Wednesday July 6 2016  A BIT OF NOSTALGIA

Thank you to those who gave me favorable comments on yesterday’s blog.  Maybe I hit a bull’s-eye topic.  And today I have no topic.  Perhaps not enough has happened in my day yet.  My week is a bit discombobulated due to Monday’s holiday so I must work out on my usual WONDERFUL WEDNESDAY DAY OFF.   That will take place later this afternoon after I do some more work.

Each day shows improvements in the garage.  My car is packed to the ceiling again for another Goodwill drop off.  I am truly hoping we can have our house totally back to order in one year.  Sounds like a big job.  And it is.  I’m still letting go. 

For my faithful readers you may remember my comment about my finding one true treasure when I was scavenging through the house for the garage sale.  Here is a synopsis of what I found.  I had books tucked into many shelves, cupboards, bedside tables, and in boxes in closets.  Remember, there were lots of closets, lots of boxes, and lots of books.  I looked at each title and probably kept about 15 out of the entire kit and caboodle.  I found one book that I almost didn’t open.  But it interested me so I opened it up to read some of the questions I knew would be inside.  The book is 5 ½ inches by 4 ½  inches and quite thick.  It has a thick card stock cover with a spiral binding.  The title is, “MOM, Share Your Life With Me…”.  The inside cover page reads, “A Memory-A-Day Series, For Special Folks written by Kathleen Lashier, published in 1993.  I thought it would be empty.  I opened it up.  There on the backside of the cover was taped a picture of me when I was in the second grade.  Knowing the published date tags my mom at being 75 or older when she answered the questions.

The book consist of 366 pages of questions with a small pace left blank below the question for the “MOM” to write down her message, fact, or story.  There on the first page was my mom’s handwriting in answer to the question of her birth date.  Each page had a question.  I held my breath as I thumbed through the book to see if she had actually filled it in.  The questions were written for modern day answers.  Quite a few of the questions were not pertinent to the era when my mother lived.  But all the ones she could answer, she did. 

How my mother answered some of the questions spoke louder than the words written on the paper.  What she said in one sentence evoked so much emotion because I could hear the answer she didn’t (or couldn’t) say.  She seemed to find many of the questions quite “stupid”.  I could tell by the way she answered in such honesty and disbelief that such a question could even be asked.  I discovered a lot of pain in her life of which I had not been aware of at the time I was a child.  I believe I experienced some of the deepest sorrow I have ever felt while reading her words.  And it was seldom because of what she said, but rather, by what she left unsaid.  For the first time I realized how much of life my mother never experienced and yet I always felt that she truly did want me to experience a greater life.

Now I realize that there was a great deep sadness in her of which she could never speak.  I look back now and realize she did not want for her children the life she lived.  My mother was a product of her abusive environment, her lack of education, and the era in which she lived.  She was born in 1918.  Things were extremely tough for her family as she grew up.  Mama worked from the time she was five years old.  She took care of babies that came like clockwork every 18 to 24 months, she made biscuits from the age of five years old.  As she grew older she picked cotton for hours in the hot sun, plowed behind a mule, milked, canned, worked in the garden, and went to school after all the cotton was picked and everything was harvested and preserved.  If one of the children under her charge misbehaved it was my mother that received the beating. 

Her history opened my eyes to the reasons she did what she did as we grew up.  No hugging, no “I love you”, and lots of work for us to do.  It wasn’t quite as harsh for me and my younger sister as it was for my older sisters who were 6 to 9 years older than me.  My younger sister was born 6 years after me and my brother was born about 16 years before me.  

A few things I read made me cry, and even as I write I feel the tears stinging my eyes.  I so loved my mother.  I have never understood her quite as well as I do now after reading her handwriting on those small pages.  I remember giving her that book years ago but I don’t remember when she returned it to me.  I must have tucked it away planning to read it “someday”.  I look back now and realize how busy each phase of my own life has been.  I was too busy to read what she had written.  That alone broke my heart.  I wish I had read the book when I received it because it certainly opened up a lot of questions I now would like answered.  She is gone now.  All the hard toil of her life is over.  And I take comfort in knowing she found solace in her garden during her later years.  Her flowers were colorful and prolific and grew to heights above her head.  People would stop alongside the highway and walk into her gardens to photograph her and her flowers.  No one ever went away empty handed.  Mama’s clippers, always in one of her ubiquitous pockets, would come out and she would snip a bouquet of exquisite beauty.  She was up with the sun tending her garden and when she sat down for breakfast later she always had a beautiful fresh vase of flowers in the middle of her dining table.  When I visited with her I would need to scoot it aside so I could see her across the table.

