Right around the time the plums start dropping from the gnarly, neglected tree at the old Gulf Island family place, some lyrics from a John Prine song start running on repeat in my head:
Summer’s end’s around the bend just flying
The swimming suits are on the line just drying
I’ll meet you there per our conversation
I hope I didn’t ruin your whole vacation
This is not a happy song. There’s nothing in the lyrics about sunflowers bowing their heads or gentle, warm evenings. Summer’s End is about coping with the grief following the death of a family member — an exquisite snapshot of the opioid crisis. The American songwriting legend recorded it in 2018, when almost 70,000 people died of opioid overdose in the US, just two years before Prine’s own death from COVID in the early weeks of the pandemic.
But the lyrics and tune are sublime, a one-song soundtrack for my family’s seasonal shutdown and preparation for the many grey months of rain that we cower from but need badly.
The tune was in my head as I puttered in my brother’s workshop, restoring it to order just the way he would have done had he lived for more summers’ ends. That’s when I spotted the crumbling remnants of the cedar bench that our mother had been asking my sister about, the one she was particularly attached to. This was the bench that had been on the front porch of her East Vancouver childhood home, even there before the family moved in, in 1939. After her mother — my grandmother — was moved to the Finnish Manor, the house containing nothing of value was sold and our mother hauled this bench up to this remote Gulf Island. For years it served as the back-porch staging area for the laundry basket, where on sunny days we could see her morning’s work: the old bedding, hard-work jeans, towels and swimming suits on the line just drying.
It was propped up against the fence, entangled with invasive blackberry. The whole structure wobbled as I hauled it onto the grass for assessment. One of the four legs of the bench was missing. The corners of the seat looked gnawed off and insect holes were scattered throughout, like buckshot.
I say a little prayer to the one the Catholics call The Patron Saint of Hopeless Causes a.k.a. The Saint for the Hopeless and the Despaired and The Patron Saint of the Impossible by other denominations. I appeal to this Jewish handyman from a town in the Galilee because he is often depicted holding tools like an axe or a carpenter’s rule. Possibly his canonization could be traced to some early success at bringing hopelessly broken furniture back from the brink. Holding onto this scrap of faith, I set to work.
Some disassembly is required as well as a scrap piece of two-by-four for a new leg. Old nails are hammered back and the whole thing is glued, screwed and clamped. After a light overall sanding followed by semi-transparent wood preserver, this object shows off its humble history with renewed integrity.
Some ugly plastic waste bins were banished to a place out of sight to make space for this piece of our mother’s history on the back porch where she has spent many sunny hours over 40 summers hanging out the wash. With some care and repair — and maybe a little prayer — we’ll all be hanging here in the sun next year.
Come on home
Come on home
No you don’t have to be alone
Just come on home
— Summer’s End
(Listen here)