Feeling Real

Summer 2011 may be the time I remember as the hottest and driest on record in South Texas, but it will also be one more time in my life when I am reminded that I am real. Joe has had his 12th knee surgery . It is hard to see him in so much pain and for so long. Two hospitalizations, surgery, medical appointments and all the in betweens has been exhausting for him, and challenging as I care for him. His faith and courage and spirit persist and inspire me, but I know he is worn out. Today, Skye has been here with her quick smile, tight hugs and good company. She was looking at a picture of herself that is on my kitchen desk that shows her at three, thanking God for her bowl of chicken soup. As we talked, I thought to myself that of all the things I enjoy doing and being with her, one of the best is conversation. Listening to each other. She helps me know I am real. She helps Joe remember that he is, too.

“Real isn't how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real. It doesn't happen all at once...it takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily or have sharp edges or have to be carefully kept. Generally by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But those things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to the people who don't understand.”

~ from The Velveteen Rabbit, by Marjorie Williams (one of our all time favorite children's books)

For Love of a Sunday

The Terrell home place rested at the top of a hill, accessible only by forked red dirt roads lined with wild blackberries and purple phlox. On Sunday afternoons after church we took a ride out to the country to visit. On the way, we watched for flashes of color in the woods, and sang “Red Bird, Red Bird, in my sight! Hope we get to Grandma's before it gets night!”



As we drove up one side of the entrance to where the iron rich clay ended in sand under an ancient oak tree, I felt I could not get there fast enough, loving the first sight of the white house with its sagging swing on the front porch and sprawling, fragrant yellow rose at the front window. But we always went on to the back, leaving the car to walk past the well and beds of Old Maids and Marigolds. I adored my Grandma's bosomy, talcum-scented embrace and Papa's toothless laugh. As he threw open the screen door, we went straight to the kitchen, sniffing baking cookies. These were pillowy tea cakes, redolent of vanilla and cinnamon. We ate them warm, often with a red watermelon, cut in half so we could dig with our spoons for bites, never minding the juice running down our chins.



In the wide front hall, my sister and I sat cross-legged to play jacks on blue linoleum with white stars. Sometimes, we were allowed to go into musty darkened rooms where my great grandmother had lived before she died. This area held shelves with jars of fruit and vegetables my grandmother put up, a trunk full of quilts, stacks of books, a tiny wicker rocking chair, an oval frame holding a portrait of an uncle who died when he was 13, a spinning wheel. Treasures.



I wanted to keep it all.



But Sunday afternoons changed.



I left for school, then marriage. Papa died. Grandma broke up house and moved to a tiny apartment in town. The house burned to the ground. I found a melted door knob to save.



The only smell was smoke.

A Celebration

I am celebrating a 5th anniversary!  Not a wedding anniverary (that will be number 48 this year).  This is a celebration of sight. Five years ago I had two cornea transplants that changed my vision and my life forever.  In late 2005, I was diagnosed with a degenerative corneal disease, Fuch's Corneal Dystrophy. Changes came quickly.  Within a few months, my vision became so poor that I was advised to have transplant surgery on both eyes.  In May 2006, I received the gift of a donor cornea for my left eye.  Two months later, the procedure was repeated for my right eye.  I recovered quickly from both surgeries, and receive follow up exams and testing every 6 months.

 Yesterday was one of those medical appointments. Afterward,  I drove myself to another appointment, read a book while I was waiting there, joined the heavy freeway traffic on my way home, and picked up my mail to read when I got there.  I saw a hummingbird at the feeder by my kitchen window while I was preparing our dinner.  I finished blogging for my other two blogs http://www.stonesandfeathers.wordpress.com/ and  http://www.kitchenkeepers.blogspot.com/.  I read the thermometer when I took my husband's temperature.  Every single one of the things I just wrote about was possible because of two donor families who said yes to organ donation.  Because of 2 complete strangers and their families, the skill of a dedicated doctor, and Grace, I can see.
Yes, I am celebrating!  I am thankful.

These words are dedicated to awareness of organ donation and to vision research.

Glimmers from the Past

I was recently asked what country or regions my birth family came from.  I have some answers and alot of blanks!

I only wish had early known the questions I now have and asked them while those who might have answered were still alive! There are, however, glimmers from the past, and some apparently accurate passing down of ancestral origin. I was born to Opal Terrell Teal and Howard Teal in Tyler, Texas in 1940. My father's mother, Ida Mayfield Teal,  took care of her parents until their death, and only then married, "late in life" was the phrase I always heard. My father, the oldest of 4 children was born when she was 41. I know very little about her background save that she drilled a hole in a memorial coin (given to her father William Mayfield in the Spanish-American war) put the coin on a string for her babies to teeth on! Her husband, my paternal grandfather was a stout man, deaf as a post, red faced and according to family story, Irish, and Protestant.


The information about my maternal grandparents is definitely more detailed and full of stories. I have an ancestral chart which shows my maternal grandfather's maternal line back to the Mayflower and beyond to England and Scotland. I have heard many stories about my Methodist Great Grandfather, John Wesley Terrell. He was an East Texas farmer with a large family, but he was known for generosity.

