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| Kelvin Thomas Johnson |
Thoughts on a father who loved words
June 20, 2020
My father loved words. All of them.
I don’t know when I first understood that, but he did. He loved words, all sorts. He loved their meanings and how they worked together to create and bring colour to life. Books, poetry, grammar-- all central to his love of words. He loved words to the end.
Words.
Funny as a child to consider this passion and recognize I didn’t share it.
I loved numbers.
Math, science and all things related to them, not words. I don’t think I ever picked up a book just for the love of reading. Oh sure, I read--textbooks and articles, but I had no passion for poetry or books.
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| Kelvin's Journal I love his handwriting. |
His love poured out onto pages to form poetry and prose.
His earliest efforts, stories for his children.
Those words now lost, but in the moment of creation full of the tall tales of farm animal, of which he knew a great deal.
Each of his children a different character in his farmyard menagerie.
Although too young or interested in the plots, the animal’s adventures were special because they were meant for us.
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| English GrammarLiliane Haegeman & Jacqueline Guéon One of my father's well loved and often studied books |
Few siblings still remember the details, but all delight at the memory of snickering with the mention of the “tit-mouse”. The great thing about words, which my father understood is that they can keep surprising us. It took me 51 years to finally look up the word titmouse, only to discover it is actually a bird.
titmouse
(tĭt′mous′)
n. pl. tit·mice (-mīs′)
Any of several small insectivorous songbirds of the family Paridae of woodland areas, especially members of the genus Baeolophus, such as the tufted titmouse.
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| one of a multiple of dictionaries in our house |
Dictionaries are full of words, as were all the books that filled the built-in bookcases in our home.
Books entered and left the house as if they were just part of the regular goings and comings.
Books carried back and forth from libraries in laundry baskets and knapsacks.
The house always filled with books.
Books of poetry brought my father great joy. During one of our last visits, he asked me to read to him. I choose Robert Frost from the books that had been brought along with him to the nursing home.
I began with Robert Frost’s Birches.
“When I see birches bend to left and rightImages of my dad as a young man swinging from trees formed in my mind’s eye and remembrances of trips to Barnwell filled the room. The family homestead, just three large rooms with an outhouse in the yard. Such humble beginnings. The ditch out front filled with rain water-- a novelty for a city girl, along with the the solitary gigantic climbing tree in the back yard. The tree, not one a city girl would know how to climb or even dare to try after hearing of her father falling out. All images brought back to life in Frost’s words.
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.”
My father' tree - climbing ladder added later.
Words, mixing with memory, knowing it would be our last time together, and not knowing how to say goodbye. Lost for words. Words. Words.
Trying to say the words-
“So was I once myself a swinger of birches.Words, recognizing the frailty of life, its messy business, it’s lashes and its pain.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile…
Words, I can’t finish the poem. I close the book as if not saying the words will change the outcome. Dad knows the words too well and wonders why I have stopped mid verse. I simply can’t read the words.
“I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,Words.
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.”
“Words don’t have meaning, people having meanings for words”. Funny how some words find their meaning long after the giver is gone.
This love of words now lives in me. Different perhaps, but a love none-the-less. Grateful that WORDS brings back to the mind memories and with those memories an outpouring of love to fill the heart.
Catherine
Postscript
2020-06-20
As A Father Sees Love in Time and Eternity
for Catherine and Eric
written by Kelvin on their wedding June, 1992
“….And to your hearts lay this
Sure word of prophecy:
No love is lost
That springs unbidden,
Though the labour of your life
Be all the cost.”
💜
ReplyDeleteThank you for writing these words today, Catherine. Thank you for telling me ahead, that you would not be reading them outloud at the meeting, as well, that reading them would be too hard on you. I tried reading it outloud when I was by myself, to see what effect it would have on me. I like doing tests like that on myself.
ReplyDeletePerfect words, Catherine, to describe our dad. Thank you for this.
ReplyDeleteThanks. Only used half a box of kleenex writing it. Couldn't read it afterwards, I'm such a cry baby.
DeleteWhen we were in Zoom Church and it was your turn to tell about Kelvin, tears came right to your eyes, just saying that you had written something that you wouldn't be posting, and that you would read a poem he wrote to you for your wedding, for you could read that. But when you thought of reading out loud you did get teary. There was a silence in the room. Eric said aloud, I think to the kids and his parents, "Cathy was very close to her dad." What do you think Eric meant by that? I guess I should ask Eric, but I am asking you.
ReplyDeleteDo you still read this blog, Catherine? Arta used to go to the dashboard and look to see if any comments had been made since her last posting. I would deposit love notes to her in the comment section of very old notes, knowing only she would discover them. It's hard to write as often now that I have no evidence of her continuing to read beyond the grave, but I am missing her tonight and choose you as my surrogate love-note recipient.
ReplyDeleteWhat a beautiful post about dad, one I had not read. Yes, he did love words. I liked how you could say any word and he could almost verbatim share from memory what was in the dictionary. I asked him how he could do that. He said he had read many dictionaries, front to back, in his lifetime. I liked having a living dictionary around. I liked his smile when someone expressed surprise at his word knowledge. Not a pride smile, really, but rather a tickled smile, I think. Tickled to have surprised someone and loving their humanity.
I find myself here again, Catherine Arta, and I am here because you emailed your siblings asking about adding a tombstone to our father's resting place. I read your post anew, wondering who had written it. I guessed Richard, then Mary, and then saw it was you. I am teared up now but richer for having reread these words, yours, mine, his, Arta's, Mary's, and Gillian Calder's heart emojie. I would live Mary's poem on his tombstone. What were you thinking of?
ReplyDelete