October 23, 2017 – This week will be an eternity for me.

        As many of you know already, my Mom died last Thursday night and I have been coordinating a funeral from North Carolina that will take place in my hometown in Massachusetts.   I am down to only a few details and they might just wait until I get to Massachusetts tomorrow afternoon.

        Going through all the slips of paper and poems that Mom has sent to me over the years marked “keep for my funeral” – I found another poem by Grace E. Easley.  I am not sure where Mom clipped this poem from either, but it is faded and yellowed with age and I know the reason she sent it to me was to make certain I was not one of the folks with the narrow view of life making everyone including themselves miserable as described in the poem.

        I do remember at the time I was having trouble finding a job and I was turning into a curmudgeon in my telephone calls and letters and that wasn’t “her girl” or “my girl” as she called me affectionately.

        When Dad died in 2010, it created a sadness that has never fully lifted.  Christmas is no longer the same – there is no longer the yearly “hunt” for the newest aftershave that smelled like apple pie or pine tree forests to replenish his stock.  It took me three years before I could even look in the aftershave aisle without tearing up. What hurdles will now show up with Mom’s death? I am bracing myself for them as I know there will be many.

        The last several days I haven’t slept well and now the sadness of my Mom’s death is weighing on me.  I curled up in my husband’s arms last night and said,

        “There is really no one else now but you who really, really loves me.  With Dad and Mom both dead now, there is only your unconditional love.”

        He, of course, didn’t have the right words at that moment and later suggested I get pain killers or mind altering drugs to get through the funeral without having a heart attack.  Not what I wanted to hear, but he did understand my angst and conveyed his concerns as best he could. He is just not a wordsmith on demand.  

The love of my Dad and my Mom ran incredibly deep.  I never doubted their unshakable love all my life and now the fog of sadness is settling over me again and I am trying to be brave and put it into perspective that it, too, will lift eventually.  But, it never really lifted since Dad died.  I feel it has dimmed my soul.  Joy does not come easily now, I have to force it.  That shouldn’t be the way.

And, now . . . with Mom dying, I feel like the flame of my soul is flickering and sputtering.  And, as part of my makeup I am always competing with the whole world somehow.  My parents gave me that competitive spirit.  I always did things to obtain their praise and pride. I ask myself:

Who will I try to impress now?

Who will be proud of me now?

        Maybe my Mom knew I would need the following poem to snap me out of this, so I will re-read it often to give me solace.  I now share it with you.

Rainbows

By Grace E. Ensley

Some folks I know have narrow views of life that close them in.

And they continually await misfortune to begin.

They never see the sunshine, but they always find the rain.

They’ve frowned so much they can’t recall how laughter sounds again.

Instead of seeing each new day a bright and shining thing,

They face the dawn and wonder what new sorrow it will bring.

They squeeze out every ounce of joy, within the hearts of those

Who seek to cheer their lonely lives, Why? Only heaven knows.

They put a price on everything, and say that “nothing’s free”,

And end up being miserable as anyone can be.

They haven’t learned the secret that life is more than just

Accumulating lots of things, that fall apart with rust.

For life is more than gathering what someday we must leave,

Each one of us needs principles in which we can believe.

It’s not so much the getting, if we don’t know how to share.

For only love can turn the rain . . . To rainbows, everywhere.

October 22, 2017 – The simplest of things still fascinate me.

        It was an ordinary cleaning day where I put my mind on auto-pilot and go through the motions of cleaning the bathroom.

        Scrubbing the floor my shoulder inadvertently nudged the half-empty toilet tissue roll and it started to unroll.   I didn’t stop it expecting it to stop in a revolution or two or three. I simply sat back on my heels and watched it as I was in a daydream you get when you are thinking other things far away from where you are.   At first the plush two-ply rolled slowly then it speed up and the entire half roll ended up looped back and forth on the clean floor much like an oversized pasta noodle folding out of a pasta machine.

        First, I was amazed at the slowness then the speed. Then, I was actually delighted by the symmetry of the back and forth looping of the unrolled tissue on the floor.

        Often we have seen in toilet tissue commercials or comics about cats unrolling toilet tissue –but I’ve owned cats and only once I caught my little T.C. kitten “thinking about” the toilet tissue dangling and I grabbed him and kept the bathroom door closed during his kitten years.  So, I had never experienced the cat play with toilet tissue ending results.

        From one aspect, I’ve missed something – the cuteness of it and from another aspect the science behind the acceleration of slow rolling to suddenly fast rolling.  I wonder what scientific name they have for that -   does it fall under the laws of gravity or the laws of momentum or something.   Me, I was a poor student in science class, got the basics of why you add salt to ice in order to make it colder for the ice cream churn and something about the extra ions or molecules during a rainy day was supposed to assist your brain when taking tests. [I think that is an old wife’s tale though.]

