
“Phyl wants to do it,” I said. “You don’t need to worry about a thing. All you have to do is leave, because she’ll need some privacy. We’ll do the rest.”
They shrugged, got her wheelchair down to the water’s edge, next to the dock, then left.
We three women helped Phyl out of her clothes. She left her pull-up diapers on. We got her into the inner tube, and away from shore we went. Cousin Laurie and I flanked the tube, while Lynny paddled in the canoe nearby. Phyl’s smile was self-contained, and she said little. But she dangled her fingers in the water and gazed at the sky.
Ten minutes later, though, I could see her slipping. Her shoulders and arms simply weren’t strong enough to keep her in the tube, and already there wasn’t much of her left above water. I imagined a tipping point in the not-distant future, when suddenly with a splash her legs would be trapped on the back edge of the tube, her head and arms below it. Every day I spent with her, Phyl had taught me fearlessness, but I also knew that people died every day, sometimes for stupid reasons.
Trying to appear calm, my raised eyebrows and cock of the head spoke to Laurie on the other side.
“I think we’d best get back now.” She offered no resistance.
So we kicked hard on either side, and she seemed none the wiser. After some towel drying and the laying on of clothes, the men folk were summoned back.
When we said goodbye that afternoon, she was back in her wheelchair, confined once again.
Last month her daughter made a Facebook page for Phyllis to share details with the family. I was tagged in one of the photos. It showed Phyl in the water, shoulders and arms bare, with me beside her. The caption reads “still skinny dipping at 85.” It’s her last lesson for me.
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Essay 16, Finite
by gayla mills
Phyllis died in March. She’d outlived even herself. Though she seemed close, she was actually my second cousin once removed. Now she’s been removed again.
Though we’d spent holidays together, I shared my first time alone with Phyllis when I was ten. My parents had bought property out in Louisa County, when you could still buy an old farm house with acreage and a pond for under thirty thousand. We couldn’t spend much time there, because of the tenants, but the times when we could visit shone clear.
The one I remember best was when Phyllis came south for a few days. Somehow she and I were down at the pond, alone, in the water. She was the first grown up I saw go swimming in the nude, with no hesitation or shame. She floated on her back, her round breasts reaching for the warmth of the sun. I don’t remember ever seeing breasts like that before—everyone kept theirs covered. I realized that’s what they were all about, and wondered if I’d ever have breasts like that. Frolicking in the water, she was more like a teenage seal than a grown woman.
When a teen myself, having taken up skinny dipping with my friends in that same pond, I attended Phyllis’s second wedding to another first cousin of my dad’s. We gathered on her farm in Hope NJ. There really is a place named that. The wedding party strode up the hill in the spring air and honored the joining of these cousins. They were in their fifties and had survived the deaths of their first spouses. Their grown children numbered six. The three from Paul’s marriage would decline after years of heartache with Huntington’s disease. But on this day they were tall, handsome, and strong, graduates of the finest colleges in New England, looking toward bright futures. The marriage of Paul and Phyl seemed a fairy tale, and we feasted after the ceremony and took walks past the barn and along the gravel road that took you to the back forty.
They had good years together, Paul, the quiet sort who took care of those things that needed a man’s hand, and Phyl, the one whom everyone listened to because you damn well better if you knew what was best. Now her hair was short and gray, but thick and lustrous too, swept to one side. What you really noticed, though, were her eyes, an intense blue that could shine with the rest of her face. Since no one else in our family had blue eyes but me, I wondered if I would look like her when I got to be old. That’s how I imagined it.
People always noticed when Phyl walked in the room, as the air became electrified and the colors grew sharper. When she turned 80, years after caring for Paul as he suffered through Alzheimer’s and lost his strength, she bought a bright red VW bug and zipped along the back roads in it, going much too fast. No one dared take her keys away. She found a boyfriend and wrote us about him too.
Two years ago, the family rendezvoused in Rhode Island at HD, the family camp that had been given away a decade ago to the Audubon Society. It was another loss to the family, who had spent much of the last eighty years meeting there for summer fun. The older generation, the parents of our parents, were gone, and now the property that held the family together was slipping away too. But we were still allowed to meet there sometimes, and so we’d gather from up and down the east coast. Only these years, instead of spending summers, we’d grab a free weekend to get reacquainted.
And there she was. It was startling to see Phyllis in a wheelchair, but her blue eyes were as brilliant as before. Sunday rose hot, and we all went down to the dock for a last swim. Phyllis told me she wished she could go swimming, but she hadn’t brought a suit. I thought for a moment about that.
“Do you have to wear a suit?” I asked.
“No, I don’t, but I’m going to need help getting in.”
When I sprung the plan on my cousins, they were game. Her burly male nurses were not pleased, however.
“We can’t do that. It’s just not possible.”
“Phyl wants to do it,” I said. “You don’t need to worry about a thing. All you have to do is leave, because she’ll need some privacy. We’ll do the rest.”
They shrugged, got her wheelchair down to the water’s edge, next to the dock, then left.
We three women helped Phyl out of her clothes. She left her pull-up diapers on. We got her into the inner tube, and away from shore we went. Cousin Laurie and I flanked the tube, while Lynny paddled in the canoe nearby. Phyl’s smile was self-contained, and she said little. But she dangled her fingers in the water and gazed at the sky.
Ten minutes later, though, I could see her slipping. Her shoulders and arms simply weren’t strong enough to keep her in the tube, and already there wasn’t much of her left above water. I imagined a tipping point in the not-distant future, when suddenly with a splash her legs would be trapped on the back edge of the tube, her head and arms below it. Every day I spent with her, Phyl had taught me fearlessness, but I also knew that people died every day, sometimes for stupid reasons.
Trying to appear calm, my raised eyebrows and cock of the head spoke to Laurie on the other side.
“I think we’d best get back now.” She offered no resistance.
So we kicked hard on either side, and she seemed none the wiser. After some towel drying and the laying on of clothes, the men folk were summoned back.
When we said goodbye that afternoon, she was back in her wheelchair, confined once again.
Last month her daughter made a Facebook page for Phyllis to share details with the family. I was tagged in one of the photos. It showed Phyl in the water, shoulders and arms bare, with me beside her. The caption reads “still skinny dipping at 85.” It’s her last lesson for me.
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