For Whom the Phone Rings — 50 years of answering
by Oralee Stiles Hamilton
The phone rang. . . Memorial Day, May 30, 1964
“Oralee we’ve been in an accident. Mother and Dad are in serious condition at St Nicholas hospital. Uncle Walter and I are OK,” said my brother Palmer. Mark and I, with Alisa, our four month old, drove from Madison to Sheboygan that afternoon. I was still feeling the grief of my mother’s mastectomy at the end of April. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing her to cancer. Now this! My sister Marzenda was due to deliver her second child on the day she flew from Portland to join our watch at the hospital. Mother died from the accident wounds the next day. Marzenda’s baby, Lora Leslie, was born June 9 in the same hospital, the day of our mother’s funeral. I was miraculously filled with an overwhelming sense of gratitude for the privilege of being her daughter.
The phone rang. . . April 27, 1965
Mark answered. I was calling him from the hospital to tell him our second child arrived in the breech position and was another girl! When the ambulance had come at 3 AM because the labor was frequent and intense and the bed wet, Mark had to stay home with our 14-month-old girl, Alisa. I was so relieved to have a girl. I didn’t feel I could handle having a son who might have to go off to war as our father had.
The phone rang. . . June 3, 1965
“Helen accepted my proposal!” My dad said gleefully. “We’ll get married in August and so will Palmer and Joan.” My mother had told Palmer that the best place to find a wife was in a church choir. Now both of these bachelor men were marrying church choir directors!
The phone rang. . . March 24, 1966, Marzenda’s 31st birthday
It had rung each night for the past three weeks. Palmer had been searching for my father’s twin engine plane since March 8 when we realized that he and his bride had not returned from their honeymoon in Mexico. “The plane has been found,” my brother said. Both relief and fear flooded through me. “their bodies are inside.” I was standing with my back against the wall and slid down to the floor. Waves of grief undulated through my numbed body. The day before, I had been riding on the hope that they were found and cared for by local people in the mountains. No, they were dead on impact. Strange deep wails arose from my belly. I was now an orphan. No mother, no father, no beautiful Helen to grandmother my baby girls. (Scott, Marzenda’s second son was born two days later.)
The phone rang. . . June 10,1968
“It’s a baby girl! We’re naming her Marna Leanne” Marzenda said. We both laughed a little nervously agreeing that we hoped there would be no family tragedy with this birth. I was, after all, the next in line. We were deep in the national grief of Martin Luther King’s assassination in April and Robert Kennedy’s on our mother’s death anniversary.
The phone rang. . . July 10, 1983
A call from Israel. This is an expensive call, I thought. Alisa had gone to Israel for her junior year in high school and loved the country so much she stayed another three years. “You know I want to become a citizen of Israel,” she started. “Well everyone here serves in the army for at least 2 years, so I plan to join.” “Are you kidding me? Do you mean the Israeli Defense Forces?” How can my daughter be telling
me she wants to be in the army when I was so thankful I had no sons? And not just the army, the ISRAELI army!!! Oh no no no!! I was fearful and scared. What would happen? The whole Middle East was so unstable. Might she be killed? Might she lose her US citizenship? The blood drained out of my face. All I could manage to say was, “this is a shock, don’t join yet!” (She was in for 2 years.)
The phone rang. . . June 15, 1985
“Ephraim and I are engaged! We plan to get married as soon as he finishes law school. I have to finish my last summer in the army. We’ll live in his parent’s summer home in Long Beach, New York while we start our family. Can you help with a wedding this August?”
“Yes YES, whenever,” I said with relief. I was so grateful she was marrying a US citizen and not staying in Israel. (There were 6 children in the next 8 years and I flew to New York, not Israel, to help)
The phone rang . . . September 11, 2001
My Mexican son-in-law says, “Turn on your TV. Terrible things are happening. I am so frightened.” It’s early in the morning. I turn on the TV and watch in horror as the second World Trade Tower is hit and then crumbles. The scene is replayed over and over all day long as other news comes in from Washington, DC and Pennsylvania. I am numb. I reach out to friends to cry together. How can this be?
The phone rang. . . September 16, 2009
“Hello,” I said although I did not recognize the number.
“Is this the Oralee that grew up in Sheboygan Wisconsin?”
“Yeeessss” I said with hesitation.
“I don’t know if you remember me, this is Harry Hamilton.”
