contest recalls her happiest moment

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The Day I Let Go of the Past

WHAT WAS THE HAPPIEST MOMENT OF YOUR LIFE? FOR DEBRA GWARTNEY, WINNER OF OUR 2018 GOOD READ ESSAY CONTEST, IT WAS A PICNIC WHERE SHE SAW HER ADULT DAUGHTERS IN A WHOLE NEW LIGHT.

INSIDETHE PICNIC BASKET: two ripe peaches still moist from a rinse, a bowl of cherry tomatoes, small pots of spicy pâtés, a block of cheese, and a still-warm baguette. I carried this basket of food, purchased at the garden’s entrance, to a sundappled tablewhile one of my daughters brought out a bottle of chilled rosé, perfectly suited for a summer day in the shade of a medieval fortress calledAbbaye SaintAndré. My three other daughters arranged plates, opened tins, and handed out napkins, a symphony of cooperation. I sat back and watched them, my children, as they ate and drank and laughed under the olive trees outsideAvignon, France,restingtheirfeetafterour longwalk, murmuring in smooth, pleasedvoices, unfolding a map to plot the rest of our afternoon. I dared not move,wanting to absorb this scene, sear it into memory. A café serverwandered out and

I’d see mothers and daughterswalking, the girls bumping into their moms now and then, as if to say, “Here I am and there you are.” Iwanted that desperately.

agreed to take a photo of us, butwhat I longed forwas an oil paintingwith its nuanced shadows, capturing the light and the calm and the joy of being together, my daughters and me, in away I once felt certainwould be impossible. I am not awealthywoman. Most months I barely get by. But I’d opened a savings account and slid dollars into it for 15years so I could have a stretch of timewith my family, a family Iwould have describedyears ago as splintered, storm-tossed—whatever cliché creates the image of tattered people, none of them touching, not even leaning in toward one another, only leftwondering, “How didwe get here?” I had a pretty good idea of how things had soured. I’ve hadyears to ponder, to finally admit that their father and I allowed our long-ago divorce to become bitter and, in the process, half-embittered our children. Confused them mightily, anyway,with our unspoken demand for loyalty. Choose me! Itwas my habit, backwhen Iwas barely free of this unhappy marriage, topretend itwas allhim.Hewasthe bad husband, the bad parent.Though I am humiliated now to think of this attitude, Iwas convinced that if I stayed even one inch more civil I could hold myself up as the good one.The heroic mother. But the truth is, neither of uswere good parents in those days.We pulled ouryoung daughters into our fray.We too often let them hear us denigrate each other. I allowed the kids to see me break down in fits of frustration over his latest antics, until finally our four children could no longer trust their mom and dad for emotional succor and stability.They had no choice. By ages 14, 12, 10, and 8, our girls had learned to mostly depend on one another. I can’t make a direct correlation, of course, but I believe I have a case for sayingthat frustrated and fearful children become angry teenagers. Mine did, anyway, and our house was filled too many dayswith the kind of fighting they’d, Isuppose,seen between theirfather and me.Theywanted freedom; Iwanted control.They skipped school andwandered the streets, smoking pot. I cracked down.

Which brings me to a recollection of a different garden: a small patch behind our house in Oregon that I’d planted with tomatoes, a thinvine of cucumbers, a few pale beans— struggling to stay alive in spite of my neglect. On awarm Saturday afternoon Iwas pulling outweedswhen my two oldest daughters, 16 and 14 then, came out of the house with stuffed packs on their backs. I stood up to face them. “Where doyou thinkyou’re going?” I said.They shrugged. They turned away from me.

Thatwas nearly two decades ago, on an afternoonwhen Iwiped mud frommy hands andwatched themwalk off, theirwide-eyed little sisters taking all this in from a corner. I didn’t know then that the girlswould meet up, thatvery day,with runawayswho lived on the streets,who traveled by freight train. I didn’t know that itwould be months until I saw them again, and that I’d be taken over by a frantic search for them. Now I think of that day in our garden as one of profound defeat.All that I had stitched together simply unraveled like aworn-out blanket.

OnceI’d located them, mytwo older daughterswovein and out of the house, my life, over a period of severalyears, but itwas a long time beforewe all came together, firmly, as afamily.Evenlongerbeforewecouldsaywordslike “forgive” and “heal.”As theyears passed, I’d see mothers and their teenage daughters in the grocery store orwalking down the sidewalk of our town, the girls bumping into their moms now and then, as if to say, “Here I am and thereyou are,” the girls casually resting a hand on their mothers’ shoulders. I needed thatwith my older daughters. Iwanted it desperately, and I promised myself someday I’d get it. I’d find away to restore the timewe should have had together and the sweetnesswe all deserved but had missed out on because, despite our love for each other,we couldn’t find away to get beyond our former morass.

ISTILL CALLTHEMGIRLS, my four daughters, though they are now grownwomenwith jam-packed lives—jobs, homes, relationships, and, for my oldest,young children to tend to ontopofeverythingelse.ButsomehowIpersuadedthem to put everything else aside and flywith me to France for twoweeks.We rented an apartment in downtownAvignon (three bedrooms but only one bathroom, just like in their growing-upyears); I got a car. Every day,we headed out to discover a new location.

Today, the third day of our trip,wasVilleneuve-lèsAvignon. It took us nearly two hours towalk from our apartment to the garden atAbbaye Saint-André, and deep in the back of my mind I know Iwas counting on this moment: that here in France, my tender teenage daughterswould return to me; they’d fold into me, hold me tight, and Iwould return their tendernesswith compassion and deep affection. Iwas determined to getwhat I’d come for.

So, at our picnic in the garden,with peach juice on my tongue, a daughter handing me a slice of baguette spread withpâtéandtomato,Isatbackandwaitedfortherestoration of the past to begin.

OBVIOUSLY,THAT DIDN’T HAPPEN. Notthat day or in the daystocome,whenwevisitedaRomanaqueduct,drank wine in Châteauneuf-du-Pape,wandered through the Palais des Papes. But along theway, inch by inch, I started to finally get it.A new kind ofwisdom trickled in:The past was finished. Itwas time to let it go, to understand that I could not, no matter the ferocity of my desire, recapture what I’d lost.Thesewomenwith me, my companions,would never again be myyoung daughters.The do-over button I’d longyearned to push simply didn’t exist.

Sowhat to do about that? Only one thing, and thatwas to honor and appreciate the people in front of me, the marvelous, capableadultsthese four had become:Myoldest daughter,with her uncanny skillwith food, putting together a feast for us on many evenings after a brief stop for ingredientsin a French market.The second daughter,with her grace and charm,who could ask a stranger for directions and make a friend for life.The bold third daughterwho’d charge down narrow alleyways and steep ravines to make sure theywere safe for the rest of us.And theyoungest, with her facility for language and geography,who’d figure outwhich train lines to take sowe’d arrive at our destinationswith no fuss or trouble.And so many more capabilities and strengths in each of them.Theways they arguedwith one another, theways they helped one another.Their solicitations toward me, their mom.

In France, far from home, I finallywitnessed it—a connectionamong my daughters that had beenthere foryears but that Iwas only now letting myself recognize and embrace. They had a bondwith each other, andwith me, as mighty as the thick branches of the deeply rooted trees that surrounded us in the garden. Now I realize that thiswaswhen the real healing set in, on awarm afternoon in the garden, our legs entwined under the table.Yes, itwas my happiest day, because right then, I fell in awe and love all over again with the four most important people in my life.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Debra Gwartney’s memoir, Live Through This, published in 2009, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. She lives in Oregon with her husband and teaches in the MFA program at Pacific University.