Last Day
Today was my last day in Ohio; I begin the 9-hour drive back to Atlanta bright and early tomorrow morning. I’ve had a great week and though I am anxious to get back to my house and my friends, it’s tough to leave home.
Yesterday my mother and I drove the short 14 miles to Greenfield, her hometown. We visited the cemetery and we stopped by each grave that marks the spot of someone we love. Two of my great-uncles and my great-grandparents are buried there as well and it seems as though each time we visit, I am rewarded with a new story – a snippet of legend that I weave into my own version of our family’s rich tapestry. After we left the cemetery we drove past the house where my mother spent most of her childhood – it looks the same, yet different, as most childhood homes do. MeMe and PaPa lived there from 1950 to 1995 and as every step and crevice of that house holds many memories for me, I figure my mother’s memories must overflow. We drove out of town to the Hall farm, where one of my first cousins still lives. The land around it, once Hall acreage for miles and miles, has been sold off by bits and pieces. So the lane that was once dirt, and was then paved, is now a road where dozens of families live in tiny tract housing. The farm house, once grand and important, stands falling down. The barn, piecemealed together, is one bad storm away from crumbling in on itself. We didn’t stop long.
Tonight, when we stopped by MeMe’s so I could say goodbye, she got to talking about that farm, and the one before it, down on Paint Creek. She and my grandfather bought that first farm in 1926 from a family named Fishback, and they lived there, in a 3-room house, for 21 years. My grandmother, only 18 when they moved in, already had two young babies, and while they were living there she gave birth to three more (all but one of them at home in that house – oh the stories she could tell you about that). They finally moved out to the Hall farm in 1947, a few months before she gave birth to her seventh (and last) child. MeMe said that the big white house on that farm was like heaven – she had a kitchen sink for one (the 21 years prior to that she’d had to go to a spring for water, as the well water had sulfur in it and was therefore unusable). They were only there three years before moving to town. My grandfather, tired of milking, let his eldest son take over the operation, and that son’s daughter, my cousin, lives in that house today. They don’t milk anymore, and the acreage is smaller, but it’s still a working farm, and it isn’t work that I envy.
But my grandmother, in her amazing resiliency and fortitude, speaks with no bitterness or hardness about those days. She was 40 before she was able to bathe in a tub, or use water from indoor plumbing to wash her hair (although she will tell you that rainwater will give you softer hair than anything else). Not only can I not even imagine it, I can hardly bear it. But she laughs when she tells stories – of milking at 4 a.m. in snow and ice; of her tiny young babies, kicking each other out of their shared bed in the attic room above her; of the never ending daily struggle to simply live - she laughs.
I have never known anyone like her, and I know that I never will. She says that each morning when she wakes up she thinks, “Well. . . okay then. Guess I’m here another day.” Her doctor says there is nothing wrong with her, save aging, and so she wonders, this wonder of mine, exactly what it is that she’s still hanging around for. And so every day I thank God that He’s kept her here, for me.
Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas, y’all.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. John 3:16-17.
Sweet Sleep
I am at my mother’s in Small Town, Ohio and it’s too early to be awake on my vacation. But it is impossible to sleep-in in this house. First, it’s nearly 100 years old so voices carry and noise travels and the radiator next to my bed knocks and rattles. You then factor in the fact that my mother, an early-bird her entire life, and my stepfather, a retired cattleman, get up pre-dawn and it’s futile to try and stay under the covers, no matter how tired you may be. (Oh, and did I mention the THREE grandfather clocks?)
I drove up yesterday, pulling out of my driveway at 6 a.m. and pulling into theirs at 3 p.m. on the button. It was an easy trip, thanks to the dry roads and blue skies. I expected the traffic to be heavier, but it wasn’t bad at all. I only passed one accident, on northern Kentucky just south of the Ohio River, after 75 and 71 merge. (If an accident like that had happened on the connector in Atlanta, I would’ve sat there for hours.)
There are about 30-40 people (sadly that number decreases every year, as my family continues to get smaller), coming over tonight and my mother is already in a frenzy. We’ll eat food and the little ones will get gifts and I will get asked, approximately 30 to 40 times, why I don’t have a boyfriend. My cousin Colleen, who is two years older than me, is in a significant relationship now, so I can’t even hide behind her. I’ll stand alone, the 29-year-old spinster and my rural cousins, who started their families in high school, will look at me with curious eyes.
But what can you do? It’s Christmas.
