March 7, 2025: Christine Saari, "Friendship"
Friendship
by: Christine Saari
I visit Klari in her nursing home
as soon as I arrive in the Austrian village,
grateful she is still alive.
Her face unwrinkled, her body overweight,
she sits at her table, working Sudoku sheets,
a glass of hard cider and her walker nearby.
She has been my friend
since I toddled to her farm across the road.
We turned sticks into dolls and mud into cakes.
We jumped in the hay, picked flowers on the hillside.
We brought in firewood, picked fallen pears off the ground,
carried chaff to the hayloft on threshing days.
Doing chores was play.
We walked four miles to school in the valley
in pelting rain, sleet and snow, summer heat.
We both loathed the heavy kerosene cans
we had to carry home for our lamps.
At first communion, we equally hated our hair,
mine in corkscrew curls, hers a springy frizz.
We lived different lives:
My house had books and window curtains.
My mother set the table. I had porcelain dolls.
Aunts sent fancy dresses. The mailman brought letters.
We ate vegetables and spoke high German.
We celebrated birthdays. My mother was Lutheran.
My father was dead, and I had no siblings.
At Klari’s house people spooned soup
from a shared dish centered on the table.
They hung pictures of Catholic saints in their holy corner,
said evening prayers out loud.
They baked bread and smoked meat.
They pressed cider and slaughtered pigs.
Klari’s father ruled the roost.
After I left home at age eleven for school in town,
our lives drifted apart.
Klari’s schooling ended with eighth grade.
She worked on her farm, no time off.
I travelled to Germany, Italy, learned English,
studied in Vienna, went to the theatre.
My boyfriend was an engineer.
Later, I traveled to England, Hong Kong, Taiwan,
emigrated to America.
Klari worked the woods with her father,
hayed steep hillsides and ruined her hips.
She married her neighbor a few farms over,
did not get out of her valley,
except for a pilgrimage to Lourdes
She washed the bodies of her dead in-laws,
endured one operation after another.
Today, I live in a city house in America,
fly to Austria for an annual visit,
share life with my husband, hike and make art.
Klari is a widow, her health fragile.
She left the farm to live in the village home.
Nonetheless, what we have in common is essential:
We share our childhood years.
We have both raised children, lost parents,
modernized our farms.
We love our grandchildren
and are both old women now.
At each meeting we wonder
whether we will see each other again.
as soon as I arrive in the Austrian village,
grateful she is still alive.
Her face unwrinkled, her body overweight,
she sits at her table, working Sudoku sheets,
a glass of hard cider and her walker nearby.
She has been my friend
since I toddled to her farm across the road.
We turned sticks into dolls and mud into cakes.
We jumped in the hay, picked flowers on the hillside.
We brought in firewood, picked fallen pears off the ground,
carried chaff to the hayloft on threshing days.
Doing chores was play.
We walked four miles to school in the valley
in pelting rain, sleet and snow, summer heat.
We both loathed the heavy kerosene cans
we had to carry home for our lamps.
At first communion, we equally hated our hair,
mine in corkscrew curls, hers a springy frizz.
We lived different lives:
My house had books and window curtains.
My mother set the table. I had porcelain dolls.
Aunts sent fancy dresses. The mailman brought letters.
We ate vegetables and spoke high German.
We celebrated birthdays. My mother was Lutheran.
My father was dead, and I had no siblings.
At Klari’s house people spooned soup
from a shared dish centered on the table.
They hung pictures of Catholic saints in their holy corner,
said evening prayers out loud.
They baked bread and smoked meat.
They pressed cider and slaughtered pigs.
Klari’s father ruled the roost.
After I left home at age eleven for school in town,
our lives drifted apart.
Klari’s schooling ended with eighth grade.
She worked on her farm, no time off.
I travelled to Germany, Italy, learned English,
studied in Vienna, went to the theatre.
My boyfriend was an engineer.
Later, I traveled to England, Hong Kong, Taiwan,
emigrated to America.
Klari worked the woods with her father,
hayed steep hillsides and ruined her hips.
She married her neighbor a few farms over,
did not get out of her valley,
except for a pilgrimage to Lourdes
She washed the bodies of her dead in-laws,
endured one operation after another.
Today, I live in a city house in America,
fly to Austria for an annual visit,
share life with my husband, hike and make art.
Klari is a widow, her health fragile.
She left the farm to live in the village home.
Nonetheless, what we have in common is essential:
We share our childhood years.
We have both raised children, lost parents,
modernized our farms.
We love our grandchildren
and are both old women now.
At each meeting we wonder
whether we will see each other again.
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