Singing with Josephine

Where I’m from/ Singing with Josephine

I am from Anne and Richard, the fifth child of two Midwesterners who met in Istanbul and then landed in Newport, Rhode Island in 1948. I was born May 4th 1957, Rhode Island Independence day and named Rowena ten days later. My mother died in 1968 and I still have a hard time pronouncing the R of Rowena.

I grew up in a lovely old farmhouse, with three acres on a dead end lane, in Middletown, Rhode Island. Our Portuguese neighbors took good care of us. When five of us kids broke our parents’ four-poster bed one Saturday morning, Manny from next door built an unbreakable built-in master bed the very same day. Though the bed was unbreakable, my mother was not.

We moved from that home on Peckham Lane, one short mile away one year after my mother died. I had a new mother and I’d gained a little sister finally, my lovely blonde stepsister, Deborah. She was eight, I was twelve. She told me the facts of life when I had no idea what was happening to my body. I knew from Readers Digest that bleeding from any orifice of the body was deadly and when I told my stepsister I was dying of cancer, she, the daughter of a nurse, reassured me that all was well, that I’d survive. She held my hand, told my older sister to go purchase the necessary supplies and indeed, I survived. I have survived the wreckage of many catastrophes, including cancer last fall.

Life is always an adventure to Deborah and me. We swam through drainage pipes in strong rains, in the nursery behind our house, while our parents honeymooned for the next decade of our at-home lives. We lived life to the hilt and our grandmother Josephine kept us in line sometimes and had us over for sleepovers on New Years Eve. The three of us rode bikes, swam, ate ice cream, and went to see the Christmas lights on the ships at midnight on New Years Eve. Life truly was grand with our grandmother Josie, who my four older siblings loved and selected her name to be mine, Mrs. Spooner. She had been our kindergarten teacher.

Last Thursday night I spent at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital with my friend Mary, her harp music, and my lovely blonde stepsister, Deborah,

who is now in hospice care at home, preparing to take a journey her young son and husband are helping her with-a send-off to parts unknown. Now soon, Deborah, will be singing with Josie again.