Sibling Rivalry—Not

 

My little brother isn’t so little. He stands 6’4”, though lean with long fingers extended from bony hands; pianist’s fingers. I tended to envy him his hands, and his leanness.

Nearly three years younger, he had the same training as I, the same family, and the same mental abilities. He was the one who followed in Dad’s footsteps. He was the one who accidentally tried to kill me.

Oh, yes, he did. I sat on the floor in front of the TV. The Lone Ranger was flickering across the screen, struggling to subdue the bad guy, when my sweet little brother brought his pearl-handled pistola butt down onto the crown of my head with all the force his scrawny three-year-old body could muster. Back then these toy guns were made of metal, not plastic. They were heavy. Excitement at what was happening on-screen had temporarily relieved him of any sense of reality. I was knocked out completely.

I know what you’re thinking. He was just a baby. I’m sure I heard that argument when I came to and tried to throttle him. I know that I heard that argument throughout the years afterwards when the subject and memory came up.

Of course, he did make up for it several years later when he kept me from becoming sow chow. The sow took objection to my being in the stall with her piglets and rushed me when my back was turned. I almost didn’t make the age of nine. Brother dear, who wasn’t supposed to be at the barn, shouted a warning and got me out the gate before sow connected with my backside.

Yep, I did him a favor later. I encouraged his strength training by having him pull me in his little red wagon, between the rows in the corn field, while we were picking up dropped ears after the picker when through. All that loose corn would help fatten up those piglets. My mother wasn’t pleased with my interpretation of a self-improvement course for him. I got punished, I think, for working him too hard. I never knew if my dad knew about that little episode.

As a sidebar, I got to be the one who went to the top of the tulip poplar tree one summer afternoon to bring his happy self down to earth. Mom was not pleased with his antics. For once, I wasn’t the bad guy in the scenario. Dad did find out about that one.

When I learned to swim the summer of my 13^th year, I proved that I could retain lessons and excel at trajectory in the water. Mom had us down at one of the local creeks, along with her sister and at least one of my cousins. Brother ran a ways ahead against Mom’s admonition to stay close.

Before anyone could prevent it, he ran into real trouble. Creeks carve out deep holes in bends of the watercourse. He’d run himself off into one of those holes and promptly commenced to drowning.

Mom shouted for me to go save him. ME!? I was a dozen yards behind her and the rest and he was that far or more ahead of her.

Until that day, I didn’t know that I could sprint while running in ankle to knee-deep water. I kept my eyes on the spot I’d last seen his hand come up and dived when I got there. I found him with no difficulty. Getting him to the surface was the tricky part.

He kept trying to drown me until I finally got myself positioned where I could get my feet into the small of his back and kick him toward the shallows. It might seem unconventional, but it worked.

Brother got solid purchase with his feet and his panic subsided. I took a few more minutes to make it to his new position. By that time Mom and the rest had arrived to check him out. He was fine, of course, though a bit waterlogged and sputtering. For the first time in memory, I actually saw relief wash across someone’s face. Mom wouldn’t bury a child that week.

But that’s how our relationship was. He saved me. I saved him. We got along.

I would take him to the movies with me. He’d loan me his prime condition ’57 Chevy so that I could go cruising in town. We loved each other and weren’t afraid to say so. That love took some interesting paths to expression sometimes, but it remained true.

We’re enough alike, yet enough different, to make good sibs. I can’t see that changing.

We don’t get to see each other very often. Usually when I have the spare time and money to travel back to the Midwest, we spend a bit of time together. It’s never long enough; but we, like most families, make do with what we can have, when we can have it.

Though our interests and lives have separated us, he was one of the first to validate me as a writer. When I visited last winter, he gave me a brand new notebook computer “because every writer deserves to have one while on the road.” He may never fully appreciate what that gesture meant to me.

The Youngest, A Rebel

 

As soon as I was born, comparisons bombarded my parents. As a newborn, later as an infant, and on to school, everyone in the family talked about how much I resembled my father’s youngest sister. In fact, my first infant picture and hers were nearly identical.

With normal aging and family life came more comparisons. I was as stubborn as she was. I wouldn’t stop until I accomplished whatever I put my mind to. I could argue with the best, and so on.

