I said, “ A seat next to a window would be perfect, allowing me to read;” for I have taken my book to lunch you see.  Removing my book from under my anorak I settled into my seat reminding myself that a book read twenty years ago may have new truths to reveal.

Written first as a biography and re-written as a work of fiction, the tale is neither; the tale is both. The book takes its name from an urban ailanthus tree that grows out of cement, a tree that is said to “like poor people,” a tree that grows behind tenements and where families of impoverishment create their lives. The tree flourishes in places not friendly to vegetation. The tale records the coming of age of an eleven year old girl, growing up at the turn of the twenty century amidst grinding poverty, the struggle of immigrants in America, in a neighborhood where children sell junk for pennies and bring half of their earning home to pay rent or buy bread for the family.

A flash back to my own childhood brings to mind the Swoope family that lived in a tent, whose children did not wear shoes to school; the family that wanted and received a funeral with full military honors for their son killed in action in WWII. This is the tale I wanted to convey but instead I said “I like lime pie.” I hope you understand the correlation.

Today my birthday is seven days away

This happens every May

Yesterday birthday cards began to arrive

They say “age is just a number”

I say “My number is uncomfortably large

They say “You neither look nor behave like others at this age”

I say “And still the numbers are there”

They say “Continue to live a vibrant life”

I say “From your lips to God’s ear”

And I continue with my life review

I do a computer search for one love of my youth

And find his life as an attorney/judge

Was filled with success

He retired ten years ago

A much decorated Judge

In the courts of New Jersey

Seems that I dodged a bullet.

Two other loves of my youth dead

One of lupus the other

Probably of “uptightness”

Probably of fear he might be gay

Probably of his resentment of Baptists

Probably of his inability to turn lose of perceived disrespect

And still it was only with reluctance

That I let him go

Then there is my Jim

The one who loved and entrapped me

Who put me on a long tether

And told me to run in the wind

Said I should give my wild side expression

“Not too public, rein it in, rein it in” he said

He applauded my creativity

Especially when my poems were to him

And he loved me and said

“I am in awe of you.”

Born into a tenant farm family

Born into poverty

Never knew hunger or longings

Born to a father with dreams

Soon the family of a circuit rider

Poverty still nipping at our heels

Still no hunger, no longings

At last a fully credentialed minister

No poverty, no hunger, a few longing

A person once referred to me

As a middle management bureaucrat

I smiled with the knowledge this person never knew me

I rose above my raising

I am Queen of my own Mountain

I am a high function elder

And my birthday is in seven days.

WHAT’S ON MY MIND THIS MORNING

Sunday, January 24, 2021

Pills. This morning I begin taking Fosamax, for bone health they say. I took this drug years ago and continued taking it years after it had done all it could for my bones.   But that was many years ago and I am told this same Fosamax can serve me well again for a year, maybe two.

Yesterday my poet friend sent me a poem that he wrote yesterday morning. I’m still pondering whether the poem is an affirmation of life or an expression of suicidal intent. As a poet, he’s that good.

I’ve received via computer a challenge to commit 21 acts of kindness this week. Really? To whom will I be kind? I do not see people, or not much. I may see Barb tomorrow; guess I could be kind to her 21 times. Okay, I did write two letters, one to my sister-in-law who is 95 and one to the daughter of friends from long ago. Might those be acts of kindness. I don’t know about that as letter writing is a pleasure for me.

I wrote to Helen on inauguration day. I began my letter with, “This is the day the Lord has made.” I’m not sure she will understand my subtle humor. If not, perhaps she will just think I am well versed in the Psalms.

My writing group meets this week and I have spent considerable time the past week writing and buffing two pieces I will read for critique. Reading well is at least half as important as the writing of it.

I’m thinking of dental floss this morning. Specifically I am thinking of the great quantity of dental floss that has collected itself in my upstairs drawer. Every time I go to the dentist I come home with more dental floss. She, the dentist, always sends me home with a gift package of: a new toothbrush, a small tube of took paste, and dental floss. This week when I saw her I asked her not to send me home with a gift package. I said I don’t need it just now. I did not say, I use an electric toothbrush, my brand of toothpaste is different and I have enough dental floss to floss the teeth of my entire neighborhood for a year. There is a glimmer of light here: I read on the side of one of the dental floss container, an expiration date.

This week as I was walking through the neighborhood with Camille, we walked past the triangle park and found a woman and a young child sitting in the Steven bench. We passed by but with a lightness in my foot and a smile on my face. It always pleases me to see the bench in use.

Dylan will be 12 years old before this month ends. She is almost as tall and I, has Adrian’s long, gangly legs and his quirky way of being in this world, but she looks like her Mom. When she was learning to walk, I remember placing M&Ms at intervals around the coffee table to encourage her to walk from spot to spot. She is in the 6^th grade in virtual school in Charlottesville and is doing very well. Her wrapping of Christmas presents was so detailed that I kept the wrapping for framing.

I have framed pictures stored on the top shelf of a closet. In an effort to clean up and clear out, I am in the process of taking pictures out of frames, putting those pictures in a folder and getting rid of the frames. My resolve is strong but sentiment gets in the way. Camille, who is also a life coach is prodding me a bit on this project.

Do birds come home to roost? I continue to have birds sit on the power lines in my back yard creating the sensation of writing music. My question to myself is this: Are the birds that were hatch on my back porch last spring among those writing music now on the power lines in the back yard?

This year has had its share of political turmoil, pandemic and a lot of subsequent death, racial tensions and among all others a change in the face of Monument Avenue. This was the first year of Jaden’s life. Jaden is 14 months old. She walks and babbles. I have ordered for her a set of A B C blocks. Every child needs the thrill of knocking over a stack of high piled blocks. Her blocks will be delivered on Monday; She will be in my care Tuesday morning. She and I will definitely build something. Hey, is this an opportunity for kindness?

I have not worn much jewelry during the pandemic. With all the hand washing and the taking off and putting on rings, it’s all too much. So the rings have been put aside mostly. However, on Inauguration Day I felt a little festive and on that day I wore the ring that Darius gave me the last time I saw her. She said this was originally Mom’s ring and Mom gave it to her years before. Darius found the ring in Mom’s jewelry and asked to wear it for a while. Mom gave it to her. Darius said Daddy gave the ring to Mom years before that. I asked “For what occasion did Dad give her the ring?” Darius said she didn’t know. He probably wanted sex, she added. Even near death Darius did not lose her witty edge. To celebrate the inauguration of Biden and Harris, I wore the ring that Darius wore previously and that Mom wore first.

Today is Sunday so I will log-in to see what’s going on at church this morning.

Daddy said of our family, “ “We are Christians, Methodists, and Democrats, in that order.” This tale is about the Methodist experience. I loved the five-dollar funeral that was once part of the benefit package for Methodist ministers. This benefit was triggered when a minister died. Having been notified of the death, all other Methodist ministers in the Memphis Conference were expected to place a five-dollar bill in an envelope and send the envelope to the deceased minister’s next of kin to help cover the cost of the funeral.

I loved that the Methodist gathers each year to make ministerial appointments for the following year and to take care of other Conference business. Other Conference business includes a Memorial Service memorializing ministers and spouses who died during the previous year. Nestled among a multitude of committee reports and presentations on a wide variety of church activities, there is an Ordination service for those being presented for acceptance into Full Connection with the Conference. Each candidate is asked questions about his “call” and his willingness to go where sent.

The Annual Conference always opens with the singing of, “And are we yet alive to see each other’s face.” It is my favorite line from a hymn, second only to the Unitarian Universalist hymn that begins with, “Oh, what a piece of work we are.” I have used each line at different times as openers in my annual Christmas letter to my family without as much as a chuckle from my readers. It has been more than fifty years since I identified myself as a Methodist, but I do love the Methodists.

Papa was a preacher, a Methodist preacher. I never called him Papa, not even once but I like the rhythm of the sentence, the cadence of the words and, indeed, Papa was a preacher. It was his work. It was his identity. It was the way he proudly regarded himself. He became the “minister” only after he began to serve city churches.

In 1944 we were sent to Pinson, a small Tennessee village located 90 miles northwest of Memphis. James, my only brother was twenty years old and had been a soldier for two years. He was a medic stationed in the Fiji Islands fighting the “Japs.” “Japs” was a derogatory term applied to people from Japan, an enemy during WWII, and a word often used by my mother. By 1944 James had survived a bullet wound to his back and earned a purple Heart. Mama believed the men fighting the Japs had it much harder than those fighting in Europe because, “Japs are just meaner people,” Mama said. It was an opinion she expressed often.

Mary Ruth, the oldest of my three sisters, graduated from high school at the age of sixteen and migrated to Nashville to attend Droughn’s Business School. In 1944 she was eighteen years old, a business school graduate, self-supporting and living in Nashville where, according to reports from Mary Ruth, Harvey’s department stores had installed moving steps. Mama doubted that this was true but could not say exactly what Mary Ruth was trying to tell us. Daddy had finished the two years of college offered at the University of Tennessee, Martin branch, where we lived for three years. It was time for us to move on.

It was in pursuit of a college degree, ministerial credentials necessary for acceptance into Full Connection with the Methodist Church, and the nomadic life known to families of Methodist ministers that we made our next move the year I was ten. Daddy, Mama, fourteen-year old Normagene, and eight year old Darius, and I climbed into the family’s Model T for the next step on the rung to success. The distance between the parsonage we left in Martin and the parsonage in Pinson, is sixty-five miles. It would be an all day trip. The driver’s side door on the Model T was held shut with the help of a necktie. The crank for starting the car’s motor was tucked underneath the driver’s seat and a large coffee can was on board for dipping water from ditches when the car ran hot. Daddy’s extra clothes were on board for use if he needed to crawl under the car to make repairs en route, and nestled among the passengers was the family cat that had a tendency for car sickness.

Six hours after our journey began and after numerous stops along the way to mend some part of the car and to clean up after the cat, the Model T turned off route 45 and into the village of Pinson where we would live for the next five years in the parsonage, with an out-house in back. The parsonage sat next to a small Methodist Church that boasted a membership of not more than a hundred people. Pinson was a stereotypical southern village where the children go barefoot in the summer and swim unsupervised in the creek and everybody participates in raising everybody’s children. The Pinson Church was one of five churches Daddy would serve while being a full time student at Lambuth College in nearby Jackson, Tennessee.

Our lives at Pinson began as they began in any new parsonage. We eagerly explored the house and began to stake out space for ourselves. There were two bedrooms. Normagene, Darius, and I would share the larger bedroom with two double beds and Daddy and Mama would have the bedroom next to the kitchen. There was a small room big enough to accommodate a half bed and a bookcase. This would be Daddy’s library and would double as a bedroom when James returned from the war. While the rest of us explored the house and surrounding neighborhood, Daddy moved on to the church next door where a list of church members needing ministerial visits waited for him. It was his favorite part of the job.

A railroad ran parallel to route 45 and it ran passed the Pinson School where most students arrived by buses from the surrounding countryside. It ran passed the Pinson business district that included Mr. Dismuke’s grocery where we bought groceries on credit, Mrs. Hearns’ drug store, operated by Mrs. Hearn alone after her husband, the town’s only doctor, died. It ran past the post office and passed the public artesian well that continually bubbled up water from an underground source, spewing forth its wetness and its stench.

The railroad shed was there where the “The Dinky,” a commuter train, stopped every morning and every afternoon for those going to and from work in Jackson. Pinson was a village of no more than a thousand people, the Methodist, Baptist, and Church of Christ churches and no crime.

In the 1940s Pinson was the village of storybooks. Our teachers were also our neighbors and their children were our friends. “The Pig Stand,” a gas station next to the school, stocked soft drinks and snacks that lured children from the school over for a quick snack. The local farmers grew cotton and there was a cotton gin in Pinson. When Cooper Alexander, the son of the cotton gin owner, married Mildred Pierce, the Home Demonstration Agent that served our school, their wedding was featured on Bride And Groom, a radio program. The day of the marriage Pinson School students gathered in the Study Hall to listen to the ceremony and applaud when Cooper and Miss Pierce, as we knew her, said their vows. Pinson was small town USA.

Five years after arriving in Pinson it was time to move on. It was 1949, the war was over and James was safely home. Daddy was a college graduate with post-graduate work accomplished through a correspondence program offered by Emery University of Atlanta. He was now a fully credentialed minister in the Methodist Church. When we left Pinson, for the first time we left behind parts of ourselves. In 1946 James married Louise Kelly, the daughter of a couple who worked in the cotton mills in nearby Bemis. James and Louise made their home in Jackson. Mary Ruth returned from Nashville where she graduated from business school and remained to work at the Methodist Publishing House. By 1949 she had left Nashville to become a Jacksonian, to be near her family, she said, and because she had become a little bored. In Jackson she met and married Howard Keas who was employed by the telephone company. Mary Ruth worked for GMAC until her retirement. Normagene graduated from Pinson High School and married Harold (Boob) Bird, a local farmer whose primary job was fireman on the railroad.

When the day came for us to go where sent again, Daddy, Mama, Darius and I piled into the car, a Chevrolet, the replacement for the Model T, and journeyed on to the next appointment, the next parsonage, the next schools, the next segment of our lives. Methodist ministers move in June and this time we would live in Clopton, a rural community north of Memphis. In the Fall I would begin high school at Byers Hall High School in nearby Covington. Darius would enter eighth grade in nearby Brighton Elementary School. Daddy would serve three churches located in rural Clopton, and rural Macedonia and very small town, Atoka. Mama would “fit in” the new community for the last time.

More than sixty years later, when I travel Route 45, I turn into the village of Pinson and make my way to the small Methodist Church. The parsonage next door is gone along with its out-house. A paved parking lot stands in its place. I walk up the steps of the church and place my hands on the stained glass windows in the double front doors. I read the inscription on the plaque, “In loving memory of the Reverent David Olhausen, 1944 – 1949, and I say, “Well done, Daddy.”

(Filed in QUEEN)

Our house sat at the edge of the earth. It perched there on the last solid ground before the earth dropped off into a chasm that was wide and deep and steep. At the bottom of the ravine trains passed unimpeded by car crossings and, at the top, children hovered on the edge to wave to unseen engineers and to shout in competition with the train’s bellow from below. At the first sound of an approaching train, before heading to the edge of the ravine, my sisters and I would grasp doorknobs so that we could feel the vibrations of the approaching train enter our hands, move up through our arms, and invade our bodies with a tingling feeling.

The trains ran during the day and they ran throughout the night and the pots and pans in the kitchen danced to the rhythm being played out at the bottom of the chasm. After our first few nights in the house, Mama stopped getting out of bed with the passing of each train to straighten up what had been jarred out of place and, without noticing when, we all began to sleep through the night, paying no heed to the thundering of the trains. It was Daddy’s first appointment as a Methodist minister; it was the beginning of the realization of a dream he had dreamed since his childhood, and if the trains had run through the middle of the house he would not have been deterred. It was a time of consequence for him and for all of us.

In 1940, passage into the small village of Fowlkes was over a wooden bridge that arched over the railroad like a great pregnant belly and merged into a road more dirt than gravel. It was a road that led nowhere in particular except to the small, white, frame, Methodist church where worship services were conducted once a month, and to the elementary school where the first grade teacher designated a special table for thumb suckers, and to the homes and legends of the villagers, and to our house perched on the edge of the earth.

A large hickory tree shaded one side of the small house and served as a play ground for little girls with bare feet who spent hot summer afternoons under its leafy branches mixing dirt with water to make mud treats. Sometimes treats were topped off with nuts gleaned from the fruit of the hickory tree. A hard-shelled hickory nut, caught in the vise of two bricks would give up its meat. The mud-nut treat was placed in the sun to bake. The hickory tree marked the boundary between our yard and the property of the house next door.

The duplex on the other side of the hickory tree was home to two middle-aged and childless couples. The Beasleys lived in the side nearest the hickory tree and the Iveys in the side next to the beaten path made by years of children taking a short cut to the school. Two husbands left the duplex early every morning and descended into the abyss of the trains. At the end of the day the re-emergence of the two husbands from the depths of the gorge, unrecognizable through the soot that covered all but the whites of their eyes, was the cue for children to go home for supper.

Blind Mrs. Ivey was a novelty for the village children who found her ability to perform even simple daily living task astonishing. Children told each other a tale of Mr. Ivey getting out of bed during the night and getting lost in the dark and Mrs. Ivey finding him, because she was well acquainted with the dark, and she led him safety back to bed.

Mrs Beasley, known to the village children as Miss Doanie, was a Sunday School teacher at the Methodist Church. She gave out small cards with Bible scenes, in color, on the front and on the back there was a short Bible lesson. Sometimes Miss Doanie would read the back of the card aloud. This practice made it possible for me to go home and explain the picture and pretend that I could read.

It was while visiting Miss Donnie’s house that I first became acquainted with a most unusual doll. She was heavy for a doll and unlike any doll I had ever seen. Her head was small with an exceedingly long neck and a bulbous body without arms or legs. I called her “Betty” and when I was not there to rock her in one of Miss Doanie’s rocking chairs, Betty’s job was to stand at the door, holding it open to let the summer breeze come in through the screen and cool Miss Doanie where she sat doing her needle work or reading her Bible. This is how I found Miss Doanie on hot summer afternoons. “Miss Doanie, I’ve come to rock Betty,” I would announce. Miss Doanie would respond, “Come on in she’s been asking for you.”

It would be years into the future before my first visit to a bowling alley where I discovered Betty’s very extensive extended family lined up at the end of each alley, the targets of heavy balls flung at great speeds for the purpose of knocking each and every one of them off of their flat bottoms. It was in observing the game that I came to understand for the first time that I had spent my sixth year cuddling a common bowling pin.

The house by the railroad was the first in a series of Methodist parsonages that gave us shelter while Daddy served the Lord and gambled that our family would survive with no tangible evidence to support his optimism. This first year of his ministry, while he financially supported a wife, himself, and five minor children, he served as minister to four churches, earning a combined salary of $670 that year. But Daddy was an optimist. “The Lord will provide” was his mantra and the rest of us learned to trust, if not in the Lord, then in Daddy.

It was the year that barefoot village children ran to the brink time and again to confirm that the roar emanating from deep within the earth was a train, to wave to an unseen conductor and move quickly into the house to hold a door knob to test how long the vibration would last. It was the year of Miss Doanie’s soft and ample lap and the touch of blind Mrs. Ivey’s hand. It was the year that I sat with first grade thumb suckers at Fowlkes elementary school’s special table. It was our watershed year. It was the year we left behind the black soil and backwaters of Reel Foot Lake and the anonymity of a tenant farm family and wrapped ourselves in the conspicuousness of the minister’s family. It was a role that my brother, my sisters and I would alternately embrace and spurn for the rest of our lives. Daddy was a minister and it all began in the village of the train the year I was six and loved, and was loved by a long neck, flat bottom, heavy, bowling pin named Betty.

Filed: Thumbs up

The Pandemic continues

And exacerbates my sensations of having lost too much

Of being unable to recover the loss

Of having missed my turn in line

And having been left behind to wither on the vine

I have not been able to write about J until days of late

and I wrote a short piece about his last full day

on this earth and a short piece about the day after;

My ambivalence gets in the way and I fail to remember

or to articulate the multiplicity of his attributes

that made our lives rich and promising

and his qualities that keep me forever unsettled and looking for a way out.

Are you weeping my soul?

Sometimes it seems that it takes all the strength I have

Just to avoid falling into a great abyss

For my life losses are great and grief returns wet and heavy and without warning

And steals my energy and my resolve

Sometimes my steps falter; sometimes my spirit wavers

Until I remember, I still have promises to keep

And would best shake off the doldrums, greet the new day, and begin anew.

THE DAY AFTER

a death in the family

the hereafter begins with apprehension, with disbelief.

There are things to do,

an obituary to prepared

so all will know he has gone to his chamber in the silent halls of death,

so that updated records reflect a clod washed away by the sea.

Let the word go forth to

the military establishment

the social security organization

the retirement system

the Department of Motor Vehicles,

that the universe must continue minus one cog in the universal wheel.

A large black cat – never before seen

arrives and stands guard at the back door, on patrol throughout the day.

Who told the cat? Is it meant to be comforting or a tardy harbinger of death.

Arrange for someone to pick up sister one at the airport,

prepare for the arrival of sister two,

pay for the cremation, order death certificates.

“You will need a lot,” advised sister one.

Finish the eulogy that was begun weeks ago,

find chairs for a home memorial service,

second son will provide music.

He will sing “Amazing Grace” and he will play on the piano, “I Love Paris.”

first son will read the 23^rd psalm from his granddad’s Bible,

sister two will read from the Bible

sister one will pray.

It will be a family affair.

Make space for flowers,

first guest arrived bringing condolences and a Peace Lily,

find room for food — the cakes, the sandwiches, the potato salad, the casseroles.

Remove the hospital bed from the dining room,

making room for food for funeral guest,

Medicare tells me I now own the bed.

