I Remember Karen
I Remember Karen
My earliest memory of Karen is in the backyard of our house on “H” Street. A large tin washtub was filled with water and she stood at the side playfully splashing and cooling herself in the summer sun. She must have been two years old which would have made me almost four.
The next snapshot I have in my head is from her fourth birthday. My dad was enlisted to keep the boys busy so the girls could enjoy a day off from their brothers. So we left for Lucia Falls Park and made a mid-day of swimming and standing at the top of the falls and proclaiming ourselves “Daredevils” for braving the view from the top of the cascading torrent. Once back home Karen had opened her presents and the girls were saying their goodbyes to friends in the backyard. This gave me a chance to inspect the birthday presents that were in a spare bedroom on the first floor of the house. One of the gifts was a Japanese paper parasol which I decided to test out. But pushing the runner too hard I broke one of the ribs and it tore through the top of the parasol. My dad happened upon the event and said “David, you ruined her parasol. Karen will be terrified”. There were strong words for a six-year-old to hear and I was resigned to the fact that Karen would be very upset with me. She walked into the room a few minutes later and under instructions from my father, I apologized for tearing the parasol. She smiled and said, "That’s ok, David, it's only a paper parasol." That very bright and kind smile is emblazoned in my memory. She was happy to forgive me and did not let a toy, moments ago pristine, but now damaged by her curious brother, ruin her day.
Another snapshot is Easter. We went to church as I recall every Sunday. Columbia Presbyterian Church in Vancouver, WA. Four kids all went to Sunday School and then to the sanctuary for Sunday Service. Every Sunday was an event that required our “Sunday Best” clothing, but for the girls, Easter was especially formal. I remember both of my sisters in white crocheted dresses, Easter hats, and white gloves. You might envision a cotillion of elementary school girls. I also remember getting home looking back at the sidewalk as the family headed toward the side door of the house, and thinking that this was the perfect family. I remember my brother walking in behind me in a clean white collared shirt squinting in the sun with Sunday School drawings in his hands.
"Let's go for a drive". These were words I loved to hear. One of the longer drives we used to take was to Ka-Nee-Ta, a resort in Central Oregon. In those days it was little more than an unpaved red clay parking lot and swimming pool heated by the "Warm Springs". One particular trip found all but Karen eligible for the "big" pool. Karen was relegated to the "kids" pool and was very upset at being excluded from that activity. There was a photographer taking pictures and the family was captured sitting in the sun smiling, save for Karen, whose pout was epic.
Dad's parents lived on Mississippi Ave in Portland. Very often we would make the trip across the Interstate Bridge, take the Portland Avenue exit off I-5 then turn south on Mississippi to their home. Gramma Becker, as we called her always had a stash of candy in a built-in sideboard in the dining room. Karen was very often nominated to ask if we could have a candy. Gramma always said yes, and I think enjoyed Karen's precocious nature.
Soon Karen was in Kindergarten and walking with us to Hough Elementary School every morning. During one of those kindergarten mornings, Karen drew a picture that was really epic. A landscape of several kids playing in the schoolyard. The perspective was very realistic and kids appropriately proportioned and we all raved about it. So much so that she brought it to our next visit with Grandma Becker. Unfortunately, Gramma had a keener eye for detail and told Karen the kids' hands looked like baseball mitts. This was very disappointing to Karen and she started crying. Grandma tried to reassure her, but the moment was really crushing.
And the hits keep on coming as undercurrents of discord between my mother and father were becoming apparent. One morning I distinctly remember my dad very purposefully stopping by the breakfast table to kiss my mom goodbye as he left for work. Huh. Hadn't seen that before..
Very soon after I was standing at the bottom of the stairs while my mom shouted to my father “I can throw you out of this house”. He calmly replied, “Go ahead”. This was the first and last time I would see my parents fight. The kids were sat down on the front room couch and asked if they wanted to go with “Mom or Dad”. Funny how we were lined up by age, so I was third. When it was my turn I asked “if I go with Dad, do I still have to go to school?” Hearing yes, I said, “Mom”. Karen also said Mom. That night my dad stayed at his parents' house and I never saw my parents in the same room again for many years.
Mom and four kids moved out of the house on H Street to a house very close on E 24th and Mill Plain. It was an adventure of sorts and a very unique house that ironically had a “Family Room”. The girls were in one upstairs bedroom and the boys in another. Mom had a bedroom and office on the first floor with French Doors that opened to steps down to the family room.
Our walk to school was a few blocks shorter, pretty much one dog leg off of East 24th to Daniels Street. Mom took a job at the phone company not far away. The next snapshot was one morning when a green Pacific Northwest Bell car was waiting to take mom to work. I have to think the Cadillac was probably out of commission. The four kids were walking down the sidewalk toward school when something upset Karen. No, it wasn’t me this time but she was really, really crying. We looked around the corner to try and flag Mom down so she could comfort Karen but she was well on her way. Karen cried that entire walk to school. I wondered where she found the energy to cry so hard.
