Tag Archives: family

Make Us Thankful

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A Thanksgiving memory: Little Gay, Me, Joe, Beth, Jake...and that's Grant in the front. Mr. Enthusiasm!

Thanksgiving many years ago: Little Gay, Me, Joe, Beth, Jake…and that’s Grant in the front. Mr. Enthusiasm!

My dad had a theory that you could measure how Baptist a person was by counting the number of times they said “Just” while asking the blessing before a big meal. Like this would score pretty high on the Baptist-o-meter:

(with every head bowed and every eye closed)

Lord, we just ask that you just look down on us Lord and just bless this food that is just such a blessing. Just help us remember, Lord, just how very blessed we are to just have what we need. We just praise you Lord….(continue for 12 minutes)

Now, now…to all my Baptist leaning friends, please don’t get your noses out of joint. In our family, we make fun of all peoples, of all faiths, in equal measure. We even did it a little when Grandmama Eunice was alive. But not when she was in earshot.

Speaking of Grandmama Eunice, I think she was the source of the standard blessing that Daddy used: “Lord make us thankful for these and all our many blessings. Bless this food to our bodies and us to your service, Amen.” No matter how much extemporizing the blesser did, they always brought the blessing to a close with these lines.

Over the years, asking the blessing got to be more and more special to Daddy. We all gather up in the kitchen or around the dining room table. Sometimes we hold hands and sometimes we just try to keep the kids in line. (See that just sneaking in there? Raised Baptist!) Daddy would say a few words about how lucky we were to be comfortable in life and the duty we owed to those who weren’t as lucky. His blessings always celebrated our family and the deep love we shared for each other. If it had been an especially tough year for one of us, he would say thanks that it was over and we were all still together. There was the blessing that remembered Richard when he was in the hospital. The blessing that welcomed Brett back home after she got her life straight. Last year, he said a blessing of thanks that he had made it through a bad health scare.

About fifty percent of the time, he’d get choked up. And that led to one of the most enduring stories in our family lore and it’s the thing I’m thinking about as we head towards this first Thanksgiving without Daddy saying the blessing before dinner.

Mr. Enthusiasm strikes again! Grant and Jackson at Callaway Gardens.

Mr. Enthusiasm strikes again! Grant and Jackson at Callaway Gardens.

For a few good years, when the nephews were small, we set aside one autumn weekend to take the whole fam-damn-ily to Callaway Gardens. Piled in together in one big villa, we’d cook and tell stories and laugh and jump in the leaves and let the kids stay up late.

The villa had a long dining table, big enough to hold all of us. Before we sat down to feast on tenderloin from the grill, Daddy asked the blessing. Halfway through, he started to get emotional and took a second to compose himself. All of the adults stayed quiet, but tiny little Grant, who was about three, piped up in a very loud whisper, “Papa’s cryin’ like a BABY!” 

Daddy loved that story. We had a reason to tell it again quite often, pretty much every time we got together.

I don’t know who will ask the blessing this year. Probably Joe, or Brett, maybe even Grant, who is tall and gracious and clever (still). I know we’ll all cry like babies. That’s just the way it’s going to be.

But in the midst of sorrow, may we be thankful for these and all our many blessings. Grief is the price of love.

This picture has nothing to do with the story, but it's my favorite picture of Grant.

This picture has nothing to do with the story, but it’s my favorite picture of Grant.

 

 

Farewell to Our Loving Family

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Victoria brought the Loving Family dollhouse into our family then passed it along to Vivi. One Christmas, Santa brought rooms of new furniture and a dappled gray horse for the family that lived there. The next year, he brought a silver minivan, a baby brother, a Nana and a Cousin Jake. By the next Christmas, Cousin Jake had been renamed to Carlos.

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It’s windy where Nana is standing.

I moved Grandmama Eunice’s drop-leaf table out from under the living room window to make room for the Loving Family as they grew. The house lived right there, in plain view of the dining room table, and many nights Vivi would play there while G and I finished dinner or tended to Carlos.