She was the baby, the one who stayed at home the longest, the first one to scandalize her father for wearing shorts. I was the oldest, the one who demanded my hair to be cut because of the head and almost gave my father heart failure. Yep, she was my heroine supreme.

After all, how could I go wrong? She was lovely, athletic, hard-working, fun, and generally a role model. She was the closest in age to me, though not by much.

Her honey-colored locks explained my own blond curls as a child. We looked alike, acted alike, and considered things in the same way. We were ageless bookends.

Like all of the “girls” in the family, my young aunt could stand up to what life threw her way. Two marriages, widowed twice, and two children didn’t dampen her spirit. She could take care of herself when need arose and proud of it.

Like her sisters, she had talents. She could sew beautiful clothes. I remember one summer when I was visiting, she was making a double-breasted jumper for one of my cousins. I fell in love with that jumper. Of course, it was too small. I asked if she could make one for me.

As soon as she finished the one she’d started, she took out extra fabric that she had. I was confused when she picked up the newspaper. I asked what she needed that for and she said that she had to make a new pattern for my jumper and would use the newspaper for that. I paid special attention to her hands and what they did. I listen as she explained the process of the task.

A few hours later, I had my own jumper; the prettiest blue with white banding that I’d ever seen. It was something no one else could do for me, and it was special. I was in junior high or high school at the time. Many years later I would emulate her process to make tank tops for my best friend. Knowledge should never go to waste.

My aunt was the kind of woman who would allow my brother to ride the milk cow because he wouldn’t stop pestering her. Even when she told him that he could get hurt, that he’d be thrown, he wouldn’t let up. Finally, she said go ahead.

She held the halter and waited for him to slowly move from the top of the stall wall onto the cow’s back. A second later, that cow exploded out of the stall, brother hanging on and playing cowboy, until ten feet later when he flew off the cow and landed on his back on the barn floor. Auntie looked down at him, asked if he was hurt, and said something like, “Do you still want to ride the cow?”

So much has happened in both our lives since those days of simple sewing and tending to chores, and watching foolish boys learn to fly over cows. Like her sisters, she has grandchildren and a few great-grandchildren. Some days her body aches. Many days she tends to the needs of other older women who need help at home.

Granny taught her daughters the habits she valued, and service to others was one of those habits. And the baby of the family spent more time with Granny, having her as a constant companion in her last years. That bright, willful, hard-working lady whose baby picture could have shown my twin will always shine as an example for me; a mirror image in many ways.

For all our similarities, we do diverge in habits, aspirations, and lifestyle. She stayed near home, while I live at a distance. She married and had children. I remained single. I work to build another career and future. She is content to enjoy retirement.

We both still know how to play. Don’t ever challenge us to a game of Rook. You’ll lose.

A Lady of Endurance, Hospitality, and Appreciation

Taking a look at each of my father’s sisters as a subject has been an interesting process. I began yesterday with the middle sister. Today I’ll look at the eldest sister, taking those memories of my own, as faulty as those might be.

First of three beautiful daughters, and small of physical stature, her birth brought much joy to her parents in the middle of the roaring 20’s. Soulful eyes gazed out onto the world, looking for her place in it. Like all children, she had to wait for the answers to her future.

My aunt helped her parents work the small farm that surrounded them. The culture and the times demanded that all hands keep busy and help tend to the family crops, chores, and everyone’s general welfare. By the time she was ready to enter adulthood, fear and pain would be a constant companion.

This was the woman who, many years later, during my teen years, listened to her daughter and me talk into the night, as we giggled about secrets in the next bedroom. Long evenings passed while the peacocks called from their sentry stations around the horse farm. Summer’s warm, lazy breezes at night fluttered bedroom curtains as we slept in the house she cared for.

And this was the woman who’d lived through what would crush many others.

When my aunt was a teen, polio still crippled individuals and families’ spirits. It was said that she became ill with something that acted suspiciously like that disease. Recovery was long and halting.

Nevertheless, her salvation arrived on the heels of fear and pain. The love of her life came to champion her, to take her in his arms and carry her through life. What could she do but allow this strong, gentle suitor to take her hand, as protector and husband?

With his help and love, she overcame the effects of her illness. It wasn’t easy, but she did it. They started their family and lived as everyone else did on a farm.