Move the bed temporarily into the garage,

clean and disinfect the room.

The day is over. Dusk descends.

No time for grieving.

No time for quelling of the brain.

Retire and hope for sleep.

The cat stands sentry.

The First 90 Years

Last July when cold weather seemed to be far into the future my sister, Normagene, telephoned and told me her family is planning a party in February to celebrate her 90^th birthday. “Have you all lost your minds?” I asked. Normagene appeared not to understand my reaction so I elaborated, “Do you even remember February? The ground will be frozen and cold, the snow will be mixed with ice and dirt, most of your guest will be blowing noses, and conversations will be about spring and whether it will ever come.” “But will you come,” she asked? “I can’t promise, I can’t drive because it is too far and medical advice is that I should not fly in the winter time because of my tendency to come home with pneumonia. So, sure I’ll come if I can get there.” She said, “I hope the weather will be good and there are some good days in February.” “I only know about being cold and a little depressed in February,” I said. She asked if I have ever heard of the February light. “I have but I’ve never seen it,” I told her. She refers to the myth that sometimes on a sunny day in February when the bare limbs on those bare trees are reaching for the sky, they catch the sunlight shining through those limbs and the trees sparkle and fairies dance. “Promise me that,” I said.

The large party room at Casey Jones Museum and Restaurant was reserved months ahead for Normagene’s party and stood waiting when family members arrived an hour early on party day to make the room ready for the party. Unadorned, it is a large, stark, room with a small stage on one side and long tables arranged in rows the length and breadth of the room, not unlike the dining room at the Federal Correctional Institute in Petersburg, where coincidentally, I once had lunch.

Normagene is a small woman at 5’3” and best known for the unobtrusive way she has chosen to be in this world. Her hair is blond and cut so short it would not be possible to run a hand through her hair and grasp a handful. Cataract surgery years ago left her without need for eyeglasses. For the party she wore a cranberry color sweater and blazer with grey wool pants. A corsage of roses was pinned to her lapel. Her makeup was applied earlier in the day by a cosmetologist at Macy’s. She looked good and she knew it and this gave her a level of confidence that was unusual for her.

Earlier in the day she said she was feeling nervous and doubted her ability to speak from the podium where she was scheduled to stand and thank the one hundred expected guests. I reminded her that she had rehearsed her words many times and was well prepared. I suggested she calm herself by deep breathing. By the time we arrived for the party, she entered the building with a sense of pride. At 90 years she walks without a walking aid, with shoulders back and erect. There was radiance about her as we entered and surveyed the party room before guest began to arrive.

The room was decorated with red balloons, a Jana drawn poster featuring a caricature of Normagene, flowers on the tables, nieces wearing tee shirts with Normagene’s childhood image prominently displayed on its back, multiple birthday cakes and pictures from stages of her life.

At 6:00 guests began winding their way through the front door at Casey Jones, walking around seating coves in the main dining room, past the buffet and into the party room at the back of the building where each and every guess was greeting at the door by a beaming 90-year-old Normagene. My sister has a calm and quiet temperament. She is reticent, a quiet woman, a woman of few words and tries always to avoid bringing attention to herself; and yet she greeted each of the ninety-nine guests at the entrance of the room with a warm handshake or hug, welcomed every one, and called each by name saying how pleased she was that he/she came.

The Martins were there. Pepper and Wanna Martin have been Normagene’s friends since high school. They are a couple coping with their own advanced age. Wanna was Normagene’s best friend in high school; They played on the same basket ball team and Wanna played the piano at Normagene’s wedding. As couples, Wanna and Pepper and Normagene and Boob double dated when they were teen-agers and Wanna was Normagene’s primary source of comfort at the time of Boob’s death. Pepper at 90 years and feeble rose from the table where he sat with Wanna and other party guest and walked with difficulty across the room. He said he wanted to talk with Normagene and made his way to her table. I observed the two of them standing in an embrace. I later asked her, “What did Pepper say?” She said, “I don’t know. It is hard to understand him, but he cried.” It was her understanding that Pepper was trying to remind her of happy memories of the good times the four of them enjoyed in their youth.

Following dinner, the program for the evening included a video created by Will, Normagene’s grandson, incorporating tales and tributes gathered from more than a dozen family members and friends who were interviewed via Skype in the weeks leading up to the party.  Will called the video, “The First 90 years.” The video included pictures and statements by family and friends at various stages of her life.

The program also included “A Tribute to my Sister” by Normagene’s sister (me). The day before the party we received regrets from Caroline who was scheduled to attend and play Normagene’s favorite violin piece. I told Will, “Normagene is disappointed that Caroline will not be here. If we had know earlier we could have planned something for that slot in the program.” “Don’t worry about it, I have a few surprises,” Will said reassuring me that all would be fine.  Will does not give up easily.  Normagene beamed when Caroline appeared on the screen via Skype and played Orange Blossom Special, Normagene’s favorite violin piece.

After a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday, the cakes were served and the guests visited and buzzed about the room until at last Normagene’s moment to speak before a large group arrived. Without hesitation she stood and walked to the podium where she flawlessly delivered the words she prepared to thank her guest. There was a line in Normagene’s words of thanks that said, “Thank you Joy for the parts of my life you brought to life tonight and for the parts you didn’t. Colby, Normagene’s grandson whispered in my ear, “I liked your tribute but my Grandma had the best line.” I doubt that Normagene will ever make a public statement again but she did it once, before a hundred people, on her 90^th birthday and was met with lively applause.

Long after the day is over; long after Normagene is gone; anytime there is a family gathering someone will still speak of her first 90 years and of what a grand party this was.

(I am reposting this poem about Darius in honor of her 84th birthday on March 5.)

She sent me letters of consequence

But consequential to me alone

As we held close each others secrets

Catching up by telephone

Expressing the familiarity, the closeness we felt

Having spent a lifetime together

Laughing by phone at amusing tales

And at comical passages in letters

And we were connected again.

She was a proud grandmother

Proudly recalling a grandchild

And the step she took or word she spoke today.

She reveled in her years of child-care for her grandchildren

And was rewarded by their abiding love

Somewhere in the vastness of time and space

She surely heard the three children who spoke at her service

I felt her pride.

She called the names of her Bridge Club friends

And how each played the game;

She recited the names of those

Who came for help with knitting

And laughed with joy and understanding at their learning curves

Loving her friends every one.

She tried to teach me how to mend my Afghan

Thereby freeing her from so menial a task

But I failed to grasp the finer points of knitting

And continued to take my mending needs to her

And said she failed to understand

The “teach a man to fish” tale.

She wrote letters about a man

Who stole her heart and gifted her a Scrabble game

His image came to her early mornings

As happens when one is young

And again when one is old, if one is very lucky

And they gave each other good cheer

And gladden their days

Until the day he broke her heart.

She was not a teenager anymore and her time was short

And she resisted his efforts to try again

As he had lost her trust

And she looked not back.

The daily mail delivery

Is a nostalgic time for me

Because my sister wrote me letters of consequence

Sharing with me her joy of living

And sometimes her aggravation with life’s imperfections.

-1-

I use to say, “February is endless,” recently I find the older I become, the shorter February becomes. February has never been my favorite month primarily because it is a time of cold weather and I don’t do so well in cold weather and the starkness of the trees is a little depressing. I sometimes find it a dismal time of the year except for the birthdays of some of my favorite people. .. Normagene, Mark, Mary Brooks, Connie, Jesslyn, Nathan Douthit, and Abraham Lincoln, come readily to mind. So, even in February, there are bright spots

– 2 –

I first met Carolyn Griffis at the UU church about 10 years age. We bonded over movies and food. She died of cancer on December 17. Her memorial service was held February 8, 2020, at the UU church. It was a service befitting Carolyn. Her daughter, Serena, greeted people at the door as we arrived much as if we were arriving for a party. Serena was very much in charge of the service though Rev. Jeanne was officially the person in charge. Carolyn’s grandchildren, Morgan and Marshall, lit the chalice. He brother, Wayne, extinguished the chalice. Serena sang, unaccompanied, a song she and Carolyn liked, a song called “On the Loose.” The service was planned as a celebration of Carolyn’s life and the theme was carried through very well.” At Carolyn’s request, I read a letter I wrote to her on her October birthday. Her family scattered her ashes in the garden at the church just prior to the service. A reception was held at McLean’s Restaurant on Broad Street. I believe Serena’s family has some connection to the restaurant.

-3-

When I use the phrase “preparing my taxes,” I mean getting material together to send the tax package to the CPA who does the math that determines my taxes. Jim calculated our taxes as long as he lived and sometimes the job kept him up most of the night. He did not rest until he was finished. Since his death I have paid other people who do not have to sit up most of the night to do the job. My part of doing my taxes has been especially annoying this year. I need a 1099r (?) from an investor and that company apparently will send it on their own schedule. And so I wait. My goal was to get this to the CPA before I leave for Tennessee on 2-20. This did not happen.

-4-

I meet Kathy P. for breakfast at Metro Diner about once a month. You may know Kathy as a lawyer but she is also a photographer unsurpassed. Now retired and having a bit more time for picture taking she slings her camera over her shoulder and walks around chosen parts of the city to shoot whatever appeals to her. She occasionally shares her photos via the computer and they always give me a lift. I have her 2020 Christmas calendar featuring one of her pictures every month. I have been especially grateful this year for her January and February shots stimulating my memory of springtime and hope that Spring will surely come again and until then I can visit this ideal season in pictures. I forwarded the February pictures to Pam Teaster and Manny as they each have steep hills to climb and am hoping this glimpse of precious moments will be inspirational.

-5-

Jesslyn’s birthday was cause for an all day celebration including time spent at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts where there is currently an exhibition of 180 photographs by 15 members of the Kamoinge Workshop. The Kamoinge Workshop was created when two African American groups interested in photography collaborated to form the Workshop. In 2013 the group stood as the longest continuously running non-profit group in the history of photography. The photos constitute a collection founded in 1963. I was a little overwhelmed by the size of the exhibition; I probably should have broken this into two visits. Louis Draper, a Richmond photographer, had a role in the formation of this group.

-6-

Do you know about the Black History Museum in Richmond. It informs and provokes memories for those of us born in time to experience parts of the Civil Rights movement, primarily the part that occurred in the ‘60s. The museum is located on St. Peter’s Street in downtown Richmond. I visited the museum with Deb as she spent some time with me this month, between her Florida trips. She will be returning to Florida for a back packing adventure; oh for the days when I could almost keep up with her. She and I once ran a half-marathon in Charlottesville and the hills of Charlottesville were grueling. I was 50 years at the time and feeling entitled to slow down, my pace began to slow before a certain woman ran past us. Deb said to me, “She’s 75.” I was competitive enough that this caused me to pick up speed and finish the run. Deb and I once ran a half-marathon in Richmond that was rained out and called off, but we decided to do it anyway. We thought it our finest hour.

Back to the museum; It is a fascinating museum and I do recommend it if you are in Richmond with a couple of hours to devote to civil rights history.

-7-

I finished reading Michelle Obama’s book, Becoming. Seems almost everybody has read this one and have praise for it. Very well written.

It is autobiographical and interesting. This month I also read Richard Russo’s memoir, Elsewhere, a book that might well be described as his mother’s story. It is a good read. In 2002 Russo won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction with Empire Falls. I have read Empire Falls several times. Morgan gave me this book for Christmas when she was 12 years old. Even then she had an eye for a good read. My reading list has grown long these last months when health things caused my reading to take a sabbatical. I have some catching up to do.

-8-

As I write, Alexa, entertains me with Elvis and a plethora of his recordings. It is the gift that keeps on giving. But did you know, before Elvis was discovered as a solo artist he sang with a quartet of young men who called themselves “the Song Fellows.” He also tried out for a place with Memphis’ Blackwood Brothers quartet and was not selected. An interesting fact for me, Alexa does not know Bill Gaither. Okay she does play Bill Gaither but not the gospel music Bill Gaither so familiar to some members of my family.

-9-

“The Joy of Writing” is five writers who meet monthly to enjoy and critique our writing. For this month’s meeting I wrote a lou lou” of a piece called “Gone to Graveyards Everyone.” It is the tale of the life and death of what we once called “the North Carolina property.” It is long so I will probably not post it. If anyone wants to see it (and I can’t imagine why), I can make that happen. Sometimes my titles are the best part of a written piece.

-10-

Sunday lunch with friends at Southern Kitchen where Gordon Ramsey has recently spend a week. A video of Gordon Ramsey’s visit was playing on the TV. We were told trade has increased noticeably since his visit.

-11-

Adrian’s February performance at the Tobacco Company was phenomenal. At my request he played John Lenin’s “Imagine.” The crowd was in a celebratory mood creating a festive occasion and we left him singing and went home at 11:30. For me, that is a late night.

-12-

I have a new primary care physician. I reasoned that if ever I am to have a geriatrician as my primary care physician the time is now. MCV has a geriatric center on Laburnum not two miles from my house. The facility is open around the clock and also provides urgent care. I have seen my physician only once but I was impressed with her and we are off to a good start. It was the MCV system that provided essential services to me during my recent medical episode and I was so pleased with the service that I want to be treated by that system.

-13-

Normagene’s birthday party celebrating her first 90 years was without precedence in our family. Casey Jones’ party room in Jackson, Tennessee, was filled to capacity with 99 adults and 10 children filling the space. Most important, Normagene beamed. I said to her, “I am not sure I even know a hundred people.” The evening began with dinner and was followed by a program that was planned and executed by Will and others members of Normagene’s large family. There was a video, a compilation of Will’s video interviews with more than a dozen family members who freely shared their memories. My contribution was a written tribute to my sister and Caroline played Normagene’s favorite violin piece, Orange Blossom Special; and there were multiple birthday cakes. It was the attendees that made it all so riveting. People I had not seen since childhood, some of Normagene’s lifelong friends and a hoard of relatives.

-14-

These are a few of my favorite things:

• Any day that consist of shining sun and warmth
• Those daily phone calls from Normagene
• Dylan who spends the night with me, sleeps in my bed;
• Jaden who is finishing her second week in Day-Care.
• Humanist friends who do not come to church but who do occasionally meet me for lunch and de-briefing
• My glass shower door; it is really spectacular
• Bill Parcel who recommends books for my reading pleasure
• The Virginia Poverty Law Center who sent me a chocolate heart on Valentines Day
• Kyron Cain for being Kyron Cain
• The more than 100 people who sent Normagene birthday cards
• And, anyone who reads my blog.

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THE BEGINNING OF ME

The tale of my birth and infancy is quiet ordinary for home births in the 1930s. The doctor came to the house with a black bag; the older children were taken to grandma’s house; the doctor left with his bag and a new baby was added to the family. Is there any wonder than a whole generation of children believed that the doctor brought the new baby in his black bag?

I was a single (not a twin), full term, legitimate baby girl born alive at 4:00 p.m. on May 14, 1934, just one day before Daddy’s 28^th birthday, triggering a lifetime of shared birthday cakes. My dad was John David Olhausen. When I joined the family, Daddy was an eighth grade graduate and a tenant farmer who was trying to save enough money to buy a cow and whose long-term goal was to become a Methodist minister. He was raised in a large, staunchly Christian family led by Naomi, his mother, who took her orders directly from God. When I was three months old, Daddy enrolled in high school for the first time; a high school diploma being the first rung on his ladder toward the ministry as preordained by Naomi and God.

Mama was Mary Bolerjack Olhausen and she was 19 years old when she married Daddy and 30 years old when she gave birth to me, her fifth childbirth. In the 1930s there were no birth control pills, or injections, or other devices that might be used for the purpose of preventing conception. Women sometimes had more children than they would have chosen to have. Mama was such a woman. She too was an eighth grade graduate having discontinued school to work in the fields. She was the daughter of a share crop cotton farmer who also did a thriving business making and selling moonshine. Becoming the wife of a minister was not on her list of long-term goals. She was brought along on the journey not really objecting but without enthusiasm about the plan. Throughout her life when any person made a reference to Mama having married a minister she would offer this correction, “I didn’t marry a minister. I married a farmer.

How Mama and Daddy got together was like this. Mama was dating Aubrey Steward. Aubrey was Daddy’s cousin. One night Daddy saw Aubrey and his date, now known as Mama, walking together on the street of downtown Ridgely and he thought Mama was the most beautiful girl his teenaged eyes had ever seen. The following day in an effort to discourage Aubrey’s interest Daddy asked Aubrey, “Who was that ugly girl you were with last night?” Aubrey arranged an introduction.

And so they were married on January 24, 1923, and started begetting children right away. I was the fifth child born to this tenant farmer and his housewife spouse. I was their fourth child to be born alive. A son born two years prior to my birth died of an unknown cause, possibly an umbilical cord problem. I was the penultimate child; my younger sister was born two years later and completed the ragtag family of David and Mary Olhausen. This was our birth order: James, Mary Ruth, Normagene, the child that did not survive birth and was not named, Joy, and the baby of the family, Darius. Daddy said he thought of naming Darius, “Omega” but he did not want to tempt fate.

At the time of my birth, my family lived in Mooring, Tennessee. We were in Mooring for two purposes. We were there for farming and we were there because the Reverend J. B. Mackey, minister of the Mooring Methodist Church, allowed Daddy, without the required education, without credentials, to preach in his stead at the Mooring Methodist Church. It was not Daddy’s first experience in the pulpit but previous opportunities had been sporadic.

All of this living in Mooring, in the general vicinity of Reel Foot Lake, nestled in the northeastern part of the State, was right in the midst of cotton country and the area was home to the Olhausen family beginning with my paternal great-grandparents. Some say Mooring is a community that God forgot. I don’t know about that but it is a community that never grew into anything more than a large cotton patch; a patch that from a distance created the illusion of an endless expanse of snow.

In 1934, the year of my birth, Mooring was a farm village that included a combination grocery/hardware/feed store, a church, a grade school, and acres upon acres of cotton fields. For every thing else one would need to go to town. Town was ten miles away and it is called, Ridgely. It was Mooring’s good fortune to boast soil rich in organic matter and perfect for the growing of cotton, when cotton was King. The farmers wore work overalls and their wives wore long cotton dresses and bonnets or straw hats and, in my family, the children wore whatever an older sibling had outgrown. In October when nothing was more important than getting the cotton picked and to the gin, many farmers and wives and children picked cotton from sun up to sun down. The school was closed for cotton picking and most of the children were in the fields. The cotton gin and blacksmith shop and movie house and other amenities were in Ridgely. Farm families were all Roosevelt Democrats, a political reality that did not change until the 1960s when President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act and with a swoop of the pen, the South became Republican.

(filed in Queen folder)

About Pearl

         “Raymond is upset about these packages that keep coming,” Phyllis told me as she arrived for work one morning, tossing her purse on her desk with a thud and plopping into her chair in a way that suggested dealing with the stress and ramifications of the packages, is too much.

“Maybe you have a secret admirer,” I suggested.

“That’s probably what Raymond thinks.”

Phyllis and I shared an office at the Virginia Department of Social Services where we both administered elder services programs. Phyllis had a second job as a sales associate for J. C. Penney’s at Regency mall. Raymond, the man to whom Phyllis would soon be married was, according to Phyllis, becoming increasingly uncomfortable with gifts and greeting cards arriving at the office for Phyllis from a person identified only as Pearl. All parcels and cards carried the same message, “Thank you for being my friend,” signed “Pearl.” It all began with a package delivered to the office by Thalhimer’s gift delivery service during the Christmas holiday season. The package contained a writing pen.

Phyllis was a better than average sales associate for J. C. Penny’s. She told me about an incident with a customer who had an accident in the dressing room. The customer soiled her clothes and became frantic, crying, thrashing about, and refused to get dressed so she could leave the dressing room. Phyllis brought soap and water to the dressing room, cleaned the customer and found clothes for her to wear home. I suggested to Phyllis, perhaps this woman sent the pen as an act of gratitude for the extraordinary service Phyllis gave her that day. Phyllis didn’t think so. She said receiving an anonymous gift has a menacing feel to it. I said I understood that might be so.

One morning the personnel office called Phyllis to say a package for her was delivered to that office and would she please come get it. When Phyllis collected the package she was scolded with, “We are not a post office. Please see that your mail is not sent here in the future.” She tried to explain but she was waved off and told, “It’s okay, just don’t let it happen again.” She received a greeting card from Pearl mailed in Germany and other cards from the many corners of Virginia. Packages and greeting cards continued to arrive for Phyllis for about six weeks and stopped as mysteriously as they began.

Phyllis accepted a new job within the Department of Social Services. As a parting gift, I gave her a crystal ball. I suggested she might gaze into the crystal ball and find the identity of her admirer. Before reporting for the new job Phyllis accompanied me to San Antonio to attend the annual Elder Abuse Conference.

On the plane to San Antonio she said,

“I love the crystal ball and surely I am going to need it in my new job, but the one thing I really want before I go, is to know, Who is Pearl?” and then she added, “It might be Susan.”