I never had a dollhouse like that. Every few days, grown up Ashley indulged Little Ashley by spending a few minutes tidying it up. I fetched all the scattered pieces from the floor then arranged the dining room chairs and the tiny dessert buffet next to the grandfather clock. The little girl’s room had a pink canopy bed like I had always wanted. I put the pillow on her bed and pushed the blue tufted stool under the vanity table. I placed the bassinet and the changing table in the nursery then put the teensy baby monitor on the side table in the living room, right next to the Walkman with headphones. The kitchen counter folded out–the perfect spot to set the grocery bag. In the barn next to the house, I set up the white rail fence and hitched the horse to it. Playing with the dollhouse brought me peace. Where else could I set everything to rights in a couple of minutes?

As Carlos grew, he played with it too. Mostly he would toddle over to it and wipe all the furniture to the floor while we yelled, “Godzilla! Godzilla!”

Two years ago, I moved it to the basement play room and no one seemed to notice. We’ve been walking around it for a while so I decided this weekend to make the big leap and big farewell. Actually, it was a pretty quick decision because G had the girls out for the afternoon and my friend Susan had just told me about how easy it is to clean the house of old toys with a few black garbage bags and a couple of hours to oneself.

The years have taken their toll on our Loving Family. I hung the pink doors back on their hinges and reattached the barn to the house. Wiped the crayon swirls off the floor with a Magic Eraser. I even tried to comb Nana’s hair. All the furniture went into a gallon Ziploc bag. I checked to make sure the baby had a stroller and a bottle and a bassinet. I wiped down the dining room chairs and found the tiny pieces of cherry pie on yellow placemats.

I needed to move quickly, to get the deed done before I had time for my nostalgia to catch up. It’s hard to say farewell to the Loving Family. I struggled with saying goodbye to the tiny spaces that had brought all of us some kind of joy over the years.

When I pulled it out of the back of the car at the Project Safe thrift store, the volunteer clapped her hands and squeaked with delight.

I set the dollhouse into the rolling canvas bin that she had brought to the car to receive my things. “I taped all the pieces here…and here. And all the furniture is there. I think the van is in the other bag…”

She patted me on the arm and “This will be someone’s Christmas.”

Yes.

Some little person will wake up to a Loving Family of their own next month. And Project Safe will have made a few dollars to put towards supporting survivors of domestic abuse.

But I think the gift has already been given–to me. When I think about someone else setting out dinner for Nana and Cousin Jake, or taking the horse for a gallop around the yard, my heart feels tidy, with everything in its place.

Our Loving Family is moving on.

Our Loving Family is moving on.

Doors and Windows and Corners

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You know that old saying, “When one door closes, a window opens?” I feel like that tonight, here at the end of the Dia de los Muertos when the door to the other world is shut and our beloved spirits draw their visit to a close. Well, the door may have closed, but a window opened for me tonight.

Right around dinner time, just as the noodle water was starting to boil, my phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number or the strange area code. I could have ignored it but I was kind of in the mood to snap at a telemarketer.

“Is this Ashley?”

“Yes, this is she.” In my most imperious tone, reserved for strangers who call at 7 p.m.

“Well, it’s your old Uncle Kenneth here. How are you doing, honey?” My dad’s middle brother. Joe and Eunice Garrett’s boys: Charles, Kenneth, and Sammy. I haven’t seen Uncle Kenneth in at least 10 years and I don’t think I’ve ever talked to him on the phone. He and Aunt Margaret have lived in southern Florida my whole life, so visits were once a year usually, mostly back when Grandmama Eunice was alive. Every summer, Charles and Kenneth drove their long American sedans up the interstate to Gay. And as soon as they pulled up in Grandmama’s front yard, they’d jump out of their cars and start talking about what kind of time they’d made on the drive.

Kenneth was calling to say we had been on his mind. We talked about his health, and the weather in Miami, and the ages of my children. He corrected me for thinking he was thirteen years older than Daddy–that was Charles, who died back in the 1980s. He told me his birthday, and Daddy’s birthday, then did the math.

And my window opened.

“What was your daddy’s birthday?” I asked. I never met my Grandaddy Joe. He was killed in a car accident a few days before Little Gay was born, almost four years before I came along.

