Summer Days

 

On a corner of Hasbrock and Old State is a golden field of wheat stubble left after the combine’s buzz cut harvest. I know that a walk there is damaging to my feet. The leftover stalks look as smooth as a good haircut on a cute boy but they are spikes into soft skin. The next corner waves it’s tassels of green corn stalks that were head high by the 4th of July. In the wind I hear the knife edged leaves rustle against each other. The fields are fronted by the tall ivory heads of Queen Anne’s lace filling the Ditch lines. When the grandchildren were small we picked the lace and placed in vases with food coloring to change the delicate bloom to blue or green or pink. Red food coloring never colors true red. Here and there orange road lilies are still fighting for existence. The stems from the lilies can be cut and dried for use in basket weaving. I learned that from Native Americans. I own a primitive split oak potato basket made by my grandmother who was born in 1880. And people use wheat stalks to weave crosses. I see these at craft shows.

Blue chicory lines the road edge and fills an occasional unmowed lawn. Chicory is not a native plant but is not invasive. I will use this and other native flowers and grasses on my corner of New Haven next year. Chicory and Queen Anne’s bring in the down side of summer days when we hear the cicadas singing in the hot afternoon. Now the trees are lush in their green stories hiding dead limbs and farm equipment in the countryside. Their cool shadows protect fairies in their lazy rest. leaves show their pale undersides now in the hazy wind to let us know of rainstorms on the way. All along the paths we follow, God shares the beauty in simple things of the season. He even brings memories of times and places for us to relive what has been a pleasure to us. Remember the summer vacation at Grandmothers when all the cousins would play together. Or a reunion when we waded in the river and half way home the next day we felt the itch of the chiggers. We survived. Or a day at Cedar Point enjoying the thrill of highs and lows and water in our faces and the scare of a pirate ride in a dark tunnel with a secret kiss.

I still have a prize from the age guessing game. A lion. The 16 year old running the game guessed me at 16 when I was 12. Oh yeah, he wanted me.

And then there is all kinds of summer love. When I worked my first job, I think I liked a different boy every week. All around me I saw boys and girls turning into couples. Forgotten as school began.

The corn is now tall blocking the intersections and making tunnels on the back roads

Beans are planted in the buzz cut wheat. They grow quickly into soft green carpets.

This woman still grieves for her husband, her lover. Summer days hurt me when he is not here to dream with me in the hot afternoon. The moonlight makes shadows under the trees that we used for love and dreams. I still feel his heart against mine.

August is never hot summer anymore like the sticky days of childhood. The month starts with lazy cicada song and cool evenings under the moon. Queen Anne’s lace is faded into bunches along the road. The state mows the roadside cutting the chicory away. Sunlight is a glare as it angles to earth. It is not real sunlight. Like July. The last garden tomatoes and green peppers struggle for light to ripen against the weeds that shout out against the gardener.

Family reunions are over. They number 14 and 25 and none at all for the ones that have ended. The old folks are gone and the cousins are older and infirm and not able to drive. Second cousins work and have vacations and ballgames and do not know each other. Schools start long before Labor Day halfway into August. Boats and campers fill the highways as camping and beaches close. The end of another season and anticipation.

We are left with mums and frost on the pumpkin and craft shows full of junk and repetition and signs telling us how to live. Artisans and true artists are few and far between in the market.

My grandson is playing MS football and he is worth watching. As a receiver he stands tall in his uniform and pads never letting on that he is a nervous 13 year old kid. I walk to the fence, he sees me and thanks me for coming. I have tears in my eyes. My first grandchild is a junior and beautiful and kind. My heart smiles with her work stories and girl friend dramas. I have been there and remember. Two grandchildren are in leadership groups and show love and humility. They have humor and sarcasm. They all give me hugs that warm me. A grandson is a freshman this year and we are concerned because we remember that year of trying to find our locker and how to find classrooms. I still have dreams of wandering the halls and missing math class. Schools have preventive actions in place but life is scary in the unknown all alone. I pray for all and believe God will watch over them.

The sun wanes in brilliant color to the west as friends share photos of the event.

I continue to love others. God shows me relief and comfort in my loss of family. And I will always love the one who knew me. Even as I knew his deception I loved him because he needed love and care. Open hearts are from God.