That night Phyllis and I had dinner on the River Walk and as we sat enjoying the river and fighting off the pigeons, this felt like the moment to discuss the anxiety in her life the past few weeks. I began the conversation,

“You are such a “what you see is what you get” kind of woman. I predict you will be amazing in your new position. I am probably less transparent. I tend to hold on to a few secrets. I’ve always held my middle name close to my chest. It was my grandmother’s name and it has always felt like the name of a really old person. I’ve never liked it. Never felt it is me. You have almost made me crazy in your effort to learn my name by any means necessary. You never let up. You went through my trash! You quizzed my children. Why is my middle name important to you?”

“Oh, I don’t know. You wouldn’t tell me so I became curious,” she said. It must be something really terrible, even your children don’t know it.”

“It has not come up in conversations with them,” I offered

“You are never going to tell me, are you?”

“I already have.” I said.

“When?” she asked and a light bulb went on in her head. Leaping to her feet she shouted,

“Pearl, you are Pearl, Pearl, Pearl.” Laughter overtook us both.

“Thank you for being my friend,” I said.

I explained to her that I sent the first package. The delivery from Thalhimer was from me. I do not know who sent the others. The whole prank took on a life of its own. She said,

“Susan’s brother lives in Germany and I think Susan was behind that one.”

“When you were most distraught I wanted to bring an end to Pearl’s participation in your life. I thought of going to a funeral home and getting one of those, ‘The Family of ______ cards and finishing the sentence. The Family of Pearl appreciates your friendship during these difficult days following her death.” But I had lost ownership of Pearl and could not kill her, could not even stop her gentle harassment of you.”

Phyllis looked at me with a mixture of admiration and disapproval; of glee and disbelief, perhaps ever horror that I sat next to her throughout this ordeal, watched her squirm, listened to her lamentation.

“Don’t mess with me,” I said through tears of laughter. You are not working with an amateur here.”

(Written in 11-2018 about an incident that occurred 15 or more years earlier)

My Day in Short Jerky Phrases

Some days I feel as if I live in the zoo

Mostly in a good way,

Unexpected things happen

To seize my attention and tease my interest;

I ordered a margarita with my Sunday brunch

Today was Cinco de Mayo

The food served was not so good

So I had a margarita without food

And was driven home in a disoriented haze.

The penultimate film on the Palestine-Israel situation

At Shady Grove United Methodist they said

We arrived, at the church in Mechanicville on time, not a stir about the place

A church representative inadvertently arrive on some other errand

There is another Shady Grove United Methodist, he said

It’s down the road at Short Pump

What a debacle.

“The Boy Who Dreamed of an Acorn”

Read in church today by Jabriel Hasan, perhaps an intern

I must buy this book for my unborn great grandchild

UU Church services continue to shake my core.

Children’s letters to God; sung by the choir

Dear God: What happens when you die; Where do you go; What is heaven like; I don’t want to do it.

(Sunday, May 5, 2019)

THE ROAD TAKEN

Five years after college graduation, having worked one post graduate year in Florida as a social worker for the American Red Cross and another year for the Memphis Welfare Department, I applied and was accepted into the School of Social Work at what was then Richmond Professional Institute (RPI), located in Richmond. I was simultaneously accepted into the School of Social Work at Tulane University in New Orleans. I took the road to Richmond. Life is filled with choices or chance events that mold and make us who we are. For me, the decision to go to Richmond was one such event.

I might have been a Louisianian; I could’ve called the Big Easy home. I might have married a different husband, given birth to other children, and become affiliated with a church far different from the church I now call my church home. I might have acquired different friends with different ethnicities from different parts of the world. I chose Richmond, and the choice made a difference in the rest of my life. I opted for Richmond because the scholarship was better and I was intrigued by its nearness to D.C. Futures sprout and thrive or fail on financial considerations and sometimes on minutia. I arrived in Richmond in September, 1963, fully pumped and ready to tackle the world’s problems through social work. I was 29 years old.

When the RPI social work class of 1965 met for the first time, Jim Duke stood out above all the rest; literally, he stood out because of his height. He was 6’7”. Being a tall woman, I’d worn flat shoes during my dating years, an effort to minimize my height so I would not be taller than my dates. At RPI, I was immediately attracted to the tall guy, and I had visions of high heel shoes in my future. During the first week of school, Jim and I seemed to search each other out during free time to talk about professors and classes and to become better acquainted. By the end of the first week he brought a book to me and without saying why he handed it over. The book was Philip Wylie’s, A Generation of Vipers. It is a book that wages war on all forms of American hypocrisy and managed to offend and outrage people of all political persuasions. I would learn that Jim was a ferocious reader who read a great diversity of literature as well as newspapers, the backs of cereal boxes and scribbling in book margins or wherever he found the written word. He had an ability to retain much of what he read. His favorite limerick was: “When I am dead, may it be said, his sins were scarlet, but his books were read.”

Jim was my senior by eleven years, a veteran of WWII, a graduate of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, an alumnus of the CCC camp that occupied and built Hanging Rock State Park, located in Stokes County, N.C. He had tenure as a member of the U.S. Coast Guard, and he arrived for graduate school having most recently served as the Director of the Department of Social Services in what was then called South Norfolk. He was taller, older, intelligent, had an impressive resume and during the first organizational meeting of the class of 1965 he was elected class President.

During the two years Jim and I were in graduate school together, we became a part of each other’s lives. We did not identify our time together as dating, not in the beginning. If asked, we would have called it friendship. I learned about his military background, his love affair with the city of Paris and the French language and French food and everything French. I learned about the French woman with whom he corresponded in French and called it French lessons. I learned of his relationship with Beaufort County, North Carolina, where his mother lived and died and where St. Clair’s creek awaited to receive his scattered ashes. I learned of his feelings of abandonment when his father died and his mother sent him to be raised by the Christian Children’s Home in Atlanta. He was seven years old.

I understood Jim to be a man damaged by his childhood experiences, and with few familial connections even as an adult. He expressed his feeling of being alone in the world as, “Nobody has my back.” I learned later, after we were married, that this was his mantra, I would hear these words many times.

At some point, early in the second year of our social work education, and without noticing exactly when, we were in love. Beginning with that realization, I never doubted that Jim loved me. I thought his eccentricities indicated that he needed to be loved. I believed I could handle the job. He had ambivalent feelings about his mother that ranged from anger and bitterness to understanding and forgiveness. I did not comprehend the depth of his wrath. I could not have imagined then the consequences of his rage.

Prior to graduating from the School of Social Work in June, 1965, I accepted a job with the Fairfax County Department of Social Services as a master’s level social worker. I had long believed that my future was in D.C. and my future was about to be realized. I was excited. Jim attended social work school with the assistance of a scholarship from the Commonwealth of Virginia. He graduated with an employment obligation to the State and accepted work with the Virginia Department of Corrections. I had three free weeks after graduation before I was scheduled to report for work in Fairfax County.   I used the time to go home to Memphis. Jim’s new job was in Richmond and it began immediately. We had spoken of marriage but I had much to do in starting a new job in an unfamiliar place and we agreed to post pone the marriage discussion until later. We thought we could have a long distance marriage.

En route from Memphis to Fairfax County I scheduled a couple of days in Richmond to spend some time with Jim. Arriving in Richmond I checked into the motel which stood at the intersection of Belvedere and Broad Streets and I telephoned Jim at work to give him my location. At the end of his work day he picked me up and we went to the Hot Shoppe on Broad Street, the one that was a sit down restaurant, not a cafeteria as were other Hot Shoppes in town.

It was while seated at the Hot Shoppe that Jim asked me not to go to Fairfax County; not to report for duty at the agency waiting for me two hours up the road; not to take up residency in D.C. but to consider Richmond instead. I had money, borrowed from my Dad, to purchase a bed and basic furniture for the apartment I would rent in Fairfax and I had yet to purchase furniture. Jim made three arguments for my not going to Fairfax. He said I would buy furniture that would have to be moved to Richmond when we were married and he thought we would be married soon and moving the furniture would be an unnecessary expense. A long distance marriage no longer appealed to him. His second argument was about his car. He said frequent trips from Richmond to Fairfax would be hard on his car. Third, he said, “I’m thinking we can get married now.” It was a practical not a romantic proposal. I mentioned that I did not have a job in Richmond; my job was in Fairfax. He said, “You have a Master’s Degree, jobs for you are like low hanging fruit.”

The next morning, Jim went to work, I resigned from the job I never held, and I went apartment hunting. Our first address together was an apartment on Grove Avenue located across the street from Mary Munford School. I immediately moved in with my clothing, my typewriter, a few books, and little else. Jim moved himself in but it took longer to bring his baggage home. During graduate school and prior to our marriage, Jim lived alone in a three-story house on Monument Avenue. When all of his belongings were in our one-bedroom apartment, we had outgrown the space. Jim’s several trunks were stored on the patio outside the apartment that we occupied during our first year of married life.

We were married at the Unitarian Universalist church, in the minister’s office with the Reverend Bill Gold officiating, and with no witnesses. The marriage occurred within a week of my arrival back in Richmond, before I informed my parents of wedding plans, and two weeks later I plucked one of those low hanging jobs and reported for work at the Richmond City Department of Social Services. Jim was a new employee at the Department of Corrections and had accrued no leave, I had not yet reported for work, we had no money, thus we had neither time nor cash for a wedding trip. The first weekend following our marriage we enjoyed Williamsburg, returning to our new apartment to sleep. We called it our honeymoon.

We were a couple of introverts, I more than Jim but he too was a Myers Briggs introvert. While we were students at RPI we did not hide our blooming romance but neither did we discuss it openly. It was not a secret; it just went un-noticed. Some of our classmates knew that we were a couple. Most did not. After word of our marriage became known, there were rumors that we had married on our first date. The tale made us seem more interesting and spontaneous than we were, so we decided to allow the tale to live out its own life.

Six weeks after we were married I visited the Emergency Room with complaints of stomach pain and other symptoms I believed to be indicators of the flu. I was diagnosed with pregnancy. I was confused, as I believed I was infertile. As we drove to the hospital in the early morning house of March 16. 1966, I tried to prepare Jim for the possibility that what I carried these last months might be a tumor, not a child. I delivered that eight pound, three ounce flu bug just eight months after our marriage. Jim was ecstatic, strutting through the halls of the hospital like a peacock with a fully extended tail fan trying to attract a peahen.

I was in awe of and immediately in love with the perfect, miniature, human being placed in my arms even as I wondered what I would say to my parents about this one month too early eight pound, three ounce baby that had already captured my heart. There was no turning back. Believing that things work out best for those who make the best of how things work out, we put our hands to the plow and began building a life for this family we had inadvertently created.

Lucy

Queen

02/2019

* This is the first in a series of pieces I call “My Life With Jim.”

REMEMBERING STEVEN ON HIS BIRTHDAY

(03-16-1966 to 01-12-2016)

The day Steven died and the first year following his death, I was enveloped in a dark cloud, so dense, so impenetrable that I was unable to find the sun. Upon waking each morning it was as if my beloved child died all over again and each day I found a new level of anguish and sorrow and numbness and ache that racked my body and defied description. I felt as if joy was sapped from my life and from the world I knew.

There came a time when the dark cloud lifted just enough to let me believe that it would be acceptable to chose life, to rise above my grief, to remember the words of Winnie-the-Pooh and start to accept that perhaps “I am braver than I believe, stronger than I seem and smarter that I think.” When I was able to open my eyes again, to see clearly, and to accept some responsibility for creating my own future, it became possible to gradually rise about the gloom and chatter of the storm and begin to acknowledge the sun.

Before 2016, the year of my discontent, there was the reality of Steven who had returned home and was living with me. This is the person I celebrate today on what would have been his 53^rd birthday. On the last birthday of his life, I walked out on the back ramp and he saw me from the garage and said, “Yes, I know it is time.” He was referring to 10:15 a.m. the time of his birth. I had gone in search of him to say “Happy Birthday.”

Steven was born at Retreat Hospital in March, 1966. Women delivering babies in 1966 were often sedated with ether, a gas administered through a gas mask. As the hospital nurses and I prepared for birth, I got a whiff of the ether and I remembered the odor from 1958 when Darius delivered her first child and she came out of the delivery room reeking of the smell.   My next memory of my own first delivery is a nurse with a lisp lightly slapping my face and saying, “Wake up, wake up Ms. Duke, you had a boy.” A second nurse placed a newborn infant in my arms. I was still under the influence of the ether and my eyes would not focus. I tried rubbing my eyes to clear my vision but still the first image I saw of my first born was like looking through a fogged up window. In 1966 men were not allowed in delivery rooms or anywhere near the new baby but I saw Jim standing in the hallway peering through the door. He decided to test the system and come into the room, only to be stopped by the nurse and sent back to the hallway. The first time I was able to talk to Jim following the birth, I asked if he could smell ether on me and he said, “A little,” and followed with “It’s a boy and he looks like me.” He was giddy with glee.

Two hours later my vision was clear and my baby was brought to me a second time and this time I examined him from head to toe. He was the most exquisite creature I had ever seen. I cupped his face in my hands, kissing the tiny button nose and admiring the incredible miracle I held before me. The miracle of life was never more real for me than this moment when tears of joy and relief were released from some great reservoir of tears as I held my firstborn child close and whispered my love to him and told him his name.

We selected a name for our baby well before his birth. Jim did not want his son to be junior but he did want to give him the middle name “Morgan.” This was also Jim’s middle name and his father’s middle name, and his grandfather’s middle name. We searched for baby names on cemetery head stones, in obituaries, in books of baby names, and in church bulletins. Jim suggested names of his Army buddies and I submitted a list of old boyfriends. We talked about names daily for what felt like a long time. One day Jim walked into the apartment and said, “Steven with a V. It’s after Adlai and it’s biblical.” Jim was an Adlai Stevenson supporter when he ran for president and admired the man throughout his life believing the U.S. did itself a great disservice by not electing Adlai. Our child would be Steven Morgan Duke.

Three days after delivery we were discharged from the hospital. I dressed the baby in his going home clothes, a long gown with a draw string bottom, I brought to the hospital for this purpose. Jim was sent to bring the car to the pick up point and baby and I were wheeled to the door. I got in the car. The baby was placed in my lap and I said to Jim, “Can you believe they are letting us take him home?”

Home at last, we placed baby Steven in his crib and we, his parents, sat next to the crib and watched him sleep. We waited for him to require attention so we could meet his need. I decided to change a diaper and Jim wanted to hold him. We were parents and our lives were forever changed.

Queen

I am writing from prompts. There are 52 prompts in the publication I am using and I am selecting from numbers 1 through 53 in no special order. This is prompt 38.

Prompt 38: What is Great About My Life Right Now?

I’ve had some hard knocks in this life, mostly in the form of deaths of people I did not know I would have to live without. These loses have taught me that grief is not a task that is completed and then you get over it. To have grieved and visited dark places that both called to you and repelled you is, to invite that grief and those dark sites to become a part of who you are — but it need not define the quality of your life going forward. It is both possible and acceptable to hold those for whom you grieve in your heart forever, and at the same time take charge of your life and support and celebrate its greatness.

I have been given much and Biblically speaking, this requires something of me (Luke 12:48). Righteous living and riotous living are not so different and I claim a bit of both; ergo, my life has elements of greatness.

This treatise on my own life and what in my opinion contributes to its greatness right now is not meant to apply to anyone’s life other than mine. Perhaps totally different elements in your life create a great life for you. I hope you will write about it.

In pondering my own life I must first decide whether my life right now is or isn’t great. Unquestionably, it has features of greatness. Second, my task has been to identify the elements in my life that help create greatness (elements listed below). Third, I will further describe each of the elements to reveal how and/or why I believe it makes my life great.

Family

Friends

Health

Education

Income

Passions

Activites

Spirituality

My family is the rock on which my life is built and and it is they who sustain and make it great. Members of my family are strong people who love me, care about my safety, comfort, health, happiness, and the fullness of my life. They are happily a part of my life and include me in theirs. In the family arena, I hit the jackpot.

I rely on a plethora of friends to help enrich my life and they do an amazing job. I join friends for a myriad of activities intended to entertain, educate, enrich, serve the greater good, or just spend time together. We go to movies, frequent restaurants, take in the opera, participate in varied musical events and writing seminars, canvass for candidate running for public office, advocate for women’s issues; and celebrate whatever needs celebrating (birthdays, retirements, divorces, moving into new homes, grandchildren, political victories, etc.). They are a large piece of the great life puzzle.

Good health has been a constant visitor of late. Oh, some of my parts are showing wear and tear but with the help of a cadre of physicians and other medical personnel, I am well. A tooth recently cost me $1,000.00 and I hope to have no repeats of that. My weight and BMI are within the normal range and my blood pressure is perfect. Considering that my physical prowess peaked some time ago, I’m satisfied.

Education has opened some doors for me and it surely made my Dad proud. I was the first of my parents’ children to graduate from college and then seek a post-graduate education. Though I am a graduate of two defunct universities, I am glad I matriculated at both as both grew me, informed me, changed me and contribute to the greatness of my life right now. In August, 2011, Lambuth University of which I am a graduate, was sold to or taken over by the University of Memphis and is now called The University of Memphis, Lambuth Campus. The Richmond Professional Institute, of which I am a graduate, was absorbed by Virginia Commonwealth University in 1965.

Income: The greatness of my life right now is enabled by a livable but not lavish retirement income. Disposable income plays some role in a great life but not much.

A passion for the written word, both reading and writing has been with me for a long time and even now has a role to play in creating the greatness in my life right now. I’ve always been a story-teller and crafting a tale, usually memoir or pseudo-memoir, even now brings me pleasure. I write so that I may leave a family record for my children and grandchildren; but mostly I write for myself. I write because it is an outlet for me to express what is in my mind and thoughts and to give expression to my heart. When the day is gloomy; When I am snowed in; When I have ideas I need to ponder, I write.

My passions are many including but not limited to work for political candidates, identified social work objectives, strong feelings about social injustices though I am helpless to assist (e.g. children at the southern border, furloughed and unpaid civil servants, ignorance at high levels of government, etc. etc. etc.)

Church: I have been a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Richmond for more than fifty years and it is a basic and integral part of my life. There have been times during these fifty years that I visited other local churches, wondering if there is a church more suitable for me. I always returned to the UU grateful that it waited for me. No other religious body comes close to meeting my spiritual needs. This is my life and at its current stage it would be unseemly to ask for more. I’ve had so much.

Great God I ask for no meaner pelf than that I not disappoint myself. (HDT)

The Star in Our Window

My brother, James, was 18 years old the day he left home and walked away to war. With Daddy at his side, he walked a few blocks to the bus station not knowing when he would be home again. He walked past eight-year old me sitting on the sunbaked sidewalk of early morning, drawing chalk pictures of a skinny man with very long legs, waving to a family who stood together, tears shivering down the face of the chalk drawn mother figure. Placing his hand on my head, James ruffled my hair as he walked past me and on down the sidewalk and out of sight. It was the first leg of his journey into unknown territories and to fields of battle he could not have imagined.

I was eight years old when my brother, a new recruit in the U.S. Army, boarded a greyhound bus in Martin, Tennessee, to report to a staging area for induction into the Army. From the staging area he was sent to an Army base in El Paso, Texas, for several months of Basic Training. When his training was complete he came home on leave after which he reported for a tour of duty somewhere outside the U.S. I have few memories of those two-weeks he was at home, except that it was summer time and we ate watermelon in the back yard. When his leave was over he reported back to El Paso to be reassigned to a site where the battles of war were raging.

Once he left El Paso and the homeland, his location was a military secret. We knew he was somewhere in the South Pacific and we knew he was fighting the Japanese menace, that he was in harm’s way every day. When Mama spoke of the Japanese, the word was always followed with the word “menace.” A blue star hanging in our front window signaled to all who passed by that someone from our family was away, fighting, risking his life for us all.

We received letters from James from an unknown location in the South Pacific, letters written on paper that was almost tissue paper thin and envelopes marked with the words, “Air Mail.” We waited eagerly for his letters – letters that were censored before we received them, expurgated leaving holes where words were cut out so that we could not fully know what he wanted to tell us, paper looking somewhat like a ghost mask with holes for eyes and a misshapen face. My sister, Darius, and I created tales about the secrets of war we imagined our brother told us in the parts of the letter left on the cutting room floor.

James was trained as an Army medic. One day we received a telegram from the Department of War informing us that James was being cared for in a hospital, having been wounded in battle while bravely fighting for our country. Again tears were awash, creating craters down the face of the chalk mother figure. We did not know the nature of James’ injuries, this time the chalk figure was missing a leg; we worried that he would lose his life to the Japanese menace – a concern that was exacerbated every morning when Mama hoped aloud that James “made it through the night”.