“January 30. He used to tell everyone that he and FDR–Franklin Delano Roosevelt, he was the president then–Daddy told everybody that all the smartest people were born on January 30.”

I get my story-telling from these people. My dad’s death has left a blank yawning abyss between me and all the stories that he never got to tell me about his side of the family. That tiny fact–that my grandfather’s birthday was January 30–completed a story that I’ve been carrying around for almost forty years.

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One cold winter morning when I was about nine or ten, I was already dressed for school and waiting on the living room couch. Once Gay and Joe were ready, Daddy would drive us up the dirt road to the bus stop and we would wait in the warmth of the truck cab instead of out by the highway. Daddy was sitting in his orange chair, putting his boots on. He had paused to stare out the window over my head, into the hard white winter light.

“Today was my Daddy’s birthday. He would have been…” I can’t remember the age Daddy said because at that point in the sentence, he choked up and started to cry. It was the first time I ever remember seeing my dad cry. And now I know it was on January 30.

Uncle Kenneth told me stories about Daddy’s first haircut when he lost his princely curls. He told me about when he and Charles were filling out a Social Security form for J.P., the hired man who stayed with our family for 50 years. J.P. didn’t know what his initials stood for, so Uncle Charles declared him “James Pierpont Strozier.” And J.P. chose his own birthday–the second Sunday in August, because that was when his church had Homecoming. He told me about when their father died and my father wanted to drop out of vet school but his brothers wouldn’t let him. When we were talking about who was a blond and who was a brunette, Uncle Kenneth mentioned his own son, who has passed. We got quiet.

Then he took an old man’s deep breath and said, “Well, Mama always said ‘God won’t let you see around corners.’ And Daddy said, ‘Play the hand you’re dealt.'”

I’m so glad I answered the phone tonight. I saved that strange Florida number under “Uncle Kenneth” in my phone. The door may be closed for the next year, and we can’t see around corners, but he opened a window for me.

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Life and Death Decisions in Jackson Georgia

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That visit I had with my dad on Sunday? That was a good trip to Jackson. When I got there, his room was crowded with three visitors–a family who had been bringing their cats to him for 15 years. We told some cat stories. Daddy told about the little kitten who chewed a hole in the sofa cushion so she could sit under the sofa in peace and stick her head out if anything interesting happened. I told the one about when we were picking on Little Gay about being a bad driver and she got so mad that she stomped outside…and ran over the cat’s tail. He told about Rufus, the last kitty he talked me into and how a few days after I brought him home he ended up covered in ringworm and Vivi lost a hank of hair right before picture day. Annie, Baby, Slick, Nashville, Puff, Mama Kitty, Mouse, Janie, Mr. Kitty, Mr. A Hole, Rufus and Jinx. So many cats.

When his visitors left, I noticed that the mom walked with a limp and hadn’t said anything. I asked him, “Was that the lady who wrote the letter?” He nodded. One of his favorite clients. She has cerebral palsy and a lot of people only see her differences. She wrote him a letter once to thank him for always being kind to her and treating her with respect, even if she can’t speak. He cherishes that letter.

I told him the good news about Carlos, and what books Vivi’s reading this week. He asked me about my writing. We talked and talked. He scooted his wheelchair over to the drawer and pulled out a pack of gum. Offered me a piece and I declined. He chewed four pieces then complained about the bitterness of the peppermint. He asked me what I thought of the cheap paintings on the wall opposite his bed. We agreed–every time I visited–that they looked like wet cardboard and had probably been purchased at a gas station.

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That was Sunday.

Now he’s in hospice.

He crashed on Monday and had to go to the hospital. By midnight, he was in hospice care. I drove down on Tuesday in the rain.

My brother had been there overnight. He and Big Gay and I were coordinating what needed to happen. One of the jobs was to retrieve Daddy’s things from the rehab place in Jackson. I volunteered since it was right on my way.

On that long drive, I was listening to NPR and the news turned to the story of Kelly Gissendaner, the only Georgia woman on death row. She was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at 7 p.m. That night. In Jackson, Georgia.

I listened to person after person talk about how their own lives had been changed for having met Kelly in prison. How she told them they had value and they could redeem themselves. That very day, her own children had to make the choice between seeing their mother one last time and going before the appeals board to beg for clemency. They begged for her life.