“HARRY HAMILTON!! Of course I remember you. I’ve been quoting you for more than 40 years.”
“What did I say?”
“I tell people I have a meteorologist friend who says if you want to predict the weather — say tomorrow will be just like today and you will be right 70% of the time.”
“I still tell people that.”
“Are you married?” I asked hopeful for the ‘no’ answer that followed.
His phone rang. My phone rang. He lived in Sunriver. I lived in Wilsonville. We knew each other as teen-agers from church camp in Wisconsin in the 1950’s. As young married adults we had visited each other’s homes in New York State. Then for 32 years no contact. Now we discover we both live in Oregon.
The phone rang. . . January 7, 2010
Harry tells me, “I was just diagnosed with prostate cancer. I plan on robotic surgery in Portland.” “Well if you think this will end our dating, you are wrong. You will have to come up with something better than this. Besides, I’ll stay in the hospital with you.”
The phone rang. . . May 9, 2013
My grandson, Doni, asked me for a date. “How about a gluten-free pizza at Udi’s this week?” I was in Denver for his brother’s Uri’s college graduation. I was delighted. He used his credit card to pay and asked me how much tip he should add. It was a proud moment for both of us. After visits to my home in Oregon over many years when I cared for him now he could reciprocate. The May before I had attended his high school graduation. He was the techie champ of the school. All his teachers in addition to his grandparents came to him with their computer questions. He was patient and caring in helping us. He had redesigned Mozilla Firefox and gave them the improvements. He was devoted to open source technology. When we left Udi’s that day, we laughed and sang together as we listened to his favorite songs in the car. What a precious connection.
The phone rang. . . May 19, 2013 – 10 days later
Alisa’s face showed on the iPhone. It was 6 AM in Sunriver. I have been trying to connect with her all week and was surprised she was returning my call so early on a Sunday morning. “We’re at the hospital with Doni. He won’t make it. The rabbi has gone to his room to disconnect the tubes.” I’m in shock and manage to ask, “Can I talk to Doni?” Aliza handed her phone to a friend. “I can’t go back in the room,” she said. Sari put the phone to Doni’s ear. “I love you so much. If it gets hard for you, call on Hashem and say the Shema. I love you Doni, you will always be dear to me. I’m so sorry you felt you couldn’t stay in this life. I love you.” What more could I say to my 19-year-old grandson? When I hung up, torrents of grief ripped through me. My wails filled the house. I was bereft and weak. We knew he didn’t want to stay on earth. His mother and brother and sister had interrupted and redirected him many times in the preceding years. We all hoped his darkness would pass or a “cure” could be found. Not in time for him.
Harry and I dated across the mountains for four years. We had two amazing and inspired community weddings in our respective churches in Wilsonville on June 22 and in Sunriver on June 27, 2014.
The phone rang. . . August 8, 2014
Kaiser shows on my phone. I had a mammogram and biopsy and had waited 5 days for the report. “This is Susan, I’m the nurse care navigator. You have invasive ductal carcinoma – the most common type of breast cancer but we don’t know what is happening at the nipple so I’ve made an appointment for you to see a surgeon.” I hung up and shouted at God, “Don’t you know BRIDES don’t get cancer?!!
The phone rang. . . November 16, 2014
“Grandma Oralee!” Elisheva’s excited voice opened my expectant heart. Two years ago her call informed me that her 2 week old Rivka had died while tiny Ahuva was still in intensive care. This morning’s message was “The twins were born – a boy and a girl and they’re both healthy!” What joyful news!! I couldn’t go to Denver to help, I was recovering from a mastectomy on November 11, my 76th birthday.
The phone rang. . . March 28, 2015
Marzenda answered. She had texted me – Call me it’s urgent. “It’s about Scott” she said, “he’s gone.” What!! I couldn’t get my mind around her words. He had wanted to come for a visit just a week ago. I had sent him a birthday card. The white dog had chocolate all over his face. It reminded me of his childhood dog, Shakey. “Did he take his life?” The morning after his 49th birthday, he walked to a local park with a gun. None of us had a clue. Not his wife, not his brother, not his veterinary staff, not the dog whose knee he operated on the day of his birthday. Gone – oh my God!! Scott gone! I hung up and started to cry. Two hours later I was driving from Sunriver to Portland to be with Marzenda and Gordon.
The phone rings . . .
I’m not answering.
Written September 11, 2015