Celebration

Our sons and their wives gathered family and friends for a lovely celebration of our 50th wedding anniversary. We loved every minute of an evening full of hugs, fond memories, photographs from 50 years of adventure, good food, and gratitude overflowing.  Our friend Aija played violin music and our son Ben quoted this favorite Shakespeare sonnet.  We have so many reminders that we are surrounded by love!

 Sonnet 116           William Shakespeare


Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

     If this be error and upon me proved,

     I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Scattered Memories

I heard a loud crash early one morning last week and rushed to check on Joe, who was getting dressed.  Then I walked through the kitchen and front part of the house looking for damage.  One cat was sitting calmly on the back of a chair but the other cat hid for the rest of the morning.  I didn't have to guess which one had knocked a bowl of homemade pot potpourri onto our ceramic tile floor. Skye came to spend the day with me and as she helped me take this picture and sweep up the broken pottery and remains of dried herbs and flowers , we talked about the damage and how breaking something can make us sad.  She wanted to keep the broken pieces of the bowl and some of the dried rosebuds to put with her fairy garden supplies.  Then we swept the rest into the trash.

It was only after I looked at the photo that I thought more about why this dish of dried petals was special.
Every thing in the bowl was from our garden and had been added one at a time.  The tiny Katrina rose buds and petals from a fragrant Maggie rose and the yellow rose which clambers over an arch,  tawny, leathery Magnolias, lavender fronds, pieces of basil and rosemary, even a dried slice of Meyer lemon.  All were gathered and collected in a small hand thrown bowl fired in a speckled jade green glaze that I bought when we lived in Indonesia over 20 years ago. Some of the rose buds had been picked by little girls and proudly presented as a gift. Joe likes to bring me a flower or piece of herb when he comes in from the garden. It was a joint endeavor.

So I was sad, not for the things broken and scattered, but for that which they represented: the growing and choosing and gathering, the connection and love of my family. And once again, I know that I can let go of things, but that I keep the love.

Mignon and Mary Ann

                                                                  2013

Last week I had lunch with my friend Mignon.  We have been friends since 1947, which means 66
years of friendship! In the early years, we lived in the same town, Jacksonville, Texas - close enough to walk to each other's house for after school play or overnight.  We went to the same elementary school, West Side Elementary.  Between second grade and sixth grade, we had the same teachers, enjoyed playing with our pets and dolls, and even had our mothers make us matching outfits.  We "roasted" saltines over flashlights under the covers when I spent the night at her house.  We had twin baby dolls named Gwendolyn and Wendolyn and what seemed like an endless parade of kittens which sometimes got to wear the doll clothes. When Mignon's family moved to Houston during our 6th grade year, we began letter writing and occasional vists for a week or so in the summertime.  Mignon continued to live in Texas after college and marriage while I lived with my husband and family in Oklahoma, Oregon, California, and Texas as well as for some years in Indonesia.  Through all those years, we kept in touch with letters and infrequent visits, and now there is email!  There has never been a time we have been together that we don't just pick up where we left off, as only good friends can do.  As one friend remarked when I posted the above photo on FaceBook - "the smiles say it all!"

                                                                    1947

Magnolias

When the Magnolias bloom again each year, I reach to pull a creamy cup down and inhale its sweetness. I may cut a few to bring inside and float in bowls, but they brown and wither soon.  They show off best in their  boughs of waxy green leaves.  They remind me of the trees that lined the edge of my elementary school yard, which happened to be adjacent to my own yard.  We often played in the shade of the trees, loving the spectacle of their blooms.  When the petals dropped, leaving cones with scarlet seeds, we played with those, creating, imagining, giggling.

In 1963, a bank of magnolia leaves was the only floral decoration at our December wedding. Many years and many places later, I stood by a Magnolia tree in the gardens of a sultan's palace in Bogor, Indonesia, and wondered if its twisted trunk and sprawling branches flowered.  Now, once again, my yard fills with the fragrance of Magnolias in Spring.  They seem to grow sweeter each year.

All the Easter Dresses

One of the many things I love about this time leading up to Easter is the re-emergence of color as seeds sprout and flowers return to bloom.  When I was growing up in East Texas, the dark wintertime evergreen woods began to dot with dogwood and redbud trees. Daffodils and narcissus and azaleas drifted across front yards. And little girls and their mothers planned Easter dresses!  I am not sure the above photo was the Easter dress the year I was three, but it might have been.  And it would most certainly have been made by my mother on her Singer sewing machine although I suspect the crocheted lace on that collar would have been crocheted by my grandmother.