The text from Joe said, “Get the cards and the poster and bring them here. Don’t forget the vase.”

I took a few grocery bags out of the back of my car and walked through the rain to the entrance. Definitely not the baby anymore. Not today. As I made my way down the long hallway, I tried not to make eye contact with the nurse who had been so kind to him on Sunday. I just couldn’t do it.

The top of every surface was covered in cards. Every one of them had a cat or a dog on it. I couldn’t look at the names and addresses. Just made a neat stack and put them in a bag along with the poster from the people at the clinic he built. I took the tired oranges and apples out of a hand-turned bowl he made on his lathe. I tucked the slender glass vase with the giant red rose that Big Gay had cut for him in between the cards. As I bumped the petals, they released a sweet fragrance. She grows antique roses that still smell like roses instead of those new varieties that smell like refrigerators.

Rose in the Rain. Courtesy Pixabay.

Rose in the Rain. Courtesy Pixabay.

I left most of the toiletries, but I took the half bottle of Canoe and the black plastic comb. When we were kids, Daddy relaxed every night by sitting in his chair with a book and combing his hair mindlessly. I still remember how we laughed the time he combed it all straight up and looked like an onion.

I got the suitcase out of the closet and filled it with books. Spy thrillers, history sagas, right wing politics…and Geraldine Brooks’ “People of the Book.” I liked that one, too.

I opened the drawer and put the half-open pack of gum in my purse.

Just like Big Gay had told me to, I left a note on top of the dresser that said, “Please share his clothes with anyone who needs them. Thank you–The Garretts”

He’s always been the kind of man that would give you the shirt off his back.

Two visits ago, he told me that he was anxious about dying. He worried “that he hadn’t been a good enough Christian.” I was so horrified at the thought that I couldn’t respond. I’ve told him many times what I think–It’s this life that’s heaven or hell, and we make it so for each other.

Clemency. Forgiveness for what we have done. Mercy. The gift of life when we have been handed a death sentence. Standing in the rain and holding out hope, even when you know it’s running out. We all hope for mercy, right there in Jackson, Georgia.

Let Me Be the Baby For a Little While Longer

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I told a little lie to my baby Sunday morning as I got ready to leave for the day.

“Where you goin’ Mama?” I didn’t want to tell him that I was going to see Papa and Nana. To him, “Nana and Papa’s house” means cousins in the swimming pool, four doggies, popsicles, searching for eggs in the chicken coop, and that drawer full of Jackson’s old Transformers and race cars. But this summer hasn’t been like that.

“I’m going to get gas…” then under my breath I mumbled, “first.” I’m going to get gas first then I’m going to see Papa in the Rehab hospital.

After a long drive and a little bit of crying after listening to Dan Savage tell a story on “This American Life” about when his mom died, I got there. But I sat in the parking lot and checked my phone. I finished my glass of tea. I cleaned a couple of receipts out of my purse. I checked my phone again. Played a game of Scrabble. The parking lot was busier than I’d seen before. Lots of people still in church clothes headed for the entrance doors. I sat there as the minutes ticked by.

I’m 46 years old, but I wanted to be the baby for a little while longer. I just couldn’t summon enough adult to walk through the doors and see how my dad is doing. I don’t want to deal with this.

Image courtesy Pixabay

Image courtesy Pixabay

Last time I visited, my sister was in town, so I got to walk beside her like I’ve done for so much of my life. I feel safer when I’m with her–she takes care of things. She’s got no qualms about the smell of Purell or the inelegant details of illness. She’s used to being in charge and I am used to letting her be in charge. But she’s in Bolivia on a surgical mission. And I’m sitting in the parking lot acting like a baby.

Twenty one years ago, my Grandmama Eunice was in this same building. We called it “the nursing home” then. I had gone over to visit Daddy and Big Gay one Sunday in February and Daddy said, “Come on and ride over with me. Mama would love to see you.” So we went, and I walked through the entrance doors next to him and let him handle things. I remember that day so vividly, because it was the last time I saw her. She lay in bed wearing that surprised look she had in her last few months. I knew she had given up on living that day because it was the first time in my life I ever saw her without lipstick and with some gray roots showing in her hair. I remember picking up a photo of one of my Florida cousins that was propped in her window sill. “What’s Jeff’s baby’s name?” I asked her. She couldn’t recall.