        But it gave me a small respite to put things into perspective – this too, the little incident of the toilet tissue spilling off the roll onto the floor in such a way was interesting, eventful and in its own way soothing.

        The continuous laws of nature never end and never cease to surprise and, yes, delight me when witnessed quietly and unexpectedly.

        I’ll never look at a roll of toilet tissue the same way.  Who would have known something so simple could force me to sit and think this deeply and give my soul such needed refreshment.                                                

October 19, 2017 – Barbara St. John, my mom, 1924 to 10/19/2017

          I’ve been absent from my Blog for some time attending to life’s ups and downs. The first two full weeks of October, I drove up to Massachusetts and helped clean out Mom’s house with my brother, Ken.  Attic, house and basement.  I even did the “gardening” around the front yard in order to create a wonderful street appeal for the upcoming house sale.

          I am now a member of the “breaking up household of one’s parents” club and only those who have actually done such understand the process and overwhelming emotional toll it takes on you.   Flipping through wonderful old pictures found in desk drawers and fingering chipped china that was kept merely for sentimental reasons swamps one with unchecked emotions.

          Mom has been failing for some time and she was extremely frail.  She recognized me only in the mornings and then in the evening she asked my brother to bring back the “other” me.

          When I left her for the last time – about 10:00 a.m. on October 13, 2017, I hugged her good bye and said I was leaving for home.

          She said the most startling thing to me:

“The next time you see me, I’ll be in my box.”  She tipped her head coquettishly and smiled and there was a splendid lilt in her voice.

          It didn’t take me back as much as the thought was already in my mind.  My Mom always knew how to “upstage” any sweet parting over the years and this topped them all.

          “Yeah, Ma, I know.”  I whispered to her and smiled knowing that she was spot on as usual.  That is what she wanted and I knew she wouldn’t be with us much longer.   How soon, I didn’t know at the time.

          The evening of her death I had gone to ICC college for a cabaret review of  Gershwin.  I turned my phone off so as to not disturb the performance and missed the call from my husband letting me know that Mom had died quietly when she was being put to bed.

          One of the first songs of the evening was from Porgy & Bess, the one Mom loved so much of George Gershwin’s compositions.  Now that I think of it, it is sort of ironic that I thought of Mom during that entire song and how she would have loved to have heard her old favorite.  She would have sung along as she knew all the words. Me, I only knew half of them.  At the time, I didn’t know that she was probably taking her last breath.  But, later when I thought back at what I was doing at the time of her death, I realized the coincidence of it.  Maybe at the moment of her death her soul had fleeting come to me and she enjoyed her favorite song one more time with me.

          Long distance I have been planning the funeral with my brother, Ken.  I’ll fly up next week to attend.

          I had been praying for a quiet, no fanfare [hospital or nursing home, or pain] death for some time for my Mom because that is what she wished.

          She is at peace now.

          Mom, always the lady, knew when it was time to leave a party and she waltzed out of my life – right on her cue – as if she planned it that way.

          I will  share with you the poem she wants read at her funeral.

          Hopefully I can say it out loud without falling apart. We shall see.

          Me, I’m okay.  She will never be far from me because she is forever in my heart.  She had a wonderful life.  A life we will celebrate with friends and family next week.

A Talk with God

Today I had a talk with God,

Out in a field of goldenrod,

As grasses rippled in the wind,

Some things just needed saying then.

As blackbirds glistened ‘neath the sun,

My little sorrows one by one,

Stirred sleepy wings and flew from me,

Into God’s great infinity.

I walked beside a shallow creek,

And through the silence heard Him speak,

And once important things to me,

Seemed smaller than they used to be.

I sat beneath a shady oak,

Where dreams of long ago awoke,

And here within this quiet place,

I met my Maker face to face.

Through forest trail and underbrush,

I heard the plaintive hermit thrush,

Departing from the beaten track,

I got my lost perspective back.

Returning then from whence I came,

I knew my life was not the same,

Since I had talked awhile with God,

Out in the field of Goldenrod.

By Grace E. Easley

Blog Index - September 2017

September 4, 2017	This is your last issue – Subscription Notice
September 5, 2017	A treasure from 3/29/1990
September 6, 2017	Divide and Conquer
September 18, 2017	Caladiums and black bird migration

September 20, 2017 – Caladiums and black bird migration

        Sunday afternoon we had a beautiful early fall day.  It was perfect for taking up my caladium bulbs.  I have the process down to almost a science.  I plant my caladiums in pots so that I can move them into or out of the sun, and control the water and fertilizer easily.  Also, at the end of the season I simply dump the pots out gently and shake the bulbs from the soil.

        Perfect gardening weather – cool and dry air for the end of season caladium “harvest” is what I consider it.  I move all the pots to a work location and segregate them by leaf color.  I have only red and white. [I keep saying I am going to get some pink ones, but so far I haven’t -  Maybe next year.]