My mother lived with her sister at that time and people were always stopping by for some reason or another, usually just to say hello, or to drop off something they cooked up the night before and had more than they could eat.  Neighbors were neighbors where she lived.  And whoever came by first always went home with the fresh flower bouquet sitting on her table.  It gave her a reason to go out and pick another spray of flowers.  She told me once that the more flowers you cut your flower, the more they will bloom.  And it was true.

Just a note of interest:  My mom was quite the sight to behold in all her gardening garb.  She never ceased to amaze me with the concoctions of clothing she wore.  First, she put on a headscarf.  Then a wide brimmed hat covered her head.  Her blouse or shirt always covered her neck, was always long sleeved, and adorned with large pockets of some kind.  Her gloves came up over her sleeves.  She wore polyester pants that came down to her ankles covering her high-tops.  And she always carried a hoe in her hand.  This hoe was honed to knife sharpness.  Once, when visiting her when she lived with my grandparents, I walked out behind my grandparent’s home and hanging on the barbed wire fence next to her garden were three, very long, lifeless rattle snakes.  Each had their head chopped off.  That is why she always carried her hoe.

 

A BIT OF NOSTALGIA

By Kathleen Martens

July 6, 2016

 

A bit of nostalgia,

A few tears shed,

As I remember words

My mother once said.

 

She was a doer,

That mother of mine.

And she knew how

To make me tow the line.

 

She had lots of practice

As the eldest of a dozen,

And later that resulted

In lots of cousins.

 

Mama was resourceful,

As well as fierce.

And as she called my name

Her voice would pierce.

 

I didn’t talk back

Because I knew she could paddle.

Even when I walked

She could make me skedaddle!

 

She could sew and bake,

And stretch a dollar.

And like I said before,

She could really holler.

 

And though she couldn’t say

“I love you”,

Deep in my heart,

She loved me, I knew.

 

She taught me to love Jesus,

And made sure I was in school.

And I knew to follow

All of her rules.

 

I miss her still,

These past six years,

But it’s been a while

Since I’ve shed any tears,

 

Because I know her reward

In heaven received.

And her legacy to me?

That in God I believe.

 

And though we are separated,

It is just for awhile.

Because I’m getting closer to heaven

And will again see her smile.

 

Thank you for allowing me to do a bit of reminiscing.  I think it does my heart well.  Though it saddened me to read a few of her entries I am glad I now have a better understanding of what an amazing and remarkable woman she was, despite all the hardships she endured.  It was just so sad to know what deep pain she suffered.  It gives me pause to stop and think about all the thousands of pages I leave behind filled with my own words. 

Thank You God for the treasure I found, I really do cherish it.

Thank You Father that You are my heavenly Father and You provided an amazing person to be my mother.

Thank You Lord for all my sisters for they each contributed in making me who I am.

Thank You for the joy I have in You.

Thank You Lord that I was not overworked when I was a child.

Thank You too for the gift of my children and instilling in me to say the words to them daily, “I love you”.

Thank You for bringing my mother’s book to my attention.

Thank You for sweet potatoes.

 

GOOD NIGHT AND GOD BLESS YOU.

I do hope I have not been too melancholy.

 

P.S.  I just remembered a poem I wrote several years ago for a family reunion we had.  It was about my mother.  Here it is if you have it in you to read another poem about this little old lady.

 

My Mama

January 2010

 

My precious dear mama.

 

A young person

Never allowed to be a child.

A student

Never allowed to pursue her dreams.

A wife

Doing without and sometimes not loved as she deserved.

A mother

Broken for her children.

A woman

Who survived by her fortitude and resourcefulness.

A grandmother

Who didn’t know how to say I love you.

 

But…she survived.

 

She grew to an adult

Without first being a child.

Life experience

Was her education.

She outlived her husband

And became free.

She gave her children to the Lord

And buried two sons.

She survived

By doing for others.

And she even learned to say

“I love you”.

 

Deep inside her…

 

She had dreams and hopes

And she trusted in the Lord.

Deep inside her she saw beauty

And planted a garden.

Deep inside her she loved others

And took care of their needs.

Deep inside her she had gentleness

That blossomed as she aged.

And deep inside her,

Her spirit was beautiful

For God had made her that way.

And when she left this world,

The world was a little less beautiful.

 

Now…

Her deepest yearning,

Her deepest needs,

Her deepest prayers

Have been met.

 

She has met her Creator.

 

The Great Physician

Counselor

Prince of Peace

 

And she will reign in His presence for ever.

 

She stored up her treasures in heaven.

 

She is now  a child…

A child of God.

Her dreams are fulfilled.

She is loved beyond measure.

She lacks for nothing

And is loved as the bride of Christ.

Her chains have been broken

And her crown is laden with stars

For her tireless giving

And  her administrations.

 

She is at peace

All hope fulfilled.

 

I’ll see you again someday mama

 

Love, Wanda Kathleen