 

My Mother Returns

My Mother Returns

Today my Mother came to visit the zinnias on a warm fall day. She was dressed in yellow lace that swirled about as she moved against the soft wind. Her wings soared her around as she touched a red bloom then a pink stack of petals. She didn't stay long. Just long enough to catch my attention for the flowers. I think she is telling me in this rare visit that it is time for the flowers to end. A frost will come soon and I must gather the seeds for another year as she did for her gardens.

Upon your death revised June 2020

In a hazy noon of July summer
Shaded little under still pines above me

the carriers labored up your own steep land
to place your polished casket in the dark hole 
dug in the cooler morning by friends 
and some respecting foe

A rude place to hold your body down


As I waited in the buzzing heat 
for your story's end
I slipped into a daze 
I saw the other side

As you reached the azure river that slid over smooth grey stones 
bounded by fields flowing in colors of Heaven.


As you glided across gentle waters
golden fingertips reached for you.
Hands pulled you close as arms entwined you 
Your eyes were warm stars
when you saw your mama running to greet you. 

My peace was intense 
as I felt you slip into that promised land

Of love and ease.
Ease.


Breathless suddenly,
 mourners wails, 
and soft weeping from some 
at your final day
 seeped into my heart.

Leaning into a close pine to release my grief 
in a last hug for you,
My tears streamed into the black roughness of bark


As I weakly forgot that yourself now resides on the eternal mountain 


Soon the family walked the worn path home 
Home changed forever again at death,
they spoke of your goodness and made heart promises
To meet you again. 

Not me though.
I ran wildly through the shallow river screaming my sorrow
at your loss 
from my being alive.
 grief has wrapped me tightly into pain
that makes me stand alone in nothing

Only looking into the time to be with you again.

We were one 
and separate 
for a lifetime.
Your leaving makes me alone
not finding who I am
without you

Death is final for your body
but not my heart.

HOME

HOME


Home is a house, a place that warms you, comforts you, makes you feel safe and waits for your return.  There you have experienced love of family and friends and the familiarity of your surroundings. Time lets you see the same street and the house on the corner with the swing on the porch. Neighbors have the same flowers and gardens year after year. You play with Chris and Arlene in the summers then attend school with them and others in the fall. Friends come and go. The Millers add a new patio. The Steven's saplings have grown tall for shade.

During college you come home on weekends. Home is different after being away. It is smaller and duller and you wish Mom and Dad were more modern.

The first apartment is a home but you know it is only temporary. Your Mom has helped you furnish it with discards from the basement and thrift store finds. It will fade without feeling as you move on.

Home is your grandmother’s house at Burning Fork in the south where you visit on summer vacations. She has a wide stairway leading to a low room with quilt covered beds in a row. The warm musty scent at the top of the stairs invites napping and reading and soft memory of good times. The front porch has the swing to emulate activity as you push to and fro doing nothing but dream. Swinging is best alone as you create stories and find answers in your imagination. Her home has no chores or pressure and is filled with other family times and her love.

Aunt Lucy's homes were mine. In 1967, I owned that upstairs bedroom on summer afternoons as I read the forbidden Peyton Place found on her bookshelf. As she moved from Louisville to Frankfort and back to Louisville our visits followed her. Her nice homes were different from our farmhouse and she treated us to beautiful things. We were always welcome.

As children, we lived in Eastern Kentucky for a while with grandmother and Aunt Lucy and Uncle Ken. Grandfather Callie was there but bedridden with lung disease. That was the real home I remember from childhood. Every inch is etched in my memory. There was an attic we slept in when we had company that was decorated with scary stern faces of old grandparents in ornate gold frames. The upstairs was not equipped with lights or heat. When the lantern burned out the pitch dark was filled with the occasional bat and imagined creepy beings that produced groans in the beams causing us to cower under a pile of wool quilts that scratched unbearably on baby skin. The rest of the house was filled with light and doilies and green beans simmering on the free gas run stove. The front porch there had a swing on each end and offered a view of the garden, the hill over to Spruce Pine and the Licking River up Straight Fork or to the left up Howard's Fork. Then, no road existed up the river branch so we watched for riders on hill climbing mules come down the traces or even the sound of a vehicle bouncing over the rocks in the river. Grandmothers house was surrounded by mountains and trees and cowpaths and high rocks that entertained us daily. Our only responsibility was to stay out of trouble.

Grandmother moved to Burning Fork, then Louisville, then Frankfort. Each of her homes gave us the same feeling of peace. To her we were all special and she showed it. Mostly by talking to us.