Just as Daddy and I were getting ready to leave that day, Grandmama Eunice reached out her thin hand and held on to Daddy’s arm. “I haven’t had a letter from your father and I’m starting to worry.” Daddy’s face got that surprised look on it that we all seemed to be wearing as we figured out this part of life.

“Mama, Daddy died back in 1965. Remember, he was in a car wreck with Mr….” Her hand fluttered up to the side of her face before he finished and she shook her head like she was being silly. She even smiled a little with embarrassment.

I kissed her on the cheek. We said our goodbyes. As we were walking down the hall, I told Daddy, “I didn’t know she was losing her memory.” He said, “Yeah, it comes and goes more lately. A couple of days ago, she told me that when she gets out of here, we need to find a house closer to town because Evelyn can’t be walking that far to school.” Grandmama Eunice was the oldest, and Evelyn was her baby sister. Even though Evelyn was in her 80s at the time, something fluid in Grandmama’s mind had her talking to her grown-up baby boy about her baby sister.

On the drive back to the house that day, Daddy and I were riding along in silence down a long straight stretch of piney highway. It was the middle of the afternoon on a sunny cold day. Before I even noticed anything moving, Daddy pointed at the windshield and barked, “DEER!” A good-sized doe bounded out of the pine woods and slammed into the truck in front of us.

She limped across the highway and collapsed into the ditch on the other side of the road, still trying to run. The black truck pulled over and we pulled over in front of him. Daddy reached under the seat for his pistol. I sat there stunned at how quickly this man who had spent most of his life tending to animals knew that there was no fixing this. He stepped out of the truck and called to the driver who had hit the deer. “You need any help?” He held up the gun so the man could see it.

“Naw, I got it. Thank you.” The man lifted a deer rifle from the rack in the back of his pickup as a teenage boy climbed out the passenger side. This was rural Georgia after all. Most of the venison we ate when I was a kid was killed with my dad’s truck on the back roads he traveled to make veterinary calls. He once got two in one season without ever firing a bullet.

Daddy got back in his truck and we went on our way. “It’s not normal for deer to be running this time of day. Something must have been chasing her.” I couldn’t think of a thing to say.

That story was going through my mind today as I sat in the parking lot. I needed to summon up the courage to be an adult, to know what needs doing and do it. But I sat there wishing I could be that baby for a little while longer. My daddy’s baby. He was Grandmama Eunice’s baby, I’m his baby, Carlos is my baby.

I went inside and we had a great visit. Told stories and made jokes. When his nurse came in for vitals, he introduced me and said, “She’s gonna be an author. I’m really proud of her.”

It was a long day, but a good one. When I got home after dark, G had the Littles in the tub with suds piled up on their heads.

As I put on my pajamas, Carlos, wrapped in a red striped towel, climbed up on the big bed. “Let’s have a pillow fight, Mama.” So we did. “Tickle me firty times, Mama.” And I did. “What’s dis spell, Mama?” He pointed to the cover of Jenny Lawson’s new book. “H-A-P-P-Y…that spells Happy.”

In that moment my little baby, I accepted that this is the way it has to work. Babies have to grow up but they always stay the baby. She loved him, he loves me, I love mine. And that will never change.

Dharwadia India

Image courtesy Pixabay

Miss Doffy’s Pool Party

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Miss Doffy beaming on the day she got her homestead loaded on a truck and moved it closer to her. She was that kind of lady.

Miss Doffy beaming on the day she got her homestead loaded on a truck and moved closer to her. She was that kind of lady.

A great lady died unexpectedly this week–Mrs. Dorothy Biggers Argroves of Greenville, Georgia (one of my hometowns). Everybody called her Dot, except the little ones–they called her Miss Doffy.