My maternal grandmother was born to Ernestine Matilde Augier Curley, who was born in Marseilles, France, and  immigrated from southern France with her parents, Bienvenue Pascal Augier and wife Clara Orthinet to a southern Parish in Louisiana when she was a child. Their Catholic past is evident from a small holy water font that was passed down and currently rests in my china cabinet. Just yesterday I was sorting through the stacks of family papers and memorabilia. I can only do this in intervals, a little at a time. Partly because I feel a deep connection to all these letters and kept things and feel a heaviness of decision making as I sift through. I think "if my grandmother and my great grandmother kept these things, who am I to decide they are or are not worth keeping?" I am approaching my 71st birthday and have been avoiding all these boxes and stacks for one reason or another for far too long. I need to organize, pass on what is meaningful, and store in the most efficient way what needs to be kept for the time being. But lest I sound resentful, let me say there is great honor in being the designated keeper of these things, and there is story in nearly everything I touch. Yesterday I unfolded a long piece of delicate handmade lace from the box I marked "Great Grandmother Curley's Things" many years ago. It was probably used as a covering for a library table or dresser. I haven't yet made myself put it away. Touching it evokes a world of question. Did she make this lace, or did her own mother, who would have been my French great great grandmother? As I think these thoughts, I know I will wait until my granddaughters are here so that I can show it to them. Think about it....holding something that your great great great grandmother loved and used.

When they are ready, I will tell how this grandmother lived through a traumatic period in her adopted country's history: the Civil War, Reconstruction, the Spanish-American War, World War 1, and Hitler's invasion of Europe. How during this time, she birthed 10 children by 2 husbands, neither of whom lived to see all their children born. A story is told that her second husband, James Curley, (my great grandfather) was later found to be a fugitive from justice, but no word of what he had done to claim that status. They were married only 5 years, but 3 babies were born during that time, including twins one of whom was still born. My grandmother, Mary Clyde Curley Terrell, was born shortly after his death. When Grandma Curley could no longer live alone, she lived with my grandmother and her family, but she was present at the birth of every grandchild.  With 10 children, that is alot of grandchildren!

"Grandma, I look at your picture. You look so stern and strong. I know that you loved to crochet and do fine needlework because I have boxes of intricately patterned crochet and lace pieces that you used for "go-bys". Even though you died when I was 3 months old, I was told that you rocked me and held me and loved me.  I see in my own granddaughters some of your independence and ability to endure. You modeled faith and faithfulness. They have a deeply rich legacy."

I am indebted to my cousin, Jane Hill Pirtle, for much of the information here. She included this in a story about her own grandmothers published in Filtered Images, women Remembering Their Grandmothers.

Moon Flowers and Morning Glories

These fat Moon Flower buds stay tightly furled in our daytime triple digit heat but when the sun sinks low, they begin their slow revelation of white tissue petals and yellow star centers.  Growing on the same trellis, Morning Glories begin their deep purple  show just as the Moon Flowers are folding up again.  Here, I stand on the outside of my kitchen window to catch their image.  But when I am inside, standing at the kitchen sink, I marvel at the vines and their ever changing art at my window.  I think that is why they call it a window frame.

Last night Joe and I were invited by our youngest son, Ben, to share a meal with him and his wife Kristen in their new home. Ben promised to make us one of Kristen's favorite dishes, Leek and Two Cheese Quiche. We brought some homemade gazpacho and an arugula salad. The table was set beautifully, with wedding goblets and a huge bunch of basil from their garden. Just as I was thinking how special they had made our evening, one more realization gave me a smile as well as a tear.


As I picked up my spoon, I recognized a piece of vintage silverplate. Not a fancy pattern, but simple, beautiful, and achingly familiar. We didn't have a lot of fancy kitchenware when I was growing up – no matching pots and pans, no crystal, mostly mismatched plates and bowls and glasses,stainless flatware, miscellaneous plastic and wood handled spoons and serving items. The knives and forks and spoons we used for every day meals were in a shallow drawer on one side of the short kitchen counter. But the spoon I held in my hand was kept with a matched set. This was my mother's silverplate, the pieces she kept in a box she had painted light green to match her kitchen at one point. She had a set of butter yellow china that she kept on a high cabinet shelf. The silverware box sat by itself at the end of the counter. This flatware she pulled out for use for special or holiday meals, or when we had company.

When my mother sold her small house to move into a still smaller apartment, she gave many things to my sister and me, and to her grandchildren, who call her Nana.

She gave Ben the green box. In the years to come he kept the box and its contents on his own kitchen counter. He made Sunday after-church dinners and a Mothers' Day lunch to which Nana was invited.  She noticed his use of her silverware, and bragged on his cooking.  Now, he and Kristen have given the delicately traced knives and forks and spoons a place of honor in a drawer of their beautiful china cabinet. I felt Nana nodding and saw her smile last night as we began to fork bites of Ben's delicious pastry. I know she approved. Her spirit and her spoons continue to bless the gathering of family.

Jacksonville,Texas: The Tomato Capitol of the World

Joe and I both grew up in Jacksonville, Texas.  Recently a number of facebook threads of conversations as well as a website have provided pictures of years past in our hometown.  I like this picture because it shows a line of women packing tomatoes in the tomato sheds for which Jacksonville was famous.  My mother, Opal Terrell Teal, worked packing tomatoes in the 1930's.  The picture is not of her, but I can see her, discarding imperfect tomatoes as "culls", which were sold at reduced prices, and wrapping the select tomatoes in tissue paper as the conveyor belt rolled them down the line in boxes to be shipped.
http://www.tomatocapital.com/photos/packingtomatoes.php