Years later, when her son and daughter were in their early teens, a shocking and terrifying event changed the course of her days. Tending the family vegetable garden was challenging in the southern summer heat, yet picking veggies for the dinner table wasn’t considered debilitating.

Within that space between heartbeats terror struck. With the suddenness of an adder’s bite, her vision disappeared in one eye. Her eyes had never been good, but now she was challenged as never before.

When she finally got to the eye doctor, the verdict wasn’t good. The retina was badly torn. She had to face the probability of never regaining her sight in that eye and the other retina wasn’t too stable, either. The doctor’s diagnosis was heart-wrenching.

Instead of flailing around in a soup of depression and self-flagellation, lamenting forever what she’d lost and how unfair life was, she fought to regain as much independence as possible. She learned Braille, retrained herself so that she could continue doing all of those tasks she’d done before the accident. Her family helped as much as possible, which proved sorely needed.

Not long after her trial by blindness began and she’d made significant progress, my uncle was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He died a few weeks later, leaving her without her champion of so many years.

She went without escort to her daughter’s wedding. She sat in church each week without the tall, quiet man who’d carried her as a bride. She endured.

For all these long years, she’s kept a home together for herself and her son, who followed in his father’s footsteps as a specialist with thoroughbreds. She never lost her sense of humor, though it was tested many times. Also, her culinary skills could rival many a restaurant.

The years have moved forward, unfolding the future and my aunt’s life. Elderly now, she continues to fight the good fight. Strong faith has lifted her up and sustained her throughout life’s trials.

All I’ve ever needed as an example to help me overcome adversity were the memories I hold of this lady of endurance, hospitality, and appreciation.

Grace and Generosity of Spirit—A Housewife’s Tale

My father’s next youngest sister epitomizes the term “generosity of spirit.” As a young woman she could have modeled for any top agency in the world, with raven hair, laughing eyes, full mouth, and alabaster skin, all in a tall lithesome frame. She had all of this and more.

With marriage to a kind and playful man came responsibilities of farm, home, and family. Two daughters, each unique and talented, kept her busy and focused. Bickering inside the family was unheard of.

By the time the first grandchild came along, this dark beauty had become a matron, happy in her authentic plantation-style house and space enough for the girls to have enough land of their own to build homes next to the big house. Any threatening clouds to her life were as yet unnoticed. Her life was moving along very well to all appearances.

Months rolled by, minor medical issues came into the household for her, but for the first grandchild, the issues were serious and potentially deadly. She dealt with her fears and uncertainty as she dealt with life in general. She faced them, head-on, one step at a time, and helped wherever she could.

The grandson never grew out of his early medical distress. The situation grew more complicated and disconcerting as time wore on. Soon another child entered the picture, and he, too, suffered from the same disabilities.

Soon, the younger daughter had begun building her own family, living on the other side of Mom and Dad. The brood had expanded with another son-in-law and three more grandkids. Over the years serious medical concerns stalked the branches of that family tree, bringing with them sorrows, fortitude, and making do for the family’s members.

My aunt moved ahead through it all, through her own medical troubles, with frequent hospitalizations, treatments, etc. She did what she’d always done. She took care of her family; cooking, cleaning, soothing feverish children, smiling, praying, and loving.

She did all of this, and if she ever complained about her lot in life, I figure only God witnessed it. She has faced her days with gentle resolve to do the best she can, able to laugh at the foolishness and play of both human and animal, and using her indoor voice most of the time. Getting flustered never gets a task done, so she never bothered to use it.

I remember this lady from the time I was five or six years old. I’ve never known her to exhibit rage, prejudice, or ill-will. I’ve seen her cry, rock a sick child for hours in the middle of the night, and work until her fingers bent with arthritis. I know why her family is the way it is.

Those in her immediate family follow hers and my uncle’s example in their generosity and grace. There are no personal complaints about how life isn’t fair. They recognize that truth and work hard with what they have to make their situation—whatever that might be–the best it can be at that moment. They accept their roles in life, without blaming anyone for them.

Sounds idyllic, doesn’t it? Always happiness and light, never raw emotion hanging on the clothesline for all to see, no enemies or troubles coming from the outside.

Like most things in this world, happiness is a relative emotion. These lucky people love and respect each other. They work as a team to make it in the world and to move forward as quickly as they can. Their happiness comes from trusting God and knowing that they are safe in the hands of one another. They support one another in all ways.

