After Christmas Surprise!

I have always been slow to pack away the Christmas decorations for our home.  While I drive down the street and see some trees already stripped and hauled out for pickup a day or two after Christmas, and know that many people like to pack away decorations after the first day of the new year, I am known for lingering over the task.  It is not all because I move a little slower these days.  I simply enjoy savoring the last drop of twinkle lights and tinsel, and choose many years to leave out a manger scene for awhile.  This past week, as I stood in front of our mantle deciding whether to put our largest manger scene back in its box, I started laughing when I saw that Joseph had an extra staff!  I knew right away that Maddie had left me another surprise to find after she went back home. At 7, she delights in tucking a bow here, a flower there, and I delight in discovery!

Thank you, Maddie!

Beginning Again: for Nora

Beginning Again:   For Nora

2014:  The year of Nora!  In about 3 months, I will hold a new grandchild in my arms.  This baby will be our 4th birth grandchild, but the first baby for our youngest son and his wife of 5 years. I find myself more excited every day. Just as I did for our other granddaughters, I began a letter, or journal, for her as soon as her conception was announced.  This letter tells of our joy as we wait for her arrival, and chronicles family events as well as talking about how we look forward to sharing our family journey with her.  The difference in Nora's letter and ones I previously wrote is that this letter is in the form of a password protected blog!  The following excerpt is posted there on October 1, 2013, so this is written to Nora.

I have begun a knitting project, or shall I say begun to finish one I started over 40 years ago!  When I was pregnant with our first son, I finished a lovely cream colored knitted shawl in which we wrapped him for his trip home from the hospital.  Each of his two younger brothers also came home wrapped in the shawl, as have each of their daughters now.  When I knew our 2nd son was coming, I started something that would be “his” by knitting some wide lace intended to grace a receiving blanket. I was so busy taking care of a toddler and getting ready for another baby, the project was laid aside.    When Ben, your Daddy,  was on the way, I picked up the lace again and completed another 8 or 10  inches.  Now that we celebrate your approaching birth,  I have once again begun to knit on the lace.  It isn’t easy getting started and striking my stride on a project that old, plus I had to order some yarn that is as close to the original as possible.  I hope I successfully complete it this time.  Arthritic fingers don’t knit as nimbly!  I am keeping my eyes glued to the pattern and the knitting!

In the Bible, in Psalms, there are verses that talk about how well God knows you because He knit you together in your mother’s womb.  God knows you completely and best.  He loves you completely and best. He gave you to us to help us understand His love.  We are so blessed!

I pray for your growing strong and healthy in your body, but most of all I pray that you will love God and know that you belong to Him and that he loves you even more than I do.  Every day I pray for your Mother and Daddy and you.  Your family.

There is no question that I failed to knit lace for a blanket for son number two.  There is no question that I failed to provide Nora's Daddy with a blanket with lace knitted just for him.  But by beginning again, long ago failure has turned into the dearest project I have ever worked on.  I am not yet finished.  Unknitting?  Oh my, yes.  I don't knit the same way I did 40 years ago. That was discouraging.  The tension is much looser.  Unknit.  I dropped down a needle size.  Unknit.  Matching yarn was difficult. It won't look exactly the same as the first yard, no matter what I do. But it will be an example of things worth keeping and determination and new beginnings.  For Nora.

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.

We Did Then, We Do Now

Old Roses

in the beginning your bouquets

came swathed in green tissue

long stemmed roses, crimson red

“I love you” in your neat writing

on the card tucked into green leaves

their beauty made me smile

they had no perfume

soon wilted and shattered

I kept the petals in a jar

one day we were charmed

by a found rose

one labeled antique

new leaves, old roots

the kind discovered

on old tumbling walls

where a house once stood

or an ancient cemetery fence

Sombreuil climbed high

on our red brick wall

snowy tissue petals

fragrance so sweet

that said “breathe”

roots tracing history

Maggie, known for fragrance

Mutabulis, for changing colors

Souvenir de la Malmaison flowered

over and over again

there have been others

all old-fashioned, graceful

strong, eager, determined to thrive

resisting decline

roses graced our table

dried into pot pourri

found their way into the kitchen

floating in rosy vinegar

how many roses have you brought

to me with morning coffee?