I cut the stems down to about 3 inches and then gently turn the pot out into a shallow wheelbarrow.  I shake the bulbs from the soil, trim off the roots, and cut the stems shorter.  I lay the bulbs on a wire rack to air dry for several days – covering them with a tarp at night to keep the dew off them.  If rain is in the forecast, I toss an old shower curtain over them to keep them dry.  After about a week of drying, I gently rub more soil off them and I single layer them in cardboard boxes.  I mark the color on the inside of the box.  I store them in a 60-70 temperature area over the winter.

        Of course, my husband was watching me stage this project and when he looked at all the pots circling my wheelbarrow and my handy seat he said, “You’ll be there all day.”

        He got up and moved so that I wouldn’t enlist him to help. [Which is a bad habit of mine and he doesn’t appreciate it much.]   His excuse was that he wanted to sit in the sun.  I called to his retreating back,

        “No I won’t – I’ll be only an hour or two.”

        In the cool of the dappled shade, I proceeded to work and noticed incessant chirping of birds in not too distant trees.  Then I noticed the bird noise became louder and glanced around.   The birds were not in the trees within my sight, but were further east.  When I finished the red caladium group, I paused and again searched the tree canopy and surrounding area as the bird noise had now increased triple fold.   It felt like I was in the middle of Alfred Hitchcock’s movie set of The Birds.

        I also noticed our usual birds, cardinals, titmice, goldfinch, purple finch, chickadees, were absent from our feeders yet there was this growing crescendo of bird chatter.

        The white caladium group done [my project finished], I walked down to the large crepe myrtle tree in the lawn and pulled up a chair near my husband.

        I had already missed half the show . . . the lawn near the property line danced with starlings, or grackles or black birds.  [My husband mentioned starlings, then thought they might be black birds and I said, “Or, they could be grackles.”  I finally decided I would have to look them up in my bird book because I was not certain.

It was a glorious show – the birds kept coming and drifting further down the lawn into my neighbor’s yard and into the trees to roost a bit and then a dozen or two would fly off in a group.  I spent this time studying their silhouette in flight and on the ground.  That long thin tail had to be the key.

They were coming down the properly line on the backside of the shed from the large hardwood grove above.  I was fascinated as they flew so low to the ground – a foot to 6 inches as they glided in. They drifted apart to land in groups of 6 to 10.  The flock was eating insects in the lawn and moving quickly.  Then some would fly up into the ancient oak tree in the property line and many more would land to take their place on the lawn.  I tried to count just a patch of them, but as they were drifting in and flying off at the same time, I failed.

There had to be over 100 birds roosting at one time in the oak tree and they were picking at the limbs eating something. Having their fill, groups would fly off quickly replaced by others.  My husband suggested bugs and I suggested acorns.  It could have been both.

The minutes slipped by watching this lovely spectacle and suddenly, they were gone and it was silent again for a few moments.

Then, slowly my everyday birds starting arriving back at our feeders and the soft, sweet bird chatter drifted down to us on the lawn.

What an unexpected treat on a quiet Sunday afternoon. We don’t often get to witness a local migration. 

Later, I checked my Roger Tory Peterson field guide.  I can’t decide if the migrating flock was Common Grackles, Quiscalus quiscula, or Rusty Blackbird, Euphagus carolinus or Brewer’s Blackbird, Euphagus cyanocephalus.  The tail was long and thin, not like a Grackle – so I am now thinking they were one of the two Blackbirds listed.

        

September 18, 2017 – The opened letter.

This is an exercise from my Writers class.  

The prompt was open letter or opened letter.

However, I want to place the setting on this little vignette.

In the mid 1970s – If you’ve watched the TV show MAD MEN – they portray this era exceptionally well.

At the time, our state of the art computer for the corporation was a punch card computer used only for payroll for over 1,000 employees.   

Personal computers hadn’t been invented yet. We had thermal heat copiers. Mimeographs were still largely used. We used a teletype machine.  Fax machines hadn’t been invented yet.

Dictation was done by taking short hand on a steno pad resting on your crossed knees sitting across from the executive.

All upper level executives had personal secretaries, middle and lower management used the Steno Pool which had state of the art equipment in the form of magnetic belts – the cassette tape dictation units hadn’t been invented yet.

This was the Headquarter corporate office for seven plants in one town – much like the size Milliken still has is in Spartanburg, SC.

The switchboard operator was housed in a glass cubicle in the lobby and she connected all calls from outside and between all seven plants.

The executive washroom, which was next to my office, was for Men only and 3-martini lunches were the norm.

At the time this happened, I was about 20 or 21 and single.

This is autobiographical.