She and my uncle act as a lode stone for their family. They create the core from which other members gather strength and direction. That doesn’t diminish the innate strength of my cousins, their husbands, and their children. Indeed, each of the younger generation has manifested that same sense of strength, resolve, and grace.

I’ve watched and admired this branch of my family for most of my life, as I’ve admired all of my family members for individual reasons. I’m blessed to be shown a living example of grace and generosity each time I envision my aunt working in her kitchen, hearing her laugh about some small clumsiness she experienced that day. I know that I’ve been shown one the self-actualized people in the world and thank God for it.

There is no such thing as perfection on this earth, but until the real thing comes along, I’ll keep using this family as my lode stone for living a good life.

The Teacher’s Kid

 

Growing up in the Midwest during the 50’s and 60’s took less effort than it does today, or that’s how it seems from my perspective.

I wouldn’t be a teen today for any amount of money. My friends and I had greater freedoms then; greater responsibilities as well, I suppose, especially those of us who lived in the country. I can only speak from that perspective since I didn’t have the “townie” frame of reference.

We country kids grew up with a different sense of the world. Take hunting and fishing, for example. Most of our dads did both. Sometimes Moms helped out in that hunter-gatherer pursuit. I know mine did.

When I was in elementary school, it seemed that Dad went fishing every weekend. There are family photos that show some of his catches; catfish, bass, crappie, and others. Much of the time his preference was catfish. He and a few of his friends would spend the weekends at the river or large creeks in the county and they’d fish. We had a freezer full of fish at all times.

Perhaps this explains why the smell of catfish makes me wretch; over-exposure at an early age.

Hunting worked much the same way. Dad took me squirrel hunting when I was about six. He gave up that idea because I couldn’t see well enough to avoid pit-falls, small twigs in my path, and other noise-makers. I also could never see the prey in the trees. My participation, therefore, was pointless. I would never be Diana on the hunt.

Bless his heart; he just couldn’t give up hope for me. When I was about eight, he stood me outside, facing the door to the shed, on which was tacked a homemade target. In his hands was a .22 caliber short-stock rifle. Thus began my instruction in the use of firearms. I practiced until he was satisfied that I could consistently hit the target and then the bulls-eye. As soon as I accomplished that, I didn’t have to do it anymore.

Of course, he wasn’t serious about me using a rifle to go hunting. I don’t have a memory of his taking me rabbit hunting, for instance. I would succeed with that only when the prey stood still, giving me a clear field for a heart shot. I doubt that would have ever happened.

At age thirteen, I received my introduction to archery. By my own reckoning, I did well enough. I don’t remember losing too many arrows. My brother took his training with me. He’d completed and passed his other trials with flying colors and went on to hunt very successfully with his own bow and arrows. I never hunted that kind of prey.

During those early years Dad taught me all sorts of skills, most of which I can’t remember now unless conditions are absolutely perfect. He delivered regular dissertations on local flora identification with explanations of purpose, leaves, bark (if any), resident fauna, and other lessons.

Along the way, brother and I learned how the climate affected our small part of the world, why certain species grew on one hillside but not in the hollows, as well as other natural science topics. Every day held its lessons, though we seldom thought of them that way. We knew that he wanted us to understand the world we lived in, from the ground up.

His guided lessons in the hunter-gatherer framework prepared us to take up our responsibility for our planet, our immediate portion of the planet, and to accept those responsibilities as both guardians and reapers.

I wish millions more people could have studied with Dad and his friends. Perhaps less destruction would have taken over the world, if they’d been made guardians, too.

This one aspect of my father never diminished. He’s kept his knowledge and passes much of it on to his great-grandchildren. It doesn’t look like he’s going to close that classroom for a while yet.

 

 

Carrying the Family Torch

The Olympics have torch bearers who run through the streets, flaming torch held high, expressing sublime joy or intense nobility as they run. Marathon participants run for a variety of reasons, many of which express that same joy or nobility. Ordinary family members don’t do much running at all, unless one counts errands and an extracurricular shuttle service.

Throughout my growing up years, carrying a torch meant something other than its current connotation. We carried a torch for a movie star or the girl/boy at school. We carried the torch of freedom in our citizenship and moral fiber. It’s a wonder the town didn’t burn to the ground with all of those flames being held up for all to see.

