Month: July 2025

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So Many Variables

This month, I’m sharing conversations that my brother and I had with our father in his final days of life on this side of Heaven. In this conversation, he was yearning to go back home – a place where he never, unfortunately, was able to return. My brother and I spent long weeks at his bedside, and each day we had conversations and learned of things he needed us to do before his time came. We were blessed to be able to help him accomplish some of those things. Like yesterday, I chose a diminishing form and used Dad’s exact words for today’s poem. This is a nonet form, and it creates the sense of urgency to live a day at a time…..and there are only so many.

Never Enough Time Nonet

there are so many variables

in this thing… who knows?….you just have

to go with the flow, one day

at a time ~ that’s the way

you have to live your

life, Dad urges

(we agree ~

to a

point)*

*My brother and I loved our father, but one frustration we shared was that despite our foresight we’d shared on getting some affairs (and his house and collections of books and other things) in order, he waited until the last minute, leaving many tasks undone and relying on us to do things for him in those final days. While I do believe in going with the flow and allowing the good Lord to open doors, I’m not an exclusive member of the serendipitous steering currents of the spirit club – words he used often. I’ve also learned that he who dies with the most toys does not win. I believe in planning ahead. Despite all that we wish he had done differently, we are still learning from our dad – most of it is what to do, yet much is what not to do.

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Waiting for the Next Thing to Happen Etheree

This month, I’m sharing some of Dad’s final conversations with us in the last days of his life. In this one, he urges us to live to the fullest and to make every minute count as he did a lot of hospital waiting. I chose the etheree form for this poem, created with his exact words, since the etheree form (ten lines with each numbered line having that many syllables in it) visually shows the diminishing time and creates the sense of urgency to live.

You Can’t Kick The Can Down the Road

isn’t this what we’re all doing, really?

waiting for the next thing to happen?

it’s not day by day, but hourly

we must use our time wisely

all we’ve got is today

every minute counts

life is today

whatever

is, just

is

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Felix’s Favorite Stories: The Secret to Happiness

Dad told the Secret to Happiness story best and referenced it often in his sermons. In the photo below, the fairy fable from Leo Buscaglia’s Loving Each Other is one he took to heart. He was always meeting the needs of others, always illustrating lessons through stories. This month, I’m sharing some of the audio clips I recorded as my brother and I talked with him in his final days. His words live on.

secrets lie within

the pages of obscure books

read widely: you’ll see

Dad gave me this book for Christmas one year – I always got a box of recommended reading, sometimes with exact references – as Loving Each Other by Leo Buscaglia had in the side note.
Special thanks to Two Writing Teachers at Slice of Life
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Grapes and Ladders Vineyard – Ellijay, Georgia

I went for a quick getaway to Ellijay, Georgia between Dad’s funeral and the tasks of cleaning out a house and storage rooms with my brother. Somehow, my thoughts went straight to visiting vineyards, and I think I found a retirement plan up there waiting for me in the North Georgia mountains. Crisp air, majestic views, friendly dogs, tasty wines – – just add friends and family, coffee, a fire pit with an Adirondack chair and a book, and…..that’s the life for me! It’s just the medicine I needed for these days in between – – similar to the kind of medicine Dad described in one of his final conversations with us. You can listen here:

Dog-Friendly Vineyard Retirement Dream Haiku

my retirement dream

is pouring wine tastings for

people and their pets

because the longer

the people sit and sample,

the better life gets!

My Schnoodle Fitz at Grapes and Ladders Vineyard – even though he didn’t have any wine, he got happier and happier as folks came over to pet him and tell him he’s so cute – and that’s the dog version of fine wine.

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July Shadorma

who better

to lead our nation

than the ones

who built it:

caring women and men with

strong humanity?

Today’s Shadorma was inspired by Dad’s views on women in leadership roles. You can listen below to his story he shared about the power of women in ministry, words from the heart spoken by our Southern Baptist father as told to his two Southern Baptist children (one of us is currently married to a member of the Catholic faith, and one of us formerly was) in his final days of life. The thing about Dad was his love for others. ALL others, even those who believed differently from him. His full embrace of humanity far exceeded differences of religion, politics, sexual orientation, and race. He even loved those who didn’t like Georgia Bulldog football or the Atlanta Braves.

