Our Hearts Always Remember

Our Hearts Always Remember

My body is on automatic pilot as I walk down the driveway at my daughter Jessica’s home, turn right, and walk up Parnell Avenue to Hales Corners Park. The title of a book I’ve read, The Body Keeps Score, about the lasting effects of trauma, comes to mind as I sleepwalk to the public swimming pool that no one has used for years because of a funding issue.

I notice the high dive is no longer there. The two low diving boards are, and the lifeguard chair where the suntanned gal in the red one-piece suit would hold up her white megaphone and yell: “Get up the ladder and exit.”

As a child, after I'd hit the water, often belly-first, I’d swim to the ladder, but I needed to take off my nose plugs and adjust my swimsuit before climbing out. It took time. My body was jolted by the plunge.

Continuing on the asphalt path leads me to the baseball diamond. The shiny silver benches where the teams always sat on either side now have fencing in front of them. I stand for a moment, recalling the time a ball flew sideways off the batter's bat and slammed into Danny, who was on the bench waiting for his turn. Danny didn’t break his nose, but he did die from cancer in his fifties. Losing Danny so early was hard for his family and friends. Our bodies collectively remember.

And there’s the bridge! It looks well-kept and solid, as it did when I was young, walking this path through the park at least twice a day, to and from Hales Corners Elementary School; in the summer, to the pool, home, and back for the after-dinner swim; and in winter, to go ice skating or tobogganing. Later, when I was a teen, that park path was a gateway to meet up with friends. 

But it was also the scene of an accident that could have been worse. My sister and I climbed aboard my brother’s three-wheeler bikes after he’d told us not to touch them. Going too fast, when I tried to turn before the creek, I toppled over. Jill, who was behind me, rode back to get Jack. Tipping into the creek on that big machine was frightening. Nothing was broken, but days later, I still hurt all over. My body remembers.

The black walnut trees are gigantic, but three from my childhood are missing. Like me, I think, they are aging, and some, like my family and friends, have died.

To the right of me, where the creek runs, a newer bridge leads over to the second baseball diamond. I think of all the boards and logs Dad would try to place across that creek to make a shortcut over to the ball diamond where he’d watch the games. All those soakers! I smile as I remember.

The parking lot looks the same as ever: empty. The only time I remember it filling up was on the Fourth of July when the park and streets near it were filled with cars, baby buggies, bicycles, and people. So many memories keep surfacing on this autopilot walk through my long-ago haunts.

Outside the park, I stand in front of my old home, where Jill, Jack, and I grew up. The house, once barn red, is beige now, and the crab apple trees are gone. I’m surprised because just two years ago, one of them was still there. A new young tree has been planted. The flagpole and basketball hoop, along with the rock garden my dad and I made, are also gone.

Standing there, I remember my dad out cutting the grass; my mom in the kitchen, cigarette in her mouth, making cream of mushroom something or other; Jill and Jack off with friends; and me playing with Kelly and Albert, our dogs.

Feeling nostalgic, I turn and head back toward Jessica’s, where I’m spending the weekend. My steps are slow and heavy. Her home is just as familiar to me as these other places. She and Brad bought it when Ethan was 10, and Helena was 7, still young enough to participate in the annual Hales Corners Fourth of July events and attend my elementary school.

I walk back down Parnell and turn into Jessica’s driveway. She and Brad are in the backyard. Ethan is in Michigan with his wife for a friend’s wedding, and Helena is no longer here.

Today it has been two years since Helena left this life, on the eve of the summer solstice, when the sun stood still.

Our bodies keep score, and our hearts always remember.