Tag: family

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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

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Telling Stories to Pass the Time and Touch the Future

Today is Slice of Life Tuesday, and we’re writing to a prompt shared by Jenna Komarin: “The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next.” — Ursula K. Le Guin

That quote aptly describes the past six weeks, from the time my father took a steep nosedive the last week of May after finishing chemotherapy treatments and died of complications from Pulmonary Fibrosis on Friday, June 13. Even though there was a known certainty in the dense fog of uncertainty, the glimmer of hope in the uncertainty is what kept us all going.

Throughout the month of July, I’ll be using Dad’s stories I captured in the final weeks of his life to share poems about things that were on his mind – and I’m using the actual words from recorded audio, preserving the wording the way he spun it. I’m grateful to my friend Janette Bradley for sharing the idea to record these conversations to play again whenever I need to hear his voice.

When my brother Ken and I were there with Dad as he was rapidly deteriorating, we asked him to tell stories of family and his younger days to pass the time and keep his (and our) mind off the endless waiting and dreadful reality as things kept taking turn after turn like some sputtering single-plane engine spinning wildly out of control before the crash. It took some effort through broken breaths and the din of the oxygen machine that reminded me so much of a noisy generator, but he managed to share priceless treasures full of nuggets of wisdom from a life well lived with rich descriptions of family and friends from long ago.

In one story, he spoke an unintended haiku about his mother out of thin air. He told us, “Your grandmother said, ‘we dig our graves with our teeth,’ and she was not wrong.” I counted the syllables and captured the wisdom that he was sharing with his children ~ wisdom that his grandchildren and great grandchildren will appreciate in the coming years as they continue to remember Dad. Even when – – no, especially when – – life feels so uncertain.

Media Clip: Dad Telling About His Mother’s Sayings

Dad’s Thin Air Haiku

your grandmother said

we dig our graves with our teeth

and she was not wrong

Note: My grandmother’s quote is attributed to Thomas Moffett, a physician from the 1600s, and later to Thomas Edison, who often gets credited as the originator.

Special thanks to Two Writing Teachers at Slice of Life

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Raccontino Poems

My friend Margaret Simon of Louisiana is always inspiring me to try new forms. We write with several overlapping writing groups. Margaret hosts Poetry Friday and This Photo Wants to Be a Poem, organizes Spiritual Thursdays, blogs with Slice of Life, hosts and writes for EthicalELA during #VerseLove and the monthly Open Writes, and is a member of the Stafford Challenge. She has also published several books, and we presented a poetry writing workshop together in April at the Fay B. Kaigler Children’s Book Festival at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg. She recently posted that the Poetry Sisters had written Raccontino poems, which are couplets of any number where the even-numbered lines end on the same rhyme and the title is expressed in the last words of the odd-numbered lines. I raise a glass to my writing friend Margaret today. You can follow her on her blog Reflections on the Teche. 

Family Vacations

packing suitcases ~ memories to make
experiencing life before we leave

there is no better way to spend our time
than taking a trip ~ a welcome reprieve

from routine demands, a fortress built for
placing importance in what we believe

things we can only learn as we travel
(like setting aside our personal peeves)

savoring now, embracing family
holding presence as belonging we weave

interlocking fingers: togetherness
fastening futures ~ no regrets to grieve

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Storied Recipes

One of Dad’s favorite books was Pat Conroy’s cookbook. I think the reason he liked it so much was that as a teller of stories, Dad found a story about food with every recipe Pat Conroy shared. This was no ordinary cookbook – – it was food for the mind and food for the body. Food with history. Food with heritage. Food to delight the senses and the curiosity. Stories were the appetizer and carried conversation into the main meal.

I thought of our family a lot over the weekend – especially as I was at BJ Reece Cider Company in Ellijay, sampling the ciders and tasted one that was perfectly flavored with mulling spices. I said to my husband, “I like this one, but only for October and November – not June or July.” At first, he’d wondered what I meant. After tasting it, he licked his lips and said, “Ah, yes. I see what you mean.” This cider was called Apple Pie and was described as the perfect sipping cider for sweater weather. They weren’t kidding.

One sip of this cider brought memories of times we gathered at Dad’s sister’s house for Thanksgiving. Mom and Aunt Ann would make us Instant Russian Tea so the cousins could all sip on something while the adults had their own special drinks that made them laugh loudly. Back in the 1970s when Tang Breakfast Drink was all the rage, Mom and Aunt Ann would make a pot of this tea and send all the cousins down to the basement to play board games on the big table while the men gathered around the television for football and the women camped out in the kitchen catching up.

Here is the recipe from my Aunt Ann Downing for Instant Russian Tea.

2 c. Tang

2 c. sugar

1/2 c. instant tea

2 pkgs. lemon Kool-Aid, unsweetened

1 t. cinnamon

1 t. ground cloves

1 t. allspice

Mix and store in air-tight container, and use 2 heaping tsp. per cup, or to taste.

Instant Russian Tea

we celebrated kid-style

clinked cups with cousins

Now that both Mom and Dad are gone, only the memories remain. I’m thankful for those ~ they are what will carry us forward to sustain us. I smiled and closed my eyes for a moment, remembering just a week ago when the cousins all came for Dad’s Celebration of Life. We clinked wine glasses this time, and we are grateful that we are still clinking.

Our parents taught us well.