She and Mr. Harry were married for 65 years and still seemed to be right smitten with each other. They had three girls–Angela the oldest, then Andrea (who everyone in town called “Baby Sister”), then Harriet, who was in my sister’s class at school. Even when Harriet came along, Baby Sister stayed Baby Sister because that’s the way nicknames work.

You can’t miss the Argroves Girls, Miss Dot included, because every one of them is tall and elegant and charming. Like the Amazons formed a chapter in Meriwether County.

Miss Dot was a fixture of my childhood at basketball games, school events, and pool parties. I’m pretty sure I remember my Daddy working on their cows but I can’t recall for sure. I remember many hours spent sweating in our car in their driveway while she and Mama talked and talked and talked. I can feel the sizzling plastic seats of the car sticking to the back of my legs now.

I’ve only seen her a few times in my adult life but I swear I could pick her out of a crowd of 10,000 people, blindfolded. Miss Dot’s voice is one I can summon up in my head whenever I think of her. She had a Southern accent–not country, but from the farmland. I don’t mean to make her sound brash, but her voice carried. You could tell she was used to making herself heard across a pasture.  But the best thing to me about Miss Doffy’s voice was how it always sounded like she was on the verge of laughing. She was FUNNY and FUN.

The last time I saw her was a few Christmases back. We were all at Grandmama Irene’s house the Saturday before Christmas for an early celebration. I was two rooms away, making sure Vivi didn’t break anything, when I heard that voice come twinkling through the front door. Miss Dot had been driving by, saw all the cars in the yard, and stopped to see who was there. That’s the way small towns work, you know. It was such fun to see her that day and introduce her to my kids.

swim-240928_1280Here’s a story that made her laugh that day. I told her that I think of her every time we have a pool party. The Argroves had a swimming pool and were kind enough to invite us over one hot afternoon. We were all in the water, splashing and shouting when Miss Dot walked up to the edge and hollered, “Don’t any of you kids pee in this pool! I put a special chemical in there that will turn bright blue if you pee in the water.” I spent YEARS watching to see who was going to pee a blue streak. And now I use that line myself when kids come over to swim! Miss Dot laughed and laughed then she leaned in close and said, “I bet you never peed in that pool, did you?” I sure didn’t.

There’s just never going to be another one like her, that lady. Her passing has had me thinking about the way we can live forever in stories when this life is over. Sweet rest, Miss Doffy. You’ll never be forgotten.

P.S. – I Googled Miss Dot’s name to see if I could find any more pictures of her and stumbled on a link to a horse racing site. Apparently, a mare by the name of “Dot Argroves” won a good bit of money on the track back in 1974. It’s too late right now to call either one of my parents and ask them about this, so I’m going to believe it’s a horse named after her. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised.

P.P.S – Yep, Angela has confirmed that there WAS a Thoroughbred race horse named after her Mama! Here’s the pedigree. I love that the horse Dot Argroves had “Schiaparelli,” “Flirting,” and “Prince Chevalier” in her family. Delightful.

“There Is No Charm Equal to Tenderness of Heart”

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no charm equal

 

About a year ago, I decided that I would like a charm bracelet. I love clunky bracelets and sparkly things in general, plus I love the idea of collecting objects over time that tell a story about what’s important to me.

G enjoys knowing what to get me….Victoria’s getting into it too…and Aunt Fancy works in a jewelry store…so this was a big Christmas for charms. My bracelet is full and my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and Pandora circulars will follow me all the days of my life.

At the Cool Kids Christmas, Libby surprised me with an owl, for wisdom. On Christmas Eve, Big Gay gave me a red and green Murano glass bead, for the 32 Big Gay Christmases that we’ve spent together. Brett (that’s Aunt Fancy to the kids) added a crystal Christmas tree with NOEL on the back. She had already given me two purple jewels at Thanksgiving. This morning, G added the “Galaxy” charm that he heard me telling Vivi about a few months ago. He also picked out a red Murano glass bead but he couldn’t remember why. I looked it up in the catalog and its name is “Red Effervessence.” When I read out the name, he beamed and said, “That’s IT! The bubbles reminded me of champagne and I remembered that you didn’t have a red one for Wesleyan colors.” I gawped at him and he smirked, “See? I listen.”