When, at last, we heard directly from James he was back with his unit. It was after he returned home at the end of the war that we learned he spent most of the war in the Fiji Islands. He was shot in the back when he responded to a soldier wounded in battle. James treated the man where he fell and forever after carried the scars of his own wounds, an entry wound and an exist wound, evidence of his heroism in war against the Japanese menace.

September 2, 1945, Japan surrendered and the war was over four months before James’ 21^st birthday. It was time to bring our warriors home. In the three years James was away, the family moved from Martin, Tennessee, to Pinson, Tennessee, a distance of 60 miles. I don’t remember much about the day James came home, only that he came in a taxi. When the taxi turned off route 45 and continued in the direction of our house, James spotted his sister, Normagene, sauntering down the street. He asked the cab driver to stop. He took Normagene into the cab and the two of them traveled less than two blocks before arriving home together. Seeing the two of them get out of the cab, it felt as if Normagene had tired of waiting for James and went to bring him home.

DT, 01-19

The Third Year

Losing your child to death, no matter the child’s age or situation in life, or the passage of time, is like losing a limb, perhaps more like losing a lung because at times grief revisits to swaddle and overwhelm me and breathing at such times is difficult. I have lost a part of my life story and no amount of re-writing or editing or research will ever fill the gap. There is no replacement for the lost chapters. Not grandchildren, not friends, no amount of empathy, nothing can fill the gap. Other children and grandchildren and friends all have places of their own in my life and they are valued and continue to be a comfort and a helping hand; but nothing can replace the loss of a child. He is simply gone and he is not coming back. At times, especially on his birthday or the holidays, the empty space where he belongs becomes enormous. I could be engulfed by it if I do not take precaution to tend to my sanity.

The first Christmas without Steven, I knew we could not have Christmas as usual. I decided to dispense with the mid-winter holidays altogether and my family of five spent Christmas on the beaches of Ft. Lauderdale instead. We did have Christmas in Florida for 7-year-old Dylan. Otherwise, we played on the beach and visited the bar and ignored usual Christmas activities. Nieces, Tamara and Karen, joined us to help out. Florida was the right thing for us that first year.

We can’t go to Florida every year so last Christmas, the second one, and this Christmas, the third since Steven died and left this gaping hole in my heart, I have tried to establish some normalcy to Christmas at home. Morgan is currently a live-in member of the household and she helped get the tree in the house. We are preparing Christmas dinner for nine, with Morgan taking the lead on cooking. Steven’s ornament is on the tree. We will light his candle at dinnertime and I am doing my best not to be adrift in grief. We are going to be all right.

MAM’s HOUSE

            This is the house that Mam built. Not literally. Mam did not draw up building plans, nor did she do any hammering or sawing, neither did she give directions to people who build houses. But she held sway over this house’s inners; i.e. it’s heart, its soul, its religious fervor, its reputation and community standing. What happened in this house, in this family, was either approved or covered up by Mam.

Mam purchased the house at 128 Poplar Street in Ridgely, Tennessee, in 1920 after she lost her husband and her infant son to the flu pandemic of 1918 and lost her farm and means of livelihood to lack of experience and competence in managing a farm. Mam needed shelter for herself and her seven children who ranged in age from 16 to two years and she could afford the house that needed paint and required both major and minor repairs. “It was a sorry sight but it had potential,” Mam said and added, “It had been a long time since anyone loved this house.” She decided to love the house back to life. Mam was my paternal grandmother and my dad was among the seven children who grew up in this house that needed paint and had potential.

When Mam bought the paint, the green paint was on sale, and the house was painted green, the color of cooked Kale. During the years of my growing up, the house was conspicuous because of its color. My favorite feature of the house was a high back porch, high enough that cousin, Ann, and I spent many hours under the house with spoons, digging for China.

Mam was not a doting grandmother. No one ever asked if my grandmother spoiled me. She didn’t. She had a harshness about her, an uncompromising nature and she was confident that she could determine right and wrong for all of us. Her daily attire seemed to reiterate that this is a no- nonsense, strict woman, personified by William Henley’s poem, Invictus, that references the wrath and tears and horrors that loom, but concludes, “I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul.” Mam was a bulwark. She wore a corset, a tight fitted, ribbed, laced under-garment worn to support the back. The corset was a part of what defined Mam. Hugging her felt like throwing your arms around a barrel with staves.

Mam loved her grandchildren but she was not demonstrative toward us. There was no soft lap and there were no warm hugs. She did not cuddle her grandchildren nor did she play games or attempt to entertain us.

And yet, when occasionally I spent a few days at Mam’s house I relished the time. She made cherry pies from cherries picked from the back yard tree. She did not remove the pits. Ann would come over and dig for China with me. Mam and I visited cousins, Doris and Betty and baby Jane who lived within walking distance. Most nights, after supper, we walked through the garden path and across the alley to the small duplex where Mam’s sisters, Annie and Iona, lived, and we ended the day sitting together in their porch swings while the three sisters reminisced. It was my favorite thing.

(Perhaps you are wondering why I am posting this again.  You are perceptive to notice.  This piece has been vetted  by my demanding writing group and deemed fit to post.  I have made some revisions because of the vetting but the tale is mostly the same.  Enjoy again and see if you can find my edits)

Saint Daddy

My minister dad, my mother, two of my sisters and I moved to Pinson the year I began 4^th grade.  We moved because Daddy received an appointment from the Bishop to serve the five churches that comprised the Pinson Circuit.  This appointment was made specifically because it would put us within commuting distance of Lambuth College where Daddy would complete work for his college degree. 

As the family of a Methodist minister we moved many times.  This move to Pinson in 1945 is memorable because we traveled from our former home in Martin, Tennessee, to our new home in Pinson, Tennessee, a distance of 68 miles and the trip took us all day.  We made the trip in our eighteen-year old, 1927, Model T Ford.  The car was started with a crank.  Daddy would go to the front of the car, insert the crank and turn it until the car started.  With the motor running he rushed back to the open car door, got in, returned the crank to its place under the driver’s seat, tied the door closed and we were off.  Only one car door would open and shut and that door was on the driver’s side, held shut by a necktie.  The car tended to overheat making it necessary to stop and add water to the radiator, usually from a nearby ditch.  Inside the car we carried a bottle with a long string tied around its neck for ease in dipping water from ditches. In addition to the five of us, and the string equipped bottle, Noname, the family cat was a passenger.  Noname had a tendency to become car sick.  In 1945 there were no interstate highways and no roadside rests area so we pulled off the road or sometimes into the driveways of strangers to clean the car after Noname threw-up, and yes we did look a lot like the Clampetts on their way to Beverly Hills. 

In this era of Methodism, parsonages were fully furnished meaning we did not need furniture of our own nor did we own furniture.  The truck carrying Daddy’s books, the upright piano, our clothes and whatever other meager possessions we had, arrived before us and was waiting to be unloaded.  We saw the house for the first time when we arrived to move in.  It stood next to the church.  We learned that homes in Pinson did not have running water and we would be bringing water for drinking and cooking into our house from an artesian well located on the property of the house behind the church.  A barrel at the corner of the house would catch rainwater to be used for bathing and washing clothes.  An ice box, forerunner of the refrigerator, stood on an enclosed porch just outside the kitchen, and the ice truck came twice a week to deliver ice.  We had a card to hang in a window to indicate how much ice we wanted the ice-man to deliver to our ice box.  Our own privy was located behind the house and down the path a way.  While we explored our new surroundings, Noname got busy scattering a next of mice found in the garage that stood next to the house.  For my sisters and I, it was an adventure.

 Pinson is a small village located just south of Jackson and approximately 60 miles northeast of Memphis.  During my tenure there in the last half of the 1940s, Pinson was comprised of Mr. Dismuke’s grocery store where we brought groceries on credit, Mrs. Hearn’s drug store, operated by Mrs. Hearn alone after her husband, the town’s only doctor, died.  There was a post office, a school, the Methodist, Baptist, and Church of Christ churches, an estimated one thousand residents and no crime.   The village was distinguished by an artesian well that stood between highway 45 and a railroad track running parallel to the highway and through the town’s middle.  The well continually bubbled up water from an underground source. 

The one thousand residents of Pinson included the elderly, the proud, the impoverished, Reverend and Mrs. Haltom.  Reverend Haltom was a superannuated Methodist minister.   Superannuated is a word that means made obsolete or disqualified by advanced age.  In the 1940s the word was attributed, by the Methodist establishment, to Methodist ministers who were old, retired, and without a livable pension.  Reverend Haltom, in the sunset of his years, was quite frail and hardly mobile. Mrs. Haltom played the piano and inexplicably we had a piano.  Inexplicable because our assets were so meager we could ill afford life’s necessities. We could not always buy shampoo and on those occasions we made do.  We used Oxydol.  Our piano ownership was further inexplicable because Dad still had two years of college to complete and pay for and, because we tried not to accumulate furniture that would be hard to move inasmuch as we were Methodist and subject to being moved on short notice and our piano was an upright and needed several men to load it. And, inexplicable because no one in our family played the piano.

If Mama were here, she would likely interject, “I played the piano.”  Mama played hymns but only if the music contained no sharps.  She said she could handle one or two flats but sharps were just an aggravation.  Mama also had a problem with synchronizing her hands so that both hands struck the piano keys at the same time.  Her hymn playing created the illusion of singing in rounds.  She sometimes played for church service if the regular pianist was not present, and if she was allowed to select the hymns.

We were not in Pinson long before Daddy discovered the dire situation of the Haltoms.  Both Reverend and Mrs. Haltom were in advanced old age, in need of medical care, and without transportation.  They depended on the kindness of neighbors and neighbor’s gardens for their erratic food supply and they needed help with routine activities of daily living. They quickly became a part of Dad’s pastoral responsibilities. This is how my sisters and I, and occasionally Mama, became Mrs. Haltom’s piano students.  My sisters and I were each scheduled for two thirty-minute lessons a week for which Dad paid fifty cents per child per week.  Mama’s sporadic lessons were free.  Out of an annual salary of $1,700, he paid $1.50 a week for piano lessons.  Soon, thanks to Dad’s subtle advocacy, twice a week most of Pinson’s girl children and one boy child walked the short distance up the street to Mrs. Haltom for piano lessons.

Annual piano recitals were held at the Methodist Church.  Parents and friends gathered at the church to hear the children preform their best pieces on an upright piano with magnolia blossoms strewn across its top; blossoms plucked from the tree in the Haltom’s front yard. The failure of the music’s complexity to change from year to year went unnoticed.  One, perhaps two, highly motivated students made progress.  I was not one of the two.

Daddy’s commitment to improving the lives of the Haltom’s was considerable.  He assumed responsibility for assuring they got to medical appointments, and at times drove them to the appointment himself in the car with the door held shut by a necktie. On cold mornings Daddy arose early to gather wood and go across the street and into the unheated Haltom home and build a fire in the fireplace before they got out of bed.  In rural and small town Methodist churches the parishioners practiced “pounding the preacher.”   Pounding happened when members of the church agreed upon a night and time and simultaneously appeared at the parsonage with food, mostly staples, but sometimes there was a cake or some treat for the children.   Sometimes the pounding included a pledge to bring pork when hog killing time came around or vegetables when the crop came in.  My Dad quietly spoke to key members of the Pinson church and arranged that the parishioners not pound us.  He asked them to pound the Haltoms instead.   Mrs. Haltom referring to the pounding, cried out, “It’s Christmas in October.”

Reverend and Mrs. Haltom lived in a small, rear apartment in a house located across the street from the church and the parsonage.  Because of Reverend Haltom’s frail condition and poor health and because he walked with great difficulty, the couple rarely attended church services.  On those occasions when Reverend Haltom did attend, Daddy would ask him to deliver the morning prayer. Reverend Haltom delivered very long prayers.  WWII was in full swing and Reverend Haltom was very versed in the goings on in both Europe and the South Pacific and he prayed for every military name he knew whether they be Generals or local soldiers.  After a news article about eggs being thrown overboard from a ship in the south pacific he prayed fervently about wasted eggs and asked that no further eggs be squandered.  When Reverend Haltom’s prayer ended, Dad wished the congregation a good week and the service was over without the planned sermon.

Fifty years after our tenure in Pinson, I travelled highway 45 through Pinson with my mother at my side.  Mr. Dismuke and Mrs. Hearn having long since died, we noted that the grocery and the drug store were no longer a part of the small business district.  The post office stands apart in a new and modern building.  The school was consolidated with neighboring schools years before our ride down memory lane, and the building stands deserted.  The artesian well and its pervasive stench remain. 

“I wish Mrs. Haltom could know how much good she did in this town,” Mama said.  Gazing nostalgically at the country-side, in all sincerity I asked, “What did she do?”  Mama gasped audibly at my question and responded in a tone of disbelief, as if a smart-mouth child was talking back to her.  “Everybody in Pinson can play the piano and there is always someone to play for the church service.  That’s what she did!” my mother told me emphatically.  “Nobody in Pinson plays the piano well,” I said.  Mama looked sternly at me and speaking distinctly as if addressing her slow child, she said, That is not the point.”  “What is the point? I asked.  “It was not about piano lessons,” she said.  “People paid for piano lessons when they hardly had money for food. Pinson saved the Haltoms.  Don’t you know that?”  “Pinson saved Pinson”, I quipped.  “Pinson was not just another dot on the map. It was a special place and it had a little help from Saint Daddy.  “Well, he was a hard worker,” Mama acknowledged, but she did not let my piano remark go by without comment.  “They play the piano good enough,” she said.  “Sharps are not all that important and I never understood the big deal about the hands.”

 (11-15-11)

Revised 8-2018

NoNa

My Identity Crises

Many years ago I became a little restless about my church and I visited another church. I do not remember that I was reacting to anything that was going on at the UU, (my church) but was just reassessing if this was the best match for me. I attended the “test” church four Sundays but never filled out the visitor form that could be found in the pocket of the pew. Strangely enough, no one ever approached me to either greet me or find out the identity of the person who keeps showing up. I was attracted to the music; the choir was excellent. On my fourth visit as I exited the building after the service, the minister standing at the door held onto my hand an extra few seconds and looking at me for the first time said, “Tell me who you are.” I told him no more than my name and he did not ask any follow up questions. I made my way to my car and sat there for several minutes trying to decide how to answer this question. I have been trying to answer the question ever since. Who am I? I may not be able to answer the question but I can identify a few character or personality traits or perhaps just preferences that I see in myself at this stage of life.

• Reading and writing fill much of my time. I have been in search of a short story by Eudora Welty. The short story is called, Why I Live at the P.O.” and I have located the book thanks to help from one Eudora Welty enthusiast. I picked up the book at the library and went to my car and read the short story while still in the parking lot. Anne Tyler has a new book called, Clock Dance. I am eager to get my hands on it. I am a reader and a writer and mostly this makes me happy.

• For me attending family reunions when the extended family comes is like being Br’er Rabbit in the briar patch. It is rich environment for writing material.

• My dad died almost thirty years ago and still I miss him so much. It is almost impossible to describe his role in my life. Years ago the Reader’s Digest featured an article called, The Most Unforgettable Character I Ever Met. For me, that character would be my dad. Darius’ once wrote a poem about him that addressed some of his uniqueness. I never wrote the article. Of course, Reader’s Digest has not published such an article in many years, but still I wish I had written it for him. My friend, Barbara, used to tell me that I am made in my father’s image. I say to that, “If only.”
  

• I am motivated by platitudes: i.e. Give me the grace to move through this life shoes in hand for I do not want to be a plucker of backberries. (reference to Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poem, Earth’s Crammed with Heaven)

• “The courageous may not live forever but the cautious do not live at all,” is enough to prod me to go to whatever political event is calling to me. A participatory democracy only works if citizens participate. Voting counts big; it may be the biggest. I should put one of my stash of bumper stickers on my bumper. I have not done that in recent years, reluctant to stir up the ire of those who disagree.
  

• My office is lined with notes, cards, pictures, papers and books that speak to me and help me remember what is important. I guess this means I am the kind of person who needs a little junk around.

• People who have known me for a long time know that I was a street runner before running was a popular form of exercise. Now, when asked if I still run, I answer, “I do, but I have redefined running.” Some mornings it means a slow trot. My gym has closed. I am back on the streets until I find a replacement gym.

• I am part of a set of four sisters. Two of my sisters died two years ago and the two of us remaining tend to cling to each other. Not literally cling, but we do talk by phone every day and visit when we can. We live 700 + miles apart so visits are not frequent. I am planning a visit to Tennessee later this summer, the gimpy leg willing. In the meantime we have the telephone.

• Sometimes I feel like a person in perpetual mourning as each death or other loss, be they friends, neighbors, colleagues, stirs the fires of the primary grief of so great a loss two years ago.   I just keep reading Ellen Bass’ poem, The Thing Is.

My Father’s Bible

Paper on which bibles are printed is characterized by thinness and lightness of weight and comes in three grades: groundwood, free sheet, and blended. It is the free sheet paper (sometimes called India paper) with its superiority in whiteness and opacity that is most frequently used for printing bibles. When such a bible is bound by durable but light weight leather that makes the book pliant so that it hugs your hands, paper with red edges visible on three sides, it is an exquisite book indeed. When such a book is then inscribed in gold lettering with a name and given as a gift to the person whose name is so emblazoned, it is almost certain to become a treasured gift. A bible such as this was given to my Dad as a Christmas gift in 1958. The gold lettering said, “Reverend David Olhausen.” The inscription on the flyleaf said, “With admiration and affection, Paul and Robbie McQuiston.

Dad was appointed to serve wherever the Conference sent him and we were sent to Grimes Memorial Methodist Church in Memphis in 1952. Soon after our re-location to Grimes, Paul and Robbie McQuiston became members of Grimes Memorial Church. In a short time Robbie became the church secretary and both Paul and Robbie quickly became pillars of the church, serving in leadership roles. Dad sometimes referred to Paul as, “One of the best men I have ever known.” Paul and Robbie grew to respect and love Dad and he respected and loved them also. The couple extended their circle of friendship and love to our entire family including both immediate and extended family members. They were our all weather friends. They attended our family celebrations; i.e. graduation ceremonies and birthday and they attended our family funerals. Paul participated in Dad’s funeral. I selected Paschal Richardson’s poem, “If I Should Leave You,” and asked Paul to read it.

The McQuistons remained caring and attentive friends to our family for more than fifty years, ending only with their deaths in 2004 and 2005. Most of us were receptive to and appreciative of the McQuiston’s many gestures of friendship. Mom was not a fan.
In 1986, at age 80, Dad was officially retired though he continued to serve his church as the hospital and in home minister. In the springtime that year he began to experience intense back pain. In spite of the penetrating back pain, he attended the annual meeting of the Memphis Conference of the United Methodist Church, as was his custom. He remained strong enough to attend the full four-day conference. Soon after returning home, he was injured by a fall in the bath-tub. Following the fall, Dad was hospitalized at Jackson-Madison County General Hospital near his home in Jackson, Tennessee, and multiple myeloma was diagnosed a few days later. Multiple myeloma is a type of blood cancer that targets plasma cells. The attending physician estimated his life expectance at three to five years. And the “watch” began. We hoped for five years. We got three.

Near the end of his illness I traveled the 700 miles from my home to my parents’ home in Jackson to say goodbye to my dad. My sisters told me to expect “the talk.” One by one Dad had “the talk” with each of his five children. “The talk” consisted of a directive from him to honor each other and to never let anything we inherit from him divide us. In his experience as a minister, serving families during and after the death of a family member, he had seen families torn apart by disputes over inheritance. He wanted to reiterate to us that we should take precautions that this not happen. My sisters and I thought it all quaintly amusing as none of us believed that an inheritance would be coming our way. We didn’t think he had accrued much wealth and we believed Mama would quickly go through whatever he left. We were wrong. He did have a little something put aside along with the wisdom to have my two older sisters, Mary Ruth and Normagene, designated to administer Mama’s power of attorney. Mama had never written a check in her life. Those holding her powers of attorney were in a position to assure her needs and many of her wants were met. They were also able to control her spending some and his children did receive benefit from Dad’s efforts to provide and save.

When I was called in to have my, “Do not fight over your inheritance,” talk, I told Dad that I only wanted one thing from him and I said “I don’t care what you give me. I just want something of yours.” He said, “Tell me something you would like to have.” His bible was on the table next to him and I said, “When you don’t need it any more I would like to have your bible.” He pickup up the bible and said, “This one is really worn with use. I’ll buy you a new bible.” I said, “I don’t want a new bible, I want the one that you have used all these years, the one that shows its wear, its age.” He immediately handed the book to me. I suggested he keep it and I would get it later when he no longer had use for it. He said, “Take it now, you never know what will happen to it later.” This is how I came into possession of this special bible, the one he had loved into a somewhat tattered state. He loved this bible because it was a beautiful bible, because his name was emblazed on its cover, and because he loved the givers. I later learned that Robbie had asked that he leave her the bible. I spoke to Dad about this and he said, “Children come first.” I kept the bible.

