Give My Regards to Phil

I've seen a thousand groundhogs in my life. I'm not sure of all their names. Some in the field behind my grandpa's house. Some in the creak or in the cornfield by the park where I played as a kid. Some smashed up along the highway. Run over by hurried commuters on their way to work. They were never something rare to me, or something to behold. But Punxatawney Phil is different than other groundhogs. He is the great prognosticator of weather, gifted in meteorological acumen. A scholarly fellow. At least he was just as smart as Al Roker, and at least twice as personable. 

But I didn't always hold Phil in such high regard. I don't know what it was, but since I was a boy, my mom always woke me up early on February 2 to prepare me for his coming like he was a furry risen Christ and it was judgment day. Would winter go another 6 weeks, or would we have an early Spring? That is what was in the balance. On the plate. It never mattered, either way. I liked snow and I liked Spring. My mom was always looking forward to Spring because she hated the cold, and she had an unnatural amount of faith in that groundhog every year to deliver the promise of warmer weather to us. But even if it was more winter, mom would say it wasn't Phil's fault. He just did his duty and told the truth. 

The morning news always covered the ceremony. And I would sit there, still in my pajamas, eating oatmeal and sausage links, sipping orange juice, waiting for Phil to be birthed out of his annual wood hole by the man in the tophat with the leather gloves. I suppose he was the mayor, but who knows. I suppose anyone who runs for mayor of Punxatawney must accept that tradition as a duty or he is as good as a communist and has no prayer of ever being elected. Mom would sit by me, her eyes glued to the screen. You could tell whether he would or would not see his shadow by whether it was cloudy or clear. But we waited for Phil to tell us. 

When he did not see his shadow it was to be an early Spring and mom would be happy all day and for at least a week or two afterwards. If it was cold or it snowed, she would say something like, "Yes, but it will be an early Spring this year!" Her and my dad got into a few arguments over Phil. Dad said Phil wasn't science. He said he was full of it. He griped that there was no logical way that whether a rodent does or doesn't see its shadow means early Spring or more winter. Mom wouldn't have it. She yelled at him for calling Phil a rodent and an "it" She told dad that he was full of it. Neither dad or mom ever explained what anyone was full of. They were just - full of it.

If ever Phil was wrong, something you'd never hear my mom say, mom would be devastated. On the rare occasion where Spring was promised early but came late, mom might lament, "But Phil said..." My dad, to his credit, never laughed at her. He was just a despiser of unnecessary holidays. It was a "Hallmark conspiracy" or some TV holiday to make someone rich. 

Phil never said anything. But to mom it was as though he did. It was as though he not only saw or didn't see his shadow, it was as though he spoke. Like Willard Scott. It was as though he waved his paw across a screen and explained cold fronts and barometric pressure. Mom would bet the bank on Phil, that is, if she gambled. If she knew a bookie. 

My parents divorced sometime after mom stopped waking me up to watch Phil on his big day. I was in high school. I groused for a few years that I didn't want to get up. I wanted to sleep in. Leave me alone, I probably grumbled more than once. And mom left me alone. When I got up, she would tell me though. One way or another. She would either say, "It's going to be an early Spring," or, more forebodingly, "You don't want to know what Phil said this morning." But I barely listened. I was too old for Phil and, I suppose, I felt mom was treating me like a baby, supposing that I should still care. 

It was probably senior year or my first year of community college in which mom stopped talking to me about Phil altogether and the already waning holiday seemed to disappear. It just seemed like it went away. It was barely mentioned, except for by old timers and as a quick sidenote. Or there was that movie. But even that didn't save the day for me or anyone I knew. It was a tidbit on the news one morning a year. 

I moved away a few years after college and took an accounting job in another city. I met a girl that my mom didn't approve of and I didn't approve of my mom not approving of her so, in turn, we rarely talked. She and dad divorced and dad bought a condo with some other woman who probably didn't care about Groundhog's Day. Then mom got cancer, or found out she had cancer, and before I could blink, it felt, she was gone. In one of the strange ironies of life, she died on February 2. On Groundhog's Day. It was after midnight, but a few hours before dawn. Before Phil was delivered to his annual soothsaying wintery birth. She always said she would die on Groundhog's Day. I guess, no one ever really believed her.

