The following essay appeared in The Washington Post magazine in a column that asks: “So much is contained in such small things. What holds meaning for you?” I wrote it as a tribute to my father’s resilience, which I hope to pass down to my sons:
I was 24 and still called Susy when my grandparents’ house in Towson was cleaned out for sale. I asked for just a few things, including a cast-iron doorstop in the shape of a Scottie dog. I’d always thought it would make a cute bookend.
When my dad brought my stuff over to my apartment in D.C., I met him on the sidewalk. He asked if I knew that the Scottie dog had originally come from his grandparents’ house. He hesitated, then added that it was the doorstop from the upstairs parlor, where he was sitting when he was told, at age 6, that his mother was dead.
He remembered staring at the little Scottie dog as the news sank in, not being able to take his eyes off it. My dad had never talked with me about his mother’s death, and now we were crying together.
“I sang myself to sleep every night for a year,” he continued. “You are named for the song my mother had sung to me: ‘Oh! Susanna.’ ”
From that day on, I went by Susannah. And the Scottie dog is a very cute bookend.
Very touching. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks, Brett, I’m honored that you like the story. I haven’t told the full one to many people, usually just leaving it at “yes, I’m named for the song.”
I know it involves some risk sharing something so personal, but when you do it reminds so many of us of our own unique experiences with grandparents and poignant memories with parents. Much better than “I’m named after the song” in my opinion.
Susannah, This is beautiful. It struck so many chords. At the risk of sounding like a Borges short story, I’ll ask: do you think some things, like that Scottie, can have a memory and will? allbest jeanne
p.s. your sons are lucky to have you as their mom!
Thanks, Jeanne!
I’m not ready to say that objects have a memory or will of their own, but I do think that there must be some kind of energy associated with certain objects. I inherited other things from my grandparents, but none evoked a story like that one. Why did I choose it, among many other doorstops? Was there something about the Scottie dog itself, his on-guard but soulful expression? Or was it the moment, the angle of the sunlight when my dad got out of the car that inspired him to tell me? I don’t know.
I wonder a bit about all the hidden or forgotten stories in the objects we live with and pass down. Why do some objects persist, generation to generation, for reasons besides their monetary value?
Have you read the Harry Potter series? There are objects containing a piece of someone’s soul — called horcruxes — that I think evoke the idea of a memory or a will in an inanimate object.
Personally, I’ve never been much of a collector — the opposite of a hoarder, in fact — but I do like to think about who came before me and what they would tell me if they could speak through the objects that persist.