I Don't Know Why You Say Good-bye; I Say Hello

by Phil Repko*

Though the entire group had closer ties to Catholicism than to any other ideology, there was no saying of Grace. In fact, the matriarch, Jackie, the most devout of them all, was more likely to offer a bit of doggerel than a genuine prayer. She was often heard to say, “You say Grace and I’ll say Agnes.” Or perhaps this, “Hail Mary, full of grace. Forty chickens in a race…..”

And yet, Jackie, was no cavalier Catholic. She had spent her childhood attending daily morning Mass at Holy Trinity, the Slavic Church. It was three blocks away from home, and close enough to make it to school on time.

Of Jackie's nine children, 5 still lived in the area. On any given Sunday, five offspring, and their spouses, and their offspring, would gather at the Farmhouse for Sunday dinner. More often than not, it was pasta night, with Jackie's special spaghetti sauce, salad, and plenty of thick crusty bread.

All told, if the local offspring and their children attended, there were five couples and fourteen kids. Jackie was always there. Her husband, Barney, was usually there as well. On a full-attendance Sunday, almost thirty mouths were fed and as many souls were swaddled.

“I’ll get the salad ready,” Aunt Denise said. This week, the oldest brother and his family were missing, meaning 21 were sitting down to eat - at precisely 5 o'clock - just as the siblings had done, at the same home, when they were children.

“The noodles are done,” said Jackie. “Can someone finish setting the table?”

“I got it,” Julie said.

Denise asked,” Do you want me to call the kids?”

Jackie absently said, “If you think so?”

Julie, Jenny, and Marie all looked at one another with a bit of confusion.

Attempting to break the awkward silence, Jenny chirped, “Hey, here’s something funny. Did I tell you that Janelle woke up crying in the middle of the night, a couple Saturdays ago?”

“What’s funny about that? Uncle Phil asked. “Someone wakes up in the middle of the night almost every night at my house.” He paused. “And it’s usually me.”

“Well,” Jenny said, “Janelle always sleeps through the night. But she woke up about 11:30, crying, and we couldn’t get her to tell us why.”

“She didn’t say anything?” Denise asked.

Jenny explained, ‘She just said she was sad. Really sad, and she didn’t know why.”

“That is weird,” Uncle Roy chimed in. “She doesn’t usually wake up in the night, huh?”

“No,” Jenny said. “All she could say is that she was sad.”

Julie carried in the spaghetti in a large bowl, one that might hold enough pasta to feed ten people. There would need to be a second round for sure.

“Emily sleeps like a rock too,” Julie added. Then she headed back to the kitchen for the gravy boat with the extra sauce. “Funny that she didn’t remember a bad dream.”

Jayson, Brandon, and Ryan rushed in from the top of the hill, where they had been shooting baskets at the hoop that was affixed to the garage.

Jake and Philip, roughly two years younger than their 10-year-old cousins, had also been up at the barn, but they had been throwing darts inside the barn when the dinner bell, a literal heavy cast iron bell on a post, was rung to call all to dinner.

Shannon, eight years old, only 9 days younger than Philip, was the one pulling the rope attached to the bell. When the dinner bell rang at this point, it wasn't animals and farmhands who sprang to attention, it was the progeny – in all, three generations with a long-standing kinship that made conversation, and speculation, comfortable and warm.

"Where are younger ones?" Uncle Jay asked. The older five were seated and already asking for the pasta noodles to be drenched with sauce. Shannon was filling her own glass, and the others, with water, juice, or milk. Only 8 years old, Shannon already needed to take care of others. It was to be her gift and burden for life.

Uncle Scott yelled up the steps, which sat just behind the grand foyer at the front of the Farmhouse. Since this was open to the upper floor, his voice echoed and rang. "Come and eat!" he hollered. The call to supper was almost as loud as the ponderous iron bell in the side yard.

Emily, Ian, Brett, and Eric came down the stairs in a bunch. Janelle, a bit older, appeared a full minute later.

Janelle set a shapeless purse on one of the posters in the foyer. The posters were made of cherry wood, and Jackie kept them shining with Endust spray polish.

“What’s that?” Little Grammy asked as she stood in the doorway between the kitchen and dining room. She pointed to the purse.

“I found it in the room upstairs,” Janelle said. At 6 years old, she was tall, thin, and adorable. Her smile could light up a room, but it was reserved for rare moments of confidence and happiness. This was not one of those times.

