Tag: family
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Five Pairs of Pants and One Shirt
“Life is complicated and not for the timid. It’s an experience that when it’s done, it will take us a while to get over it.” Garrison Keillor from Leaving Home When circumstances are happening fast, situations unfolding in real time, and decisions are being made without the full engagement of sufficient brain power, sometimes you…
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Veer
It’s a little foggy as to when I determined to start practicing laughing like my Aunt Vera, though I was certain at the time I must attempt to give it substantial effort. It was just the best. I coveted her ways. So practice I did. But you don’t need to tell anyone . . .…
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Putting a Pin in Hope
Over your lifetime, whether long or less long, how many staff meetings have you sat through? This is not an attack on staff meetings . . . they are (usually) a necessity. I’m just curious as to the nomenclature of the room according to the decade in which you sat/are sitting. It’s been a while…
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Dera Lee and the Fish Knife
Of all the stories I could tell you about a mother on this 25th anniversary of her sudden death, I will choose it to be about the fish fillet knife she carried for protection. You’ll have to wait though, because there’s a prologue. You’ve heard folks talk about “karma” and the concept of “what goes…
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Meat Hungry
When you tell life stories to people do you wonder if there’s any common thread between the teller and the listener, the writer and the reader? I do. Can you relate to me? Can I relate to you? Do my words speak your language? Certainly we are not all the same age (stop clapping your…
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The Streets of Laredo
Question for you: What’s more important, striving to be the descendant that previous generations would be proud of? Or working every day to become an ancestor that future generations would want to claim as theirs? You think on that for a while and we’ll circle back. Very briefly I’d like to sum up what’s been…
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The Homestead of Hope
Entering the world at the tail end of the Baby Boomers and growing up in the 60s and 70s, my decorative surroundings were very much oriented to flower power, wood paneling, wicker swag lamps, and David Cassidy posters. Strangely though, my wandering daydreams often took me to a time a hundred years prior when life…
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Beulah Land and Betty Lou
My blessed mother-in-law started talking about her funeral somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 years ago so we “kids” became accustomed to nodding and smiling and “mmhmming” when that inevitable topic came up. Now we’re all sitting around on couches holding cups of cold coffee staring blankly at each other wondering what to do because…
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The Death of Roy
My friend Roy died of cancer when I was 14. He was 16. There was a funeral at the United Methodist Church and all of us teens who were in the youth group with him sat together and cried in varying degrees, dealing with wretched emotions as our young years both allowed and forced us…
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O Christmas Tree
It’s easy to blame 2020 for many a habit or “quirk” as I like to call them, but if we’re honest, a few of those tendencies were already firmly established before this year rolled around and we’d best just own up to it. Yes, I speak of myself. You’re off the hook. I have a…
Beyond Lashley Lane 