It all had something to do with the way his mother demonstrated this first. He learned from her. Take a listen:

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The Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval

This month, I’m sharing stories I captured on audio in the final days of Dad’s life. There were funny moments, serious moments, sad moments – – all of them with levity and meaning. In today’s audio below, listen for the phrase “the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.” Translation: someone passed every level of acceptance and had made it to the inner circle of the Haynes family. While every family has its way of declaring their acceptance of a new member of the fold, this was Dad’s – – and, of course, we as his children had to get through the tests of our own spouses’ families’ gate keeping systems, too.

At our family dinner following the graveside burial, all in attendance were invited to share stories. My husband, eyes brimming with tears as they often do when something hits deep, stood and shared the story of the day he’d “done the old-fashioned thing and asked Felix if he could marry his daughter.” He described the scene: there they were, standing at the top of the dock along the Sapelo River, Spanish Moss gently blowing in the limbs of the Live Oaks, where Briar had expected it to be just him and Felix.

Only it wasn’t.

Felix was “the easy one to get by,” he shared. Miriam……..not so much. But there he was, face to face Felix AND with Miriam and all her intuition, when Dad looked over at Mom and saw that Briar got a passing score – so Dad gave Briar his blessing with two conditions: 1) “get your arms around the kids;” and 2) “encourage Kim to finish her doctoral program.” Briar had just received the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.

He was in! And 17 years into our marriage, Briar has done both of the things my father asked of him – the kids love him, and I finished my doctoral program, ten months after Mom died of complications from Parkinson’s Disease. Even though she wasn’t physically present to see these things happen, somehow I know she knew. She knows everything, still.

Fast forward to June 2025. In the hospital room with Felix were Ken and Jennifer and I. Somewhere between Heaven and Earth, Mom stepped from behind the veil to join Dad and deliver a message to Ken and Jennifer through Dad’s words.

Did Jennifer get the Haynes family’s Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval?

She got The Grand Slam Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval!

Listen above for

the Good Housekeeping Seal of

Approval: She’s in!

Bottom of the ninth,

bases loaded with Felix,

Miriam, and Kim,

and Ken hits a Grand

Slam homerun with his choice of

a winning soul mate!

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Engelheim Vineyards

Like John Muir, I often feel the mountains calling…..and I must go.

I was reminded of a story Dad told about his grandfather who once lived in Gainesville, Georgia, a mountainous area of our home state. Somewhere along the way, a rock marking his homestead was moved from that place in Gainesville by a family member to Dad’s house on St. Simons Island, Georgia, and one day this month, my brother and I will be retrieving it to go to our cousin Kathy Gilmer’s house. Kathy is compiling a book of family stories and will be the next keeper of the rock. I’ve often wondered where my inner mountain calling came from, and now I know how the mountain spirit got in my soul. Over the years, people have asked me how I could move away from the beach. Let me tell you something: densely-populated tourist-thronged beaches ripe with heat and humidity hold no sway over the tranquility of mountains in the early morning when the mist is rising and a veil of silence hangs low before sunrise. The clean air, the cool temperatures, the majestic views, and the vineyards are just as pure as the ocean, without the need for flood insurance.

So I did what any good daughter channeling her inner mountain gypsy would do right after Dad died and there was a space of resetting between the final days, the death, the funeral, and the business of closing down shop.

I rented an Airbnb in Ellijay and took my soul Schnauzer, Fitz, on a dog-friendly vineyard-hopping tour. Our first stop was Engelheim (translation: angel home) Vineyards, where Fitz’s German roots inspired me to order the Riesling, and every last sip was divine.

We must keep our sense of adventure alive…..whether with wine or with travel excursions or with ice cream, as we discussed in some of Dad’s final days of his life. The nurse in the hospital had offered him only vanilla or chocolate, and my brother, sister in law and I were discussing this with Dad. You can listen here:

Engelheim Vineyards

a glass of Riesling with Fitz

perfect afternoon

My vineyard hopping buddy Fitz with a glass of Riesling at Engelheim Vineyards in Ellijay, Georgia – cheers to the German breed and the German wine!
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My Great Aunt Claudine and Her Sawed-Off Toe

Throughout the month of July, I’m using Dad’s stories I recorded in the final weeks of his life to share poems about things that were on his mind. I’m dedicating some of the days in July to capturing what he shared with us that was on his heart in these days – and I’m using the actual words from recorded audio, preserving the wording the way he spun it.

