10 Years

Nana, with a twinkle in her eye

photo by me

It has been 10 years since Nana, my grandmother, died. I've written about her before, and I've been thinking about her a lot lately. With 500,000 people dead from COVID in the past year, death is close to many people.

I am glad I have not had to worry about Nana getting COVID. I am glad I have not had to fight to get her vaccinated. I am glad she did not have to see the callousness of the Trump Administration toward the sick and grieving.

But that does not mean I am glad she's not here.

I miss her so, so much. I miss talking with her about my day. I miss her undying support and belief in me.

I miss her teasing, her laughter, her smile. I miss hearing her talking on the phone with her friends.

Because she lived with us all of my life, I have so many more memories of her than I do of Daddy and Papaw.

Once, when I was still in high school, a friend of mine and I drove to a nearby town to go to Walmart. Nana was also in that town running errands, and she spotted us in Walmart. Her face was bright with excitement, and she almost ran to us.

"Guess what," she asked us.

"What?" we said.

"I was just in a car wreck," she said, grinning from ear to ear.

Naturally, my friend and I were horrified.  "Are you hurt? What happened?"

"Oh, this woman hit the back of my car, and I spun in a circle through the intersection."  She moved her hand in a circular motion, still grinning.

Nana still watches over me

photo by Mom

"But you're okay?" I asked.

"I'm fine." Then, she looked at me and said, "Oh, Sara, that was fun."

That was Nana.  The kind of person who could be involved in a simple car accident where no one was hurt and see the positive.

When I hit a deer driving home at night that winter, she only wanted to know if I was okay. After I assured her that I was, and that the deer had even run off, seemingly unhurt, I said, "I don't think the car is damaged either."

"I don't care about the car, Sara. Cars can be replaced. You can't."

She could put things in perspective like no one else, and that has helped me deal with all the stress of the things she's missed over the last 10 years.

Also, after hitting that deer, she teased me about it. "If you see a deer limping around here, that's the one you hit." Her eyes danced when she said it.

That sense of humor has helped me deal with her loss, too.  But I still miss her.

35 Years

Daddy in about 1978 or 1979.

photographer unknown

It's been thirty-five years since my daddy died. There's a lot I don't remember about him. It's weird knowing that most of my stories about him are second-hand ones told to me by Mom or Nana or other relatives.

Here's what I do remember. We used to have an above-ground pool by my grandmother's house. It had yellow sides and was about three feet deep. You had to climb the ladder to get in. Unless you were Daddy. He climbed over the sides. Every time.

Daddy was a good swimmer.  He could swim underwater for what seemed like forever. In reality it was probably only a minute or two, but he would let me climb on his back and ride while he swam around. I can still remember the way the water beaded up on his back.

He used to take me with him sometimes to his favorite beer joint in town. All the old men there would buy me Cokes and M&Ms and tell each other stories. I'm sure none of those stories were fully on the side of truth. I wish I could remember them, but I was too busy eating chocolate to pay much attention. It's possible they played cards or dominos, but again, chocolate clouds my memory.

He built me a treehouse one afternoon because I asked for it. Before I left for school, I said I wanted a treehouse. When I came home, I had one. It occurred to me only later (much, much later) that he was only home because he was sick. I cannot imagine how exhausted building that treehouse made him, but he did it. And it wasn't poorly built either. It lasted for years.

His was the first funeral I remember attending. It rained. Not a heavy rain, but enough to be noticed.

Because he was a Marine Corps veteran, his coffin was draped in the flag. I remember at least two Marines were at the funeral, and they folded the flag and presented it to Mom. I didn't fully understand the significance of that at the time.

After the funeral, when people were still visiting and reminiscing, Mom asked me and my niece to take the flag to the car. We were almost there when footsteps came pounding up behind us. It was the Marines!

"We folded that wrong," one of them said and took the flag.

The stripes were visible and not the stars. Being only eight, I had no idea there was a right way and a wrong way to fold a flag. I still wonder if that's true for every country, or if it's an American thing.

The Marines quickly refolded the flag--stars out--and handed it back to us. It felt less solemn that time. But I think Daddy would have gotten a kick out it.

35 Years Later

Papaw at his 40th wedding anniversary.

Photographer unknown

Thirty-five years ago today, the world lost a good man -- Papaw, my grandfather.

I've written about my grandmother, Nana, and her final days, but Papaw died when I was six years old. Long before blogs. Long before hybrid cars. Long before smart phones and tablets. Long before so many things.

Thirty-five years is a long time. It's a long time to miss someone. It's a long time to cling to memories. And it's a long time for memories to fade.

