A life remembered...

Davenport Family begins: Esther, Don and Alan (baby)

Most of the lives that have inhabited this planet are unknown and forgotten. Those that aren’t have left little behind but a birth, marriage, and death date. In between those dates a life was lived, and I think all lives are filled with stories, drama, achievements, humor, suffering, and triumph. All of us have stories to tell, but sadly they are forgotten, because we “never get around to it” and then death comes, and as the last breath escapes so do the stories, never to be told.

I am sitting here, recovering from surgical prostate removal, which had complications which brought me right to the brink. I am only 60 years old, and I think it is time to start telling my story. Of course like all stories it is shared with many others, so it will also be part of the story of Don and Esther, Alan, Bob, John, Mary, Roy and Ione, Lyle and Christine, Carl, Glen and Lucille, Keene, Kelly and Denny, Lyle and Beth and Brent and Christine and.... well you get the drift. Lots of people and friends have entered my life, and all become part of my story. Because this is a public forum, you will only learn their first names, except for those of my family, which is Davenport. My family will have the key that gives full names, and those of you who lived with me know who you are. So let’s get started on a trip which will take the rest of my life to finish. As long as I am alive, my story continues.

Beginnings
Mom tells me I was born in laughter. On March 18th, 1948 she was reading a story from one of my dad’s “Man Magazines” this one called “True” which was filled with the kind of stuff men care about (but no dirty pictures). My mother was reading a section where readers tell humorous true stories, and this one caught her fancy. She was laughing and her water broke, Dad rushed her to the hospital and I was born. I don’t know my weight or size, or even the exact time of birth, but I do know that I had red hair and the nurses called me “Sweet Pea”.

I loved this story, because I loved my mothers laugh, and right now would be a good time to introduce you to her, the woman that would be the center of my existence for the next 10 or so years (my mother was important to me my whole life, but it was 10 years before I ever noticed that other women could be interesting...)

My mother was an Angel. Yes, I know everyone says that, but my mother truly was and anyone in the neighborhood would vouch that this was right. They all knew that there was no one as gentle, and perfect and complex as Esther Davenport. All the mothers of all my friends were interesting people, and good people, and you will get to meet them all, but my mother was universally acknowledged as the kindness, sweetest, and most motherly of them all (although Brent might disagree with me, since his mother was also one of the finest women I have ever known, and a second mother to me).

The center of her universe was her family. My mother didn’t drive and there was no place she particularly wanted to go if her family wasn’t with her. She was smart and shrewd, a college graduate with a Minnesota mind. She could have held her own with anyone, but it wasn’t her way. What WAS her way was to be inclusive, as our lives expanded she liked nothing better than to see us reach out to those considered “different” because of skin color, disability, or nationality. She didn’t have any prejudice in her unless it was when her uncanny sense of character detected a false spirit. Then her protective instincts flared up and she let us know that this person would not make a good friend, and she was always right. Of course she didn’t do this by “laying down the law”, that wasn’t her way. Instead you would detect a hesitation in her voice, an attempt to give the person the benefit of the doubt, but without real enthusiasm. They didn’t pass muster, and Mom couldn’t fake her feelings.

I remember one new friend I brought home, and I noticed my mother was hesitant. Two weeks later he stole my bicycle. How did she do it? She just had an uncanny perceptiveness about other people.

It was impossible to not be genuine or honest around her, she had some kind of radar that instantly detected fraud, and she was especially upset if she detected it in one of her own. You just couldn’t fool Mom. But oh, what a mother! She loved nature and birds and flowers, and loved to join her children in discovery. She read books and played with us, and molded our minds. As my children grew I observed how my mother took time for each of them, sat on the floor and played with them, helped them build block towers, and enjoyed their imaginations as the burst forth. It was exactly how I was raised. I can remember my mother listening to me, reading to me, taking naps with me, making potato soup with golden pools of butter floating on top sprinkled with parsley. I had her all to myself for the first four years of my life, and didn’t mind sharing her with my sister Mary for the next year before I started school.

And her laugh! When something caught her funny bone she would laugh to the point of tears, and we couldn’t help but laugh with her, and our world was filled with perfect light and happiness. I know cynics like to say that the world of “Ozzie and Harriet” or “Leave it to Beaver” didn’t exist, but I know better. I lived it, and so did a lot of my friends. I loved, and will always love, my mother, Esther.