Today, I share his fragmented story of his aunt Claudine, one of his paternal grandmother Lena Mae’s nine children, who lost a toe making lye soap in the back yard of her Waycross, Georgia childhood home. There were three girls and six boys, all told, and my grandfather and his brother Virgil were making lye soap in a big pot in the back yard one day. They were cutting the wood to kindle the fire under the big iron pot where they made the soap, and somehow Claudine’s toe got involved. I’ve heard the story two ways: she lost it and she almost lost it. Depends on who tells the story. In Dad’s version, it was just “cut real bad.” When I called Dad’s cousin Kathy, she assured me that part of the big toe was missing because she’d seen Claudine’s foot. She also said it flew into the chicken yard and nobody ever found it.

As I listened to Dad tell his stories, the repetition of common words and phrases led me to choose the Pantoum form, since that is a form that uses repetition. He also had a notebook he kept at his bedside for writing, and it was heartbreaking to see the plummeting handwriting and broken thoughts, like jagged pieces of thick glass on the page. I’m glad that I captured so much audio during these final days so that I can revisit his voice and put the stories into words. A good friend at work, Janette Bradley, inspired me to do this, and I cannot thank her enough for her foresight.

My Great Aunt Claudine

Claudine was bronze, raven-haired, blue-eyed

she worked at the movie theater

fourteen cents bought a ticket to the show

a few more for popcorn and Coke

she worked at the movie theater

had twin sisters ~ Jeanette and Geneva

a few more for popcorn and Coke

Geneva died young of an ear infection

had twin sisters ~ Jeanette and Geneva

her toe cropped up in a backyard cross-saw

Geneva died young of an ear infection

Jeanette lived on to raise a family

lost part of her big toe making backyard lye soap

fourteen cents bought a ticket to the show

stuck her foot on a stump under a cross-saw

Claudine was bronze, raven-haired, blue-eyed

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Earthworms and Moonshine

I’ve spent some time back “home” in coastal Georgia this summer, far more than any ordinary summer, and I’m sharing stories this month about time with Dad in his final days and the stories he shared. Dad was a Baptist minister who served twice as pastor of First Baptist Church on St. Simons Island, Georgia – so my brother and I grew up there – learning to swim and ride bikes, learning to read and multiply and add, learning to crab off the pier and fish and learning to live. We lived a few other places over the years, but St. Simons came full circle as the beginning and the end of Dad’s career as a family of four.

I think what I loved most about growing up on an island wasn’t really ever about the where, but about the what and the whom~ more specifically, the what of childhood and its carefree nature. The friends, the family time, and the things we did together. It surprises me when I go back there that I ever lived and played in all that extreme heat. As a post-menopausal female now, I much prefer cooler places with drier air. While I love the beach, I’m not a fan of swimming in any ocean because Jaws came out when I was ten years old and wrecked my ability to see anything but a place where hungry sharks lurk when I look to the sea. It scared me so bad I didn’t even want to put my hands in the kitchen sink to wash dishes after that – – let alone go down to the shoreline.

My good friend Lisa Warren and I used to ride our bikes to church back in the 1970s when the world was a safer place, and I remember Dad’s sermon jokes he told from the pulpit. He told so many of them that always helped break the ice and get the sermon going. In his final days, I recorded a retelling of a favorite joke that you can hear him tell in his own voice below.

Earthworms and Moonshine

The Sunday School teacher had a mason jar of moonshine and an earthworm. He drops that earthworm in that moonshine, and it disintegrates.

Now, boys and girls, what does that teach you?

A little boy said, “If you drink moonshine, you won’t have worms.”

Today, I salute childhood summertime memories in a tricube: three stanzas of three lines each, each line having three syllables.

Summer Tricube Salute

days are hot
sun is strong
dragonflies

nap a lot
nights are long
record highs

fish fry pot
crickets throng
sunset skies