For years, I had a cassette tape that had Papaw's voice on it. Sadly, I've lost that tape somewhere along the way. I don't really remember his voice anymore. I recall the voice on the tape being somewhat deep, but I no longer know if that's true.

Here's what I do remember about Papaw.

He read to me almost every night. I know he read more books than these, but I especially remember him reading Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss; Go, Dog, Go! by P.D. Eastman; and The Astrosmurf by Peyo. I knew Green Eggs and Ham so well that I could tell Papaw when he messed up reading.

Papaw hated reading The Astrosmurf. It's a comic book, so the text is in bubbles. He had a hard time with those. But I must have thought he was wonderful because I wanted him to read that book over and over (or maybe I knew he hated it and wanted to torture him).

Nana knew he couldn't stand reading The Astrosmurf and every so often, she would "lose" the book. Then a few weeks later, while she was cleaning or something, she would "find" it. "Why don't you ask Papaw to read this to you tonight?" I would delightedly hand him the beloved book, and he would shoot Nana the dirtiest look he could muster, knowing she was responsible. Nana would only smile.

Papaw used to wrap me in a blanket on cold mornings before school and carry me over to Mom's house (I usually stayed at Nana's and Papaw's overnight). Then he would start Mom's truck for us, so it would be warm when we left. Once I moved to Indiana, I wished he were here to do this all again, although I wouldn't have needed to be carried.

While Mom took me to school, I rode the bus home when I was in kindergarten. Papaw met me at the end of the driveway in his golf cart or the truck (weather dependent) every day and drove me back to the house.

Nana, Papaw and me.

Photographer unknown

Papaw drank milk. Once, he was sitting in his chair with his supper on the TV tray in front of him and a big glass of milk beside his plate. Being about five at the time, I grabbed the glass and took a swig. Unfortunately for me, it was buttermilk. I don't remember if I kept that drink down or spit it back in Papaw's glass, but every time I saw him with a glass of milk after that, I would ask if it was "good milk" or "bad milk."

Papaw loved working in his garden. We have some old home movies where I'm following in his footsteps while he's tilling the earth. I remember doing that more than once. I thought he couldn't see me because I was directly behind him and wanted to scare him when he turned off the tiller. I do not remember whether or not I was ever successful.

On the back of this photo, Nana wrote "the day before

he left us."

Photographer unknown

When he got sick and was in the hospital, I had special permission to visit him in his room. This was back when children under the age of twelve weren't allowed to visit patients. I don't know why twelve was chosen as the magic age, but I was only six. As I understand it, Mom and/or Nana spoke with the staff, and I was able to visit Papaw any time I was there. Maybe Papaw did this; I don't know.

It seems like we went to see him in the hospital every day after school. I was in first grade, and Mom would pick me up. We would drive an hour to the hospital in Victoria and stay there for a while before coming home. Nana was already there.

I know that he explained the cancer to me, but I don't recall the words he used. I know he told me he was going to die and what that meant, but I don't remember how he did that either. I do remember that he told me not to cry when he died.

When that happened, I honored that request.

Of Parks and Memories

I've been watching the Ken Burns documentary The National Parks: America's Best Idea on PBS this week. I find myself amazed at the vigor and vitality of those early users of the parks.

Having been to seventeen of the national parks in this country (and four in Canada!) and hiked some of the trails, I cannot imagine climbing mountains or hanging over cliff edges or rafting down rapid-filled rivers without the helpful guidance of the National Park Service.

I remember going to a campfire talk at Yellowstone back in 1987 and learning that, before the handy boardwalks were built around the hot springs, geysers, mud pots and fumaroles, tourists were told to follow buffalo chips. If the buffalo could walk there, then people could walk there. I think the theory was that if the earth's crust, which is thin at Yellowstone, could support a buffalo, then it could certainly handle a human. Can you imagine that?

I have so many fond memories of the parks. I've gotten lost in Rocky Mountain National Park, nearly been run over by a buffalo in Yellowstone, walked on a glacier on the tallest mountain on the continent in Denali, rode in a boat with a drunken captain in Kenai Fjords, and floated down the Snake River in Grand Tetons.

I haven't been to every national park. I probably never will get to them all, but I have loved every one of them. This documentary has gotten me thinking about my childhood, which has made me nostalgic for those lazy, adventurous summer days with long vacations in a van filled with books and toys and music down some of the most scenic roads in the country.

I had so much to be grateful for about those trips - the parks, the scenery and wildlife, the country and my mom. Without realizing it, I had other things to be grateful for, too. Thanks to Ken Burns, I now know how much gratitude I owe John Muir, Theodore Roosevelt, Stephen Mather and John D. Rockefeller, Jr.

I don't really know what this post is about, but I just felt like writing this down. Thanks for reading!