When we left the hills, my family lived in the Appalachian foothills of southern Ohio. Changes came with this move. We had work in the garden and house chores and schoolwork. But plenty of time to roam and play in the woods and fields. We were in the country and lived it. The house was simple but kept warm and clean by my sweet mother.

In 1962 we moved to an old used up home in northern Ohio. It was different here as we grew into adults. We were already pulling away from the familiar to something unknown but our own place in the world. I never liked that house or the flat land close to the highway and neighbors who never learned about us. They did not welcome us. I had lost my place with people. Schools were different and there was a town close enough to visit and every day we heard the clock tower chime 5 o'clock and the factory whistle its start times. The trains rumbled on tracks thru town. In the distance in the back field, we saw the blinking light of the phone tower at night. Many cars went by on the roadway but no one waved and we did not recognize the passengers. The saving grace for that place was the flower gardens my mother established and shared thru the years. Mother is gone to Heaven but I still drive by the Townline Road home to see the changes and to see any flowers left from my Mother at that home.

Home is the feeling of a place. My current home is an 1845 remodel in New Haven. We have raised children and grandchildren here. But I still dream of modern and convenience and get disgusted at the millionaire previous owner who didn't update and repair things. It is comfortable and has a front porch that we use. We know many people here and the history of the village allows to learn of a different people as industrious as my Appalachian ancestors.

Home is a place of memory and solace as you travel familiar roads and see the places and things and people from your past. I saw your face in the face of your granddaughter today and thought of how you loved me till your end.  And I heard the voice of my mother as I listened to my friend Hazel describe how hard life used to be when they were young. And the simple fun they had before modern life. Scattered flower gardens and pots of begonias around the old houses speak of work and pleasure we remember. A row of dahlias on Route 7 continues as part of the family. Hillsides recall old barns angling back to the earth and country kids climbing to the high rocks used as playhouses and shelters from the mountain giants and Indian ghosts from the caves and mounds. Home becomes smaller as we lose mom and dad and great aunts and their reverent tones as they talk of their parents and grandparents. Pieces of our lives disappear and change as homes change.

Then the home grows bigger as we communicate across the wireless space. We connect with old schoolmates who we no longer recognize and distant cousins who we only know by name and great grandmothers.

People say you can never go home again. They are wrong. Home is a cemetery in a front yard, orange lilies along the July roadside, and road signs naming your place. It is a history of your travels along the roads and your feelings as you pass.

Home is a song from your youth that takes you back to 16 and the day a boy whistled and looked into your eyes and deeper.

Your aunts keep you in the arms of the mother you have lost. They know the love you need for home.

Home is your sisters and other sister women who share the terrors of femininity and the day to day drudgery of work and child raising and husbands and bills and coupons and repairmen and insurance companies and businesses that think we are weak and stupid.

Home is a target for our heart. A safe place of peace. A touch of a good memory inside yourself given by God.

I still search for home.

Dismemory

October 8, 2018 and fall is here in the form of an 85 degree day. A few leaves are scraping across the highway stirred by traffic wind. The sun shine is at angle that masks its summer intensity. Along the roads, scattered trees are in flames with bunches of leaves already red and gold.
Today I will attend calling hours for a friend from school and work. I remember his wry sense of humor. Never any meanness. Although I didn't see him often in recent years, he was always there and is now one more empty space in my heart. If we continue to grow, we will let other friends fill those places. What do we do when we are 95 and outlive our lifelong friends?  Does the heart shrink and wrinkle like our old bodies?

I have a new word today. Dismemory. Definition: an occurrence of remembering events that are not your own. Recall of someone's story but putting yourself as the main character.
 This happens as we age and fill our brains with family, friend and work stories. Hearing and telling over the years is saved as part of our history. As we recount an incident we fairly attribute it to the author. But as all the stories collide and overlap, the brain can pull that jumble into a new memory that lets us make it our own.

My grandmother told me stories about long gone family members which I have recorded on paper and internally. I am still able to separate them from myself. Over the years through genealogy I have found those stories common to distant cousins. We know Aunt Rainey by her love for jewelry and Great grandfather Brice as a Confederate soldier who had his last child at 76. But like the old telephone game, the audience adds bits and pieces to every telling until the stories disagree. Brice becomes a Union soldier because our family never fought for slavery and states rights. And it is not common for anyone to father a son at 76.
When do we trust the storyteller? And our own memory?