Mom proved right about another thing as well. The girl, as she called Annabelle, was not right for me. It was just about a year after mom died, two days before Groundhog's Day, and she left me. She was upset that I was going to drive five hours to Punxatawney to spread my mother's ashes at Gobbler's Knob and called the whole thing (expletive) ridiculous. She said I was "a (expletive) momma's boy" and that I needed to "cut the (expletive) cord." She moved out when I was at work. Worse, she took all my Barry Manilow records out of spite. She didn't like Barry Manilow in the least, but she knew how much I loved those records and how mom and I shared a love of his music. 

I had a hunch she pawned them and it proved correct. I found them at the second pawn shop I went to and I bought them all back. The guy said he only bought them because the girl was cute and seemed like she needed the cash. Little difference did it make to me how cute she was, or what cash she needed.

I was there when my mom passed away. I thought about it while driving to Punxatawney to spread her ashes. I cried thinking about it and I imagined some truck driver really got a laugh out of me driving my Prius, crying like a baby. I suspect they look over and peer into cars they pass or that pass them for entertainment value. I don't know that they do, I just imagine they do. Maybe they try to guess what is playing on the radio. They are kind of like birdwatchers in that way. Then they probably go to truckstops and sit around and talk about all those four wheelers, a pejorative term they use for non-truckers. He was listening to Barry Manilow, my watcher laughed. 

But my face was like Niagara Falls. I cried like Tammy Faye. I kept thinking that I should never have moved so far away. I should have stuck around. I thought about all those Groundhog's Days that I didn't get out of bed for. I wish I could have them back. I wish I would have got up and watched them with her. Drank coffee. Ate breakfast. It would have meant so much to her and to me now. I wish I would have at least asked what Phil said when I woke up. I kind of scoffed when she told me Phil said six more weeks of winter, or that it was going to be an early Spring. I didn't care until now. But there are things you can't get ever back. Things you realize too late. The things you don't realize you're ever going to miss, you miss the most. 

The night she died at the hospice place, it was just me, her and the heavyset night nurse in pink scrubs who looked like a walking ball of cotton candy. I tried to call Annabelle, but she wasn't answering. I think she was having an affair while I was gone, which is the church boy way of saying that she was probably screwing someone. I think my mom knew it but wouldn't tell me. Women are like groundhogs in that way. They can tell what other women are up to and what they're going to do. They can tell when they are good or no good. I think when mom met her that one fateful Thanksgiving, she could see it all. She could tell I was upset when I came back in the room from trying to call her. And even though she was dying, she tried to comfort me. She was a mother to the last. Somehow she knew she didn't answer without me saying a word. She said, "She probably just fell asleep, Andy." But she knew. And I knew, too. 

I was the only one in the family there with her. Her sister had left earlier that evening and her brothers both lived out of state, but said they'd come for the funeral. We talked about Groundhog's Day and I had hoped she would live long enough to see him come out one last time, but at 4:52 a.m, she passed away. Her last words came with a weak but wry smile, "Give my regards to Phil."

She was on the passenger seat in an efficient black box as I took the exit for Punxatawney. The famous painted billboard greeted me. I told her we were getting close like she told me we were getting close everytime we went to the zoo, or to an amusement park. In all her life spent watching that TV, it seemed like an absolute crime that she hadn't made the trip at least once to see Phil in person. The day meant so much to her. She had collectible plates and shirts and sweatshirts. She had a shelf of Punxatawney Phil coffee mugs and snowglobes and a board game. She never told me she wanted me to spread her ashes on Groundhog's Day there in Punxatawney, but I knew that is exactly what she meant when she said those last words to me. This is what she would have wanted, I kept telling myself. 

The afternoon before the ceremony, I checked into my hotel which was just outside of town. Everything in town was booked and the hotel I stayed in was booked up as well soon after I made my reservation. This is the busiest day of the year for the town, understandably. I went downtown and had dinner in a crowded diner called Phil's Place. Everyone smiled and was friendly. If I hadn't known better, I would have sworn they all were drunk. Most of them were tourists and the waitresses and bussers who lived there were making more money today than any other day of the year. This was their Black Friday. 

I brought mom with me. It felt wrong to leave her in the hotel or in the car. I wasn't going to make mention of her unless someone asked and I doubt that anyone was going to talk to me. I was alone, so I sat at the bar rather than taking up table space because there was a 30 minute wait. Immediately after sitting at the bar, the guy next to me introduced himself and made small talk about where I was from and what I did for a living. He was a local, he mentoned, a mailman. He has lived in Punxatawney his entire life. Then he asked what was in the box. I didn't know what to say, so I told him. 