I used to have a small collection of watches. The watches were interesting to me because of an unusual shape or size, I had a finger watch, or some other trait that appealed to me. After Dad died, Mama asked me if I wanted his watch. I readily took the watch and I was wearing it when I went to Memphis and stopped by to see the McQuistons. Robbie noticed that I was wearing the watch and said, “Paul has always admired that watch,” I took it off my wrist and gave my Dad’s watch to Paul.  It was my sister, Darius, who told Mama I gave the watch to Paul. Darius told me “that really pissed off Mama.” I said, “Oh well, sometimes it pissed off Mama when I breath.” Knowing how she felt about the McQuistons I could have predicted her reaction, had I given it a thought. Her displeasure did not bother me. It felt like the right thing to do.

I had Dad’s bible in my possession for twenty-five years. Steven read from it during Jim’s memorial service and the minister used it for Adrian’s wedding. Three years ago I thought it time to pass the bible on to the next generation. It was 56 years old and was showing its age. The Table of Contents was in very bad condition. Almost every line was underlined and Dad’s handwriting was often in the margins. I could feel my dad’s hands on its pages. That exquisite bible, handled with love for so many years, lives on in the safe hands of one of Dad’s grandchildren.

(Thumbs)

What is the Meaning of Life?

Soon after I married Jim Duke, he took me to Virginia Beach to meet the couple he told me was “like family” for him. That day as we pulled into the driveway at the home of John and Barbara Baum, the two of them were sitting outside under a tree and as we drew near we could tell they were, with great feeling, discussing something. After introductions were made, Barbara said they had been arguing about whether Willie Loman, of Death of a Salesman, was a tragic figure. Who does that? I don’t remember whose side I took but absolutely Willie Loman was a tragic figure and why would that even be questioned?

For the next 30 years I enjoyed the time we spent with the Baums. John was a farmer who loved farming and who in 1972, ran for and was elected to serve on Virginia Beach’s City Council where he served for 28 years. John and Barbara were members of the Norfolk Unitarian Universalist Church and they were dedicated; inspired about social justice causes, and stood at the more liberal end of the political spectrum. As John served on the Board he learned the necessity of compromise on issues before the Board. Barbara saw the comprise as “selling out.” The last time I saw the two of them together their relationship was very strained and soon thereafter they were divorced. Barbara moved from the farmhouse into a small apartment in Virginia Beach where she lived for the rest of her life.

Jim Duke met the Baums at the Norfolk Unitarian Universalist Church where he was also a member prior to his coming to Richmond in 1963. From the beginning of my relationship with Jim, he and Barbara had a flourishing correspondence. When we visited the Baums I was pretty much a by-stander as they had so much history. Barbara told me later that she did not really take note of me until after Jim’s death. After Jim’s stroke and at the beginning of his disability I telephoned Barbara to give her the news. It was at that point she began addressing her letters to me and thus began the flourishing correspondence between the two of us that ended with her death a year ago. My last letter to Barbara and all of its attachments, my letters to her always had attachments, was delivered to her shortly before her death and after she was capable of reading. Barbara’s daughter, Charlene, telephoned to tell me about Barbara’s death and to say my last letter arrived. Charlene told Barbara that a letter from me was delivered and, she said Barbara smiled.

James Curtis was minister at the Unitarian Universalist church in Norfolk from 1961 to 1966 where Barbara was a member. It is said that Rev. Curtis’ religious philosophy was summed up in the words, “Nothing is Settled, Everything Matters.” Barbara’s friendship with James Curtis’ wife, Mary Catherine, continued after Rev. Curtis’ death and into Barbara’s old age and for her lifetime. Barbara often included in letters to me, quotations from Mary Catherine’s letters. “Nothing is Settled, Everything Matters” was letterhead used by both James and Mary Catherine. Barbara sent to me the letterhead and asked me to comment on it and to say what it means to me, or what I think about it. Barbara sometimes asked hard questions. She once looked at me across the dinner table and asked, “What is the meaning of life?” I said, “Barbara, I’m gonna have to get back to you with that.”

I hope Jim Curtis’ proverb means that as long as you have life you have the time and opportunity to write or rewrite the meaning of your life. It is true there are things that cannot be undone. The consequences my actions are still mine to fix or manage. If I do or say something that hurts another person, it is mine to fix. If I have not been present when someone needed me, if I have done less than I could do for a friend in need, if I have not been appropriately appreciative for kindnesses to me – it’s bad; but the part those behaviors will play in my life’s story is not yet settled. The meaning of one’s life is bigger than one misbehavior, one day or week or year. As long as there is life, the story of that life, the meaning of that life, is still being written. Every word, every decision, every deed, is still telling the story of my life and this is true every day and I have a certain amount of control over my behavior. The meaning of life is still open; everything still matters. Wonder if I have just answered Barbara’s question?

The Chattering of my Brain

Part III

A Social Life for One

I would not exchange the laughter of my heart for the fortunes of the multitudes; nor would I be content with converting my tears, invited by my agonized self, into calm. It is my fervent hope that my whole life on this earth will ever be tears and laughter.

Everybody knows that Kahlil Gibran wrote The Prophet and when I was in college it was a book that friends gave to friends at graduation or other significant events. But do you know his little book calls Tears and Laughter? This morning when I awoke I wanted to get out of bed and find my copy of Tears and Laughter because I wanted to reaffirm my tears and laughter pledge. Yes, tears and laughter compliment each other; both contribute to the fullness of life. Barbara Baum told me her in-laws were in a “stew” because Barbara had Gibran’s piece on children read at Forrest’s funeral. The piece begins with, “Your children are not your children,” and her in-laws seemed not to have listened to the rest of the piece. The in-laws said to Barbara, “What do you mean denying your child at his funeral.” The rest of the piece speaks profound truths. A reading of this piece helps me remind myself that “life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.” And sometimes I do have moments of wanting to turn back time. Next month Adrian will have his 50^th birthday. That is almost more than I can understand. I would so happily turn back a few years with him. FYI, we will have his 50^th birthday celebration on my new back porch.

But I am not quite finished with Kahlil Gibran. He also wrote “Let there be space in your togetherness.” I have been known to use this line when speaking with caregivers, especially caregivers in long term care settings. The emphasis in communal settings is often on group activities and not much provision made for quality time spent alone. Some people crave time alone, not necessarily in front of a T.V. I understand the feeling expressed in these words as I too occasionally need a little space but for me greater than this need is the need to know that the people who help create a rich and full life for me are within reach.

I’m having a little problem with this now as some of those who have been within reach for me are no longer within my reach. Darius would make the six to seven hour drive from Augusta for no better reason than that I asked her to come. Two years before she died I learned that Tamara and Karen were coming to Williamsburg and invited me to join them there for a couple of nights. I wanted to make Karen’s favorite desert, banana pudding. Never having made a banana pudding I was skeptical that I could turn out a perfect pudding. I called Darius and asked if she would come to Richmond and make a banana pudding and of course she came. For Steven, his company was as close as raising my voice and calling, “I need a little help here.” The deaths of Steven, Mary Ruth and Darius followed by friends Barbara and Gina created a deep crater for me and for the last two years I have been clawing at the clay, trying to find level ground again. I have learned that family and friends are irreplaceable in remaining sane during the trauma of so great a loss. But the task of finding that level place where I can be at peace with myself again, that’s up to me. Life emerges from within and derives not from outside interventions.

The older we get the greater bites age and death takes from our social network. Mary Ruth was active in her church’s home visitation program. This means she visited a lot of sick people and as was her inclination she became friends with them all. She once told me in a moment of sadness that she is losing so many friends and that is not something that is happening to other people her age. I said, “Oh shut up, you are only losing more friends because you have more friends.” I can say for certain my sister was surrounded with friends in both sickness and health. I thought it had something to do with being Baptist.

Sometimes there is a tendency for older people to withdrawn, to spend more time alone either by choice or by foregoing the effort entailed in an active social life. This is exacerbated for elders who are grieving. At the death of my husband I made a conscious decision to avoid becoming reclusive. I accepted invitation that I would rather have declined; I went to church most Sundays fighting my inclination to sleep in. I avoided church parties and other social events. I did not interpret this as grief but rather the re-emergence of my shyness. (Grief for my husband occurred four years before his death, at time of his diagnosis and dependence… not so much at his death.) When he died I was alone for the first time and found it hard to join the social world populated with couples. I continued to work for another two years and grief tended not to be the problem. The problem was learning to live alone in a world built for couples. However, his death was the first in a series of deaths that changed my life forever. The flurry of activity around the death of a spouse followed by the funeral or memorial service and then a sharp absence of activity following creates a stark comparison and sows the seed for depression. I managed this for myself by continuing to work even after an age when I could have been expected to retire. It worked for me. It is not a solution for everybody.

THE CHATTERING IN MY BRAIN, Part II

(Physical Aging is a Female Dog)

Perhaps it is the physical changes in my body that got my attention and first forced me to name it.  Its name is “aging.”  In the 1960s I enrolled at the Virginia Professional Institute (VPI) School of Social Work.  Two years later when I graduated, the school had a new name, Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) School of Social Work.  Whatever the school was called, during my tenure there the course on Normal Human Development contained no unit on aging.  In that curriculum, no one ever grew old or died.  Having been thus educated is it any wonder that my own aging caught me by surprise! 

Scholarships for graduate students often carry a post graduate employment commitment.  Students who receive such scholarships are not free upon graduation to decide where they will work.  New graduate degrees in hand, they will first work to the dictates of the scholarship.  I was one of the fortunate few.  I had an enviable scholarship from the National Institute of Mental Health.  It was a scholarship that paid my tuition and living expenses and carried no employment commitment.  When I graduated in 1965 the employment world was my oyster.  The calling of my heart was public welfare and my first full time post social work school job was with the Richmond Department of Social Services.  I worked in what was then called the Aid to Dependent Children (ADC) program.  I resigned when my first child was born and I was a stay at home mom until my youngest child started to first grade.  In 1974 when I gave the Richmond Department of Social Services a call about my readiness for employment again they were not all that excited about my availability.  One child welfare supervisor wanted to interview me multiply times so she could “get to know me.”  Mind you, I had been employed by this agency eight years earlier over the telephone, without their representative every seeing me.  This time I was interviewed by three supervisors before being offer a job.  It may have been a change in the employment market but I was 40 years old and for the first time I saw my age as a stumbling block.

Physical Changes:  When Morgan was twelve years old I asked her, “What do you say to the person in the mirror every morning?”  Morgan replied, “I say, Hello Beautiful.”  I hope she always greets herself in some life affirming way.  I don’t do exactly what Morgan did but sometimes when I look in the mirror I asks the person there, “How old are you?” And then I cheat.  I say to the image something like, “You are looking fifty this morning,” or some such self flattering statement.

It is not possible to describe physical changes in people 60 years of age and older in a general way.  There is as much aging variances in older people as in any other age group.  I became a “road runner” at 36 years old and I ran the streets for 30 years, well into my sixth decade.  I ran through many life stressing events including the incapacity of my husband, my four years of caregiving for him, his death, my retirement two years after his death, the death of both parents and it was not life’s stresses that impeded my running nor was it the number of my birthdays.  It was the knees.  It was at the insistence of the knees that I gave up street running and became acquainted with the gym and its treadmill.

I was what my mother called “a sickly child.”  My memories of early childhood is that I was kept in bed a lot; I was given a lot of injections and too many chest x-rays and at one time getting an egg a day into me seemed important to my parents.  As I watch the progression of my years, I note the ways my body ages.  I see more medical specialists and have more medical appointments than any other time in my life. I realize this is not unusual for my age cohort. I have a lung disease brought with me from childhood; a stent in my left subclavian artery; acid reflux disorder, hypothyroidism; osteoporosis, a few dietary problems that arrived late in my life and occasionally I am swallowed up by fatigue.

The person in my mirror remembers frustration at hair so thick it had to be thinned to get a comb through it and wonders when this thinning hair began and why.  My limbs are long and my agility is pretty good; I have good range of motion in both arms and legs and though I don’t do cart wheels, my body is supple enough for my life style though my hoola hooping days are behind me lest I throw a hip out of place and surely there is knee replacement surgery in my future.  I may have lost as much as a half inch in statute but am still the person who can reach items on the top shelves at the grocery for people who need that kind of help.  My hearing is not as sharp as it has been and it takes eye glasses to give me 20/20 vision. I can still pass the driver’s test without glasses said my ophthalmologist but I have not tested this opinion of his.   My senses of touch, smell and taste are serving me well. My sensory perception is good enough. My reflexes are probably slower and this knowledge makes me a bit more cautious when I drive; and is reason enough to keep me from certain types of employment, like driving a school bus, or maybe a race car.

My diet is not particularly healthy; it is not balanced among the food groups and is particularly deficient in green vegetables.  In spite of my resolution to improve this imbalance, I ingest too many carbohydrates and not enough green vegetables.  I’m working on getting more asparagus and fewer potatoes in my diet and I I can be found at the gym four days a week.

Wisdom dictates that I take care of this aging body. If I don’t, where am I going to live?

TO BE CONTINUED

THE CHATTERING IN MY BRAIN

(Snapshots of Aging)

In my studies of gerontology and the aging process I learned that among persons eligible for AARP membership, and reduced price coffee at McDonalds, and others perks of aging, skill levels differ from one decade of age to another decade of age (i.e. from 60 to 70 etc.) and from person to person. For research purposes aged individuals are sometimes categorized as “young old, mid-old, and the old-old.” Most of my behaviors and skill levels fall within one or more of those categories. By anyone’s definition, I am an old woman; not exactly proud of it but it is a privilege not extended to everyone. I try to work with whatever skills and abilities continue to be available to me. I can still run on the treadmill but not so fast as in earlier years and when I sit on the floor I can still rise to a standing position without help though perhaps less gracefully than past years. In spite of the young woman in the “age guessing” booth at King’s Dominion who underestimated my age by more than twenty years, I continue to be who I am. Though the flattery felt good, the date of birth remains unchanged. I’m okay with my age most of the time. I try to wear the scars of age and experience as badges of honor or courage or indications that I’ve fought and survived a few battles.

Like other people my age I take more pills than I would acknowledge. When asked this insensitive question I answer in terms of the prescription drugs I take and omit the over the counter drugs that are also a part of my daily routine, as if they do not have the quality of interacting with other drugs. Who am I kidding? I take care that I have adequate protein in my diet and generally listen to my body and bow down to my health. Should I live long enough that I no longer feel I have some spectacular use for my health (and I don’t know what that age would be) or if I someday do not give a rat’s ass about the imperfections on my face or the brightness of my teeth or the thickness of my hair or the fit of my clothing; or whether I can sustain myself on a treadmill for an hour; then perhaps I will try a little raucous living. I understand there is some family history of raucous living. When I asked my dad the cause of my Uncle Billy’s death he said, “Mainly raucous living.”

About Concentration: It is true that age does play some tricks on us; problems with concentration come to mind. My sister, Darius, could be right when she said my problem with concentration may have its roots in my childhood experience of hearing the same sermon as many as four times in a single Sunday and learning to turn off the concentration part of my brain so as not to scream aloud during a church service; or perhaps this is normal aging and anyone who lives long enough finds a diminishing ability to concentrate; or it may be related to the fires of hell I have been running through these twenty-seven months; it may be damage from those panic attack that I thought would never end; from the feeling of losing my mind one day at a time, and the turbulence and self-questioning about the value of a life so broken by loss and grief and the self loathing for having survived. And don’t ask me to join you in meditation. My mind won’t do it. I stand in awe of those who can clear their minds and let it be guided by words of contentment and relaxation. My own mind is too busy with the urgency of other leveling task.

On Monday of last week I passed the treadmill stress test with flying colors and the sonogram showed no visible signs of heart disease. I watched my heart beat, vigorously I thought. The technician was impressed with my treadmill performance and said, “Not everybody can do that.” I should be offended because she was probably impressed not so much with my treadmill performance as with my performance at my age.   Nevertheless, the dizzy spells persist (though with minimal impact). I am left to wonder if the dizzy moments are a side effect of a stent that has taken up residence in my left subclavian artery. The stent was suppose to fix this and perhaps has only minimized the problem. Sometimes the quandary is you just can’t identify the cause of the effect plaguing your life.

Food Management: I have an unorthodox relationship with food, a relationship shared by many people my age. I know this because I worked in elder services for many years and I know, as a service provider, to check the refrigerator when an elder is having health problems. I know to learn whether there is food in the house? Is the person eating? My own relationship with food can more nearly be explained by a number of causes including a little laziness and disinterest in bringing groceries into the house knowing cooking is not likely. I stopped cooking when there was no family to depend on me for nutritional needs. My cooking skills took a dive, leaving me with feelings of inadequacy in this area. I’m not good at it. My cooking was always out of necessity, not interest. I took my family to a restaurant for Thanksgiving dinner last year and at Christmas Morgan did the cooking. There is no consistency in the time of day I eat or in how many times a day I stop for food. I have persuaded myself that cooking is not more economical than prepared food, if planning for one person. I have no evidence that this is true. I get enough calories during the day just not enough of the types of food that actually nourish and make the body function properly. The ability to handle my own nourishment may be my most troubling responsibility. Premier Protein, a product I buy by the case, stands between malnourishment and me.

How hard to push aside and forget for even a moment the raging of my being. Until then something new and constructive awaits in vain.

To BE CONTINUED

ODDs and ENDs

March 26

Just so you know: Normagene is in the Jackson Madison County General Hospital in Jackson. Getting out of bed this morning she felt faint and indeed she fainted, fell and hit her head on the bed rail. When she woke up and found blood, she wrapped her head in a towel and walked across the road to David’s house (What, don’t they have telephones?) David and Donna took her to the hospital where she spent the morning in the ER and was admitted. They found her heart out of rhythm and if that does not adjust itself they are talking pace maker. They also diagnosed kidney infection. Jennifer is spending the night with her at the hospital tonight. I said I can come if I am needed. She has such a large family, I doubt I’ll be needed. My own anxiety reaches a peak when Normagene is not well. I may need wine before bedtime tonight. I may need the whole bottle.

When I saw Dr. Jacey, the ophthalmologist,a couple weeks ago, he referred me to Dr. Sanborn who works in the same suite of offices and is a retina specialist. I was a little concerned because I once was employed by the Virginia Department for the Visually Impaired and I know a healthy retina is a mighty fine thing to have. Today I saw Dr. Sanborn, a kind and gentle man, my age or older with a bushy white mustache, reminded me of Norman Rockwell doctors. He came into the waiting room to walk me back to his office. That doesn’t happen much anymore. His assistant took pictures of my retina. Dr. Sanborn explained the pictures to me, dilated my eyes so that vision has been difficult this afternoon, examined my eyes by machine for a few minutes and said I have bumps at the bottom of my retina (not on the retina but at the bottom). He says these are normal indicator of aging (so how did I get them I wondered). He said the bumps are not impairing my vision and said I should return in 13 years. I said I would try to make the 13 years appointment and he said he will look forward to it. Kind and gentle treatment but I did not get a lollipop. Dr. Jacey will keep an eye on my retina.

At noon today I found myself away from home (just finishing up at the ophthalmologist office), feeling a little rushed and hungry. I drove through at McDonalds and got a chicken sandwich and then drove across the Willie Bridge to Stoney Point Mall where Talbot’s is holding a pair of pants for me. The salesman was male. Not something I am familiar with in a woman’s clothing store. I asked for the pants and took them to the dressing room. I could not get the zipper down. The zipper was sewn in such a way that the stitching was too close to the metal part (the teeth) and the zipper could not get past the cloth that covered the zipper. Fortunately for me, there was another identical pair of pants in my size so I came home with the somewhat flashy pants that I so coverted in the store yesterday.

Arriving at home I found Holly and Adrian in the back yard. They do not want my car, so guess that plan is off.

NOTHING IS SETTLED, EVERYTHING MATTERS

(Part 2)

The meaning of life is not settled and it is a lesson I learn again and again.   As long as new people and new opportunities come into my life; as long as old friends and family and neighbors continue to enrich my life; as long as libraries (I’ve read three books this week) and crossword puzzles and chocolate continue then everything will continue to matters. Nothing is settled.

I happily have a new writing friend. We make a dynamic group of two. We have only met one time to work together but we did learn from each other and we each believe our product is better because of the collaboration. We agreed to meet once a month for the purpose of reading and critiquing our writing. I am currently working on two eulogies and several memoir pieces. It appears I will not suffer from shortage of material. I hope to be a better writer one day; nothing is settled. As anyone can see, my life is rich, I’ve had so much, I have so many reasons to live life with jubilation. But, you see, Steven is still dead and so I must remind myself to anyone who will listen, orally and in writing, for as long as someone will listen that I am absent a beloved child while everything still matters, nothing is settled. Grief is tenacious, hollow hearts mend slowly and absolutely everything is a reminder of so great a loss. After two years tears come unbidden. Steven’s birthday is next week. Let me make it through the week.