Few of us got to see an Olympic torch during the fifties. Even our own Student Olympics during elementary school didn’t have a torch. Television brought the Olympic Games to average households every four years during the sixties, which is where I first saw them. Of course, the opening ceremonies, with torch-bearer and Olympic Flame weren’t as long or elaborate then as they are now. Drama and spectacle arrived during the early eighties. Leave it to Hollywood.

All of this brings us to carrying the family torch. Each family has an invisible one, though the flames may be for different purposes. For some that torch stands for pride of place within society. For others it represents the family triumph over poverty and disadvantage. Torches for those prideful of family traditions of church, home, and military honor cut across all strata of society. These are all family torches; the ones that children take from their parents, along the line of ancestral heritage.

Torches smolder at times. They can exhibit rebellion over family roots as much as the opposite. They can glow with remembered suffering from a historical past before bursting into raging flame. While each is sparked by one or more family aspect, only an individual can carry one and that for personal reasons.

People can find a family torch inside themselves, if they look for it. They can discover the personal reason for raising an arm to support that tapered torch. At some point, they must either acknowledge acceptance of “duty” or reject it and seek another.

Each of us has a choice as to which torch we carry for our family. Considering how broad the definition has become for “family,” we should marvel at how many torches one person can juggle at any given time. The reasons and purposes of torches have broadened as well.

At the end of the day, the person needs to ask herself, “Which torch did I choose today?” and “Should I choose to bear that flaming burden tomorrow?”

Grannies Are Good

3:00 am on a Saturday morning—Granny in her night-clothes,  repeats a welcoming ritual for our family. We’ve just arrived from Indiana to spend the weekend or a holiday.  She and Grandpa knew we were coming.

Granny had prepared for our arrival with her usual comfort feast. She knew we’d be famished by the time we stepped through her door. To stave off those awkward growling sounds that would surely keep everyone awake for the rest of the night, she loaded the groaning board with a southern breakfast. It doesn’t seem to matter to her or Grandpa that by the time we finish eating, and unwind enough to go to sleep, they will be preparing for their farm day.

My brother and I sit at that big farm kitchen table, eyeing the platters, bowls, plates, and jars that she arranges down the center of the space. Medium platter supports three different types of fried eggs: hard, soft, and scrambled.

Her infamous small square biscuit pan sits on a handmade potholder near the homemade jams, jellies, and syrup for the golden brown pancakes hoarding their own personal bowl. Sausage patties, country ham, and leftovers from last night’s fried chicken hold court on a large platter on Dad’s end of the table.

Fresh coffee perfumes the room, aided by fresh milk, and  rounds out the “impromptu” meal, along with real farm cream to use on cold cereal.

Yep, we’re down home. An hour later, family talk has dwindled enough to expose sleepy eyes and yawns. Bedtime has come at last.

If we’d come during the winter, those upstairs beds would act as ice-cube trays waiting to be filled. The upstairs of that house had no heat of its own. Heck, the down stairs only had Warm-Morning stoves that could take wood or coal. Finances determined which fuel was used.

Mom and I would take one bed and Dad, with brother, would get the other one. There were so many of Granny’s homemade quilts on the beds that Mom would have to hold up the covers so that I could position myself. Once I was comfortable, she’d lower the bedclothes.

I had to be very certain of comfort in that position, because once those quilts lowered, I wasn’t strong enough to shift my position under them. They were heavy and cold upon first entry to the bed. As a rule, I would try to put my back to my mom’s. Her body heat would keep me from becoming an ice-cube until my own body heat took care of warming my space. Sleep was the only refuge until real heat came along.

In the summer, only those floor to ceiling windows gave relief from the sweltering upstairs heat. No quilts were required for that season. The fear then was melting into the feather beds.

Dawn and downstairs activity led to anxious dreams and disrupted, food-induced sleep. Grandpa had milking to do. Granny had to get lunch on the stove so that she could take a bit of socializing time once all the kin arrived for that meal. These things didn’t take care of themselves.

Throughout our visit, for however long it lasted, that lady of the South, cared for the feeding and comfort of her quests. She prided herself in always having enough for anyone who happened to drop by on any given day. No one left he home without taking a meal with them.