After all the craziness had subsided this morning, I got out my bracelet and sat down with Victoria to figure out how to work in the new additions. She does hers chronologically. I like to alternate color and silver, but the charm that goes in the middle has to be specially selected to remind me of what’s central in my life. We laid them all out on a plate that G had painted with the kids.

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“I’ve been wearing the love heart in the middle since my birthday.” It’s a little heart-shaped box that opens up to reveal a sparkly little diamond. I slid that charm to the center of the plate as Victoria nodded. “But what shoud go around it?”

“Oh! I know!” She took her finger and tapped out a message on the charms. “Put the love one in the middle….then the family one here…..and the galaxy on the other side….and it says, “Family Love is Everything.”

And that’s what we ended up doing.

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Later that afternoon, after we dined on cheeses and nitrates, honeyed nuts and stuffed olives, vinho verde and yule log, my mom got ready to leave. The kids said their thank yous and gave hugs and we all agreed that this laid back Christmas Day works great for us. Mom left.

Three minutes later, she walked back in the door with a jar of jelly that my aunt had sent but Mom had forgotten to bring in earlier. As soon as she stepped into the kitchen, Carlos looked up from the den and squealed, “Gwamma!!!” He came a’runnin’ and threw himself at her as if they hadn’t seen each other in months and she had finally returned.

We got such a laugh out of his pure delight, his effervessence. I said, “Dude, you just wrote my blog post for me, acting like that!” Victoria stopped sorting the clean forks into the silverware drawer and said, “Hey, you could talk about that thing with the bracelet, too.”

And that’s what I ended up doing. That kid has a knack for spelling things out.

Carlos Ate the Driveway

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934876_1004365842912945_5823730810623982525_nMy mom came over this weekend so G and I could get our shopping done. We snuck off on Sunday morning and left her with Vivi, Carlos…and A Project.

When we returned a few hours later, Vivi met me at the door with her arms crossed and a scowl on her face.

“Carlos ate the driveway.”

“What?”

“Carlos ATE the DRIVEWAY.”

10372134_1004136566269206_4083028438181455718_nGrandma’s gingerbread village kit had been a huge success–until it turned from art project to “pile of frosting and candy sitting within arm’s reach of a little boy.”

 

G and I never saw the little house looking like this. See the colorful little candies that line the path to the front door. Carlos ate the driveway, like she said.

Each red gumdrop–“volcanos” as he had called them–that dotted the top of the roof? Gone.

I assured Vivi that she had done the same thing with our first gingerbread house, five years ago. I protected that thing from her as best I could and it still ended up with a looooot of white space. Every night after lights out, I would hear little feet sneaking into the dark dining room and nibbling the shingles off the roof. 10846030_1004365269579669_3488541587998234951_n

Who WOULDN’T eat a pile of frosting and candy that was right there in front of you?

We’ve put the gingerbread village on the table, on the mantle, next to the Elf who’s supposed to be keeping an eye on things…no luck. Carlos doesn’t wait until lights out. He saunters through the den with a shed in hand, gnawing around the brittle snow on the roof to get to the one last green jawbreaker that’s wedged in there. And I don’t even bat an eye anymore. Even Vivi has given up complaining about it.

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Making gingerbread houses–or traditions or homes or families. It’s not so much about the end product as it is about the joyful work we do together.

Learning to hold the walls together with a little sweetness and patience, just like Grandma taught you.

Letting kids get messy, even if it means cleaning sugar frosting off the windowsill, the bunkbed, a couple of rugs and somebody’s bangs.

Accepting that what we create isn’t going to look like the picture on the box.

Being kind to the brother who eats your driveway. Because you used to chew the roof yourself.

 

In That Other Half of the World

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December 24 1968. Image courtesy of NASA.

Today is the fall equinox–the day when dark and light are almost equal. The day when our spot in the rotation around the Earth, given the tilt of our axis, points towards things growing darker and colder. But just for a time.

In that other half of the world, it’s the spring equinox–the day when dark and light are almost equal. The day when the spot in the great ellipsis around the sun, and the tilt of that same axis, point towards the days growing warmer and longer. But just for a time.

Same planet + same moment in time = totally different experience.