Stitches in Time

at Christmastime I hang a wreath, braided circle of  cloth

 made almost half a century ago from scraps found in my fabric stash

one strand of the braid is green velvet

bits left from creating a dress

with beaded cummerbund that circled my then tiny waist

a second strand cut from scraps of snow white brocaded cotton

my high school graduation dress

woven  with the green and white is red corduroy,

my first maternity dress

there would have been nothing left to make the wreath if not for first

 you,

the sewing

and the clothes.

I remember sundresses, circle skirts with petticoats, pleated skirts,

tucked blouses, mandarin jackets, peter pan collars,

puffed sleeves, vests, and weskits

a squaw dress and a poodle skirt

all made after I helped pick a pattern

Simplicity, McCall's, Vogue

you even collected last year's pattern books

from fabric shops where we bought

yards of gingham, calico, organdy, dotted swiss,

eyelet, dimity, poplin, corduroy, worsted and flannel

I remember plaids, checks, polka dots and stripes

pin-wale, herringbone, and tweed

one of a kind made just for me

a red checked dress for a play

always a new dress for first day of school

pink eyelet with ruffles for my piano recital

black suit with red velvet bow for my ride

 in the parade as a duchess

school dresses and play clothes

Sunday clothes, Easter outfits, nightgowns

I remember prom dresses -

clouds of billowing scarlet chiffon,

net the color of hyacinths, shiny satin

pale pink organza, and creamy peau de soie

bolts of rustling taffeta and black velvet

sacks of heavy ribbon and lace

measured with a yardstick on a cutting table

in a shop that was more fun than a candy store

by then I could sketch my dress and it happened!

I remember hours you spent preparing cloth, spreading it

with tissue patterns, cutting with pinking shears

the love that bent you over the humming Singer

with its one tiny bright light

when you said “let's try this on” and tucked

at my waist or lengthened a hem

I don't remember smiling and saying “thank you”

I hope that I did

 I did learn to sew

 I remember when I designed and made my wedding dress

you were proud to help me sew on pearls

I remember writing letters to tell you how my 3 little boys

played when I tried to sew

one standing behind me with his arms

around my neck

And when my granddaughter wanted a princess gown

we picked out a pattern and she helped me cut and sew

I remembered how you made me feel like a princess.

Sad only because you could no longer remember any of it.

Mary Ann Teal Parker  March 23, 2013

Written for my mother, Opal Auntionette Terrell Teal

who suffered from Alzheimer's the last years of her life,

 and died in 2006, one month short of her 93^rd birthday

I'm Here!!

Each year, one of my favorite harbingers of Spring is the sudden appearance of Redbud blooms on the gray scraggly branches of what has been an almost unnoticed small tree in someone's backyard or the woods along the road.  In the Piney Woods of East Texas where my husband and I spent our growing up years, the first blooms seemed to signal to dozens of other early blooming trees that it was Spring again. The woods lining the highway between Jacksonville, Texas and my grandparent's smaller town of Bullard seemed to come alive in a patchwork of wild plum, dogwood, and various shades of purple from the Redbud trees. We see fewer here south of Houston, but the fact that they bloom even earlier in the slightly balmier climate makes them stand out even more.  The first blooms bring my biggest smile.  I like being reminded of the joy they brought me as a child.  And they bring fond memories of my mother and daddy and grandparents who first taught me to watch for them.

The Redbuds are blooming.  Easter is on the way.

Carol of the Birds

I am strangely attracted to a Christmas carol rarely sung -

 treasure of music, words with sweet mystery,

 quiet, wondering melody

Questioning feathered twitters.

“Whence comes this rush of wings afar,

Following straight the Noel star?

Birds from the woods in wondrous flight,

Bethlehem seek this Holy Night.

Tell us, ye birds, why come ye here,

Into this stable, poor and drear?

Hastening we seek the newborn King

And all our sweetest music bring.”

Stirring some ancient warmth within me

I play the notes and sing each verse,

 decorate a small Christmas tree

with vines, berries, woodland birds.

Greenfinch, Philomel sing

Re, mi, fa, sol in accents sweet

from woodland edges, farmland hedges

Noel, Christ on earth with man to dwell

Someone singing this tune for 400 years,

before that, once an older one now lost?

