I was raised in a house of cards. As a young girl it was great fun to sneak up behind my dad at our holiday parties and steal a few pennies from his pile of winnings while playing poker.Or, if my mom had her glass of 7up and a bowl of nuts nearby, I could easily get a taste of both with no scolding. At that time, I was more interested in playing with my Christmas presents than I was with the adults playing cards around the table. Two years later, at another Christmas celebration, the suggestion was raised by someone at the table, "could Sara Jane play poker with the adults?" By then I was 9 and I was very impressed with those tall stacks of quarters and dimes that piled up on the table. It was a bar mitzvah of sorts to be invited to the poker table with the extended family and I welcomed the jump in social status. Besides, I knew Barbie would rather be back on the couch snuggling with Ken anyway.
My folks had some crazy games that we played: Change the Diaper, Acey Duecy One-Eyed Jack, and 7 Cards No Peeky. I could never remember the actual hierarchy of poker hands so my dad would faithfully write out for me each year on random scraps of paper why a Royal Flush beat 3 of a kind. Sometimes in mid-June, well after the holidays, I would come across his handwritten list of poker hands and I'd smile and think about who would be sitting around the table next year.
As a teenager I had my own card parties around that table. I had them in spades. To assuage my parent's guilt over leaving me alone every Friday night while they were out playing cards or bowling, I was allowed to have my Rat Pack of girls over for game nights. They would come to the house on their Raleigh's and Schwinn's and we would light up the night with our giggles of laughter playing rounds of Hearts and Uno. And if the night went long, I'd break out the Sorry game and we'd go nose to nose moving our pieces around the board as we shrieked "SSSOOOORRRYYYY" in our best Carol Burnett voice.
When my mom was diagnosed 9 years ago with lung cancer and began failing she made plans to move to a nursing home to get short term care. Dad was gone by then and none of us kids were skilled in nursing so it seemed a good decision. The Walker Nursing Home was surrounded on all sides by one way streets. It was such a contrast to leave the wide open spaces of suburbia to then navigate these narrow one way streets with parked cars, buses streaming by, all the while calming a crying toddler in the backseat. For months I made the trip north across the freeway, down the back roads, and through that maze of one way streets. The stoplights were too many to count but I did anyhow. I started dreaming about a route that would take me directly from my home to my mom with fewer stoplights. Whenever I'd get stopped by those red lights I'd plot out a new route that would cost me one less stoplight on my next trip.
My mom's funeral was held in Minneapolis very near those same one way streets. It was a beautiful morning in August for such a sad occasion and we were burying her with my dad at Fort Snelling with a military ceremony. The cars were lined up outside the funeral home and the police escort was in place and ready to lead us in procession. As we advanced down the block I noticed the first green light and said a silent thank you heavenward as we continued. It was my habit to count the stoplights and as we neared the next light that was turning yellow, soon to be red, it dawned on me that with the police escort I'd be making this last trip to see my mom with no traffic lights. I'd finally be driving these one way streets to see my mom with no red light stops in between. It was a God thing and it made me bawl but it also made me smile.
When my mom was first diagnosed and emotionally reeling from the news, we were all taken by surprise and cut to the quick wondering how many months we'd have with her. The doctors had said only 3-6 months, so when it stretched to 9 months - well, it was all gravy from there on out. I remember we were in the car once leaving another doctor's appointment, and mom with her usual way of putting my needs before her own, turned and said to me, "Sara Jane, don't be sad....I've had a very good life......I've been dealt a good hand." And indeed she had. I like to think mom, dad, and Uncle Ray are having the time of their lives shuffling the deck, cutting the cards, placing their bets down on the table waiting for us kids to join them again at the adult poker table.
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