Vivi asked me last night if it was morning in Japan.  “Pretty much,” I answered. Our sun only rises over the pine trees in the backyard because it has set for that other half of the world.

G grew up in that other half of the world. I asked him once what everyone did on Christmas Day and he said, “Go to church, eat, then go to the beach.” Late December is high summer in that other half of the world.

When I was in Brasil a few years ago, I couldn’t get enough of looking at the stars at night. To think–these were entire constellations I had never seen! In all those travels to Europe and across North America, this was my first time looking at the night sky of that other half of the world.

Something so concrete that we measure our years by it, like the seasons, is completely opposite for the other half of the world. Something so eternal that we use them to navigate, like the stars, can be absolutely, 100% different for the other half of the world.

It’s so hard to remember that it isn’t fall everywhere. Or it isn’t morning everywhere.

That’s one reason I think we all need to travel if given the chance–to see the other half of the world and remember that their world is just as real and right and ordinary to them as ours is to us.

My Wesleyan sister, Bryndis, and I were talking via Facebook a few weeks ago. Her family used to live in the same small town of Gay Georgia, where I grew up before they moved one town over. She asked, “As my Mom would say, who are your folks?” I said, “We got Crouches, Todds, Mathews, Garretts, O’Neals…I think that about covers it!” She told me hers until I recognized a name. She said her mama still worships at Mount Venus Baptist in Gay.

I brought up the subject of how strange it is we grew up on the same dirt, graduated from the same college, but had such different experiences. We both have strong families, good grades, lovely manners, and we know the same shortcuts over back roads. We have different colors of skin. There are exits on the interstate where she won’t stop, even in the daylight.

When I went back to Gay last month for a family funeral, my sister and I drove straight to the cemetery instead of following the funeral procession.  It’s easy to find–go through the one red light then turn left onto Cemetery Street. Drive through the dark tunnel of oak trees and up the hill. We parked the car in the back corner and walked over to our family plot inside a mossy brick wall with ornate metal gates. I recognized the names on the headstones that we passed–Baughns, O’Neals, Estes, McCrarys, Turners. Something struck me as odd. Here we were on Cemetery Street in the cemetery, but where were the Stroziers, the Renders, the Germanys? I had grown up thinking this was The Cemetery, but clearly there must be another one here in town. And I had no earthly idea where the black cemetery was in my own hometown.

It shouldn’t have surprised me. There is nothing more segregated than a cemetery. It was one of those “other half of the world moments,” just as jarring as realizing that spring is also fall and morning can be night.

When you never get out of your half of the world, it’s easy to forget that the other half lives on the same planet, on the same day, in a COMPLETELY different experience.

As different as night and day.

 

 

 

A Blender Family

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family-76781_640“Mommy?  Who’s my stepmother?”

“You don’t have a stepmother, sweetie.”

“But you’re Sissy’s stepmother.”

“Right.  I’m Sissy’s stepmother because Daddy was married to her mommy but now he’s married to me.”

“So Daddy is Sissy’s stepfather?”

“No.  Daddy is Sissy’s daddy just like he’s your daddy.  Bob is Sissy’s stepfather.  A step is someone who’s married to your parent after your parents decide not to be married anymore. You don’t have any steps because your parents are still married to each other.”

“Do you have steps?”

“Yes!  Nana is my stepmother because she’s married to my dad, Papa.  Papa and Grandma Janice had Aunt Gay, Uncle Joe, and me.  Then when Nana and Papa got married, Aunt Brett became our stepsister.”

“Is Sam my stepsister?”

“No, Sam is Sissy’s stepsister because her dad is married to Sissy’s mom.  But you know what?  We just say sister.  Sam is Sissy’s sister.  Sissy is your sister.  Aunt Brett is my sister.  We’re a blended family.”

“What’s a blender family?”

“It’s when people are married and have kids then they decide not to be married to each other anymore.  If they marry someone else, then you blend the family together and your family gets bigger.”

“Like mixing fruit in a smoothie?”

“YES!  Exactly like that.”

“So how many times has Daddy been married?  I know YOU married a LOT of people…”

blink….blink…blink…

Excuse me, little girl?