Across the River

My grandfather on my father’s side was a man of few words, but I remember that when he hugged you, you stayed hugged. He died in December 1995 and was buried the following spring, after the ground thawed. He was one of those small-town people whom one can still encounter in rural life but less and less often now: he helped start the fire department and build various public buildings and worked at the cemetery. His fingerprints are all over South Londonderry, Vermont, even if his name is not.

After my grandfather’s funeral, I saw my father and his two surviving brothers share a laugh in the living room of the home they grew up in back in the 1930s and 40s; it was the only time I saw the three of them together. Each was in his early 60s. My father outlived them both.

Later, I walked down the hill from the family home to town with my dad, still in our suit jackets and ties. We approached the bridge over the West River at the town center.

The West River is a tributary of the Connecticut River, and at South Londonderry, where my father was from, it is usually shallow and narrow and rocky; the days one can call it a river are the days it is about to wash out the bridge. This spring day in 1995 was not one of those days. It was more stone than running water.

Like his father, my father was a man of few words, and when we approached the river he simply told me to continue on the bridge. He was going to cross it from stone to stone, like when he was a boy. He didn’t tell me this was what he wanted to do; he just did it. No words were exchanged. He loosened his tie, took off his suit jacket, and tucked it under his left arm. I guess he trusted himself with his blazer on the possibly slippery rocks more than he trusted me with it, a twenty-six-year-old newspaper editor. He crossed the river, dry stone slab top by dry stone top, and met me on the other side.

The riverside mill that had replaced a mill that had burned down was still there, but it had ceased operations years ago, before I was born. A company sign on one wall still greeted employees who no longer worked there. The schoolhouse he attended was on the other side of the river from the farm, up a hill a similar steepness to the hill the Aldrich farm was on. The Baptist church that the Aldriches attended was on the same hill; you could see the steeple from my grandparents’ home, and you could see my grandparents’ red barn from the churchyard.

We met on the other side of the bridge and wordlessly crossed the corner of Route 100 and Main Street to the country store which was still also the post office. This always served as a glimpse of a previous century for me: the post office that was also the general store. It always seemed to me that my dad was a child of the 40s, whether the 1840s or the 1940s. The building is a French restaurant now.

Our twenty-minute walk was a glimpse in 1995 for me of my dad in his own childhood, complete with a walk across the river stone-by-stone. I know that now; I didn’t then.

His father was no longer there to hug him, after all, and I was too young to know what that meant.

William Robert Aldrich died of Covid-19 on May 10, 2010. He was 84.

Tomorrow is my birthday. I had celebrated 65 of my birthdays with my brother, Johnny. Tomorrow will be the fifth birthday that I was unable to celebrate with Johnny since he died . Every year, for a long time, he would buy me a blue hyacinth plant for my birthday and I would plant them in my backyard on Long Island or later in Northern New Jersey. He often would also bring me a blueberry pie as it was my favorite pie.

I miss my hyacinths and blueberry pies on my birthday. My birthdays have never been the same. I will miss my brother tomorrow and every day for the rest of my life. I would give anything, anything at all, to have my brother back even for just one minute.

The month of April usually will bring most people joy as it is the beginning of April flowers blooming. Putting away their coats. But in my world it starts the beginning of the names of those I have met who have lost their special person. It starts with Larry, Perry, Louis, Johnny, Jody, my Michael, and then Ben. These are just a few of those who passed due to Covid in April 2020. I have met their spouses through Covid connections and we have formed a bond. Their loss is my loss. The month of April does not bring us much joy anymore.

Yesterday I was scrolling through Facebook and came upon my step grandson’s junior prom photos his mom posted. He looked so handsome with his date by his side. It made me happy and it made me sad. My stepson Al should have been part of these important moments in his son’s life. I was sad for Nicholas who would have loved to have his dad there with him. So happy, yet so sad.

I thought I was a serious walker until I moved to New York and met my love. Walking three miles to and from my college campus was no big deal. I walked 50 to 100 blocks in Manhattan. But I had nothing on Ben.

Like me, Ben was often “in the zone” when he walked. When he headed to “the pizza store,” I’d see him coming full speed ahead down the street before he turned the corner into the restaurant entrance. His face was a study of intensity: half the time he looked like he was about to go read someone the Riot Act.

I knew not to wear heels when Ben and I were going somewhere. It was never just a meal. Lunch or dinner was the gateway to a full-fledged schlepfest.

We walked from the Bronx to downtown Yonkers. We schlepped the entire length of South Brooklyn. We trekked every retired rail line that had been upcycled into a walking trail. Even when we talked of his younger years, pounding the literal pavement was central to Ben’s life. He spent lonely teenage summers walking the perimeter of Brooklyn Army Terminal. He processed his first girlfriend’s dumping him with a long walk. He secured parental permission to walk city train yards at 15.

Ben never studied philosophy, as I did in my college major, but he would have appreciated Soren Kierkegaard: “Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Everyday, I walk myself into a state of well-being & walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it. But by sitting still, & the more one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling ill. Thus if one just keeps on walking, everything will be all right.”

I remembered that when I walked the Brooklyn Bridge in his memory at the Covid March to Remember.