"Holy smokes!" he cried. He smiled at me and gave me a pat on the back. His breath smelled of liquor and a tear welled in his lazy eye. "You're a good son. That is the sweetest thing I've ever heard! Hey, Lenny!" he yelled back towards the kitchen. He then told Lenny who was the restaurant manager all about me and my mom. Only instead of calling me Andy, over and over he called me "The kid."

Lenny came out and looked at my mom's box of ashes and took the paper hat off his bald head out of respect. He then put his hand over his heart. "Angel!" he called gruffly. The waitress who was waiting on everyone at the bar came over assuming there was a complaint or something was burnt, but Lenny very loudly told her the story of me and my mom so that half the diner could hear it. Angel began to bawl and she told me that she lost her mom last year as well and she spread her ashes into the Atlantic Ocean because her mom's favorite movie was "Jaws." It went on and on. I could hear silverware clamor and forks dancing on porcelain plates and glasses placed on tables like horse hooves on formica cobblestone, and between all those usual noises, I could hear people talk about my mom. Repeating the story they heard to each other. As I ate my meal, a little discomposed by the attention, the story was told again and again. 

"How'd she pass, if you don't mind me askin', honey?" Angel asked. 

"Cancer," I announced. "Brain cancer." 

Lenny poked his head out of the kitchen window and told Angel my meal was on the house and Angel said I could have a piece of homemade pie and coffee on her. The mailman, whose name was Karl, left but gave me another pat on the back and rubbed my shoulders before he did like a coach taking a pitcher out of a game. I was embarrassed, but I knew my mom wasn't. This is the kid of thing she would have loved. As I drank my coffee and ate my lemon meringue pie, I looked down at her box and smiled. I was trying not to cry. 

I left a $20 tip since I didn't pay for the food and Angel chased me down outside and tried to give it back to me and I told her to keep it. She refused again and politely argued with me until I trumped her charitable compassion with the coup de grace, "It is what my mom would have wanted." 

She kissed me on the cheek an gave me a hug and I was smothered in her boobs and big octopus arms for a moment before she let me go. "You enjoy our little town tonight, and Phil in the morning," she said teary-eyed. "And God bless you, honey." 

There was a town party that night and the bars were busy and fat rope lights were strung across the downtown streets and people sang and danced joyously in town square. Mom never drank, but she would have been in hog heaven to see this because they didn't do this sort of thing in our town. No one was this friendly. This excited. This is exactly the kind of place that she would have imagined it to be. This was where she should have spent her life. 

It was easier to carry mom in a backpack, so I did. I had some hard cider and warm cake donuts for dessert and smiled at the people singing songs and dancing as I stayed warm by the fire. Then as I stood there staring at the flames in a trance, a young woman approached me and asked if she could stand next to me to get warm because she couldn't feel her toes. Or her ears. Or her nose. And most of her fingers, she added. She couldn't feel them, either.  

"I'm Kennedy. Kennedy Mills," she shivered. "My - mom had a love affair with - JFK. So that's what she named me."

"Oh. Well, I can understand. My mom was that way about Phil. So that's why I'm here."

"No. I mean she had an actual love affair, she told us. She said she was 18 when she went to the White House on a Miss America tour in 1962. She was Miss Michigan. And, well - next thing you know - she was escorted to some fancy hotel and yada, yada, yada..." 

I couldn't help but to laugh. She shrugged her shoulders and smiled back. 

"I was born 22 years later in 1984. The last of four kids. It was either Kennedy, or Olympia, since the summer games were in L.A. that year. So thank God for mom's fling! It was weird, though. For dad, especially. Mom had Kennedy everything everywhere. Plates, pictures, magazines, newspapers, pillows, busts, books, campaign signs, buttons, pins, masks, you name it. A whole room full that I maintain to this day. There's nothing I don't know about JFK. She put us to sleep by reading us 'Profiles in Courage.' I have a brother named Jack and another named Patrick Thomas Mills. You can guess what she called him."

"Um. No. I don't know."

"P.T. PT 109?" She shook her head in embarrassment. She spilled her family beans there at my feet. She was the self-depricating sort. The honest type. And she was absolutely gorgeous. Maybe it was the hard cider hitting me, but the flames played upon her angelic face and it would be difficult to imagine that she was not a model. That she wasn't once herself, Miss Michigan. 

"So what do you do for a living?" I asked.

"I'm a meteorologist from Grand Rapids. Here unofficially. Not on a weather-related duty. It was kind of strange," she recalled. "I woke up yesterday morning and decided to come. I guess it's one of those bucket list things."

"You're a little too young to be thinking about the bucket, aren't you?"