Could it be I am pulled by what I cannot remember?

Song and my great grandmother both born in southern France

She died when I was a baby.

Did she sing it, rocking me

in the old wooden rocker in which I rock my own grandchild?

Noel.

Trees and Trims

Our Christmas house has more than one tree to trim.  We have artificial trees these days, but the decorations that dress them have been on many trees in many different places.  After the spare snowflake and string ball trimmed tree of our 1964 Christmas, Joe and I added an ornament or two or three every year.  So that our sons would have their own Christmas ornaments when they left to begin their own traditions and families, we let them choose an ornament for their own each year which was stored in a box.  I love visiting their homes and seeing a few of those childhood choices on their trees this time of year.  This tree is in my kitchen.  It celebrates family and the cooking we enjoy together, and is trimmed with cookie cutters I used when I was a little girl, cookie recipes handwritten  by grandmothers and friends, and little gingerbread boys and girls. The gingerbread family is over 35 years old, so of course is not real gingerbread.  When my sons were all in the same elementary school, one year we made baker's clay ornaments colored with instant coffee for all their teachers plus some for our own tree.  They come back out to dance on our tree and remind us of many happy Christmas times together in our kitchen.

My granddaughters are a delight all year 'round, but Christmas brings more fun than ever.  We enjoy making this tea tray with a tiny tree, teacups and teapots. We add a mix of pretty tea bags and Joe's mother's small spoon collection plus the book A Cup of Christmas Tea.

Snowflakes

Cutting paper snowflakes can make young children into magicians and grandmas into little girls again.  There is mystery involved in the folding, choosing just the right place to cut, and carefully trimming little triangles and curves and slashes.  But there is wonder in the unfolding!  Much like the real ones, no two snowflakes turn out exactly the same.  I have never lost that sense of expectation and trying to imagine how this one is going to turn out.

Forty-nine years ago Joe and I celebrated our first Christmas as a married couple.  That December found us far from our Texas family and friends, in Corvallis, Oregon.  The original plan for Joe to enter graduate school there had been delayed.  In the meantime, he did any odd job available, including painting houses.  I worked as a nurse in a busy pediatric practice within walking distance of our apartment.  One of our doctors had a farm outside of town where we were invited to come cut a Christmas tree. We tramped around the hillside brushing away blackberry vines to find a perfect small Grant pine.  Its symmetrical, graceful branches had wide spaces that were perfect for decorating.  But we were beginning our home and our traditions.  We had no old familiar ornaments to unbox and remember.  We also had no extra money in the budget for buying same.  So we hung a few candy canes, made some string balls from twine and starch and balloons, and carefully cut lacy snowflakes.  That year I knitted my new husband a green sweater with sleeves twice as long as his arms.  He painted a tiny recipe box for me and pasted "Good Things You Can Fix" on top.

The photograph is the few snowflakes that remain after all these years.  I framed them last year for a gift for Joe.  This year we will remember our 1964 snowflakes when we make paper snowflakes with our grandchildren.  If you have never cut a snowflake, try this project.  You will agree with Charles Dickens - "It is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself."

For some wonderfully fancy paper snowflakes, visit  www.bontempsbeignet.blogspot.ca/2011/11/faux-sneaux-flakes.html

Again!

                                   
                       Howard Teal and his first grandson, Sean Parker, Christmas 1968


This picture speaks to me of Christmas past and Christmas present, even Christmas yet to come.  My Daddy is holding our first son. How proud he was!  Sean loved his Papa, and already loved books. They are delighting each other with the reading of The Night Before Christmas.  Can't you hear "...up the chimney he rose?"  With this book, as in most, arriving at the last page meant "again, read it again!"

So, as I bring in the boxes of decorations and begin pulling out all the old familiar ornaments and set up the manger scenes, I am brimming with both tears and smiles, thinking how good it is to do it again.  I set up our advent wreath and candles and fill the big basket with all the children's Christmas books read and reread so many times.  I stack my Christmas piano music and practice the arrangements of White Christmas and Silent Night that I have played for so many years now.  I  am thankful that I did most purchases for gifts before Thanksgiving, so that shopping is not on my to do list, and I can spend  more time re-calibrating during Advent.  I listen to my favorite Christmas CD, James Galway's Christmas Carol.  On the way to Bethlehem, again.