Little Grammy made her way to pick up the handbag, sighing on the way. “I remember this!” she exclaimed. “This was Big Grammy’s. She bought it at Boscov's."

“I’m sorry,” Janelle said. “I’ll put it back.”

“Oh, no,” Little Grammy cooed. She pulled the girl in for a grandmotherly hug. “it’s yours, if you want it, my little Nellie.”

Janelle smiled, showing the brilliant teeth, and shiny cheeks. “I do,” she said. “Big Grammy used to let me play with it.”

Jackie, Little Grammy, opened the top zipper, and smiled, with a glisten at the corner of her eye. Inside was a trove of costume jewelry – gaudy bracelets and dangly clip-on earrings. These were Grammy’s favorites.

“I thought I cleaned out everything,” Little Grammy said. She almost seemed to be wringing it out, like a wet towel. “Where did you find it?”

“It was in the clothes room upstairs,” Janelle said. “Philip called it the clothes room.”

The clothes room was a large walk-in closet on the 2nd floor of the Farmhouse.

Little Grammy patted Janelle’s head. Then she returned to the kitchen without another word.

Dinner was performed. Pop-Pop Barney sat at the top of the table, near the window to the side yard. The younger children - Ian, Eric, Emily, Brett, and Janelle – had long since finished a healthy helping of pasta and bread, and one or two had tried the creamed corn, or the salad, or the string beans. The older children – Jayson, Brandon, Ryan, Philip, Jacob, and Shannon – lingered at the table, eating cookies or cake, and enjoying the grown-up’s stories.

After a time, Shannon, Janelle, and Emily landed on the long, covered front porch, swinging on the wooden swing. Shannon was doing some talking, but the other two were quietly listening to the conversation at the dinner table. Janelle held the large handbag in her lap. Without thinking, she unzipped a side pocket and found a full pack of Juicy Fruit gum – unopened. She handed a piece to each of her cousins.

Inside, though the large picture window was closed, they could hear their parents talking. “Remember?” Janelle asked her cousins. “Big Grammy always had gum for us.”

Shannon was old enough to answer, and to remember, and to mourn. “I miss her,” Shannon said in hushed voice. “She was sassy ---- like little Grammy.”

“Big Grammy was fun!” Emily said. “I miss her.”

Inside, at the dining table, Julie eavesdropped on the porch swing conversation.

“Wait!” Julie said. “I was just thinking.” She looked at Jenny, her sister-in-law. “What night was it that Janelle woke up?”

“A couple of weeks ago,” Jenny said, “I think it might have been ------”

“Mommy!” Emily yelled from the porch swing. “Can I have some gum?”

“I don’t have any gum,” Julie said. “I’m sorry!”

Philip, Jacob, and Brett came running into the dining room from upstairs. “Mom! Can we keep it?” They asked in unison.

“What are you talking about?” Uncle Roy asked, a bit louder than the other parents.

Jacob spoke up, excited. “Janelle showed us where she found the pock-a-book. There’s a bunch of things in that room.”

Philip added. “There’s a bunch of pock-a-books, filled with Big Grammy’s stuff! And there’s gum!”

“Give it here!” Aunt Julie and Aunt Denise said together.

The ‘loot’ and treasure had been gathered into one cavernous handbag. The bag was littered with rhinestones, and swirling with colors, like an abstract painting. The most common item inside was gum, but there was also hard candy, some pocket change, and more than ten small lipstick bullets.

“You can have it,” Aunt Julie said.

“But not all at once,” Aunt Denise added.

The boys had gathered more than twenty packs of gum, Juicy Fruit, Fruit Stripe, and Chiclets. The costume jewelry had been collected also, but it was now unceremoniously dumped on the poster near the dining room.

As the excitement died down, and the table was cleared, the topic of the midnight distress was resurrected.

"What night did you say Janelle woke up?" Denise asked.

"I think it was a Friday night," Jenny repeated, for the third time, but each time an interruption stopped the conversation cold. "About three weeks ago, maybe?"

Julie stopped and thought. “That’s funny.”

“Why?” Roy and Denise said simultaneously.

“Emily woke up that Friday, too."

"How do you know which Friday?" Uncle Jay asked. He was joining the conversation after grabbing himself a cup of hot tea.

“Hmm.” Jenny replied. "I think it was three weeks ago."

"Wasn’t it two weeks ago?" Aunt Marie asked.

Julie jumped in. "It was definitely three weeks ago, on Friday night, or in the middle of the night on Saturday morning."