I carried a jar of roses and herbs

to your hospital room

Remember holding grandbabies

with a rose for them to smell?

Picture all the tiny tussie mussies

delivered in little girl hands.

we sit holding hands in the arbor

by the fish pond curtained

with clusters of pink roses

the rose named survivor,

alone growing again after

hurricane flood waters

we are survivors

our love a rooted rose

thriving against all odds

growing past calamity

winds of change, fear

pain, onslaught of time

blooming over and over

no need for fussy tending

resistant to failure

giving joy beyond ourselves

creating new life from roots

continuing our love story

old roses, deep roots

written for Joe, in our 50^th year of blooming.

To Mary Ann From Daddy

On December 18, John William Howard Teal, my father, was born to Thomas Jefferson (1877- 1958) and Ida Mayfield Teal (1870 -1958)  Ida must have considered her first child a gift for her own birthday on Christmas day a week later.  Three more children, another son and two daughters were quickly added to the family because Ida was in her late thirties when she married.  Times were hard for poor farmers, so Howard, his sisters Edna and Lela, and the youngest, a brother named Woodrow worked hard along with their parents on farms, one in an area called Mt. Enterprise in Cherokee county, finally settling in the community of Bullard, Smith County, Texas, where they farmed and had a small weathered clapboard house. I remember visiting my Teal grandparents.  Papa Teal, 7 years younger than Ida, was a round white haired man with a red face.  He was hard of hearing so he seemed very loud and gruff.  Ida was a tiny woman with white hair worn in a tight bun.

Daddy was loving and attentive to his parents, especially his mother, calling her "Mama."  Many people have told me he was one of the kindest men they every knew.  He was also kind and caring to our Mother and to my sister and me. He did have a temper but rarely lost it.  Since he only had a 7th grade education, he worked very hard to earn a living. He was working at Cameron's cafeteria in Tyler, TX when he and Mother married.  They both continued to work there for some time. During World War II, they moved to New Orleans, LA so he could work as a welder in the shipyards. After they came back to Texas, he worked in the Bon Ton Cafe in Jacksonville, and eventually owned a restaurant with his brother. Later he owned and operated the Bus Station Cafe across from the Liberty Hotel in Jacksonville.  My first job was in that cafe. I was twelve years old, and pleased to greet customers and take their orders.

Although they didn't live on the farm, my parents purchased land from my maternal grandparents where Daddy kept a small herd of cattle, had a garden with a fruit orchard and grew some crops.

Daddy made a profession of faith and was baptized in the cotton gin pond in Bullard before he and Mother married.  He was a faithful member of First Baptist Church in Jacksonville and rarely missed a church service where he could be found on the same pew two rows from the back every Sunday.  He loved his grandsons and they loved going with him to feed the cows.

I never doubted that he adored me and I adored him.  He was proud of my good grades and the fact that I went to college.  He has been dead for over thirty years but I still miss him.  It is part of Christmas for me to honor his birthday.  He was not big on gift giving, but every Christmas he put chocolate covered cherries under the Christmas tree for me from him.  Today, I bought a box of Queen Anne Chocolate Covered Cherries and put the unwrapped box under the tree with all the wrapped gifts.  Thank you, Daddy - you are still a gift to me.

Thank Heaven for Little Girls, and their Daddies

O

Christmastime is a time for reflection , remembering, and for savoring moments of love and tenderness.  I love watching my sons with their daughters.  I love watching my granddaughters with their Daddies. In this photo, Jordann has found a sweet safe place in Jeremy's arms.  Both of our two older sons have 2 daughters, and now our youngest son and his wife are expecting their own little girl.  When baby Nora arrives in the Spring, she will have a circle of girl cousins to welcome her and the adoring attention of her Mother, Grandparents, and Aunts and Uncles.  But I can hardly wait to see her Daddy hold her. 