A weekend lunch would supply victuals for a minimum of sixteen to twenty people, depending on family schedules and time of year. If it was Thanksgiving or Christmas, the number expanded to an average of sixty people. On those occasions I would meet relatives that I never saw any other time in my life.

Granny’s house bulged with people during many of our visits. In summer we’d spill out onto the lawns, front lawn for children’s play, and backyard for making ice cream to go with the many cakes and pies awaiting their début from Granny’s kitchen.

My three aunts would pitch in with their own contributions to the celebration. Fourth of July was always a winner around there. We could count on each of three or four ice cream freezers having a separate flavor. Fruit in season took on a special meaning in that household, although banana was always made for Dad.

As I aged and Granny slowed down, other things impressed themselves on my memories of her. Her house had an entirely different fragrance than my other grandmother’s. The sounds that it made in the night didn’t have the same meanings as those of our house. It didn’t matter where she was living. She placed her stamp on it, simply by being there.

Her laughter graced many places. Her opinions were never hidden from public view. And her love showed in each small service or consideration she provided those for whom she cared.

These are some of the things that fluttered through my mind as I held her in my arms in her last minutes in this world. I was allowed that privilege, the meaning of which I will take with me always.

Waiting by the Box

I got a pingback on yesterday’s post and it got me to thinking about another item between family members and friends.

Dreams flow well in letters, don’t they? I think we’ve lost part of that connection, especially because of the internet. No anticipation flutters our heartbeat when we think of getting an email. That sensation came when we waited for real mail, on paper, with ink covering the page like so much ivy growing out toward us, carrying dreams, images, and speculations. Secrets huddled within the lines of word leaves, providing us with tiny thrills and mysteries.

These were the reasons we wrote to cousins, best friends on vacation, or pen pals. Most of that is gone now with the arrival of internet. That loss is what I regret, for now, instead of picking up fountain pen and paper, I reach for a keyboard, and the thought and care that would had gone into writing to a love one has dissipated into a mist of remembered pleasure.

Can you imagine how much of our world’s history, knowledge, and philosophy would not exist if it weren’t for written letters?

Much of the ancient world would be a mystery to use without those letters between philosophers and historians. The treatise is a simple extension of the letter. Those documents formed the very foundation of what we know as literature, scientific notation, constitutions, etc.

Family members wrote to one another, knowing that they might never get a response from the one who’d moved so far away, or the one who’d stayed in the old neighborhood/country. Hope clung to fragile ink-covered pages, written with love, despair, anticipation, disgust, and all the rest of human emotion. Did those pioneers recognize the tradition they followed from a thousand years before?

As we move further into a new world that disdains the tangible personal letter, we need to look back for a moment to imprint in our minds what we’re giving up. Physical remains of letters have survived for thousands of years. One badly timed lightning strike can wipe out years of work or correspondence.

Mother Nature doesn’t care about electrons that floated around or are stored in the ether around us. A scrambled atmosphere can do as much damage in the long run as a flood. All communication is vulnerable to disaster, computer driven no less than the Pony Express.

At the end of the day, though, we choose to use our time to communicate with dreams, aspirations, and secrets from one person to another, or merely to open a channel and punch keys.

The individual decides. Quick and dirty or thoughtful and fulsome? When is the last time letters arrived in your mailbox?

Shadowed Memories of Bygone Days

 

“Don’t touch that bed” must have rang out many times on that drizzly cold day back when I was so small. Mom always contended that my great-grandmother’s bed was a prized and sacrosanct object to be avoided at all costs.

I have only one memory of that great lady of the South. Mother and I were visiting. Baby brother was still “in arms,” as they said back then. I don’t recall who else was there, other than it was a woman; probably Dad’s mother or one of his sisters. The vague memory I have of our matriarch ebbs away further with each passing year.

Her meticulous home with its furnishings reflected who she was as a person. Her bedroom and the backyard are the clearest images I have of that day.

A tall sea of white bed linens fosters an itch in my palms. The sheets and coverlet look so crisp, so pure. I know that under those bedclothes are feather beds half as thick as I am tall. I can imagine well how soft these must be for sleeping because I sleep on my own, thinner, feather-bed at home. I keep my hands clasped behind my back.

