(CREATIVE NONFICTION)
SOME LITHUANIAN AMERICAN FAMILY FACTS
JULEIGH HOWARD-HOBSON
SOME LITHUANIAN AMERICAN FAMILY FACTS
JULEIGH HOWARD-HOBSON
When my Uncle Antanas was little they thought he was going to die. Hard. He was doubled up in pain. His stomach, they thought. and they gave him chamomile tea. They gave him soda water. They gave him pink chalky medicine. But it wasn’t his stomach. It was his appendix. Burst. My great aunts, and my grandmother, they sat in the Brooklyn waiting room while my Great aunt Sissy prayed outside, under a Tree of Paradise that grew right by the side of the hospital, its long hanging leaves a makeshift church if you wanted to look at it like that. My great aunt, she did. My other great aunts and my Grandmother, they heard her praying to that tree church. Jesus, Jesus, save my son. Please, if you save my son I’ll go to church every Sunday. Please Jesus. Please Mary, you are a mother. I’ll give ten dollars to the church every payday. I’ll let Antanas be a priest. Please, just save him. And my Uncle Antanas he pulled through. Went to college even. But my great aunt, she never did go to church every Sunday, or water that tree, even with Tears of happiness, or give Antanas to the Church. Let alone the ten dollars. She hung his college graduation photograph in a big fancy frame in her parlor. Her sisters, my great aunts, they keep their mouths shut. But…you know what they’re thinking. He better watch out. Things have a way of happening. You can always tell.
White Spiders in the house bring good luck. Death knocks. Dropping a fork on the floor brings a man to the door. Spoons bring someone in pantaloons. Shoes on the table is a fight. Finding a fish bone, a bad bean, a bay leaf, a peppercorn, a piece of gristle are all good for wish making.
Flies on the ceiling mean rain. Itchy palms bring money. Crossed knives mean trouble. Burnt barley water cures diarrhea. Sewing on Sunday means putting a toothpick in your mouth to prevent lockjaw. Figure out your dreams and you will know what you have to do. An acorn in your pocket will ward off lightening. Carry the penny somebody gave you in your pocket to make sure you see each other again. You don’t break promises to God and get away with it.
No matter what.
My great aunt Sissy tells the family this: I always dream of three different ways I die. Waiting for a poison to begin. Or by suffocating -- my heart and lungs are going crazy, I’m knocking on all these doors, I can’t even pray to Jesus for help. Or falling from that ugly tree, you know the one by the hospital, I’m still holding the branch that broke when I hit the sidewalk. Same dreams over and over. The poison is the worst. But it’s quick once it starts. Her sisters and my grandmother they look at each other. How’s Antanas doing?
Juleigh Howard-Hobson has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, the Best of the Net and a Rhysling. Her work has appeared in place such as The Lyric, , Able Muse, and The Tishman Review, and has been published in anthologies by Yale University, Little Brown, Workman, and Adams Media. Her latest book is Our Otherworld (Red Salon Press).