Year in Review, fill-in-the-blank style
Idea shamelessly stolen from Eliza.
1. What did you do in 2005 that you’d never done before? I bought a house! I went to the North Georgia Mountains, Puerto Rico, had breakfast with Mickey Mouse and hosted four people at my place for Thanksgiving. Oh! And I ran a half-marathon!
2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? Considering my only resolution for 2005 was to set myself up to be able to buy a house by the time I turned 30, I think I exceeded expectations.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth? No, but T only missed 2005 by about 4 weeks, so I think she counts.
4. Did anyone close to you die? My mother’s sister, Jo, died in August.
5. What countries did you visit? Does Puerto Rico count?
6. What would you like to have in 2006 that you lacked in 2005? Financial stability! (But that’s boring and everyone wants that.) Can I just be really pathetic for a second and say a healthy, romantic relationship based on mutual adoration and admiration?
7. What dates from 2005 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
March 29 – I closed on my house.
April 6
April 30 – I ran the Country Music Half-Marathon
November 15 – Found out my brother and his wife are pregnant!
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? This will probably start to sound repetitive, but Buying the House. (And running the Half.)
9. What was your biggest failure? Gaining back about a 1/3 of the weight I worked so hard to lose.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury? No – I’m a lucky, healthy girl.
11. What was the best thing you bought? Wait for it. . . The House. (Also the worst.)
12. Whose behavior merited celebration? My friend J0shua who went above and beyond in all things house related.
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? Personally? See above for things non-house related. Otherwise – the Federal Government’s response to Katrina.
14. Where did most of your money go? Can you guess? The House.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? I get really, really, really excited about a lot of things so that’s hard to say. The House, camping, my birthday, receiving roses at work, going to Florida with Mo, seeing Alison Krauss live, Disney!, the Stone Mountain laser show, Starbucks in the morning, cookie parties.
16. What song will always remind you of 2005? I just can’t possibly narrow this down. Anything by Keane, Nickel Creek or Ray Lamontagne.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a)happier or sadder? Both – I am always some crazy combination
b)thinner or fatter? Sadly, EXACTLY the same.
c) richer or poorer? Financially, poorer. Without question. But I’d like to think I’m richer in the things that matter.
18. What do you wish you’d done more of? Relaxed! I wasted too much time worrying about things that never happened, or were of no consequence.
19. What do you wish you’d done less of? Spending!
20. How will you be spending Christmas? In Ohio with my mother, stepfather and maternal extended family.
21. Did you fall in love in 2005? Stupidly, yes.
22. How many one-night stands? None.
23. What was your favorite TV program? Arrested Development!
24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? Of course not.
25. What was the best book you read? This is cheesy, but I thoroughly enjoyed the Traveling Pants series.
26. What was your greatest musical discovery? Ray Lamontagne, probably. I wore that CD out last winter/spring.
27. What did you want and get? The House! (And what did I NOT want and get? A new car.)
28. What did you want and not get? An iPod. But there’s still time!
29. What was your favorite film of this year? I didn’t go to many movies in 2005, and nothing really stands out. Most recently, probably HP4.
30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I turned 29 on June 30 and it was fantastic. My birthday seemed to last for weeks and it was a banner year.
31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? I honestly can’t think of anything.
32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2004? New clothes – since I had to buy smaller sizes a few times! Otherwise, I am all about denim and flip flops. I would wear them to work if I could. (I actually, do, sometimes.)
33. What kept you sane? My friends. Montego.
34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Forever and always: Vince Vaughn.
35. What political issue stirred you the most? Poverty.
36. Whom did you miss? My mother!
37. Who was the best new person you met? That’s a secret.
38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2005. I am not now, and have never been, and never will be, alone.
Friends
Everyone needs friends. What is it that they say? “No man is an island”? No woman is either, especially not this one.
2005 has been a hard year for me – buying the house was incredibly stressful and that stress hasn’t abated much in the 8 months since I’ve become a homeowner. The year has been filled with a lot of growing pains, but I think I will come out of it on Jan. 1 a stronger, wiser person, and I suppose that’s the point.
But I wouldn’t have survived any of it without the women who surround me. I could never do them justice, not in words and not in deeds, and I’m not sure one photo would even hold all of them. I may not know anything about how to be in a romantic relationship, but I have been blessed beyond measure in friendship.
For now, and perhaps for the rest of my life, they are enough.
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Compassion