In my dad’s family, we are descended from Native Americans with the surname Sizemore. There is documented proof to my 3x great grandfather George who had 55 people claim him as their father. This is on the Internet. His father is referred to as George "All" Sizemore but no proof is recorded. Numerous stories exist of the Sizemore/NA connection. Occasionally a generous researcher will post a picture of that ancestor who lived before photography. We protest but the story sounds better than proof.
We need to listen to stories and decide if they are true.
In dismemory, the teller is convincing and believes what he is sharing. The author of the incident can question himself or the teller. Or just let it go. The story ends.

Dismemory is the sadness of lost thoughts and names when we can still fake a presence in the conversation by using random stories. It is the beginnings of Alzheimer's when real thoughts and instruction are tossed like the Yahtzee dice trying to find a match. You get what comes out of your cup. Sometimes you only roll 2 ones, a score low in points. That's when you call your sister Jan when her name is really Leslie. A laugh. A brush off. Soon you don't know Jan or Leslie. The phone becomes the remote and you watch the same channel all day until your daughter visits and explains once again how each works. You don't understand the difference because the phone no longer rings. Memories fade and wrinkle like our aging hearts. We do not care for things in life as we melt back to God from whence we came.

Changes and Endings

Changes and endings follow us through age. Marriage, divorce, children, grandchildren, death, and disease all work to stir our emotions. First love to loss, anger and hurt can lead us on different paths. Friendship and love guides through tough times and the wondrous moments.

Seeing the Grand Canyon was amazing. Stepping from the subway to see Rome finally was a dream I didn't know I had. The adoration for my grandchildren and their amazement in life leaves me breathless. Their selfless love for me has created new life and meaning. Friends of old reach out and new ones appear for support in aging. Everyday, flowers and the wind and butterflies soothe my heart in the goodness of the world. I speak with God daily knowing that he loves me and accepts me as I am. Younger life of wildness and hurt slip away as does time. Summer moons light the night in mystery without fear. And the sunlight moves me to feel life in this place I live.

For 14 years, I planned and led our Howard family reunion in Eastern Kentucky. The reunion began as a way to see family other than at funerals. In those early years, many family members attended. We renewed acquaintance with cousins from a childhood visiting my grandmother Maudie. She was the person who led us in love and to God. We were each her favorite. Grandmother was our connection between a family of six siblings and children. She also shared stories about her parents, grandparents and ancestors long gone. They live in our memory

We met new cousins and distant. Mother’s cousin Joe gave the best hugs and called me baby doll. He is always in my heart. His Sutton family attended for several years and we talked of the old folks. As the years went by new babies joined our family. We also lost family. That changed the dynamic of the reunion. Children were unable to visit because the loss was too hard to bear. Carl and Ruby Marshall were neighbors we knew after Maudie married Callie Joseph and lived at Burning Fork. They are both gone but their son Rick still comes to see us. We have lost mothers and husbands and some to Alzheimer's and ages of 92. Attendees catch us up on their children and jobs and the remember whens. Over the last few years, I have become friends with Hazel Shepherd and her family. They live at Grandmothers homeplace at the Head of Licking in Magoffin County. She has lived there now longer than Grandmother did. Gary and I visit the Howard Cemetery there and then stop to see her. Hazel knew my family and is a distant cousin. She remembers when my baby sister Sandra died and the burial service in the front yard for my grandfather Callie in 1958 preached by brother in law Henry Mullins. When her children go to Walmart, they take her along and she sits in her walker by the checkout and visits with friends or others who talk with her. Hazel gives a lot of good advice taken from a rough life in the mountains. What a great life Hazel has now with devoted bossy children and pet chickens and ponies and a view of the wooded mountains from her childhood and mine. Her daughter Sadie brings her to the reunion along with special candy she makes and fresh green beans and tomatoes which she grows in a garden on her other place. Most of the produce is given to residents on the road home.

Two years ago, Angie said she would take the reunion over. The preparation became too much for me to handle. She has help from Tamara and Ruth as I did. I couldn't handle the stress of getting people to play bingo and gather for the family photos. Some people come to just sit. Others readily join in the auction to raise funds for the hall rental and cemetery upkeep. Sister Leah always brings a quilt for a raffle creating great excitement and money. The winner now wears it parading for all to see. Tamara prints the family tree chart listing Grandmothers descendants. She gets the info from me and of course I always have a wrong date for someone. I take several books I have created with descendant and ancestor photos. It is fun to see old photos and to decide who you might resemble.