"No. I don't believe any of us are ever too young to be conscious of our mortality and the inevitable reward we will all collect in God's time. Life is unpredictable. Accidents happen all the time."

"That's true," I acknowledged. "I'm surprised my mom didn't name me Phil. Although I'm quite sure they never had an affair, I think she loved that groundhog more than my father."

Kennedy smiled and shivered a little less. The fire was enormous and people came and went from it. It served a wonderful purpose. Providing warmth and communal comfort. It was a beautiful stone fire-pit the size of a small swimming pool and it sat in the middle of town square and in front of the stage where Phil's famous tree trunk home sat. I looked up at his home and at the little door. A door I watched for so many years open through a TV and across hundreds of miles. Behind the little door, he was supposedly sleeping, resting up for his big day. But in truth, he probably lived somewhere more comfortable and that was all just a prop. Tomorrow, he would be delivered early before anyone knew any better. How preternatural it must all be for him. Year in and year out. Being pulled out and hoisted to the heavens to applause or boos. 

"You know my dad hated JFK more than Lee Harvey Oswald or the CIA did, even though he didn't know mom when she went to D.C. Yeah. So much so that it might have been my dad on the grassy knoll. He might have time traveled," she joked. "But he endured it because he loved my mom that much. And her obsession was a small thing, considering. Something tolerable, I suppose. He loved her. That is for sure. And she loved him. And love is the most wonderful thing there is," she grinned. 

"It is," I agreed. My phone rang and I was surprised. I didn't expect it to. I excused myself to take the call and was even more surprised to discover that it was Annabelle. She apologized for acting the way she did and asked me if she could come home. I told her I was only going back to the apartment to get my things. I was going to live in my childhood home which mom willed to me and I was going to start a Punxatawney Phil museum in mom's bedroom. With a toy train. 

She paused. Then she huffed and said, well, okay. But it wasn't in a way that I knew it was ever going to be okay. It was okay for now because she was a bipolar trainwreck and needed someone to reassure her of all her insecurities, probably after whoever she left me for had already dumped her. That was obvious to me. Obvious what mom had seen that Thanksgiving that I so blindly hadn't. My mom didn't approve of her and nor do I. Not anymore. 

"It isn't going to work out, Annabelle. We aren't going to work. Besides, you shouldn't have touched my Barry Manilow records." I hung up before she could muster a reply and she tried calling back, but I silenced the phone and shoved it in my pocket and made my way back towards the fire where Kennedy was. But she wasn't there. She was gone. I suppose those few minutes we shared meant more to me than they did to her. I looked around, but she was nowhere to be found. So it goes. 

But a few minutes later, she came back carrying two hard ciders in red Solo cups and a small paper sack of warm cake donuts. "I hope you like cider and warm donuts," she smiled. The fire caught her perfectly in the same light it had before, but then I realized it wasn't the fire. It was her. 

"I was in the diner when you were and they all were talking about you. I was sitting in a booth with some nice locals who shared their table with me so I didn't have to wait. You know, I did something similar. I drove to D.C. to spread my mom's ashes."

"At the White House?"

"No. Arlington National Cemetery. On his grave."

"Wow! The eternal flame. What did your dad think?" 

"Dad went with me. We made a weekend out of it. You know, my mom never really slept with JFK. She was kind of loopy. Pretty and very sweet. But loopy. We all just let her have that one indiscretion. It meant a lot to her that we didn't snuff it out."

I grinned. It was hard not to smile looking at her. Then I opened the backpack and removed the box of my mom's ashes and spilled them into the fire. I could think of no better place. Every year, every night before Phil emerged from that tree trunk door the next morning, she would be somewhere around here, in that fire, in the air, swirling I'd imagine like an invisible leaf in a waft. Warming like-minded people who share her love for Punxatawney Phil. It felt good to let her go. But it felt better still, to hold on. 

Kennedy and I made a night of it. I knew that she was in someway, somehow, mom's doing. All of this was mom's doing. Just as she made breakfast, lunch and dinner all those years and got me dressed for school and bought my Christmas presents with next to no money at all, she did this. Maybe it was a last motherly act of goodness. 

I stayed with Kennedy in her bed and breakfast room that night and we walked over to Gobbler's Knob the next morning to watch Phil make his yearly prognostication. The fire was still burning and I could feel the warmth of my mom's warmer spirit. I held Kennedy's hand and knew that one way or another, whether Phil saw his shadow or not, we would have a lifetime of Groundhog's Days ahead of us. And whether it would be six more weeks of winter, or an early Spring, would hardly matter at all, considering.