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One Little Hummer Pantoum – and Why I Love Birdwatching

I came to love birdwatching when, as a child, my mother pointed out every bird and called it by name. Wherever we were, she’d point to cardinals, chickadees, bluebirds, and tell us about them. On drives from our home to visit our grandparents, Mom spotted every hawk and announced it – Cooper’s Hawk, Red-Tailed Hawk, Red-Shouldered Hawk, and so on. She knew them all. My mom’s mother was known for her landscaped yard with flowers and shrubs of many kinds – – along with her bird feeders and bird baths. There was never any doubt that I’d take their legacy of their deep love of birds into future generations.

It’s also why I feel their presence most closely where birds are concerned. And it’s why sometimes I wonder if birds are angels, of a sort. It’s why my heart has been so heavy since they clear cut all the trees on our farm, save for a few hardwoods – after putting out specific seeds to attract specific birds over the years and then celebrating when they showed up. We will replant, but tall trees are years away.

I doubled down on my hummingbird feeders for that reason, and was delighted to see that my favorite hummingbird from last summer has returned. I cried when she left last year, lingering longer than all the rest, and I’d know her anywhere. She’s the only one who gives thanks for her food, looking me straight in the eye with sincerity. She’s back.

one little hummer

hovers close, looks me in the eye

expressing thanks for her sweet nectar

a fighter jet on gratitude pause

hovers close, looks me in the eye

just as she did last summer

a fighter jet on gratitude pause

this ruby-throated hummer

just as she did last summer

she was the last to fly south

this ruby-throated hummer

turning my tears of grief to joy

she was the last to fly south

expressing thanks for her sweet nectar

turning my tears of grief to joy

one little hummer

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First The Landscape Changed

first the landscape changed ~

two months ago they clear cut this land

harvested the pine trees

I cried for the trees,

for the birds

I’d loved to watch from the front porch

for their nests

for their eggs

for their fledglings

a few remained in the hardwoods,

the usual cast of characters~

cardinals, wrens, finches, pine warblers

my favorite wood thrushes

but then Dad died

and the world changed

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June Pantoum: I Had a Horrific Dream

A Pantoum poem contains 16 lines and is a recycled line poem using only 8 original lines in this frame of appearance: 1234. 2546. 5768. 7381.

I had a horrific dream

I woke up crying because

Mom was still alive when Dad was dying

and he rejected Mom

I woke up crying because

Dad was coerced by a desperate stranger

and he rejected Mom

for a hand-flapping liar

Dad was coerced by a desperate stranger

he cast aside the love of his life

for a hand-flapping liar

Dad was declared insane

he cast aside the love of his life

Mom was still alive when Dad was dying

Dad was declared insane

I had a horrific dream

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June Open Write Day 3 of 3 with Leilya Pitre

Leilya Pitre of Louisiana is our host today for the last day of the June Open Write. You can read her full prompt here. She inspires us to write poems about small acts of kindness. If you’ve ever curated a music playlist on a theme, you know there is excitement in the discovery of related verse – it’s an addictive cognitive hobby. Leilya has done that – curated a group of poems on a theme – and offers several model poems to use as inspiration. She shares these below:

She explains the process and urges us to write an etheree or nonet as our poetry form.

  1. Choose a small action or quality that you believe helps make someone a decent human being or good citizen. It may be kindness, honesty, fairness, patience, curiosity, listening, speaking up, sharing, helping, apologizing, forgiving, welcoming, learning, planting, voting, mending, repairing, thanking…
  2. Brainstorm what this word or act looks like in daily life. How does it show up? Who taught it to you? How do you practice or witness it?
  3. Write a poem celebrating or exploring this quality or act.
  • Nonet → 9 lines; starts with 9 syllables, decreasing by one each line.
  • Etheree → 10 lines; starts with 1 syllable, increasing by one each line.

A Gift of Dill Pickle Chip

I slide my dill pickle to the side

a rippled chip, algae-hued green

floppy, salty, puckery

knowing he’s eyeing it,

never having to

ask for this chip

he knows I’ll

offer

it

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June Open Write Day 2 of 3 with Tammi Belko

Tammi Belko of Ohio is our host today for the second day of the June Open Write, inspiring us to write poems about our normalcy. You can read her full prompt here.

Tammi explains the process:

1. Use the word “normal” or another word of your choice.
2. Brainstorm examples or characteristics of that word as they relate to your life or the world around you past or present.

3. Write a poem that defines your chosen word. Your poem may take any form.

Teaching Ideas:

  • Choose nuanced vocabulary words for students to incorporate into their poems.
  • Have students select nuanced words to describe a character from a novel studied in class and use the word in their poem.

Kim’s Normal Poem

the day normal changed

normal changed on Friday the 13th

the way things do

when Dad drew his last breath

my brother and I

had gone home

for showers and sleep

planning to return

shortly

but shortly came sooner

than we’d thought

and the Hospice nurse

called to tell us

we could come spend time

with him before

she called the funeral home

we walked in to find him

under a scripture-embroidered

bright yellow blanket

wearing his Georgia Bulldogs cap

as if he were taking a nap

right before the game

at perfect peace

with the world

as we exchanged

a knowing look:

it would only be normal

for our quirky dad to

wear his velvet-sleeved

doctoral robe

and ball cap straight

through the pearly gates

***

he brought tears

and laughter as folks

realized: this is so Felix!