Arctic Blast

It was a beautiful day to be driving.  The sun was shining, glinting off of the snow covered ground and the air was still.  From under the dash a stream of warm air blew over her winter boot clad feet dispelling the chill gained from her short walk from the house to the garage.

The outside temperature gauge on the dash read minus two.  Barely into winter the early artic blast was a disheartening foretelling of long, cold season ahead.

As the interior warmed she silently thanked her brother and his thoughtfulness in fixing the car’s heater the previous weekend.

In Silence

In silence they sat with heads bowed.  In every corner of the world, in groups large and small, in private or public, in pews or chairs or on the ground.

A rumble of sound swelled up from the land embracing the multitude of mourners as with one voice they cried out their anguish.

Their cries faded and wet faces lifted to the heavens. Above them a stately procession of gossamer filaments stretched from horizon to horizon.

A shifting, and an opening appeared sending radiant light slanting down to touch the earth and a feeling of peace rose in their hearts.

Workweek

On Monday the week stretched out seemingly without end, a monotonous, overwhelming existence of early mornings, late nights and the time in-between filled with backbreaking labor.

On Wednesday the weekend appeared as a glimmer of hope, hope of the workweek’s end, hope of rest and relaxation, an opportunity to regain the vigor lost during the week.

On Friday excitement bubbled up filling the workplace with a lightheartedness not seen earlier in the week.  Good cheer was spread from one to another as each departed for the weekend with the thought of Monday a distant, faint rumble looming on the horizon.

I Survived!

The past week or so I have been busy babysitting one granddaughter, attending another granddaughter’s school program and preparing for hosting my family’s Thanksgiving by cleaning, putting up blinds, building a tabletop for our pool table, hauling chairs and dishes to my house from my mom’s house and did I mention cleaning, cleaning, cleaning.

For as long as I can remember my family has enjoyed our Thanksgiving feast on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  It started when I was young and my mom was a nurse working in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).  She would work on Thursday for the extra pay and then put together this amazing meal on Saturday for my siblings, guests and myself.  As we became adults, married and started expanding the family, the tradition continued, allowing us to spend time with our spouses’ families on Thanksgiving Day, a day in-between to recover and Saturday with our family.

My single mom did it all for many years, all the cleaning, all the set up, hors d’oeuvres, turkey stuffing, pies, you name it she made it.  She was the consummate hostess, welcoming us into her home with a warmth and loving embrace, filling the day with love, laughter and wonderful food.  As time past we brought more and more to the table, offering to bring a dish to share.  Each item brought was welcomed and added to the bountiful feast.  My sister and I would help set up tables and chairs, an average number for Thanksgiving was thirty-five, and cleaning the attached garage.  We would move the car outside, mop the floor, cover the floor with an expanse of outdoor rug, and put up enough tables to seat twenty or more turning the garage into an extension of the house, a dining hall for feasting and celebrating, warmed with a woodstove creating a woodsy cabin-like feel to the garage with its cheery wood fire, glimpsed when the door was opened to add more fuel.  My brothers did their part by splitting and stacking wood, caring for the yard and getting the heavy stuff down from storage, the roaster and warming trays along with the various other odd jobs needed to be done.

Now the baton has been past on and I have taken up the role of hostess for my family’s Thanksgiving Celebration, thankful my mother, now eighty-two is still close by to lend a hand, advice and support along with dishes, chairs, an extra gravy boat and table linens.  It seemed I was forever making another trip to the store or my mother’s house for something I needed, a constant flow of movement from the time I got up until I closed my eyes for the night.  How she did it all those years amazes me, as I had the help of my wonderful husband and still ended up exhausted by the time the last of my family left on Saturday night.

Every once in awhile, in the middle of the whirlwind of preparation, I would stop what I was doing, gaze out the window and remind myself I would eventually get back to writing.  Today with a day of rest and putting my house part way back into order behind me I sat down at my computer, coffee cup in hand, and thought about my week ahead.  It stretches out in front of me, calling me to fill it with activity, thought and creativity and, yet, I think back over the last few weeks, the long days caring for my young granddaughter, the extra effort needed to bring together my family over a turkey dinner and I smile, life is meant to be lived and shared and celebrated and I have certainly been doing that. 

I can’t wait for the next gathering and all the craziness that comes along with a large family.

A Moment

The day ended in a quiet, casual way with the sun sliding down toward the distant tree line at the edge of my father’s fields.  Soon it would be time for harvesting, but for now there was a lull in the work, a moment to stand in the open air and reflect on life. 

In the distance I watched a plum of dust rising above what could only be a fast moving vehicle on the gravel road leading to the place I called home.  Could it be?

Yes, it was a delivery truck bringing, I hoped, my new Xbox One. 

The Inheritance (8)

The car radio was announcing a new and improved scrubbing pad guaranteed to get dishes cleaner, quicker and easier.  In the back seat Mike and Debbie’s two children sat still, one engrossed in the electronic device in his hands, the other watching out the window.  Mike, accustomed to the nuances of his children’s silences, felt some apprehension about the day’s outing.  His daughter, Beth, was just one year old when his sister moved away and wouldn’t have any memory of her aunt and uncle or her cousins, but his son, Matt, was the same age as Lily’s oldest daughter and had been close to his cousin.  At the tender age of seven they were inseparable, sharing an interest in animals, forts and cooking, dreaming up games to play with their own set of rules.  He took his cousin’s moving away hard, not speaking to his father for a long time.  Mike had let time soothe his son’s hurt, slowly reestablishing their relationship around the outdoors and sports.

Mike wondered how meeting up with his cousin as a teenager would go, wondered if they would reconnect or just vaguely acknowledge each other as members of the same family as he did with the rest of his family and wondered if he would lose the connection with his son he had worked so hard to gain.

As for his daughter, it never crossed his mind she knew much about the family history or the events of his parents death and his sister’s leave-taking.  She was a quiet child, often sitting unnoticed in the same room as the adults in her life as they talked about things they thought were not appropriate for young ears.  Over the years Debbie had reached out to Mike’s sister Lisa as a way of maintain family connections bringing her daughter and Lisa’s daughter together, encouraging them to form a close friendship, spending time at each other houses until they were almost inseparable.  Although she often brought her son with her, he remained distant from everyone in his family, unwilling or unable to get past his cousin’s leaving.   Mike had not been as keen as his wife to keep in contact with his one sister, but didn’t feel he had a good argument to keep the two families apart, so said nothing against it.  And yet if he knew how much his daughter knew or how much she thought she knew but had misunderstood in her eavesdropping activities, he would be a lot less willing to join Lily and Lisa at the lake.   

The sign announcing the entrance to the park came into view and Mike turned off the radio while Debbie opened her purse to fish out the entrance fee.  In the back seat, unseen by her parents, Beth turned away from the window and looked down at the object in her hands.  A book’s dust jacket showed a picture of a horse running free across open grassland, leading anyone who noticed to think a book about horses was exactly the kind of book an eleven-year-old girl would enjoy reading, and not consider a dust jacket could cover up the presence of something entirely different. 

To Be Continue…