Marlin

What do these things have in common other than the fact they are all colored glass?  I could say that all three pieces belonged to my mother, as did the aluminum tray. They were all originally purchased in what was once termed a "five and dime" store.  True, too that each piece of glass reflects a part of childhood images: the little cruet filled with vinegar for my mother's favorite wilted lettuce salad, the ashtray once holding Daddy's Lucky Strike cigarette ashes, the candy bowl that held lemon drops.

My story is not about where the items came from, or what they were used for.  It is the story of how they changed from plain clear glass to the colors of honey and amber. Each one of these pieces was carried on one of our family's rare summer trips for an unusual purpose.  Hardly a vacation, still somewhere to go and much anticipated, Mother, Daddy, my sister Janice, and I for several years traveled from our home in Jacksonville, Texas down to central Texas to a similar sized town where we stayed in a tiny motel room cooking our own meals.  There were no theme or waterparks, little scenic attraction, and no relatives to visit.

 Why would we use Daddy's precious one week of time off from work to do this?  One reason:  Marlin, Texas had a mineral hot springs. Located about four miles east of the Brazos River,   Marlin had a clinic and bath house where people with various ailments (Daddy had rheumatism) could go for a round of hot mineral baths as healing therapy.  Daddy signed up for a week's worth of the baths at the bathhouse. He encouraged us to drink the mineral water for its health benefits, but I hated the taste. Mother, my sister, and I amused ourselves in various ways, the most exciting thing being taking dime store glass to the mineral water fountain in the center of town and leaving it for the hot mineral salts to splash over  We checked it every day. Yes, it was still there, along with assorted other glass objects that people had left - to my knowledge, no one ever took anyone else's glass.  By the end of the week, the glass had turned varying degrees of golden colors, an enchanting kind of magic to me. 

It was a long time before I learned more of Marlin's history. While digging to find a water supply for Marlin’s 2,500 residents in 1891,  engineers struck sulfur-laden water that gushed out of the ground at 147 degrees F. Several physicians interested in the curative properties established clinics, bathhouses and sanitariums. More wells were drilled, hotels and boarding houses opened their doors, and by 1900, Marlin was a popular spa emphasizing medical water treatments. The New York Giants baseball team trained there from 1908 to 1919.  Some think it was not  mere coincidence that the Giants won the National League pennant in 1911, 1912 and 1913.

In the 1920s, the Marlin Hot Wells Foundation for Crippled Children established a hospital to treat young polio victims  In 1929, Conrad Hilton built his eighth Hilton Hotel in his chain in Marlin, a nine-floor, 110 room Falls Hotel, which could be seen for miles from the city limits of Marlin. Across the street was the Marlin Sanitarium Bathhouse. An underground tunnel connected the two buildings. A fire destroyed the underground tunnel, the Sanitarium Bath House was torn down, and the Falls Hotel was closed. Despite sporadic attempts to revive them, Marlin’s mineral-water establishments were pretty much gone by the 1960's.

 The hotel remains the tallest building in Falls County. The location of the bath house is now the city post office and a gazebo park. Another former hotel, the Arlington Hotel on Coleman Street, is now the location of a Mexican restaurant, Lupita's, and the Marlin Inn.

Today, you can drink mineral water  from a fountain from that era, right next to the Chamber of Commerce Office. You can soak your feet too, (they've thoughtfully provided a separate facility for that )  Water has laxative properties, which locals have timed at 43 minutes!.  I think it is fun to visit the fountain, but I don't seen any glassware transformation going on there these days.  I still don't drink the water, but Lupita's is a great place for lunch.

Honoring People and Places

"We clasp the hands of those who go before us.” – Wendell Berry

Home has for many years meant the place I lived with my husband and our sons (and now gather them with their wives and children).  We have made a home in many places and learned to move on and call another place home.  But, as Eudora Welty says so beautifully,

There may come to be new places in our lives that are second spiritual homes closer to us in some ways, perhaps, than our original homes. But the home tie is the blood tie. And had it meant nothing to us, any other place thereafter would have meant less, and we would carry no compass inside ourselves to find home ever, anywhere at all. We would not even guess what we had missed.

I am grateful for the piney woods of East Texas around Tyler, my birthplace, and Jacksonville, where I grew up. I also warm with a smile when I think of Bullard, the tiny town in between those two.