Mom told me to touch nothing, and she’d positioned her Shaker chair to watch me through the bedroom door from the living room.

Narrow, multi-paned windows reach from my waist to near the ceiling, swathed in sheer white nylon curtains with their ruffles and frills; very girly. Stark walls resist the need for ornamentation that clutter rather than emphasizes. Shaker chairs in here, too, sit as if waiting for someone to occupy them while putting on socks and shoes.

In one corner a small round table exhibits a Victrola, its horn pointed toward the front window. At near eye-level for me, I can see the arm resting, waiting for the record to spin and for someone to flip the head and place it on the grooves. The crank hangs, unmoving, tempting.

I reach out to feel its smoothness and hear “Don’t touch!”

Questing hand retreats in a snap of muscle and chagrin. Too dangerous. Everything is too dangerous in this room filled with white.

Outside in the narrow backyard, new spring green is taking hold of everything in view. The back fence keeps chickens and other stock from roaming around the house. A fine mist envelopes me as I explore the cistern area, looking for early blossoms. The trees have begun to bud but remain barren to the eye.

Mom will be upset with me. Sunday shoes, wet grass, Great-grandmother’s clean floors. Not good, not good.

No lecture!

I’m the only one left who can attest to this short episode in my life. Perhaps that’s why I try to hang onto it as hard as I do. Great-grandmother died not too long after that day. My Dad’s mother and my own are both gone as well. Only I remember the day of drizzle, white linens, and a silent Victrola.

Illusory Happiness

 

It’s been said that, “When you look at your life, the greatest happiness [es] are family happiness [es].” One of the questions, for me, is whether that statement is true or not.

I’ve had many happy moments in my life with and without family members in attendance. I tend to focus on how one quantifies happiness.

Does extreme happiness always have to be accompanied by tears, for instance? Or, is such a deep emotion as true happiness so overpowering that expression of any kind is beyond the ability of the one experiencing it?

What about a lack of happiness? I’ve seen occasions when great sorrow, not happiness, was what took over when family arrived. Where does a person draw the line of family involvement in one’s personal happiness?

Here’s another example of relevant questions. How many degrees of happiness does a person feel and does everyone feel the same degrees of that emotion and label them the same way? I don’t think anyone has a definitive answer to either of these questions simply because each person’s emotional thermometer registers feelings differently based on personal experience.

When you realize how genuinely moved a person is to meet you, does that evoke great happiness, sweet satisfaction, or deep humility coupled with gratitude. If humility, does that constitute a portion of happiness? If you feel satisfaction only, does that mean that conceit has crept into your thermometer?

You see how complicated emotional definitions and signals are? What if you feel nothing at all except seeming boredom when someone exhibits excitement at shaking your hand and talking with you face-to-face? After all, this could be a cousin that you’ve never met before.

Does your lack of emotion mean that you really don’t want to know any more family, that you’re too important to worry about those on the fringe of the family, or that you’re just a jerk?

Or, could it mean, as it does with me, that caution and trust issues rule your actions and responses during first meetings?

Circumstances dictate our responses to events in our lives. The exact experience also contributes to those responses, as well as the circumstances immediately preceding an event.

For instance, many years ago, when I was teaching in an elementary school, I’d gone outside during recess. I needed some quiet time without children’s voices in my ears or designs on my next thought. I spent my ten minutes breathing in the scent of blooming forsythia and tulips in nearby private yards, listening to birds announcing their romantic intentions, and generally decompressing. The afternoon sun warmed my face and hands, clean air wafted past my nose, and a sense of rightness filled me.

On my way back to the classroom, a curious sensation flooded my body. I stopped walking. I closed my eyes and felt my whole body fill with blinding light from the inside. I could see it, behind my eyelids, flooding through me. Such a wave of pure joy washed over me that there were no words, no other sensations, no sound. All else in the world fell away, leaving me held within this personal lightshow.

It ended, and I nearly cried. I felt in that instant the most amazing happiness. I’ve yearned for another taste of it ever since. I wait for the day I can feel that sensation, that joy, again. Where it came from, or why it came, I have no idea. I don’t care.

I only know that that one blazing event taught me more about joy than a lifetime of other experiences. Nothing can compare to it. I wish everyone could have their own instant of pure joy that they can aspire to feel it again.