“Wait! What!” This came from Marie. She had been intermittently overhearing bits and pieces of the conversation. "Wait!" The third wait was louder than the others.

The table looked at Marie. "Shannon woke up in the middle of the night. On Friday night. It was definitely three weeks ago, because ---------

"Wait!" Julie said. “Do you know what time?”

Marie looked confused and she paused. "It was around 12 o'clock," she said.

Uncle Roy interrupted. "Is Shannon a light or a heavy sleeper?"

Uncle Scott was standing in the foyer, leaning on the poster that separated the dining room from the front door. "She hasn't woken up in the middle of the night since she was about 7 months old," he shared. "I'd call her a heavy sleeper."

Uncle Phil asked the others about the details.

"What time do you think Janelle woke up?"

"Around 11:30 pm. on Friday," Jenny said. "We were going to watch a movie."

The gang of parents at the table looked at one another.

"Em woke up before midnight." Julie added. "I mean, before midnight. We watched the Sixers blow their home opener, and then we were watching the end of the 2nd game."

Aunt Denise chuckled. "All of them are heavy sleepers, huh? Wish my boys would learn that trick."

Aunt Marie suddenly seemed to catch onto the story. "Wait!" she said again. Janelle woke up at 11:30. Emily woke up before midnight. Shannon didn't wake up until 12:00 o'clock, for sure."

“Wait!” Uncle Jay chimed in. "Three weeks ago? "Wasn't that the night Big Grammy died?"

All at the table looked round at one another.

Pop Pop Barney interjected. "Makes complete sense."

More stares.

Pop Pop laid out his case. “Grammy passed away around 11:30, we think, upstairs in her room. Jay and Jenny live about 1 mile away, and Janelle woke up sad a few minutes later."

"Stop!" Julie said. "Stop. You're scaring me."

"Why?" Uncle Scott asked.

Marie blurted. "I know."

Eyes shifted to Marie. "When Janelle woke up, she said she was really sad, but didn't know why. Shannon didn't wake up until after midnight, and she was crying, but didn't say she was sad, just said she felt cold and alone."

The parents all looked at Julie. "What did Emily say when she woke up?"

"She's only five years old."

"What did she say?" They all asked again.

"Emily, can you come here? " Julie called.

Little Emily, walked into the dining room, looking petrified.

Uncle Phil, her father, intercepted her and put her on his lap. He called her 'Merm," after The Little Mermaid, her favorite movie.

"Merm, tell them what happened when you woke up in the middle of the night?”

Emily bit her lip. Her mother tried to coax her.

Remember when Daddy brought you into our room in the night? Emily nodded.

"What did you tell Mommy?"

Emily eyes widened as she remembered. "Big Grammy said Hi!”

The parents all looked at one another. “She said, “Hi?” Aunt Jenny asked?

Emily nodded.

“Were you afraid?”

Emily nodded again.

“Why?”

“Big Grammy never comes to our house.”

Emily looked at her mother, and put out her arms for comfort.

Her father took her down from his lap, and she ran to her mother.

Uncle Scott chimed in from the poster near the foyer. “Obviously, Big Grammy passed away before The Tonight Show,” he chuckled. “She visited Janelle’s house, about a mile away. It took her a few minutes to visit Emily in Pottstown, to say good-bye to her. By midnight, she made it up to the windy knoll in Lyons to say good-bye to Shannon.”

“She always was attached to the girls.” This came from Jackie, who had been standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the dining room. She had been strangely silent this whole time.

“C’mon!” Uncle Roy said. “You don’t really think Big Grammy scared the girls in the middle of the night after she died?”

Uncle Phil was prone to disagree with people just for fun, but this time his retort seemed more pointed. “I don’t ever find it hard to believe that our souls can travel outside our bodies.” The room was otherwise quiet.

“Big Grammy loved the girls especially. We all saw that. Doesn’t mean she didn’t love the boys too. But I think it makes sense she wanted to say good-bye to the girls.”

Uncle Roy started to object, but little Emily spoke loudly.

“Big Grammy said, ‘Hi!’”

The room went dead silent.

“And then she said, ‘Good-bye!’ That was sad!”

* * Phil Repko is a career educator in the PA public school system who has been writing for fun and no profit since he was a teenager. Phil lives with his wife Julie in Gilbertsville and is the father of three outstanding children, two of whom are also poets and writers. He vacillates between poetry and prose, as the spirit beckons, and has published two books of poetry “Pieces of April” and “Homestretch,” both available on Amazon.

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