Both my parents grew up in Bullard.    Because both sets of my grandparents lived there, it is part of the place of my childhood and fondly remembered.  The Bullard cemetery is where a great many of my ancestors are buried: parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and great grandparents!  But this is no longer just a little country community, a "wide place in the road," my Daddy called it.

I read with interest how Bullard has changed and grown.  One of the old buildings I remember as Ferrell's Drug Store used to be the location of the medical practice of the Ferrell's daughter, Dr. Marjorie Roper.   We called her Dr. Marjie. She is a legendary physician and has always been one of my heros.  She practiced family medicine in Bullard for 60 years, retiring, she says, because she was not computer literate!
http://americanprofile.com/articles/doctoring-for-decades/

 I was recently sent the link below telling of her plans to convert the old pharmacy.  I think I need to go to Bullard for a museum trip.  But I will also take some herb bouquets to place on cemetery markers, honoring those who have gone before me.

Longtime doctor transforms historic pharmacy into museum#.UIVCe2TOPOI.gmail

Beating Heart, Blooming Rose: A Story of Friendship

                                                         
                                                           

I love growing antique roses. Every time I tend mine or bring bouquets in to grace our kitchen table, I am reminded of the dear friend who first introduced me to “old roses.” I had never been much inspired to grow roses, appreciating the beauty of long stemmed hybrids, but avoiding their need for pampering. Marcia told me about robust roses that are so hardy they grow on old tumbled down homesites and along fences. Once I realized that each one had its own unique story and fragrance, I was hooked. I pored over catalogs, and planted Sombreuil, Mutabulis, Maggie, and Crepescule. My rose friends’ stories blend now with my friend Marcia’s story, and that of her husband, Bob.

Bob was crazy about Marcia. Marcia adored Bob. Her nickname was Moose, and she fancied cats and roses. The cats were a pair of vocal chocolate point Siamese named Mikhail and Nikita and were Bob and Marcia’s babies, but the roses were their passion.

Marcia had picked out her wedding dress and envisioned a wedding long before she found Bob when she was in her mid-thirties. During their pre-marital counseling sessions with Marcia’s pastor, Bob was asked what one thing he would change about her if he could. He said he would give her a healthy heart since she was born with a hole in her heart and developed Eisenmenger’s syndrome which meant her heart and lungs were unable to provide her with enough oxygen. That didn’t keep her from her photography business but it made keeping up with physical activity hard for her. It also didn’t keep her from loving Bob and planning a life with him.

After Bob heard Marcia say she always wanted a rose garden, he bought 80 acres of fertile South Texas Gulf Coast land to plant neither rice nor cotton, but thousands of rose bushes. They drew up plans, pored over catalogs, and began choosing roses. When the first 2000 rose plants arrived, Marcia directed the planting from her hospital bed. A group of us who called her friend went out to plant the roses with Bob’s help.

Two pacemakers later, she was placed on a heart transplant list. Finally, Bob and Marcia and the cats moved to Nashville, TN to be near Vanderbilt University Hospital while she waited what they thought would bea few months to receive a heart and lungs. I went out to their rose farm a few times to help pot cuttings as their plans to open a shop and nursery were postponed. Many of their family and friends did what they could to help maintain the plantings. Time dragged on over 2 years, with Marcia in and out of the hospital as her need became greater. Because the need for organs so far outweighs donors, Marcia once said “There’s just no ordering from the Land’s End catalogue.” That may have been a quip, but certainly not a joke. In order to increase awareness for organ donation, she allowed a reporter and photographer to follow her for 4 ½ months in the hospital, a story later published in the Nashville newspaper. In the series of articles, Marcia and Bob's love for each other and their deep faith dominated the story of their courage.

Bob worked from her hospital room and their apartment on his computer and was her chief encourager. One day he filled every pitcher, Styrofoam cup, and container he could find in her hospital room with Texas roses which he had flown to Tennessee. He brought Mikhail and Nikita for visits because she missed them so much. Her Dr. OK'd this when he found out how much it helped her.

The day came for Marcia's rare heart and double lung transplants in April 1999. Recovering, she returned to Texas with pink cheeks, a grin, and enough air to play her flute as well as honor a promise to a friend to be in her June wedding. In her absence, friends and family had planted, rooted, and tended endless cuttings and rose beds. Bob built her a house. Early on they had planned a gift shop, tea room, and wedding chapel for their antique rose nursery and display gardens named The Vintage Rosery. Together, now they worked side by side, nurturing roses, increasing public awareness of organ donation and organic gardening, and kept all the commitments involved in maintaining Marcia's health. Together, they prayed and played, keeping the dreams alive, celebrating the opening of their gardens only 2 years after her transplants. For the next 5 they grew their garden and introduced customers to roses.

