The Aftermath

We had my mother's funeral last weekend. There was a beautiful private service for just family at the cemetery, and a public memorial at the church.

The church no longer occupies the large imposing building on Main Street where I grew up from earliest memory, attending Sunday school every week, singing in the children's choir and watching the wheel of community turn until one day it found itself dying. The dynamics of the community changed during the late 80's and early 90's, and the costs in keeping the big church running were no longer met by weekly tithes.

My mother was an elder during the change over, on her way out of service and grieving for the loss of the building that had seen births and weddings, and my father's funeral. It is never easy to move a house of worship. I know ghosts walk the halls of the old church; I've heard them before. I wonder do they bother the new congregation walking those corridors; do they understand why things have changed?

Upon arriving at the new location, I was immediately struck with the similarity in building layout to the old church. Once inside I was surrounded by familiar faces and comforting reminders of the years and history of the congregation itself. Included was the wall of pictures showing the different faces of building they had occupied in their 126+ year existence.

The minister had us, the family, crowd together around the large session table to tell stories of my mother. As I looked around, the positive and healing energy of family wrapped itself around me and I felt, for the first time since Mother's death, at peace. I know my mother is at peace in heaven and totally happy to be reunited with my dad and her other relatives. There is no reason to weep, for at last she is free.

Watching the faces of those around me, family, friends, relatives, casual acquaintances, I saw a microcosm of the people whose lives my mother touched as a librarian. People seemed shorted, wider, older than I remembered, another slap of the wheel of time across my face. But the love and warmth they radiated took me in their arms and assured me I am not alone in this time of grief.

A building is not a church. A church is a collection of like minded people sharing and growing in God's love and word. No where was that more exquisitely made clear than at my home church this past weekend.

Some where up in heaven, Mother is smiling.

Racing Full Speed in to Fall

When Labor Day is over I always feel a sense of sadness. Summer, as far as I am concerned, is over and it is time to start the race through fall. Between horse shows, football, festivals and school every day and every weekend is packed to the rim with activities. The days begin getting shorter, the evenings cooler and my power bill goes down. Positive and negatives balancing their order in the universe.

Fall is my favorite season and not just because it's the season of my birthday. In fall, the air seems cleaner and the blue of the sky is bright enough to blind you. The crunch of newly fallen leaves under the horses' hooves as we trample through the forest on trail rides is soothing to my heart and soul. Watching the turn of summer into the dying embers of fall, a reminder of our limited time of this earth.

Memories of Friday night football games mix with after game dances in the high school gym as I wander the many long ago falls of my youth. They are followed by Saturday morning's of raking yards and burning leaves, along with hay rides, pumpkin patches, and bonfires. A simpler childhood, uncomplicated by electronic devices of all nature. How I have often longed for my children to have that same peace we enjoyed so many years ago.

Not too long ago our girl scout troop went to a corn maze during Halloween. The girls spent hours chasing each other around through the dying corn stalks, laughing ,shrieking at times, as each met with others in the 20 acre maze. Afterwards we all drank hot apple cider and sat around the bonfire roasting marshmallows to make s'mores.  As the hour grew later, the camp songs started and soon even strangers were singing along with us.

The simpler things in life bring us together, remind us we are a community of like minded Americans. They make the harshness of the conflicts around the world seem far away. I know that sounds horrible, but don't we all need a little escapism every now and then?

Oh...
BTW - the helpful hubby is turning 50 this weekend, so I'll be back on Monday with a preview of my first contemporary romance, January Frost, due out this fall from Keith Publishing.  Stop by and check it out!

"A Hard Candy Christmas"

I'm not by nature a country music fan. Most any style of music is fine as long as it has a melody and harmony. But I must admit I have always admired Dolly Parton. Even before I knew what she sang I appreciated a small woman with a big heart, and the tribute she always gives to the place she came from - the mountains of Tennessee. Today I appreciate it even more, as this morning a piece of my childhood, my elementary school, burned to the ground.

It was a grand old building that had fallen on hard times. Built long before I arrived in the late 1960's, it had been used as a training facility by the police for a while.  Closed and vacant for more than five years, it became a dumping ground for appliances and furniture and anything else no dump would allow. Several years ago some alumni went into the building to document the decay and damage inflicted by both time and men. Everyone agreed it would be the last time. It was too painful.

This was the front entrance. In my mind I can still see the line of yellow buses standing in the steaming afternoon sun, windows down, all waiting in anticipation of the children, loud and gleeful, pouring out the door and down the stairs. I still see the cars waiting for their riders, and the safety patrol with their orange straps directing the chaos. I watch the walkers heading in groups of three and four, vanishing into the pine wood between the school and the subdivisions where most of us lived.

Here is the front office, where the secretary checked us in and out of school, allowed us to call home when we forgot something, or let us do the daily announcements. I still see the desks and counters, see the curtains fluttering as the principal comes from her office or the infirmary calling parents for checkouts. Still remember when the most difficult decisions were which team would pick you for dodge ball.

 

 

Closing my eyes I can see my first grade teacher standing at that blackboard, trying with all her patience to make seventeen 5 and 6 year old children be quiet when the sun was shining and the playground was calling our names.  Where the punishment for excessive talking was to write reams and reams of pages about "I must learn not to talk in school" which I must admit to her credit I did finally learn. I can feel the excitement and joy of reading groups, of knowing that in books I found a place where I could fit in, no matter how alone I felt.

 

All good things come to an end, no matter how hard we try to help time stand still. But we close our eyes, and the pictures come back, the laughter on the playgrounds and the hum of fans buzzing in un-air conditioned rooms, where the feel of chalk dust on our fingers mixed with the smell of old hardwood floors polished to a gleam in a building that was already old when we were young, and we know the truth about memories. The heart remembers, especially when you still have those friends whose bonds of friendship were forged in a time and place that even today we remember with smiles and laughs. And as we smile, the embers of our building grow cold, and our heart beats hot for the grandeur that was once our elementary school.

 

 

 

Good bye Eastern Elementary. Once an Eagle, always an Eagle. We will always remember those we met here.