As the years have passed, fewer people attend. Reasons are health, age, distance and the infamous family vacation or the I don't feel like going. It is one day of the year!  When I was young, our vacation was traveling from Ohio to visit Grandmother. While there, we saw other relatives and visited the places in Kentucky that my parents knew from younger days. Those names and scenes are still ingrained in my mind. Their memories transferred to me. Nowadays families take their own trips to Myrtle Beach, The Smokey Mountains, and Florida. Their little families are the focus, and many children hardly see aunts and uncles or cousins. Families are smaller. In the future, if there is a reunion, it might consist of a brother and sister with spouses and four cousins who barely know each other.

My family's closeness comes from those times that we visited on Sunday and played together. Then, there was no trip to the amusement park or a $300 birthday party. Our social life was family.

My generation still has friends who sit and talk. All the kids are on an IPhone to see what others are doing.

I miss the porch talk when I was amazed at what my grandchildren had to say.

Families are smaller than ever but farther apart. As I age, I see the loss of connection among members.

Change and endings. We must learn to be alone.

Food is Relative

When we were youngsters, we ate the food put on the table. And liked it all as we cleaned our plates. Food then was different. No buffet. I first ate spaghetti at age 10 when my Aunt Rebecca brought Chef Boy Ar Dee in a can. I fell in love with the sweet taste of the sauce. Our pasta was macaroni with tomato juice added. My dad hated it. We had pork chops or thin steak for breakfast from animals that we had grown and butchered. As a child, my brother Roger adopted a calf which he named Sam after a Walt Disney animal. Sam was trained to pull a sled and come at Roger's call. Well, Sam grew and reached his purpose. He was made into steak and roast. They broke the news to Roger who was devastated. But that night at supper as the platter was passed he said "You might as well give me a piece of Old Sam".

My dad and brothers shot, scraped and butchered the hogs but cows were taken to a professional. In the early 60s, WWII veterans received a bonus for duty. My parents bought a freezer with his $500 used to store meat and garden produce.

Along with the farm animals, Dad and brother Larry hunted for game. And fished. I have held the hind legs of many rabbits and squirrels as their skin was peeled away from pink flesh that was crisply fried. Parts were parts until it came to the squirrel brains. I once told my Ohio friend Deb that we fought over who got to eat the brains. She is still laughing. That food was delicious but I guess we have out grown most of it. Except for chicken livers and gizzards which my husband can fry into a delicacy. Imagine my own shock when we went to Tiro Tavern with friends and found that they were featuring a Coon Feed. Who eats coon?
I will never fish. My dad and brothers went to pay lakes in southern Ohio. When we moved north, they thought they had found the mother lode in Lake Erie. Each Sunday they sat on the pier at Huron patiently waiting for a bite. One Sunday I was made to go. The sunburn lasted for a week. The boredom a lifetime. They were proud as they walked off the rocky pier showing off the buckets of their catch. I don't know how my mother stood it when they arrived home late with fish to clean. Today I am repulsed by a fish scale or bone.

As I listen to the rooster crowing down the street in New Haven, I am reminded of how often we had chicken dinners. My mom or grandmother were swift in capturing a young fryer or a fat stewing hen from the pen or under the shrubs in their dusty hideout. A quick jerk broke the neck or the sharp ax took the head off.
We laughed as the beheaded chicken flopped about the yard under the big dishpan. Not so as we plucked the scalded feathers that created an unforgettable odor. My sister Carol gagged and was excused from the duty. Then we watched as my mother singed the pin feathers over the flame on the gas stove. She or my grandmother cut the chicken apart in no time and unlike take out chicken today you could tell the thigh from the breast or back. Sometimes the hen had a partially formed egg which was thrown in with all the other parts to cook for the fat used to make dumplings. A great dinner on a hot Sunday after church.  We had to take turns on who got to eat the gizzard or liver. Grandmother always said she liked the feet-yes, they were cooked too. But I think that was the part left for her as she strived to feed hungry children. Mother never ate chicken.

Nowadays we serve chicken fingers, fish sticks, nuggets, pizza, tacos and calamari. No kid eats pork, fried chicken or wild game. They have not been hungry.