On a brilliant fall day, a line of cars miles long drove through the arches at the Vintage Rosery past masses of climbing yellow Lady Banks and fragrant Madame Alfred Carriere drifts, along the beds of multicolored Mutabulis, Maggie and pink Duchesse de Brabant next to rows of Souvenir de La Malmaison. They passed by the stream with its covered bridge and saw a tiny chapel. As people got out of their cars, they walked by a charming yellow house with a kitchen garden and fragrant herbs lining paths. By the lakeside, they gathered to honor Marcia and celebrate her life.

The following month, a “For Sale” sign hung on the gate. Bob held a moving sale. Marcia’s mom helped him. I went, weeping as I bought some of Marcia’s herb and antique rose books. As friends and strangers walked through the house and gardens, they saw “Rose Bushes - $10.00 each”, “Garden Books - $5 each”, “Gardening Tools -$15”, “Cutting Baskets - $7” I miss my friend. But I see her when I walk among my roses.

Bookkeeping

I am a bookkeeper.  To be more I accurate I am a book keeper.  Although it is true that I managed the accounting portion of Parker Geophysical Inc. and Parker Consulting, Inc., companies which Joe and I owned during the past 20 years, that is not the books which are in this story of keeping.  A few weeks ago, in a cleaning and clearing out project I undertook, I handled every book on the shelves in our library.  I rearranged the shelves to make more space and resolved to put fewer books back after I cleaned the shelves.  That is alwas a difficult thing for me.  As I said in the beginning, I am a book keeper!

Apparently, Mother was a keeper of books as well because I still have several of my childhood books in addition to books that belonged to her and her brothers nearly 100 years ago.  The bindings are frayed, the colors faded, and the pages yellowed, but oh my, what a rich legacy these are!  Not because they are valuable in terms of dollars, but because they tell a story far beyond the printed words on their pages. 

Beyond the edges of the pages in these children's books is a narrative of family choices and values that is dear to me.  Neither my grandparents nor my parents were well educated or wealthy. "Times were hard." is an expression I heard often when they spoke of past years.  The fact that books were important speaks volumes about family standards and values. I cannot hold these books and finger their fragile pages without thinking of being read to when I was little, and remembering that my mother had the same advantage.  It was natural that reading to my own children was always one of my favorite things to do.  It is sweet to see that tradition carried on as my sons have their own little ones who share bedtime prayers and bedtime stories.  

So these books won't go back on the shelf, at least not my shelf.  I will offer them to my children who can decide if they want to be book keepers.  In this age of going paperless and storing everything digitally, there are some things that can't be saved in a document or picture file.  There are still stories that defy having The End on the last page.

Happy Birthday Joe!

Planning birthday celebrations has always been fun at our house. From the first year of our marriage, Joe has loved to have me bake an unusual cake called "Cheap Cream Cake" for his birthday cake. When our sons were little, we had such good times thinking how each one would be a special occasion for the birthday boy!  Jeremy had a frog birthday when he was four complete with a frog cake baked in a bowl and turned upside down with green frosting and a homemade pin the fly on the frog's tongue instead of a tail on the donkey.  Sean had a birthday scavenger hunt one year, Ben's 6th birthday was a bicycle parade around the block.  We have had parties where everyone came dressed in stripes, bake your own cake parties with paper chef hats, and those where we made our own banana splits or ice cream sundaes or pizzas.  The year Joe turned 40, the boys and I made him a huge poster with 40 things we wished for him for his birthday and gave him a Baskin Robbins cake shaped like a train with frosting that said "Keep on Chugging, Honey, You're Not over the Hill yet!"
I have enjoyed asking family members each year "What would you like for your birthday dinner?"  That has produced Italian meals more than once, Indonesian and Mexican food often.  We have had a murder mystery game dinner, a luau, and cookouts. 