Yesterday a friend made a raciest statement in my presences; and I did something. I did not ignore the comment nor did I change the subject as I am inclined to do. I called her statement to her attention. In the softest voice I could summons I said to her, “There is not an African-American in the country who would not find what you said a raciest statement.” She responded, “I’m not perfect.” I hope she will not repeat the statement. I know she will not repeat the statement without awareness that the statement is offensive to a lot of people. I hope I can accept reproach when I blunder with as much grace as my friend. I strive to remain malleable. “Great God, I ask for no meaner pelf than that I may not disappoint myself.” (Henry David Thoreau)

Thank you Barbara Baum for the format; for asking the important questions. I miss your friendship; miss you not sharing this trip through life with me. I stumble a lot. I know you would tell me nothing is settled yet for me while everything is settled for you. I love you.

Jd/3-18

MISS LUCY’S EXCOMMUNICATION

I never met Miss Lucy. She died in 1957, more than ten years before I enrolled in the School of Social Work and met her son. She was the mother-in-law I did not know. I’ve seen a picture of her tall and solid like a heavy piece of furniture, hands clasped behind her, unfettered breast reaching her waist, hair tightly pulled back giving her a stern facial appearance. In old age, her hair was salt and pepper, mostly salt, and long enough to twist into a bun at the nape of her neck with strands falling from the bun and hanging lose. Looking at a snapshot, one can imagine her hand reaching up to brush the lose strands from around her face. She stood with feet apart in a defiant stance.

Rumor has it, she was a hard woman, hard as in inflexible, rugged, without humor, a woman capable of harsh words. Evidence that her soft side was not often on display was obvious when my husband, Jim, and I, along with our toddler son, attended a church service at St. Clair’s Church of Christ. After the service as we lingered visiting with church members, a woman greeted us and looking at our baby said, “Wouldn’t his grandmother love to spoil him?” Even as she spoke these words she shook her head and added, “Nah.” In the car I asked Jim, “What was that about? She said your mother would not like to spoil her grandchild.” He said with a chuckle, “She was right.”

I have read Miss Lucy’s journal, primarily a record of what she ate; incorporated the dresser from her bedroom and the base of her Singer sewing machine into my home furnishings. I am told her reading preference was mysteries and she looked forward to the third Thursday each month when the Bookmobile travelled through the countryside and stopped by her house for lunch. She prepared a lunch of collards and cornbread for the Bookmobile ladies and selected her books for the month. I wondered aloud whether my husband’s mother ever read Edgar Allen Poe’s mystery, Murder in the Rue Morgue. Jim said the collection of books on the bookmobile was spare and not likely to have included this book and then added “I wish I had gotten that book for her.” “The orangutan did it,” I offered, and he called me “smarty pants” and said “Mama would have gotten a kick out of that.”

Without having met her I have more than a rudimentary understanding of my husband’s mother. Goals of her youth to play the piano and own a gold watch were realized. I have her gold watch with its chain and St. Clair’s church was given her piano. The last 30 years of her life she lived alone, in a small four-room house with cape jasmine bushes on either side of the front porch, with a smoke house just outside the back door and an out-house, down a path and at a reasonable distances from the house. It was a house deeded to her, by relatives, for her lifetime. She lived in a rural location and walked or depended on others for transportation; she kept a gun readily available to kill snakes; she read; she corresponded by letter with a few friends and relatives; she was a Roosevelt democrat; church was central to her life; and, she kept a record of pledges she paid to her church. If there was a service at St. Clair’s, she was there. Jim said, “During congregational singing Mama was last to finish a hymn.” He meant Miss Lucy’s voice continued to hang on another two or three seconds after everyone else finished singing. Her strongest commitment was to her church.

In 1922 Miss Lucy was thirty-nine years old, married to John Duke, her cousin’s widower, and pregnant with her first and only child when J. S. Williams, came to serve as minister to St. Clair’s church. Miss Lucy took matters of faith very seriously and she felt something was not right about the new minister. She questioned his fitness for the ministry and it weighed on her mind and she could not let it lie without trying to learn whether or not her concerns were valid. And so she took action. She took pen in hand and wrote to people who were members of churches previously served by Mr. Williams. She asked these questions of those to whom she wrote: “Had Mr. Williams been a successful minister.” “What kind of life had he lived?” “Was he highly esteemed by the brotherhood?”

The responses Miss Lucy received were mixed. As I sat curled in my chair reading responses to her letters of inquiry, I was mesmerized. One responded on letterhead that read:

“Live Stock, Buggies, Wagons and Harness and all kinds of Feed”,

and one person sent Miss Lucy the names of a dozen other people to whom, he said, she should write.

One letter read:

“in reply to letter of inquiry of J.S. Williams will say he has not built enny church nowhere in reach of hear but has don lots of damage to the Christian Church every where he goes and he is the most unworthy man I know.”

Another person who did not feel kindly toward the minister responded in part,

“…We found him to be a great disorganizer, would not pay his bills, had no friends and was a wife beater.”

One with a different point of view reported that,

“Mr. Williams preached the gospel as did Peter on the day of Pentecost.”

One person who received Miss Lucy’s letter asked why she was making the inquiry and another forwarded the letter to Mr. Williams who read it from the St Clair’s pulpit on Sunday morning while Miss Lucy looked on from the second row. After sharing the letter with the congregation, Mr. Williams declared Miss Lucy excommunicated and ordered her to leave and never return.

In eight years, circumstances for both Mr. Williams and Miss Lucy had changed. Mr. Williams had moved on, possibly to other churches, possibly to have his fitness questioned by other parishioners. In the weeks following her excommunication a pregnant Miss Lucy and her husband, John, moved into a house on Third Street in Little Washington, N.C. where she gave birth to her only child, where John worked as a blacksmith and where Miss Lucy found a base for her Christian life at the First Christian Church of Washington, N.C.

Her return to rural Beaufort County and to St. Clair’s church eight years after her excommunication was precipitated by John’s death and the consequential placement of her only child, seven-year-old Jim, with the Atlanta Children’s Home in Atlanta. The year was 1930, the great depression was raging and Social Security was not yet a federal program. Financial considerations and advice from her minister on the best interest of the child were considerations in Miss Lucy’s decision to place her child in the custody of the Children’s Home so far away. She was alone and destitute. She returned to the rural Beaufort County community she considered home, occupied the four room house deeded to her, where she lived for almost thirty years, and to the church ready to forget her excommunication and welcome her back.

In 1957 Miss Lucy was 74 years old. Her son at 34 years old had the Children’s Home and high school graduation behind him. After high school he served in and aged out of the Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC — a depression era program providing employment to young men), served in the Merchant Marines and was a veteran of WWII. He was a graduate of the University of North Carolina and was serving in the Army Reserves when his mother became ill. She was hospitalized for surgery for pelvic cancer. Jim brought his mother home from the hospital on July 13 and made arrangement to be with her and be her caregiver during her recovery. The next morning, Sunday, July 14, 1957, he found her lifeless body, dressed for church, lying across her bed, Sunday School book in her hand. She died of a pulmonary embolism.

Her funeral service was held at the church and she is eternally at rest at her husband’s side in St. Clair’s church cemetery, the church where everybody knew her name, where she was eulogized as a “pillar of the church,” where she walked a mile on Sundays for the privilege of attending church services (and declined rides from those who stopped on the road to offer transportation), and where the passage of time had erased from parishioners minds, those memories of Miss Lucy’s excommunication.

Lucy Duke did not forget. Until her death she was an ardent participant in the activities at St. Clair’s. She diligently pledged to the church. Having withheld her church membership for almost 30 years since her return from excommunication, she died, proudly not a member at St. Clair’s Church.

2018

In Memory of Nathan Douthit

Nathan was originally an Iowan. He relocated to Richmond in 1963 when he became a graduate student at what was then the Richmond Professional Institute (RPI). The University’s name was changed two years later and is now know as Virginia Commonwealth University. Nathan was a member of the 1965 graduating class at RPI’s School of Social Work. He never returned to Iowa as a resident though his kinship ties there were strong and important to him.

No one was immune to Nathan’s charm and humor; well, almost no-one. One of our fellow students was a good friend to us both during our school years but “shunned” us both in the years following our graduation. We had our theories as to why the shunning, but never were sure and never got the opportunity to ask. Nathan never stopped asking me if I had heard from Roberta (not her real name) and his question was always followed by laughter. He told me he once saw Roberta in a store and she avoided him, a tale that caused me to create an imaginary encounter with Roberta. I said, “she rang my doorbell so she could ignore me when I came to the door.” He roared with laughter at the absurdity of it all.

Nathan had no detractors. He was a kind man. He was a friend to many. He was a friend to every person in the 1965 RPI School of Social Work class and he enjoyed our imaginary classmate, Grace Bruster, who spoke up when necessary to label nonsense what it was and who sprang from and was named by the creative brain of classmate, Edith Back.

It was my good fortunate to be among a small group of students given the opportunity to sample Nathan’s culinary skills. He was an exceptional cook and occasionally made Thanksgiving dinner for a small group (6 to 8) of students well before Thanksgiving showed up on the calendar. After the death of my husband, I became the recipient of one of Nathan’s pound cakes every Christmas until he was no longer physical able to bake.

Some of my fondest memories of Nathan spring from the almost five years I worked under his tutelage in the Division of Licenses at the Virginia Department of Social Services. He allowed me a long tether and was kind (really he was generous) in his evaluations of my performances.

During the final years of Nathans life on this planet he was fortunate to have Dorcus, the love of his life, his soul mate, and primary caregiver, as he negotiated the dark waters of a deteriorating body and increasing medical needs. Providing direct care for a terminally ill spouse is an incredibly selfless, extraordinarily loving, and at times an emotionally retching offering.

What was important to Nathan, more than any achievement, more than any adventure, more than accolades was the blessing of sharing his life with the woman he felt privileged to call his wife and with his children whom he loved more than air. You, his family, were the major source of joy in his life, you are responsible for the sparkle in his eye, the spring in his step. He was proud to be your husband and the children’s father.

Nathan died on February 17th just five days short of his 92nd birthday. A memorial service was held a week later, February 24th at Holy Comforter Episcopal Church where he and Dorcus were members for many years and where their children were baptized.

His was a life well lived. Rest in peace, Nathan. You will live on in your children and grandchildren and in the hearts and minds of all who knew and loved you.

MY WACKO YEARS CONTINUE

I was just thinking. This day is a bright, cloudless but cold day. It is Saturday and I have devoted much of the day preparing my tax material so that when the last tax document is in my hands I may get it early to the CPA who kindly and competently prepares my return. It is a task I happily check off my list as soon as possible each year as it is not a task that I enjoy. I try to make notes throughout the year to help me remember when something unusual happens in my financial life. When the time comes to refer to the explanatory note I often find my note lacks clarity.

This week I saw a friend I haven’t seen in a while and her aging was conspicuous, non unattractive, but noticeable. I wonder if she had the same thoughts about me. This morning I have been thinking about the phenomena called aging. It is a part of our lives every day we live. As aging continues to continue, one year spilling into another. In spite of the passion or enthusiasm in my heart and at my core, it becomes necessary to exchange that restless, flaring energy of youth (or young adulthood) with some restraint, some recognition that the physical body slows down even if the brain is racing ahead and the heart’s yearning for peace on earth, for justice in our time, for love among brothers and sisters regardless of race or national origin, or sexual identity, or political or religious ideology, is still strong enough to “light oneself on fire with passion,” as described by John Wesley. Do not doubt the slower pace brought about by vicissitudes of age or the need to become more selective about causes to champion is an indicator of fires banked, not extinguished.

Sometimes the issue is not whether the older person has “fire in the belly” to share and to encourage action by groups gathered together to stand and be counted. Sometimes it is whether the older person has a ride to get there. Older people are not inclined to use Uber though perhaps in time more will take the chance.

Many years ago the courts in Virginia undertook a project to learn how the courts could better serve the people of the Commonwealth. The examiners first spoke to lawyers who practice in the courts and they heard about the need to attract the brightest and the best to study law. They heard about the need for law schools to be ever vigilant in keeping their curricula current and relevant and to seek exceptional law professors for the schools. The examiners then spoke with the judges who spoke of the importance of an educated and trained judiciary and the need to rapidly fill judicial vacancies. Then the examiners spoke to the people asking what changes are most needed in the courts and the people said “parking.” Sometimes it is just about access.

THE BROWN BOX

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A wooden box, roughly 4”x16”x10” painted institutional brown on five of its six sides, resting mostly undisturbed for more than 50 years on the top shelf of the front closet in the master bedroom. The brown box is the dull, lusterless hue of old chifforobes and free standing kitchen cabinets with flour sifters built in, and hall coat racks with large mirrors, pieces commonly found in homes a half century ago.

Having outlived my husband who treasured the box for his own sentimental reasons, the box now belongs to me. It holds no nostalgia for me. I can paint it if I chose, all of it, including the bottom, the sixth side, the side left unfinished all those years ago when five sides were swathed in the color brown, a color that decades later is reminiscence of an old no longer edible chocolate bar.

Taking the box from its place on the shelf and settling into a comfortable position on the bed, Jim approached the box much as Emily Dickinson set about reading a letter. She wrote:

The way I read a letter’s this,

‘Tis first I lock the door….

And then I go the furthest off

To counteract a knock;

Then draw my little letter forth

And softly pick its lock.

This is how it was with Jim and his brown box except he had no need to lock the door. He could create the same effect, mentally transporting himself to another time and place and spending a couple of hours with people from his youth and childhood, people I never knew, oblivious to his surroundings. Sometimes I put my book aside long enough to bring him popcorn that he consumed without losing his concentration.

Jim’s dates with his past were spent shuffling through letters and documents, selecting some for rereading, sorting others into piles according to criteria known only to him and binding stacks together with rubber bands before nestling them again in their brown box bed. Old photographs turned brown and curled at the edges with age were brought forth from the box to identify people and remember their stories.

Sometimes he would tell me the story of the person in the photograph or the author of a letter. A photograph of a tall, thin young man wearing a fedora prompted the story of Newbern Pylan who Jim first met while standing in a line to apply for Christmas work at the Post Office in Chapel Hill. It was the Christmas following the end of World War II and the line of young men looking for work was long. Jim and Newbern spent several hours together in line and found Christmas employment at the post office and friendship that lasted a lifetime.

The box held a suicide letter written by a very young man who rented the front bedroom in the Chesapeake home of Mr. and Mrs. Jackson where Jim rented a room. The letter began with these words:

“I don’t really wish to die for I am afraid that I will be condemned to eternal hell. However, there is little sense in continuing the living hell that I have been going through only to end up in the eternal hell anyway.”

It was an unsuccessful suicide attempt. “I took the letter before it was found by the police or anyone else,” Jim said. “What were you thinking,” I asked? “I was thinking he might live and if so regret having written the letter,’” he said. “Parts of it were mean.”

The letters from Atlanta written year after year from a little boy to the mother who entrusted him to a childrens’ home were in the box along with pouches of documents, old photographs, a celluloid Christmas tree ornament of a bird in a cage, an assortment of trinkets, a two and a-half dollar gold piece dated 1856, carefully wrapped in a flannel cloth and inserted into an envelope, and a tarnished lady’s gold watch, swaddled in jeweler’s cloth, turned brown with age, tucked inside a small box. Yesterday’s artifacts bide their time in the box and wait for their stories to be told.

The First Letter Home

John Morgan Duke, father of James Morgan Duke (Jim), died February 17, 1930, of unknown causes three months before Jim, his only child, reached his seventh birthday. John’s remains rest in the church cemetery at St. Claire’s Church of Christ in Beaufort County, N.C. Jim remembered riding in a car to his father’s funeral and sitting low in the seat as they travelled to St. Claire’s Church for the ceremony. He was small and could see only the tree-tops as they passed through the country road. Someone thought to bring a small bag of candy for the child.

Before 1922 John operated a country store at Kelly Crossroads at Ransomville, in rural Beaufort County, N.C. John leased the building from which the store was operated and in 1922 or early 1923 he lost the lease. Almost simultaneously Miss Lucy was asked to leave the church (St. Claire’s Church of Christ) and not to return. (I have written about this in Miss Lucy’s Excommunication). John and Lucy moved to Little Washington, N.C. where Jim was born on May 22, 1923.

Having relocated to Little Washington Miss Lucy became an active member of the First Street Christian Church, a church that financially contributed to the Southern Christian Children’s Home located in Atlanta. This contribution was a part of the church’s work on missions.

During the summer of 1930 a decision was made to send Jim to the Home in Atlanta. The reason for separating the child from his mother is unclear. Perhaps his mother was unable to financially support him after his father’s death or perhaps she was influenced by the church to believe that given the economic depression the country was experiencing and given his mother’s lack of financial resources and her lack of obvious marketable skills, her son would have a better life in the children’s home. This was before Social Security and if there was a pension for Miss Lucy it was minimal. There was a family support system; i.e. relatives living in Beaufort County. In adult life Jim reflected on the situation of his youth and wondered why he was sent away but lacked the hutzpah to  discuss it with his mother.

And so, Jim was separated from his mother and sent to the Southern Christian Children’s Home at 1011 Cleburne Avenue in Atlanta. The minister of the First Christian Church in Little Washington escorted Jim by train to Atlanta. Jim remembered being very excited about the train ride but without understanding that the Reverend would return home without him. He well remembered the moment the minister turned and walked out of the office of the Home’s superintendent. He remembered the moment he realized he was being left behind and in Jim’s words, “I dropped to the floor and fell apart.”

Approximately four months later, seven year old Jim wrote his first letter to his mother (absent any punctuation). The envelope is dated January 13, 1931, and reads thusly:

Dear Mother I am going to wirte a page to you and nice    Christmas and a nice Thanksgiveng

Love son James Duke

The Superintendent of the home, Sue Hook enclosed the following note:

Dear Mrs. Duke –

James wrote this himself. We think he is doing fine. He had a fine time Christmas – He was delighted with your box to him. He is well and happy growing taller every day. We call him our “young giant.”

Sincerely

Sue S. Hook, Supt.

*A note of interest:  More than 80 years later, 1011 Cleburne Avenue, Atlanta, Georgia is the address of the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library.

THE LUCY LETTERS is a collection of letters written to and by Lucy Burbage Duke. I never meet Lucy as she died before I met her son. I   refer to her as “Miss Lucy.” Miss Lucy was born in 1883 and died in 1957 at 74 years of age. In 1923, she was 40 years old when she gave birth to her only child, a son who was named James Morgan Duke (Jim). Miss Lucy was married to John Duke who was 60 years old when their child was born. John died in 1930, three months before his only child reached his 7^th birthday.

John’s death had devastating effects on his son, both immediately and throughout his life. I am recording some of THE LUCY LETTERS here because many of them are written in pencil and are fading even though I have tried to protect them in plastic sleeves.

The letter below is the only surviving letter written by Miss Lucy to her son.  Jim was 33 years old when his mother wrote this letter. His was living and working in Norfolk.   Miss Lucy makes reference in the letter to her operation. She was staying with relatives after her hospital discharge until she was able to care for herself and could stay alone in her rural, Beaufort County, North Carolina, home.

2-12-57

Dear Son

Got your card glad you made it o.k. It was some cold last nite and clear this morning but has started to cloud up again. I wish it would be pretty weather. I am so tired staying off and so tired of T.V. from 5 to 7 hours at nite. If it wasn’t for that I would enjoy staying here close to home. Mollie Brinn took me home last Friday. I took something to eat for the dog when she got up to eat we put some boards down first and paper and that piece of bed quilt and made her a nice bed. The puppies are nice and I don’t think they are very old. I went again yesterday to feed the dog. Marion Cartwright taken me home and Mrs Moore brought me back. Mrs Moore wants one of the male dogs.

I suppose you have written to Dr McCall. I reckon he has wondered why I didn’t go back. I want to feel more like riding there the next time I go. I believe I am feeling a little better altho I didn’t sleep very much last night. But I do feel some better where I had my operation.

Son I intended asking you this when you were home. Have you taken the Polio shot? I think you should. Remember F.D.R. was only 39 when it struck him. Hope you are feeling good. Son I am praying for you to succeed in this work you are doing if it is what you want to do.

Take care of your health you will need it if you live long. Lila hasn’t been very well for several days. Write and come

With love Mother.

Postscript:

In the summer of 1957 Miss Lucy was again hospitalized and it became clear to Jim that he needed to be available to provide care to his mother. Before taking on his duties as caregiver Jim had a two-week tour of summer duty as a member of the Army Reserves. He picked his mother up at the hospital after arranging for her care by family who lived in Norfolk. Jim delivered his mother from the hospital to the home of the temporary care-giver and reported for duty for his two weeks of camp as required for Army reservist. Two weeks later, on Saturday, July 13, 1957, he returned home. He picked up his mother from the home of relatives and the two of them went home to the little house near St. Clair’s Creek in the community of Ransomville. That night a neighbor, Betty Moore, came over to visit Miss Lucy. The two women sat on the front porch visiting and Jim could hear their voices as he read in the living room. The following morning he awoke and found the light on in the kitchen. He went to his mother’s bedroom and found her fully dressed, lying across the bed and dead. She was 74 years old. I have written about this in a piece called Miss Lucy’s Excommunication.

