I'm here, which is magical in itself, considering all my anxiety, stopping and craziness lately. The last few years, my aunt Judie rents a house here for 2 weeks each September and invites me along for the second week, when my uncle goes back to the mainland. Last year I missed because of my brother's wedding.
My Dad is buried in the island cemetery and I find it quite wonderful that his birthday almost always falls during the time I am here. He couldn't get me to go to the island with him when I was an adult (my general anxiety and his drinking were not a good mix), so he would be thrilled to find me here ever, never mind on his birthday. This place is my favorite place on earth (spent a huge chunk of my childhood summers here, as my Dad owned and operated a restaurant, Dead Eye Dick's, inherited from his father). But it had been over 15 years since I'd ventured out when I first stayed with my aunt in 2008. Shame on me, I did not even come for his memorial service in 2004. I will always regret that.
I don't have really any connections here, I mean, people don't know me. And I don't know them. I don't have friends and family to see. My Dad's full brother no longer lives here. His step mother is in a nursing home. His half brothers and sister were teens I think, when I was a baby. My Dad foolishly sold off all his property and then I guess, eventually, drank it away. I can't even afford to vacation here (thank you Aunt Judie!/my mom's sister/they worked here in the summer as teens, that's how my mom met my Dad, working at my dad's father's hotel, The Spring House). I cringe when I see the houses listed in the BI Times selling for 4 million dollars.
My last time here though I remember using my debit card to buy souvenirs and, at lots of the stores, getting a pause and then something like, "Are you an Island Mott?"
Visiting the cemetery last night at dusk, just me, my dad and many young deer grazing, I walked around in awe of all the Motts buried there. Studied the names and dates and relations and wished so much I knew more about my family. When did they first come to the island? What did they DO for a living. I felt the lives and stories swirling around me and saw so many names repeated. I kept saying aloud, "Who are you all?" as I twirled around from one headstone to the next and then just "This is my family." Felt pretty raw and new to me. I've been to the cemetery before, even remember taking pictures of the many Mott gravestones when I came back at 20 something, after a long time away.
I drive down to Payne's dock this morning, imagining that wax paper bag of warm sugary donuts my Dad used to let us buy some mornings for ourselves and the early restaurant crew. Find they are only open on weekends in Sept. I notice the empty spot where the house my grandmother lived in burned down 2 years ago(?). We used to stay there before my grandfather died and my Dad built the little lobster shack/cottage behind Dead Eye's. Across is The Narragansett (where as a 5 yr old, I distinctly remember crossing the street with my mom to pick up our dinners. I remember mostly baked potatoes wrapped in tinfoil and the huge hedge running along the property). The hotel is now owned by my grandmother (step-grandmother I guess). She rented it out for years, but just recently I heard the Motts were running it again. Her children. My father's half siblings.
He says, "Yes, I am."
I say, "Hi, I'm Bethany, Alton's daughter."
I roll through my father's brothers names trying to guess which one he is.
Jim gives me such a real, loving hug. I don't think I have seen him since I was maybe 10 yrs old.
I share some of the stories my Dad told me about living there in the winter, how they closed off most of the hotel and kept just parts open for the family. He shows me exactly where this was. Tells me how my father used to scare the daylights out of him and his brothers with stories of ghosts living in the back part of the hotel. I see the love for my Dad in his eyes. He smiles when he talks of him. My Dad was maybe 15 or more years older than they were, but loved to tease and play and take them all on adventures. Jim shows me a tiny room with these huge old cupboards, filled with glasses and odds and ends that haven't been touched in years. Tells me if he comes across anything of my Dad's he will call me. Can you imagine? I wanted to crawl right into that cupboard.
I tell him about my trip to the cemetery, say I wish I knew more about my family, their history here. And he says," Oh, just wait, you are going to LOVE this..."
He walks over to a little old fashioned roll top desk and hands me this big, bound book entitled "The Descendants of Nathaniel Mott of Block Island, Rhode Island."
Are you kidding me? A BOOK (345 pages!), placed in my hands, by my father's brother, the day after I wish such a thing existed.
And I almost didn't climb that hill, didn't step onto the wooden planked porch with its happy, green rocking chairs. Pictures of my Dad are in the book, and his mother Maggie, who died, I think when he was 11. I don't have a photo of her or know even if I've ever seen one.
Goosebumps. My grandmother. I am in awe. What a gift. The man (not a relation) who wrote and compiled it on his own time, with his own money, because he loves genealogy. When he saw an enormous amount of "historical data Alice Mott Huggins had assembled" he said, it took him "a short time to get hooked" and the book turned out to be "a labour of love." Wow. You can say that again.
My Dad believed in magic. How could he not, growing up in a place with these views and sunsets and salty air? Where crashing waves lull you to sleep and wake you up with their white capped sparkle, fog horns blow their rhythmic safety call, calm blue inlets wait for your dipping oar, ice cream stands appear around every corner, solid, steady, ancient stone walls snake across the land, tall grasses swish and sway, and rows of white Adirondack chairs on high green hills call for your company.
"This is living kids" he's say.
The copies are being sold for $95 by author Peter H. Greenman: 401-466-2950. In the Block Island Times article from March (which I can't access without being a BI Times member) he says as soon as he gets his cost back he will donate the proceeds to the BI Historical Society. Pretty amazing. I'm so grateful to this man, and for everyone who contributed their stories and pictures and documents. Thank you.