So I was not surprised recently when Joe said "I have decided what I want to do for my birthday!"  "A dinner," he said -with our family.  Here.  (at home) And I want violin music!"  So of course, that is exactly what we had this past weekend. For Joe's 75th birthday he finally did not have "Cheap Cream Cake."  He had lasagne and all the trimmings, tiny cupcakes, family, and unspeakably beautiful violin music.  Aija Isaacs, who teaches music to several family members, brought her family and violin and gave us an enchanted evening. 

My birthday present to Joe is in the photo below, a collage of a great many of the tickets to events, musicals, and theatre  we have enjoyed through our nearly 50 years together.  I can say without hesitation that his birthday evening of violin music was the best of all by the expression on his face.  Many thanks to Aija, to our children for all their help with the evening, and to our friend Tommy Gay Dawson for her lasagne!

Roses for Your Birthday

Another family birthday comes into view while we are still basking in the glow of last week's celebration for Maddie.  One hundred twenty-five years ago on March 15, 1887, a baby girl given the name Mary Clyde Curley was born to a 34 year old  French immigrant whose husband died during the pregnancy.  This baby was the youngest of 9 living children born to Ernestine, who had buried a child in addition to two husbands, both of whom died before seeing their last child. 

Clyde, as the baby was called, was born into adversity and affliction of circumstance.  But she was also born into a close family circle as her mother moved back home to relatives.  I don't know much about her childhood, but I do know she loved her siblings dearly and spoke of them often.  In 1904 she married Hezekiah Peyton Terrell and gave birth to 3 sons and a daughter.  Opal, her daughter, was my mother.  I became Clyde and Ky's first grandchild.

Clyde Terrell mourned the death of her oldest son, Vinnon, due to a hunting accident on Christmas Day in 1922.  She never drove a car, never lived in a house with indoor plumbing until she was nearly 80.  She raised her family on a farm in Smith County, Texas, drew water from a well, washed the family laundry in an iron wash pot set over a fire in the yard, and hung the clothes on a line outside to dry after which she ironed them with a flatiron kept hot on the wood stove.  She planted morning glories and old maids,  kept a garden for vegetables,  milked a cow, hung slaughtered meat in a smokehouse, and kept chickens for eggs as well as wringing their necks for Sunday dinner for the preacher.  She put up berries and peaches along with peas and green beans in mason jars with sealed lids and baked pies and tea cakes. She lived by "use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without!"  Therefore, she sewed her own clothing, replaced buttons, turned collars and cuffs on Papa's shirts, and made patchwork quilts with what was left.  She was an adept seamstress, adding embellishments of crochet, tatting, hemstitching, and cutwork to aprons,  pillowcases and tea towels.

I remember being folded into her soft, sweet embrace and never felt more loved.  I remember drinking cold well water from a dipper, picking berries with her, and stubbing my toe on the red dirt road when we walked to the mailbox.  I remember that she welcomed folks to her door and to her table, the same one that my own family gathered around for lunch after church today.  However, she always put a clean white tablecloth on top, and when anything was blooming, a jar of flowers on the table. Whether we were eating fried chicken or cornbread, biscuits or berry cobbler, the food was always delicious and warm and her welcome even moreso.

But most of all I remember her deep faith in and love of God.  She knew God loved her and trusted him unfalteringly. She was a woman of prayer.  She didn't just go to church, it was a part of her and she was a part of the people and their worship and service.  Her pastor and his wife were her best friends.  I loved going to church with her because she loved it so much.  She had tragedies.  She did not have what most would call an easy life.  But she lived in gratitude and praise for the blessings she had. 

Grandma died one month before her 90th birthday in 1977.  I still miss her. This morning just as dawn was arriving, I went out into our garden and picked these yellow roses in her honor.  She had an old  rose bush near the front window of their house at the top of the red dirt road. She often brought bouquets of the blooms in for her table.  They were golden yellow.

Tea Time

This sweet green teapot was originally used to serve hot tea to diners at Cameron's cafeteria in Tyler, Texas where my mother and father both worked when they married in 1931.  These days it is more often used to hold a couple of cut roses from my garden, but I like it best sitting on my counter, reminding me of my parents, their willingness to work at building a marriage and life (I believe Daddy made $1.50 a week when they got married), and the fact that they kept the little teapot even though the enamel inside is chipped and rusted.  I like the grace of the handle and the spout and the way the lid tips back on a tiny hinge. My shiny red electric teakettle and our Flavia machine which can produce a cup of lemon or peppermint tea in no time with little fuss and bother are convenient and useful, but I doubt either will be around in over 80 years for someone to photograph and write about.  Somehow, I think this one will. 