Garden Gifts

Fall gardens on the South Texas Gulf Coast are sometimes even more productive than Spring plantings, but not this year.  Tomato plants are big and leafy, with only a few small green tomatoes.  Peppers are still growing, but barely.  A combination of unusual wet cool weather has all but stalled any further setting of blooms. My youngest granddaughters have just spent some time here, and prove that though the gathering may be small, the joy is large.  There are a number of reasons I choose to garden, and these grins are one of them.  These little girls have helped me in a number of ways, and I am thrilled to pass on the joy of harvest to them.  This week, as we have cut herbs and gathered peppers and chopped and cooked together, our Thanksgiving has been much more than a meal.  It is a celebration of the happiness of being together, working together, and gathering all the family around Grandma Terrell's old oak table.  The table is now mine, and I am now the grandmother, but I probably won't ever call it Granmary's table.  The girls, however, will, and I am glad. I am thankful for those who have gone before, and these who will go beyond.

Thinking Pink

My most delightful birthday gift last week was presented as an announcement: "It's a GIRL!"
Our youngest son and his wife are expecting the arrival of Nora Opal Parker on April 2, 2014.  The second part of the gift is her name.  Her name comes to her from two of her great grandmothers.  This is a sweet tribute to Opal, my mother, and I love it.  How she would have loved looking forward to this baby!
Thank you to Ben and Kristen for these gifts, and for our happy anticipation of holding and rocking baby Nora Opal.  The happy news was announced to family and friends when Kristen cut the cake she had baked and showed us it was pink!

Opal and Howard

My parents, Opal Auntionette Terrell Teal and John William Howard Teal, photographed on  July 2, 1943
They were married on December 27, 1931. This photograph was taken at the wedding of H.P. and Catherine Terrell.  H. P. was Opal's youngest brother.

November is a month when many focus on gratitude.  For several years, I have kept a daily gratitude journal to use as part of my morning meditation time.  I write down 5 things for which I am thankful.  Some are very small things - a bird at my kitchen window, the way morning light casts a lacy shadow on the wall, a phone call.  I say thank you, too,  for the biggest things in my every day:  God's faithfulness and love, for the way he is working in my family's life.  I give thanks for food and shelter and good hugs from Joe and our sons.  I am grateful for my daughters- in- law, and my granddaughters' laughter.

 I was born on November 14, 1940, so today is my birthday. I am grateful for my parents' life and love which began my life.  Thank you, God, for Opal and Howard Teal.  Thank you, Mother and Daddy, for loving each other and for loving me.  I never doubted for a moment that I was cherished.  Your faith and love and your hard work to provide good things for me continue to sustain me. You live on in me, in your grandsons, and in your great grandchildren.   You are part of everything I ever write down on my gratitude list.

While It Is Still October...

Photo taken at George Ranch Historical Park in Fort Bend County, Texas - just down the road from our house.

Autumn here on the South Texas Gulf Coast does not always have the range of vivid color experienced by areas with more intense seasonal change, but it displays a wonder of softening light and a whole new palette of green.  It is no surprise that poets choose to write about these days on the calendar.

 

I have long liked poetry, but I came to love it in the last few years, and began writing poetry again after years of sticking mostly to prose.  This year, I have found many poems featuring this lovely time of year, so I wanted to share a few with you before the month is gone.  Today is Halloween, October 31, so, while it is still October...

There is no season when such pleasant and sunny spots may be lighted on, and produce so pleasant an effect on the feelings, as now in October.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1804 - 1864

Listen! the wind is rising, and the air is wild with leaves,
We have had our summer evenings, now for October eves!
Humbert Wolfe

I have been younger in October
than in all the months of spring...W. S. Merwin, "The Love of October"

Leaves rip from the trees 

still green as rain scuds

off the ocean in broad grey

scimitars of water hard

as granite pebbles flung

in my face.

Sometimes my days are torn

from the calendar,

hardly touched and gone,

like leaves too fresh

still to fall littering

sodden on the bricks.

But I have had them—

torrents of days. Who

am I to complain they

shorten? I used them

hard, wore them out

and down, grabbed

at what chance offered.

If I stand stripped

and bare, my bones

still shine like opals

where love rubbed sweetly,

hard, against them.

"October nor'easter" by Marge Piercy, from The Crooked Inheritance