Barbara’s Letter About Forms (Customs)

Barbara Baum was my friend for almost 50 years and a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Norfolk for almost 60 years. Those who were fortunate enough to be in her circle of friends will not soon forget her.

I am copying below a letter Barbara wrote to the Unitarian Universalist Church of Norfolk on March 17, 1967 (more than 50 years ago). I am supposing this was a letter to the editor of the church newsletter, or to the minister who wrote a column for the newsletter. This holiday season seems an appropriate time to share her views on forms (or customs) and think on these things.

Dear Mr. Esenwein:

Your statement in the March 14, Minister’s Corner, “Old forms are kept long after their meaning is forgotten, and the very lack of meaning makes some feel that old forms are all the more religious,” begs for discussion.

Many times it is not the lack of meaning but rather the respect for antiquity which causes many to adhere to old forms which have lost contemporary meaning.

I am not an upholder of senseless form, however, as a Unitarian, I believe it is necessary to look deeply into the psychological needs behind many, so called, forms without meaning. If one goes about abolishing a form which meets an emotional need, it will only rise up in another (possibly more bizarre) form.

Two examples, of many forms that meet needs, come to my mind. Suppose you decided that the Easter or Christmas festivals were old forms lacking in meaning because they were based on the myths of resurrection and virgin birth in the live of a man or God who possibly did not exist. You might run into difficulty because the observance of winter and spring festivals seem emotionally necessary to mankind all over the world. Easter seems to spring from the wanting of human beings to live (really a rather basic drive), while Christmas gives us the chance to celebrate our need for family life and motherhood (these are also basic to the species). So you see that behind a seemingly outmoded form may be an instinctual but very important feeling.

To sum up, it would seem that one should understand thoroughly the real reasons for any form. Then if he feels it needs changing, his chances for making a meaningful change will be much better.

Sincerely,

Barbara Baum

3-17-67

The Tonsillectomy

Mama said I was a sickly child. She would never be able to stop worrying about me. That’s what she said. I was six years old and I was sick for what felt like a long time. I was kept in bed for many days and I got a lot of injections because we could not afford for me to get a cold and my blood was too thin. It’s what Mama said. I had pneumonia multiple times that winter and if Mama were telling this tale she would interject here, “And this was before penicillin.” Well truth be told I was just a “lemon” child. You know, like a dud whose parts don’t work as designed to work and keep breaking down. I broke down a lot during my early childhood.

One morning I awoke dazed and in a world dominated by the color white. The white was not like white clouds, soft and fluffy, but the sterile white that surrounded doctors and nurses. Alcohol and other odors smelling like a doctor’s office filled my nostrils. I looked around the room and found that I was in a crib with bars, the kind reserved for babies. The cries of babies imprisoned in other cribs filled the room. I was not a baby. Why was I in a baby bed? I was six years old and after finding all other cribs filled with babies I reckoned that I was lost and had somehow found my way into the world of infants. There were no mothers attending the babies. Where was my mother? Why wasn’t she here? It was a puzzlement.

The babies and I lay on white sheets and wore white gown. A woman dressed in a white dress wearing white shoes moved almost without sound from crib to crib to comfort and sooth the crying babies. I watched her every move. I did not cry and she did not come to my crib. There was no break in the whiteness. It was as if a sheet of snow had fallen over the room. I could not determine whether it was morning and the babies and I were waking for a new day or it was night and we were being put to bed.

The previous day Mama and I had taken a train ride together to Memphis to see a special doctor who would remove my tonsils and make me feel better. This was not ordinary goings-on as it was always Daddy who took me to the doctor when I was sick, woke me at night to give me medicine and to touch my forehead, and it was Daddy who drove the car when the family took a car ride. Daddy knew how to find the right place. I was not so sure about Mama. I wanted Daddy to take me on the train but he had the flu and he said Mama and I would be just fine and I should not worry.

Daddy was wrong, I thought.   I was in a dreadful situation. I had a bad taste in my mouth. I wondered if my tonsils were out yet. I could not remember my tonsils being taken from me. And where was the ice cream I had been promised? My throat hurt, I needed water and my bladder begged for relief. I wanted Mama. Here I am lost and no one knew to look for me where the babies are kept. I was not just fine.

I was always a shy child. I was incredibly, painfully, comfortless shy. My bladder needed relief and there was no one to help me out of the baby crib. There was no one to help me find the bathroom. I was definitely not just fine. It occur to me to call out to the woman in white, but calling out was out of the question as I was much too shy to call out to a stranger to say, “I need to go to the bathroom.” I thought perhaps if I cried she would come to me and I could whisper in her ear. My cry was forced and muffled by the babies’ cries and my effort made my throat hurt and the lady in white did not come.

Where was my mother? I wanted to know. I was very sure that she came with me on the train. She held my head in her lap during the train ride. My throat hurt and I needed to see Mama right away. I wanted to tell her, “I need to pee.”

There was a knock at the door. The lady in white opened the door and I heard Mama’s voice. I alerted like a dog. Mama talked to the lady in white. Mama did not come into the room. I glanced around the room to see if she might come in another door. My eyes began to tear up. I decided that Mama did not have a white dress and was not allowed in the white room. The lady in white closed the door and went back to comforting a crying baby.

I was defeated. My body surrendered. My bladder released its wetness and my crib and my white sheet and gown and my body were saturated by the wetness. I backed into a corner of the soggy, smelly, crib and I cried real tears. My wailing for my mother grew loud. My body shook with sobs and still Mama did not come.

(Reposted by request)

MY WACKO YEARS , PART I

Several years ago I came across a book called Gramps. The book chronicles, in photographs, the last three years of the life of Frank Tugend. Frank worked in the cold mines in Pennsylvania from the time he was 11 years old until his retirement at 65. By the time death came for him he was in his 81^st year and he suffered from dementia. His last three years, probably his worse moments, were captured in photographs by his grandsons in what his grandsons called their grandfather’s “wacko years.” Three weeks before he died Frank took out his teeth handed them to his grandson and said, “I won’t need these any more,” and he neither ate nor drank again. He died on his own terms, in his own bed, holding the hands of those who loved him and cared for him during those wacko years.

Even though it has been many years since I saw the book, Gramps, those images have recently returned to my mind. Sometimes the onset of death is obvious and seems to take its time and its toll as it wends it way to its finality; and sometimes death is subtle and unless one is vigilant the early indicators are not recognized as the information bearing events they are.

I hope to tell the tale here of the beginning and progression of my own old age. Already I am older than Frank’s 81 years; I have outlived my husband, Jim, by 18 years (of course, he was 11 years my senior); I have outlived my younger sister and am so much the poorer because of her absence; I have outlived my oldest sister and thus am absence that person who knew my foibles and loved me anyway; and I have outlived my own child, my darling Steven. It is Steven’s death in the early morning hours of January 12, 2016, that I believe marks the beginning of my pre-death dance, i.e. the wacko years.

When I speak of my pre-death dance I mean all the exercises I have gone through these months since Steven’s death, just to keep myself alive and I have often asked of myself “why do I bother”. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross was correct. First there is denial. The early morning hours of January 11^th as I sat on the floor of Steven’s bedroom holding his lifeless body in my arms, I believed that he had lost consciousness, that he would wake up. Of course he would wake up, he was only 49 years old and I was unaware that he had any illness. After he was transported to the hospital Adrian, Morgan, and I spent the day in the hospital moving from one waiting room to the next; waiting while he had surgery for an ulcer, waiting to see him and still I believed he would be coming home. It was not until we were allowed into the ICU to see Steve that I became aware of the gravity of it all. On the evening of January 11 the neurologist told me that Steven had no brain activity. I asked that a DNR order be placed in his chart. Adrian, Morgan and I talked about the implications of that order briefly and we all agreed that under the circumstances this would be Steven’s wish.

We sent Morgan home that night to get some sleep. Adrian wanted to stay at the hospital and at his urging and his promise to call me if anything changed, I too went home to sleep. The following morning, January 12, at 4:00 a.m. Adrian called to say the nurse informed him that Steven’s blood pressure was consistent with a person who is dying. I returned to the hospital. Adrian and I sat with Steven. Sometimes I held his hand. Sometimes I talked to him. At 7:30 a.m. when the machine signaled that Steven had stopped breathing I stood at his side. I put my hands on him in disbelief. Adrian went to meet Morgan who was on her way from the hospital parking garage. In that instant all signs of stress were gone from Steven’s face. The face of his youth reappeared. He was so very beautiful. It was the beginning of my wacko years.

MEET MAMA

10-13-1904 to 9-16-1998

In the waning years of the nineteenth century in Gibson County, Tennessee, there lived a young couple, children really, who married. Jimbo, the groom, was the 16-year old son of a peasant farmer and his bride, Hassie, the 14-year old daughter of a shopkeeper.  The only employment Jimbo had ever known was sharecropping and he, like his father before him, sharecropped to support himself and his bride and the children they would have together. Jimbo was not without ingenuity and he learned to augment the family income with a still where he made and bootlegged moonshine. Hassie Laberta Foust and James Marshall (Jimbo) Bolerjack were my maternal grandparents. They died before I was born.

The union of Hassie and Jimbo produced eight children. Their first three babies were daughters. Each of the three was named Mary. Not one of them lived more than a few weeks. The fourth child, a son whom they named Floyd, must have been a delight to his parents as they watched him crawl and then walk and begin to speak a few words. How joyous to celebrate his first and then his second birthday. Maybe these parents allowed themselves to believe this time was different. This child would grow up. I can feel their pain at Floyd’s death at two years and 13 days. Three months after Floyd’s death, with too little time to grieve, with too few opportunities to sit with her loss and cradle his memory, Hassie gave birth for the fifth time. She was twenty years old. This baby was a girl. They named her Mary. This child grew up and became my mother. During the next nine years, Hassie gave birth to three additional children who became my uncles and an aunt.

My mom was not of the June Cleaver genre. Most of my life, I found my mother to be challenging. I have no memory of her ever saying “I love you” to me nor do I remember sitting in her lap, or having her tuck me in bed, nor did she ever show any interest in my school activities. When a parent needed to go to the school, Daddy went. When we had medical appointments, Daddy took us. When I was in the 8^th grade I entered and won a competition for “Miss Strawberry of Madison County.” The night I won the competition I was given a dozen red roses. My mother attended the competition but made no comment on my victory or on my roses. I wanted her to say, “you looked pretty on stage” or “I’m proud of you” or I would have been flattered with “good for you”. But the complimentary words I wanted from Mama did not come. I rode atop a float in the Strawberry Parade. Mama did not attend.

Some resolution of my feelings about not being loved by my mother was foisted upon me during Dad’s final illness. He received home care. A caregiver was with him much of the time but Mama was the constant. One July day while I was visiting my parents, my brother dropped by. It was early in the morning and he and Mama sat in lawn chairs outside talking.   I went out, pulled up a chair and joined them just in time to hear Mama say,

“I feel like a prisoner. I never get away from the house.”

I knew a neighbor phoned Mama often and invited her to go into town and have lunch. Mama always declined. I said,

“Call Helen Mays and see if she is free to go into town and have lunch. I’ll be here. No need to rush back.”

“A couple of hours is not going to help,” she said.

“I’ll be here a week. Call Mary Ruth and ask her to take you to the mountains for a few days while I am here to keep Dad company.”

“I would just have to come back,” she said.

“You are not looking for relief, you’re looking for sympathy and I don’t have any.”

With those words I got into my car and drove to my sister’s house in nearby Jackson. Mary Ruth was still in bed when I arrived and I crawled into her bed and related my conversation with Mama that caused me to flee so early in the morning. By this time I was sobbing. Mary Ruth said the words that for the first time gave me insight. She said,

“Listen to me. Your mother does not love you. She does not love me. She loves no one. She does not have the capacity to             give love. This is not something you should hold against her. Don’t let it keep you angry. This is a reason you should be sad for her and love her anyway without expectations.”

Sometimes I feel that my entire life has been a quest to understand Mama. At times I reflect back on her mother and wonder what kind of mothering Hassie had to offer. At times I try to feel what Hassie must have felt as she held the newborn Mary and grieved the loss of so many children. Did giving birth to a new baby so soon after the loss of Floyd bring this new mother joy at last; or did it rouse the accumulated grief that was so close to the surface? Did she hold the new baby in awe at the promise of this new life or was she apprehensive about growing too fond of this Mary as she may not be for keeps?

Sharecropping and bootlegging was often synonymous with serial poverty; i.e. passed down from father to son. The children were needed in the fields and their labor was at the expense of their education. Neither Mama nor any of her siblings were schooled past the 8^th grade. The lack of formal education left Mama woefully unprepared for what the rest of her life would expect of her. As a minister’s wife, she was expected to have some role in the life of the church, perhaps even a leadership role, expectations for which Mama was qualified by neither education nor disposition. As families of Methodist ministers are wont to do, time after time we moved into a new parsonage, served a new church, and adapted to a new congregation. Time after time Daddy found love and respect and was soon an integral part of the new community. Time and again Mama did not measure up.

As a teen-ager Mama dated a young man she called Joe and they planned to marry. Their marriage plans were disrupted when Joe was arrested and sent to jail for unspecified crimes. Mama wrote to Joe every week. She received no correspondence in return. When a few months passed with no response to any of her letters, Mama began to date. In October, 1923, she celebrated her 19^th birthday. Three months later she married 17-year-old, David Olhausen, the man who would become my father.

Two events during the first year of her marriage had a lasting impact on Mama. She was not enthusiastically welcomed into the Olhausen family. My paternal grandmother, Naomi, was not happy about the marriage of her 17-year-old son. My parents eloped and Daddy brought his new wife home to share the family home with his mother and six siblings. Mama became pregnant early in the marriage and Naomi speculated aloud that Mama was already pregnant when she married. She was not. Mama never forgot nor did she ever forgive Naomi for what she considered to be disrespect during her first pregnancy.

Mama’s second life altering event that first year of her marriage was learning that Joe wrote her every week during his incarceration. Her dad, who disapproved of Joe as a groom for his daughter, intercepted the letters and kept them from her.

Mama lived 93 years and eleven months. The minister officiating at her funeral said, “Ministers are called to the ministry by God,” and he added, “Mary was called by God to serve as a minister’s wife.” I was seated next to my sister, Darius, and I whispered in her ear, “Whom is he talking about?” She smiled and said, “Be good.” My mother had five children. The miracle of Mama’s life is all of her children loved her without expectation.

“I have seen the moment of my greatest flicker, and I have seen the eternal footman hold my coat and snicker and in short, I was afraid.” (t.s. eliot)

It happened in Tunica; Tunica, Mississippi best known for its casinos. My older sister, Mary Ruth, disapproved of casinos as a form of entertainment or as she referred to them, dens of inequity, the devil’s playground, a short cut to hell. My younger sister, Darius, was a casino whore. Darius visited the casinos at Tunica often enough that she would from time to time receive invitations from the casino to be their guest for one or two or sometimes three nights in the casino hotel. One such invitation coincided with a January, 2014, road trip Darius and I were planning. “It would be a small thing for the two of us to swoop into Mississippi for a couple of nights and continue from there on our road trip,” she said. There would be no need to mention this side trip to Mary Ruth so as to spare her the angst such a trip would create for her. The plan was for me to take along my books and my laptop so I would have something to do should I become bored with what the casino had to offer.

The date was January 9, 2014. It was the third day of our road trip. It was the morning we left Mayfield, Kentucky, where we had spent the night, and drove to Martin where we stopped for lunch at a drive-in eatery that catered to students of the University of Tennessee at Martin. We continued on to Memphis where we changed drivers and I was behind the wheel of Darius’ 2011 Nissan as we took highway 61 and drove 50 miles to reach Tunica. Our destination was Harrah’s Casino Hotel.

As we drew near our destination, a right turn would take us to the door of the hotel. A long line of traffic stopped in front of us just before we reached that right turn to the hotel and for reasons I have never been able to explain, I did not see the row of vehicles standing motionless before me. I did see the red traffic light a block ahead but my brain blotted out the traffic between the red light and the Nissan where Darius and I sat having almost reached our end point for the day. I plowed ahead. My first memory of knowing we were in trouble was my own shouts of “NO, NO, NO,” each “no” louder that the one before and my feverishly looking for a way to avoid the traffic that had now become apparent to me. I turned the wheel sharply to the right and from that position plowed into a small truck just ahead of me. I reacted by crumpling into tears and sobs and continuing to cry out “NO!”

The car’s hood was folded back to expose the inner workings of the vehicle and the driver’s side of the car peeled back like a banana. My sister kept forgiving me. As I tried to identify the white objects that were floating before my eyes (air bags) my sister reached over and touched my leg and said, “I just wanted to see if you have legs.” I have been in auto accidents but never before was I responsible for the carnage. I felt heartsick and empty, empty and helpless, helpless and angry, angry and confused and all at the same time.

Darius exited the car to check on the wellbeing of others while I tried quell my panic by deep breathing between sobs and I sat on my hands to stop their quivering. It seemed that instantaneously an ambulance was parked next to us on the highway, people were walking around looking at the damage and a police officer arrived at my side. His first words to me were, “You saved lives today.” “How so?” I sobbed. He said the sharp turn right was a smart evasive move. He asked me, “What do you think happened?” I said, “I think I ran into the rear of the truck in front of me.” He said, “Your honesty is refreshing.” He asked my age. This is the only time I thought about lying because older people have a dismal driving reputation and only some of the time is this merited. I told him my age. It was on my driver’s license anyway and he asked for that next. He asked if we were wearing seat belts. I said we were. We were offered an ambulance ride to the hospital. Darius had already told me to say no to the ambulance ride otherwise she said, “We will be here all day.” We both had bruises and pains but those did not present themselves until later and neither of us needed medical care. My sister later theorized that I had experienced a TIA (transient ischemic attack also known as a mini stroke). I don’t know about that but I did nothing to quash that hypothesis, as it seemed more honorable than an accident due to carelessness.

Richard Connor is the man driving the truck involved in the accident. He was very kind, a middle-aged man wearing overalls and speaking with a Mississippi dialect. He talked with Darius and assured her that he was not hurt. He too was offered a ride to the hospital in the ambulance and he too declined. He offered to drive us to the hotel where we were registered. The police officer thanked Mr. Connor and said getting us to the hotel was part of his job. Three months later Mr. Connor sued us both for his pain and suffering.

State Farm, the insurance company covering Darius’ Nissan, offer to settle with Mr. Connor for $50,000. Through his attorney Mr. Connor wanted $75,000. He looked to me for the additional $25,000. I was represented by an attorney from Oxford, Mississippi, who represented State Farm, insurer of the Nissan. At the request of the attorney I completed voluminous forms. I answered questions about my health, my medications, my history, my employment, my driving record, my age, etc. Having submitted this material to the attorneys as requested, Mr. Connor’s attorney wanted to depose me.

My attorney and Mr. Connor’s attorney came to Richmond in the summer of 2015 for the deposition. I was advised by a family members whose opinion I respect to wear a dress for the occasion. “Dress like you are going to court,” I was told. I wore a dress. Both attorneys flew in that morning from Mississippi and were wearing jeans and athletic shoes. When the deposition was over my attorney walked me to my car. “Best deposition I’ve ever heard,” she said.

I heard no more until this week. Three years and nine months after the accident in Tunica, the Harrah Casino and hotel is out of business, I am three years older, Darius died a year ago, I’ve never received a ticket for a traffic violation for that accident, and this week I receive a letter from the attorney representing State Farm and though State Farm me, saying “the above referenced case filed against you has been settled.” A copy of the Release of Claims was enclosed for my records.

Mr. Conner who was originally offered a settlement of $50,000 and believed it would be in his best interest to fight for $75,000 finally settled on August 24, 2017, for a total of $16,500. Sometimes justice prevails.

After much thought I would like to pass on to you one of my most prized possessions, my Dad’s Bible. He received this Bible as a Christmas gift, 1958, and thereafter he used it in the pulpit and not in the pulpit. He used it as his study Bible and he used it wherever and whenever he needed a Bible. It was a gift from Paul and Robbie McQuiston.

