My mother adored Peter.
                        Peter would only perch on her shoulders, he 
                            mimicked her voice, her sounds perfectly.
                          Once believing I was home alone, I was startled 
                              by the sound of my mothers cough, but 
                                it wasn't my mother, it was the bird.
                              Peter would always talk during 
                   quite moments. Like when my grandparents
                        were remarried, the quite moments 
                         of silent prayer were filled with a loud
                                  mom-like voice "what 'chya doin'?" 
                                      Our family enjoyed the humor
                                   in these moments more than the
												 minister appreciated it. My  
												grandfather was
														a piano player
														and my grandmother,
														well, she remembered  
																all the old words.

My grandmother was Alma Herson, I figured Herson came from the fact that her son was my father, Art. Alma was the type who always needed jokes explained to her. When watching television she would laugh her honking laugh, then ask 'what did they mean by that?'; and by the time someone found the patience to explain it to her, she would laugh loud and long again. Alma never did anything. We decided that she was a hostess, you know for all the parties that would naturally gather around my grandfathers piano. This remarriage, 50th anniversary party, would be the last time those words and music would be so fluent. Later when my grandmother was struck with altheimers, she carried two peculiarities with her disease. She had this remarkable ability to go back in time and remember in detail events of 40 years gone away. I always thought this ability must be of value to historians. But this also caused problems like, for 20 years Alma believed she couldn't have children, so, who was I? The other thing about my grandmothers condition, was how she retained her habits. In her home the space was always filled with jokes, music, stories and Brooklyn colloquiums and phrases. Perhaps what my grandmother did was keep the room filled with these happier sensations. She never allowed anyone to feel alone. Perhaps she was like those women in Virginia Woolfe novels, where the mother fills the space with a loud happy family, and when the mother is gone, everyone becomes lost in their own disjointed thoughts, words fly past everyone, and the characters are too absorbed in their own self-pity to hear anyone else. With her own quirky personality, could Alma have been noble enough to glue this kind of space together? At one point, Alma could no longer remember words. Her thoughts seemed clear enough in these lost days, but the present was a blur. Her living family was a blur. She never became unconscious of empty space. She struggled to fill the silent moments. We learned how to communicate with no subject, no topic. Conversations jumped through topics like a word search for "remember." During this time period, my own parents retook their vows for their 30th Anniversary. Because of the unpredictability of Alma, my grandmother was seated in the back of the room where she might cause little disturbance to the ceremony. Everything was fine until the quite moments of the vows. Alma couldn't hear the vows, and their was a room full of people who might be caught in the horror of their own thoughts. Without the sensation of laughing, or a piano, or the story of a Brooklyn accent, does the space have to be full of self-pity? My grandmother believed so. It didn't matter what she said, and since she probably couldn't find a reason to laugh, Alma began entertaining the room with the loudest gibberish that made Peter, the parakeet, sound poignant. Alma's long loud syllables had no sense, but much sensation, she allowed no one to feel alone. She would glue back everyones presumed disjointed thoughts into one single idea - her screech. At this point, 'la alma' would make a bird sound if it was in her head. We all knew my grandmother to be in her 80's when she died.6 But the night she died my parents found inconsistent birthdates on various drivers licenses, certificates and other documents (evidently, Alma was older than her husband). My parents were asked of her mothers maiden name for paperwork surrounding the death. (At the time) No one knew Alma's mothers' maiden name. No one can name what alma did moving through her life, and no one can say how long she did it.

  
6. When Alma died, on Easter Sunday, I was at a friends'
  new apartment who lived a few minutes from my parents. My parents asked
  me to be home for dinner at 6:30. My friend was in mid sentance at 5:35,
  when I stood straight up from my chair. I gasped, I believed I was late
  for dinner. Realizing by my watch that I didn't have to leave for at least
  45 minutes, I was very self-conscious for the rest of my visit. I didn't
  want my friend to feel I didn't want to be in her new apartment. I couldn't
  relax, I had to get home for this rather typical holiday dinner. 5:35 was
  not the moment Alma died, but 20 minutes later, 5:35 was the moment my
  parents received the call from the hospital.