I Choose You!

I have so many reasons for loving Christmastide!  Faith and family are intertwined during these days in powerful ways.  As we gather at Christmas and live the days (all twelve!) to Epiphany, today, January 6 - we make choices, year after year.  Clyde Reid's book You Can Choose Christmas is one of a number of books I enjoy reading each year; it lies on a table beside my chair right now. It is true, we can choose Christmas...that choice lies within us. We also make choices in relationships, the most important ones in our marriage and family.  When Joe and I were married on December 28, 1963, the vows we made to each other used some important phrases beginning -" I will" and " I take"  and " I do" that are really saying "I choose.  I choose you."  Since our anniversary always falls in the middle of the week between Christmas and New Year's,  it is always a special time for remembering that choice.  So, last week marked 48 years of saying "I choose you!"

Christmas 1963

I remember a blur of travel, anticipation, last minute preparation.

The memories rush by like scenery from a train window.

family and friends gathering, arms open

happy voices

bells

church

prayers

the color cranberry

boughs of green

candlelight

gifts in fat boxes with shiny paper

white ribbons

a muff where I hid my hands

a dress I sewed with lace and tiny buttons

Mother's sweet smile

Daddy's shaking hands

chocolate covered cherries under the Christmas tree,

his gift to me each year.

In 1963, he gave me

To a man who said he would love and honor me.

My love gave me my new initials.

1963, the year of my Christmas wedding.

Come Into My Christmas House

As this year comes to an end, I am thinking of joys we have shared in our journey as a family, just as the blog subtitle suggests. This year has included many changes as Joe had surgery after surgery and has bravely met challenges of severe pain and limited mobility.  Our outings have been mostly to medical appointments, and gatherings have been different. The joys of this journey are nonetheless vividly apparent.  The love and caring concern of our sons, daughters in law, and granddaughters is lavish and intense.  They have helped with household chores from changing lightbulbs to moving furniture.  Meals have been joint ventures.  Phone calls "just checking on us" are frequent.  Little hands have helped set the table and take trays to Papa. Michala gave Joe his medicine.  Teion worked on the broken dishwasher.   Skye read The Best Christmas Pageant Ever to Maddie and Jordann.  Kristen played dominoes with Maddie.  Jeremy played the Indonesian shell game with Lauren.  Ben gave Jordann rides on his shoulders. Sean started a fire outside to roast marshmallows.  It is not that these things never happened before, it is that they are intensified now, and deeply appreciated.  We decorated together, cooked together, prayed together, and even if our meals were not always around Grandma Terrell's table, they were family celebrations and joyful occasions.  So, come into my Christmas House, and share the joy of our journey as a family. Winter is upon us, but Spring is on the way.  I am grateful.    "With" is a powerful and joyful thing.

December 24

December 24

 

December 24, 1959

Daddy bought roman candles

to celebrate Christmas Eve.

My little sister and I knelt on the ground watching.

Each pop and whoosh threw red and green trails

into starlit sky.

We thought it was how he liked to spend Christmas eve.

Mother never joined us, staying inside,

then coming to the screen door

“Come fast, guess who has just been here?”

Santa came and we always missed him

but gathered our presents and drank hot chocolate -

No visions of sugar plums when we dreamed because we already had them.

December 24, 1963

I gave Joe a tiny red book

with poems about love.

He fastened three pins on my jacket

three letters: M, A, and P

my new initials.

We were married three days later.

.

December 24, 1964

In Oregon, our tree was a tiny Grant pine

cut from a friend's farm.

hung with snowflake cutouts and lacy string balls

I knitted a green sweater,

sleeves twice as long as his arms.

He painted a recipe box

“Good Things You Can Fix”

December 24, 1965

Planning a time full of surprises.

driving four hours on Christmas eve.

Our gift would be an announcement,

a grandchild!

Good news faded, pain exploded,

no tree in the operating room, no joy in the telling.

December 24 1968 and 1970 and 1973...

Lights shining in the eyes of a new baby.

Is there anything more beautiful?

What better time to celebrate birth and babies?

Christmas carols make wonderful lullabies.

December 24, now.

We go to church on Christmas eve

Once it was snowing when we came back outside,

something that never happens in South Texas.

We danced in the snowflakes.

Then we came in for mulled cider and tamales.