We moved to Grimes Memorial Church in Memphis in 1952. Soon after our re-location to Grimes, Paul and Robbie joined the church there. I believe they had been Presbyterian up until that time and I do not know why they changed churches. It may have just been proximity as they did not live far from the Grimes church. In a short time Robbie became the church secretary and both Paul and Robbie quickly became pillars of the church. When Daddy named the best men he had ever known, it was a short list, Paul was on the list. As far as I know he never listed the best women he had ever known. I can tell you his mother would have been on that list but that is a tale that will have to wait. Paul and Robbie became very fond of Daddy. They respected and loved him and he respected and loved them right back. Actually Paul and Robbie extended their circle of friendship and love to our entire family including both immediate and extended family. Some of us were more receptive than others. I spent many nights and had many meals at their house. The point to be made here is that this Bible was a Christmas gift from Paul and Robbie. Daddy loved it because, well, because it was a mighty fine Bible, because it had his name on it, and because he loved the giver.

When Daddy was in his final illness there was a time when he spoke with each of his children individually and he gave each of us the same directive, to honor each other and to never let anything we inherit from him divide us; i.e. do not fight over inheritance. We all thought it rather funny because none of us believed that an inheritance would be coming our way. We didn’t think he had much at all and we thought Mom would quickly go through whatever he left. Well, it seems that we were wrong. He did have a little something and thanks to Mary Ruth and Normagene, Mom’s spending was somewhat controlled and Dad’s children did benefit a little from his efforts to provide and save.

When I was called in to have my, “do not fight over my possessions,” talk, I told Dad that I only wanted one thing from him and I said I didn’t really care what thing he gave me. I just wanted something that was his. He said, “Tell me something you would like to have.” His Bible was on the table next to him and I said, “When you don’t need it any more I would like to have your Bible.” He immediately gave it to me. I suggested he keep it and I would get it later when he no longer had use of it. He said, “Take it now, you never know what will happen to it.” This is how I came into possession of this special Bible. I later learned that Robbie had told him she would like to have it. I spoke about this to Dad and he said, “Children come first.” So I kept the Bible. After Dad died, Mom asked me if I wanted his watch. I had a “thing” for watches. I had a small collection of watches and I said I would like my Dad’s watch. She gave it to me and I was wearing it when I went to Memphis and stopped by to see the McQuistons. Robbie noticed that I was wearing the watch and said “Paul has always admired that watch.” So, I pulled it off and gave Paul my Dad’s watch. Darius told me that my giving that watch to Paul really pissed off my mother. Oh well, sometimes it pissed off my mother when I breathed so her displeasure did not bother me that much. I felt it was the right thing to do.

I’ve had the Bible these last twenty-five years. We used it during Jim’s Memorial Service and we used it during Adrian’s wedding. You can tell it has been much used over the last 56 years and the Table of Contents is in very bad condition. It was so when I got the Bible. I can almost feel my dad’s hands on the pages.

I’ve thought a great deal about who should be the next recipient of this gift; who can most nearly appreciate what it meant to Dad; and, who will use it with a sense of honor to him. I will be so pleased if you will accept this and enjoy it in remembrance of your grandfather.

If I had a list of the best women I have known during my life, Gina Simpson would be on the short list. I first met Gina in 1979 when she was a student in the School of Social Work and had her field work placement at the State Department for the Visually Handicapped where I was on staff. Though I was not officially her supervisor at the agency, I did in fact provide all of the supervision she received during her placement there.

Post-graduation Gina took a newly created faculty position with the Hospice Program of MCV. She was an advocate for elders in nursing homes, in adult care facilities, at the Senior Center and wherever seniors needing advocacy are found. Gina has not been well for a couple of years but it is a shock to the system when the good just pass on without comment from the universe. That the sky did not open up to announce the loss of one so special feels disingenuous of the universe. I attended her funeral yesterday and this morning my heart is heavy.

Yesterday’s service was so appropriate for Gina; her five grandchildren participated as candle-lighters. The soloist sang You Raise Me Up and I could feel Gina in the room. Her sons, Jack and Marshall, are adults now with families of their own. When they were boys Steven, Adrian, Jack and Marshall went to Camp Chosatonga at Brevard, together; deep in the Blue Ridge mountains.

I sat next to Thelma Bland Watson at the service. Thelma told me that when the Senior Center on Monument Avenue disbanded (Thelma’s word) or imploded (my word), all the furniture was given to be auctioned. When the furniture was sold at action, John and Gina bought it all back for the new Senior Center.

Gina’s final resting place will be at Westhampton cemetery and there will be a bench next to her grave. Life well lived, Gina Simpson. Rest in peace.

Yes, I did see the solar eclipse of 2017 in its entirety, i.e. from a tiny bite out of one side of the sun to total eclipse leaving only a bright rim around the moon, and it was breathtaking. I saw the burst of the diamond ring explode into view at the moment of total eclipse and I saw it all in the company of friends and I lack words to describe its power and its beauty. The venue from which I watched the earth fade into darkness and two and a-half minutes later creep into light again, was at poolside at a substandard Day’s Inn (and I was mighty lucky to have a space in any Inn as every room had been booked for months). I was in Orangeburg, South Carolina. I was there to see the wavelike effect on the ground and to feel the cooling of the temperature and the breeze around the feet and the sun coverage reaching totality. It was all part of the eclipse experience and excitement prevailed all around the pool area. We meet a person who traveled to Orangeburg from Britain for this event and we meet people from various parts of the U.S.

There were four of us in my party, with one pair of the requisite glasses to watch the sun do its magic. Our plan was to share the single pair of glasses. However, we spent much of the morning at Edisto Memorial Rose Garden, an exquisite garden displaying acres of roses of many breeds. We went to the garden in search of a place to walk and we were not disappointed. We got in a three-mile walk and meet a nine-year-old lad, an aspiring young entrepreneur, selling $2.00 glasses for $5.00 and we happily purchased three pair. And thus we were prepared.

The Edisto Memorial Rose Garden is a memorial to 800 Confederate soldiers who died in battle with Union soldiers fought near the end of the Civil War. It is still unclear to me whether or not the battle in which so many died was on the plot that is now the rose garden or in some other part of Orangeburg. No one said where the 800 are buried. The rose garden is named for the Edisto River that runs along side the gardens.  The Edisto River is one of the longest blackwater rivers in the country, flowing over 250 miles and ending at the mouth of the Atlantic Ocean at Edisto Beach.  The black color of the water is not from the water but from the vegetation that colors the water. My trip to Orangeburg is also an expedition that gave me my first Subway Sandwich. Not bad.

Until last Saturday I had never heard of Orangeburg, South Carolina, and I will always remember it as the place to which I traveled to view the total eclipse of the sun. I will remember the two minutes and 40 seconds of darkness in the middle of day, and the highway traffic with car lights blazing as the two heavenly orbital objects worked their way passed each other for the delight of the millions who watched from below. The light returned as it had gone, a moon bite at a time.

A proverb is a short saying that expresses a generally accepted truth; e.g. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder”; or “Better late than never”; “The early bird gets the worm”, etc,. This is the proverb that hangs in my office: “Nothing is settled, Everything matters.” Is this a generally accepted truth?

The proverb was sent to me by my good friend Barbara Baum along with a challenge to debate this with her. She received these words from her friend, Mary Rose Curtis, who was married to UU minister, Jim Curtis (now deceased). Barbara identified this as a proverb. I did a little research to learn the origin of this proverb and was referred to an article called “It Matters” by Robert Walsh, a UU minister, who attributes the words “Nothing is Settled, Everything Matters,” to someone he called Jim. He said Jim printed the proverb on his stationary. It is as if the letterhead is announcing: what you are about to read is to be taken seriously, but is not final. I am taking a leap of faith here and guessing the Jim referenced in Walsh’s article is Jim Curtis, a UU minister and deceased husband of Mary Rose Curtis.

In the beginning I was not really convinced that the thought expressed in this proverb is generally accepted as true (maybe not a proverb). However, I have long held an opinion that life stories do not end, at least they do not end until death, as you never know what will happen to change what was believed to be the end of the story.

In the last 19 months death has claimed the lives of my son, two of my three sisters and my good friend, Barbara Baum. Their life stories can now be told; the meaning of their lives can be written; for them everything is settled. For me nothing is settled, everything matters.

All the times I was not there when they needed me, all the times they needed me and I was there, all of my interactions with them whether positive or not so positive all are settled. Those are bells that cannot be un-rung. However, my story does not end there. The deaths of people I love are part of my life story, painful parts tis true but still my story continues. How my story turns out, i.e. the meaning of my life is not settled. The choices I make from this point on, the commitments I make, the causes I embrace, the way I spend my time, my money – it all matters.

So, Barbara Baum, here it is, my part of the debate albeit a little late. You always asked thought provoking questions. Remember the time you looked at me across the table and asked, “What is the meaning of life?” I miss your friendship; miss your not sharing this trip through life with me.

In 1995 I was a Virginia Delegate to the White House Conference on Aging that convened in Washington D.C. I am recording here a few excerpts from my journal notes from the conference.

Donna Shalala (Secretary of Health and Human Services) was there to introduce the Vice-President who introduced the President. Donna Shalala’s mother, in her 80s, was there as a delegate. She is also the U.S. tennis champion for people over 80. Donna Shalala asked grade school children to write her letters on what it means to grow old and she read some of the letters to us. My personal favorite said “my grandma runs a lot and has a man.” Hugh Downs was there as both a delegate and as Master of Ceremony for the entire event. His wife was also there. Her name is Ruth and she is rather small and dainty. I thought she looked like Joyce brothers.

Arthur Fleming was there. He is now 91 and he spoke even though he did need a lot of help to get from his chair to the microphone. He came into government with FDR and served all succeeding presidents until the 1980s. He talked mostly about the Roosevelt years and has a certain reverence for Roosevelt and what he accomplished. When Dr. Fleming talked about the “Contract with America” he was talking about the contract negotiated 60 years ago called Social Security.

Al Gore was there with Tipper and he was almost a stand up comic. Al Gore told Al Gore jokes. I guess the jokes about him eventually reach his ear.

Hillary came on Thursday morning and did a one-hour panel on mammography for older women. She is kicking off a campaign around Mothers’ Day called “Mama gram.” There will be some T.V. commercials and we got a preview of those. She said more than 50% of all new cases of breast cancer are in women 65 years and older.

If you could have seen me trying to get my cause (i.e. elder abuse) included in the resolutions you would either have been proud enough to pop or embarrassed enough to disavow any knowledge of me. I was told by my friends that I was designated “ass of the hour.” This meant if I had to make an ass of myself to get elder abuse into the resolution then so be it. I had a whole page I wanted in and I managed to get in four words. The word are “…and elder protective services.” This is my gift to posterity. In the guardianship resolution I was successful in getting one word in. The word is “family.” The resolution said information about guardianship should be available to guardians, judges, attorneys (and thanks to me) and families.

The Virginia delegation had dinner together on Wednesday night. Our Senator, Chuck Robb, came. We also had a state senator in our delegation. I sat next to her at dinner and she allowed me to pin a “stop elder abuse” lapel pin on her.

THE EARLY DEATH OF A NISSAN

January 9, 2014, the third day of our road trip with stops planned for Mayfield, Kentucky, Tunica, Mississippi, Dyersburg, Memphis, and other Tennessee points, before returning to Darius’ home in Augusta, Georgia. Having spent the previous night in Mayfield, the two of us left Mayfield the morning of January 9 well rested and excited about the day before us. A stop in Memphis around noon to change drivers put me behind the wheel and Darius moved into the front passenger seat.

The Harrah Casino in Tunica, Mississippi, rewarded its frequent customers with a night or two or three in their hotel to make playing the games more convenient. Darius was a recipient of a ticket worth two nights in the Casino hotel. The Harrah would close its doors forever on June 2, 2014, but on January 9 there was no suggestion that this was a gaming establishment with a limited life.

The morning we left Mayfield and the Connie and Curt Boyd home our plan was to take a “side trip” to the Casino and to keep this part of our trip unto ourselves forever. Mary Ruth, our sister, strongly disapproved of Casinos and gaming (i.e. gambling). Having left Memphis the Casino was approximately a fifty-minute drive.

I set the speed control at the speed limit and depended on the automatic control most of the drive. The trip was uneventful until we were inside the boundaries of Tunica and starting to look for the street leading to Harrah’s.

Entering the city of Tunica I became aware of a red traffic light a block ahead but for some inexplicable reason I did not note the line of stopped traffic between the Nissan I was driving and the red traffic light. With the car still on speed control and the line of traffic at a stand still in front of us, I suddenly became aware that we were in imminent danger of crashing into one or more vehicles and began taking measures to try to prevent the accident and save myself from the untenable position of having to explain my responsibility for the destruction of my sister’s car. I swerved the car hard to the right; we struck metal, our air bags deployed and one beautiful Nissan became scrap metal. The driver’s side of the vehicle was stripped away. The truck we hit sustained minor damage.

After the collision we sat in stunned silence a short time before my mental/emotional breakdown found its outlet. Darius reached over and touched my leg and said “I just want to see if you have legs.” My wailing began as a soft moan and quickly grew loud with an urgent quality. Darius got out of the car to determine whether anyone in other cars were hurt (they were not) while I remained in the car having an emotional meltdown. Eventually a policeman made his way to my side of the car. His first words to me were “you saved some lives today.” He did not mention that I had come close to ending some lives today. He asked what I believed happened. I said “I believe I hit the car in front of me” and he said it was an honest answer.

An ambulance was called. Neither Darius nor I nor either of the two men in the two vehicles involved in the accident took advantage of an ambulance ride to the hospital. We signed papers acknowledging the ambulance was offered to us and we declined. Traffic was cleared, the Nissan was towed away and the police officer gave us a ride to the Casino hotel where we had a reservation.

Tamara and Karen arrived from Memphis a couple of hours later to be our emotional support and to help us find transportation now that the Nissan was no longer in service. They were determined to help us save our casino experience and the four of us spent an hour at the casino before leaving for their home in Memphis where we would spend the night. Darius and I were “banged up pretty good” and were sure to have pain and soreness. I took the medication offered by non-medical people without question. I slept through the night and walked around the next day in a bit of a stupor while we visited a Russell Stover candy store with free candy samples place around the store and Appalachians Arts and Crafts museum. Our hosts relayed us on to Chattanooga where Jana and John would come from South Carolina to transport Darius and me back to Augusta. Jana, John, Darius and I spent a night in Chattanooga and Jana applied heat pads to our backs and shoulders, gave us more medications and again I slept through the night.

Later we would both be sued by the two men whose vehicles we hit but we did not know this yet. Getting back to Augusta where my car waited undamaged felt unjust. I offered Darius an opportunity to drive my car and wrap it around a tree. It is a very painful thing to wreck your sister’s car. She forgave me many times.

Jd/4-17

I Remember Dad

(5-15-1906 –- 3-25-1989)

My Dad was John David Olhausen, the oldest son and second child in a family of seven children who survived to have adult lives. He was a minister in the United Methodist Church and proudly wore that badge. I remember him in the pulpit where he sang loudly and off-key during congregational singing and where he knelt behind the pulpit to pray causing one four-year old to call out, “Where’d the preacher go?” When he served multiple churches he preached the same sermon at each church and when every church had heard the sermon I could almost deliver the sermon myself. I remember the remnants of his speech impediment left over from childhood. Even now I can hear his imperfect speech ring in my ear and gently tug at my heart.   It was an impediment that he corrected by force of his will and without professional help but it was not a perfect correction.   I remember Sunday lunch at our house where we brought Dad’s pronunciation errors to his attention and sometimes suggested that he stop using “slopping the hogs” and other farm experiences in his metaphors. Our Sunday lunch critiques made no difference in his sermons.

My dad was a much beloved and respected man in the communities in which he lived, by parishioners whose churches he served, by his brothers and sisters and extended family, and by his children. His death came early on Easter morning in 1989. My family and I spent Easter Sunday travelling from Richmond, Virginia to west Tennessee for the funeral and to be with my family. The morning after our arrival in Tennessee my sister and I went to a local grocery to get what we needed to prepare breakfast for those who had gathered at the house on Roy Davis Road where my parents lived. At the grocery my sister went in search of items on our list and I picked up a newspaper and sat down on a bench at the front of the grocery. As I flipped through the paper an older, somewhat frail African-American man, walking with the help of a cane, stopped to speak to me (people in the South do that). He pointed at the newspaper and asked, “Are you looking for bad news?” I said my Dad died yesterday and I was reading his obituary. I said that my dad was David Olhausen, that he was a retired local minister and asked if the gentleman knew him. The man did not respond to my question but expressed sympathy, backed away and went down an aisle.   In a few minutes the man with the cane returned to where I sat. He said, “Of course I knew your dad; we all knew your dad. We called him preacher man. He was a good man.” I was not surprised to hear that the African-American community knew my dad.

It is hard to separate Dad from the work he did. He never really retired. When he was diagnosed with the cancer that took his life he was 80 years old and serving, for his church, as the hospital chaplain and as minister to the home bound.

When I remember my Dad, I see him doing ministerial things; being in the pulpit on Sunday morning, baptizing babies, baptizing in the creek for those who believed he or she needed to be ducked all the way under, officiating at weddings and at funerals; he married a few couples in our living room. He visited people who were sick. He visited hospitals, those he knew and those he did not know. He visited those in the community who were church members and those who were not.

At the time of Dad’s retirement and afterwards he received many honors and tributes. I visited a couple in Memphis who were my friends and among my Dad’s best friends and I mentioned to them that there is yet one more mark of respect that I would like my Dad to receive. He was a proud graduate of Lambuth College. He worked tirelessly in fund raising events for the college. He made his churches available to student ministers. He spoke at Lambuth chapel services now and then and without reservation he referred many prospective students to the school. I wanted Lambuth to confer an honorary doctorate on my dad. My friends told me the process for considering and selecting recipients of honorary degrees at Lambuth was very secretive and if the Lambuth Board knew family was involved, the nomination would be DOA. My friends told me to drop it and they would handle the nomination and my dad should never know of my involvement. I did as I was told.

A few weeks before the convening of the United Methodist Annual Conference where the honorary degree would be conferred I received a phone call from my Memphis friends telling me my dad was considered but was not selected as the honorary degree recipient. I knew they had made their best effort. A few days after Annual Conference ended Dad called me and said, “You will never guess who received an honorary doctorate from Lambuth College.” My brain whirled. I held my breath thinking, “Could it be?” I hesitantly spoke. “Tell me who,” I said. With a chuckle in his voice he answered, “Minnie Pearl.” Dad never knew that he had been Minnie Pearl’s competitor for Lambuth’s honorary doctorate.

JD (11-10-11)

HARRY POTTER

At Caroline’s suggestion I have begun to read the Harry Potter books. I remember being aware that a British woman named P.K. Rowling was pumping out books at an alarming pace and children were waiting breathlessly for the next installment. Morgan and Brian competed to see who could read the newest book first. The first in this series of book was copyrighted in 1997 years after I no longer read to my children (though I did read to them many years after they could well read to themselves). The first books  were rumored to be “naughty” or “bad for children.” You may think that would be enough to peak my interest but my focus was elsewhere and I never read the Harry Potter books.

During the last fourteen months my life has been pretty much turned upside down beginning with multiple losses of people essential to my life and followed by surgeries and illnesses and vain efforts to heal. I, an avid, reader found myself unable to focus long enough and sharp enough to read and so books have been laid aside. I continue to go to the library and check out books only to return them unread.

And then something happened. I received a letter from Caroline. Caroline is a student at the University of Georgia and is Darius’ granddaughter. By mutual agreement Caroline and I have a letter writing relationship. We try to write once a month. Sometimes I miss the deadline but I so much enjoy her letters. Yesterday’s letter from Caroline suggested that I read Harry Potter and it seemed as if someone had just shown me the way back to books; perhaps if I begin with books intended for children; perhaps if I crawl into the skin of a muggle I can learn to read again.

I went to the library and ask for directions to the Harry Potter books and found a lovely librarian ready to help me. She asked if I am looking for this book for a child. Suddenly I felt self-conscious about reading Harry Potter and before I could stop myself I said “yes, I want a book for a child.” Before I could stop the force that took hold on me, I invented a child. I said the little girl for whom I am getting the book is in the fourth grade, is a good reader and is so eager to begin the Harry Potter series. I clenched my teeth so I would not give this child a name.

I am well into Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and am rooting for the little boy with the scar on his forehead to find a way out of the Dursley home and into his true intended role in a world of extraordinary characters.

Barbara Hale died a week ago. She was 94 years old. Her death did not send the same media ripple as the recent deaths of Debbie Reynolds and Mary Tyler Moore but Barbara was nevertheless a starlet. She was the ever faithful, ever competent Girl Friday to Perry Mason, a series that ran for nine years. What would Perry Mason be without his Della Street. There was speculation about whether there was or was not an off the screen relationship between the two. I only know I searched each show for a tell tale sign of an on screen relationship. Sometimes there was just enough suggestiveness to feed my curiosity. Remember the episode where Perry gave her pearls? She (Della, that is Barbara) did report that at the end of an episode he unexpectedly, “planted one on her.” That could mean a kiss. It might also mean an orchid as Raymond Burr raised orchids in his leisure time and it is said, he named one for Barbara, that is Della. Rest in peace Barbara.