We lived in that house for a year or so then moved up the hill to the heights to a red ranch house at 6407 Louisiana Drive. Somehow I was left out of the new to us car transaction and didn’t recognize the 1963 Studebaker wagon that appeared in the garage one day. Mom had wisely traded in the 1956 Cadillac Coupe DeVille she inherited from the divorce. All four kids would spend some portion of their driver's education operating the three on the tree transmission and manual everything else on the “Green Machine”. The house on Louisiana Drive had a sliding glass door in a spare bedroom that opened to a small patio. My picture of Karen on that concrete slab is her, one knee on the concrete, the other knee used as a stand to balance one of her art projects. She had taken to painting rocks. One rock, in particular, jumps out at me. It was oblong with multicolored dots and lacquered to a shiny but still “rocky” finish. Another, not remembering the occasion, one afternoon she got a big red balloon on a string. It wasn’t a cheap garden variety balloon. This one was meant to last. But cruelly the wind took it away while we were in the backyard. I knew she loved the balloon so I ran after it with her. But we were only able to watch it disappear from sight over the trees in the schoolyard.
We had previously transferred to St Joes Catholic school which was literally in the backyard of the house. I was miserable for weeks there. But Karen thrived. I remember her crossing the parking lot with a report card in her hands that was filled with straight A’s. If I got a B there, it was a gift.
Two years of St. Joes was quite enough for me and in my fourth grade, we transferred to Marshall Elementary which was only a few blocks away. Funny how Karen was one grade away but I really don’t remember running into her at Marshall. Tragically for me, we moved in my sixth-grade year to the Evergreen District and while I finished sixth grade at Marshall I faced a sentence of Junior High at Cascade, which was a double shift with Covington. What misery. Seventh grade was the early shift. At the bus stop at 6:00, school from 6:40 am to 12:40 pm as I remember. But Karen was able to go right up the street to Ellsworth Elementary and again made lots of friends and did well. That year she and I walked the neighborhood selling Girls Scout cookies. A few weeks into my Eighth Grade year Cascade Junior High moved to the renovated Evergreen High School building. Closer to home and a more normal schedule was a welcome respite from the drudgery of Junior High.
Having two music teachers at home found all four kids engaging in music in some form or another. I think I was in Ninth grade or so when my stepfather invited me to sight-read a few clarinet trio pieces with Ray Spurgeon. We played while Mom and Karen made up our audience. I did ok but Karen didn’t mind expressing how impressed she was that I could sight-read with the adults in the room. Karen sang in choir and picked up the guitar and played at home. One afternoon she sat me down and taught me the "A", "G" and "D" chords on that guitar. These chords could be used to fake the song "Sunshine" by John Denver. Karen played John Denver, James Taylor, Carol King and Gordon Lightfoot among others. She also had a staffed notebook in which she started writing a few songs. During a concert at Evergreen, she accompanied herself on Gordon Lightfoot's “Beautiful”.
I made a point to tell her how much I liked her performance. She smiled and said something like “endorsed by my big brother”.
In 1976 my dad commissioned this portrait of the kids. I should remember the name of the photography studio… Olin’s? Justin's. Ah, ok. It was located in downtown Vancouver and I drove there in the 1953 Chevrolet by myself and met up with Karen, Terri and Steve. Dad had a request that I comb my hair. I think he meant to say “cut your hair” but that would have taken a lot more effort from each of us.
Right around this time Karen and I went to see Mel Brooks’ “Silent Movie” together. Very corny, not laugh out loud Mel Brooks but we had fun. Can’t imagine why we decided that was the movie to see or why we even decided to go to see it together…
1976 was my junior year and I very often drove Karen to school in the ‘53 and just as often had a carload of both of our friends on the way home. That year Karen and I both tried out for the play “Brigadoon” at school. I got the part of the father, but I turned it down when I saw the rehearsal schedule. Karen was in the chorus.
That same year I took a job cleaning tables and making sandwiches at “The Golden Onion” at Jantzen Beach Center. Several months later they opened a shop at Vancouver Mall. They were looking for staff so I suggested to Karen that she apply. I guess I have not mentioned what a great cook Karen was, so I knew she would be a hit with them. She was hired and received glowing reports from the staff there.
By my senior year, Terri was married and living in an apartment on 33rd Ave and Steve was an AFS student in Thailand. So Karen and I would very often ride to school, sometimes picking up her friend Judy on the way. I had half a mind to ask Judy out and even asked Karen if she might say yes. A few days later Karen told me Judy asked "when?". The gentleman in me saw that it might interrupt their friendship so I did not ask Judy out. One Saturday night she and Mom were talking in the kitchen. I distinctly remember Mom throwing her arms open wide and saying “I love you” to Karen. The next morning I was on the early shift at the Golden Onion Jantzen Beach so I was up early but just as I was getting out of bed Mom came into my room and asked if I had talked to Karen because she had not come home. And as a matter of fact, I did take a call from Karen at 11 PM the night before. She asked for Mom but I told her Mom had gone to sleep. I told Mom she had probably stayed with friends that night. So I drove to Jantzen Beach to start my shift at work.