The opened letter

        One morning Mr. Burgwinkle, the Personnel Director, handed me a stack of letters. He smiled, nodded and cleared his throat as he watched me quickly pull the beige parchment envelope out of the stack and put it on top. There was my familiar handwriting directed to the blind Post Office Box 576 used specifically for the resumes for the new personal secretary for the recently employed new President of the Company.

        “Ah, so you know how this all works out, little gal,” he stated with his put on Irish brogue and puffed a huge, acrid cloud of cigar smoke in my small office.

        “I’m a big girl. I know I am out the door.” I said shrugging my shoulders and continuing to hold onto my false courage. I added,

“This is corporate America, a new President, requires a new personal secretary. I will be replaced by one of these gals.” I fanned the stack of letters to make my point.

        “Aye, is so.” He said. 

        Mr. Burgwinkle lingered as I mulled over my hurt and bitterness of losing my job just because a new President had come on-board.  It wasn’t right, it wasn’t fair. I’d done a fine job. And, now I was being let-go for no reason other than some false theory of loyalty.

        I filled the sudden silence with another brave statement, “Don’t worry, I’ve already sent out over a dozen resumes and I’ve more going out today.”

       

        Mr. Burgwinkle cleared his throat again and launched into his typical policy speech.  I half listened to him as I opened each envelope, stapled the cover letters to the resumes, and turned them face down in a pile.   When Burgwinkle finished what the Company would provide me upon my employment exit, I stood and smiled at him saying,

        “Yes, a letter of recommendation from you would be lovely.”

        Then, I turned the stack over and straighten it.  I admired my flashy signature on the exquisitely prepared cover letter and resume that was now on the top of the pile and flatly stated,

        “The new guy will at least know my qualifications before he dismisses me.”

        I rose and walked down the short hallway to the new President’s Office. I knocked quietly and entered. With a forced, bright smile on my face, I delivered the mail by placing it in the In-Box on the corner of the polished mahogany desk.  The new President’s eyes glanced at the top resume and then quickly darted to me.

I returned his gaze until he waivered and looked away. I wondered, was his look a sign of surprise or slight admiration? 

Always the professional I asked in my most sultry voice, “I’ve just made fresh coffee; would you like some?”

        He declined graciously.

As I closed his office door, I chuckled to myself thinking. “He didn’t want coffee? He probably thinks I’d lace it with poison.”

September 6, 2017 – Divide and Conquer

This is the Writer’s class May 15, 2017 project.

Describe a time when you “stepped up to the plate” when called on.

        Seeing me out in the garden, my back door neighbor and new best friend visited me in the garden after she’d changed out of her work clothes.

        “What are you doing?” she quizzed.

        “Lifting and dividing chrysanthemums?” I replied looking up at her as I was on my hands and knees in the garden.

        “Why?”  She quizzed dropping comfortably into a nearby lawn chair.  She was always interested in what I was doing in the garden.

        “If you don’t divide them, they will choke themselves out or bloom poorly.”  I answer and continue pulling off strong rooted pieces and potting them up. 

        After she watched me pot up several she asked,

        “Can I have one?”

        “Sure.”

        I thought nothing more about the evening other than it was a nice visit from a friend until late the next afternoon.



        I am in the garden and can hear my house phone ringing.   I start to count the rings.  Any time it is over 10 rings, I am certain it Mom; it’s our special code.  After 7 rings, I dust myself off from the garden and run to answer the phone.

        “Hello?” I answer expecting my Mom on the other end.

        “It’s me, I have sorority tonight and my speaker has cancelled.” Becky states.  She continues.

        “Can you come to my sorority meeting tonight and talk about what you showed me last night. Dividing up the Chrysanthemums?   All these gals love flowers but I bet they have no idea you can lift and divide them to get more.  I didn’t know.”

        “Sure, what time?”

        “Seven p.m.”

        “How many gals?”

        “Usually between 8 and 10.”

        “I’ll stroll over around 6:45.”

        “You’re a lifesaver, thank you, thank you, thank you.”  She gushed and hung up.

        I immediately grabbed a large black trash bag and headed out to the garden to get prepared.   I deeply watered another overgrown clump of mums that needed to be divided.  I collected a dozen plastic quart pots and filled them with good potting soil.  I left the shovel, garden gloves, & root tone in the wheelbarrow for later.

        Promptly at 6:40 p.m. I dug up the overgrown clump of mums and plunked it on the big plastic bag on top of filled gallon pots and wheeled it next door to Becky’s back porch.   Within moments we had the clump on a card table near the front door.  

As the sorority gals arrived, they were most curious about the clump of lacey green leaves with red clay roots and soil held in check by the upturned edges of the black plastic bag.

       

        After a glowing introduction by Becky, I pulled on garden gloves and explained all about Chrysanthemums as I divided the clump, dusted with Root tone and potted up a dozen mums.

I later got reports of “the best speaker they ever had.”  And, years later, some of her sorority sisters remembered me and the program when Becky and I happened to meet them out and about.