Sometime just before the lunch rush, two friends of Karen came to the counter and wanted to talk to me. They said, “You better go home. Your mom is going to need you now”. So I threw down my apron and headed for the back door. I spent the entire drive back home wondering how bad it would be. When I walked into the living room our pastor, Paul McCutcheon was sitting next to Mom holding her hand; my sister Terri rose from a side chair to greet me. I asked what happened and Terri said imagine the worst. I said “Well she’s not in a hospital somewhere is she.” As I recall no one in that room actually said that Karen had died. After several minutes of commiseration Terri’s husband, Jack drove Terri and me to see our dad at his girlfriend's house. Dad was stiff-jawed and trying to call his parents in Portland to share the news. When he finally got through they had heard the news and as he hung up with his dad he described the screaming from his mom in the background. “Wailing in the background”. I think for the first time in any of our adult lives we did not have a script. Barely scratching the surface of realization, we had no instruction on how to proceed.
The next few weeks were miserable but a few memories stand out. Dad, Terri and I went to order a headstone for Karen’s grave. As we drove to the building dad shared his wish for the stone. “ I am thinking, “Our Beloved Daughter ``'', he said. Exquisite, succinct, Terri and I agreed. We sat at a small desk at the stone works with the agreed-on phrasing and the lady at the desk was encouraging us to add the built-in vase. Dad was barely holding it together, started to cry, handed me the checkbook and went to the car. “No built-in vase”. I wrote the check, signed it and took the receipt.
The memorial was held at Vancouver Heights Memorial Methodist Church where Mom had played the organ for several years and Paul had been very kind to Karen, encouraging her to teach guitar there. I remember her playing the guitar and singing “Morning Has Broken” during a service. When Terri and I arrived we walked to the front of the sanctuary for some reason and when we turned to the left to be seated we realized that our grandparents, Ed and Edris Becker were seated about three rows back. I shook Grandpa's hand and leaned down to kiss Gramma on the cheek. She whispered the most exasperated, agonized “Oh, David” in my ear. I said, “we’re ok, we are all ok”. Hopefully, my words were reassuring at the time but I didn’t realize how ridiculous they were until much later.
Paul's words during that service were very kind and reassuring but oddly not comforting to me. The words he spoke were not words I wanted to hear. He spoke of loss and grief that of which I was not ready or willing to engage.
Dad and I walked out silently and as I put my arm around his shoulder our eyes met. Somehow he had a look of determination. There were parting condolences at the door, but I headed straight to Jack's car, sat down in the passenger seat and cried. As I raised my head briefly, I glanced to the right and saw my Uncle Ernie and his sister Edris hug and have a brief conversation as Ernie held her in his arms. Those who know that story understand the significance of the moment.
The graveside was days later with just Dad, Terri, me and a gentleman who had with him a plain plywood box in the back of a blue Dodge station wagon. Dad and I helped lift the box with Karen's body to the side of the grave. It was simple as Karen would have had it, but we were still off in a bumpy, confused, unexpected, unplanned ceremony. Once the coffin was in the ground we each added a shovelful of dirt. Words were certainly spoken but none that I can remember. I drove us back from the Mountain View Cemetery in a1969 Cadillac Coupe DeVille as our dad, that strong Air Force Lieutenant Colonel wept uncontrollably in the backseat.
In March 1986 I got a call from my stepfather, Lee. He solemnly informed me that Irene, my grandmother, my mom’s mom had passed away. This was not completely unexpected as she was a smoker for much of her life. And she had refused a heart operation that was recommended by her doctor. Irene was cremated and a memorial was held at Holy Redeemer Catholic Church across the street from her home on Portland Avenue. Terri and I sang “Amazing Grace” for a group of seven or eight people including Dad and Mom. Mom said a few words of thanks to the people at the church who had truly ministered to Irene in her last years. When we walked out of the sanctuary doors the biggest wettest snowflakes I had ever seen were floating down, some leaving a slushy blanket on the parking strip but most melting on the sidewalk and Portland Avenue, like silver dollars disappearing in slow motion. Shortly after there was a reception at Irene's home and we shared a few fun stories about Gramma Irene. Mom planned on placing Irene's headstone right below Karen's. This was perfect as far as I was concerned. And the day we headed up to Mountain View to see it I drove mom's Datsun Wagon. It had a nice Blaupunkt stereo and I tried to find a radio station. Finding a station I quickly realized that it was playing “Morning Has Broken” by Cat Stevens. And thus Karen celebrated Irene joining her on that lovely hill at Mountain View.
P.S. Subsequent to this post a friend sent us a recording of Karen's choir audition for Evergreen High School Swing Choir in 1977. James Taylor's "Shower The People" found here:
Karen singing "Shower the People"
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