WordSisters

Category: Growing up

  • To Louis and Octavia

    An enthusiastic three-year-old ran craft materials to the kitchen table. She had a project in mind, a puzzle to build out of tongue depressors. 

    I was not enthusiastic about the project which, as many projects, would lead to painting which might lead to painting herself. In fact, I was tired and working hard to be gentle as she taped sticks together. When a washcloth became necessary, I got it damp at the sink, looking at her head bent over a row of painted wooden sticks. 

    The oak table where she worked on a protected area was made in 1902 when Louis Cravillion married Octavia Orde, my paternal great grandparents. How I miss my Grandma Tavy. My grandmother died following childbirth, so Octavia cared for her grandson. As a woman of the age, I am now, she cared for me. I sat on one of these chairs while she braided my hair, ate meals she cooked, or colored. My mother worked in town.

    After my great-grandfather died, we had moved in with her. My parents remodeled the kitchen and dining area storing this oak table for a new Formica and metal model. Eventually an apartment was finished upstairs so she would have her own place. The table returned. Eating breakfast in my designated chair, it was possible to watch everyone come to the new post office across Main Street. Patterns were cut to make clothes, cookie dough rolled out, homework completed.

    After her death, the table was refinished and set up as my parent’s game table. As they downsized, it came to be mine. Our children ate and did homework and projects on a glass surface that protected the oak. Today’s artist is one of their children. 

    Stories of six generations of my family have been exchanged here. Men have returned from wars to a first home meal, baptisms and weddings celebrated, hard decisions made, children loved. Great grandma’s quiet and calm presence participated in half of its history. I see her hands now show in mine; her brown eyes look back from our mirrors. I can only hope I carry some of her wisdom to those who sit at this table, her blood mixed in their veins. I am not so tired.

  • Broken Dreams

    Aniya Allen’s funeral was June 2, 2021.  Six years old, the newspapers said she wore a sparkling tiara in her small pink coffin. The second to die of three young children caught in gun violence in Minneapolis this May. One is still in hospital. On a local television news show, young Minneapolis school children talked about being afraid to play outside or go to the park or to see friends. They asked, begged, demanded that older kids and adults put down guns and give peace a chance and kids a chance to grow and dream. 

    Unfortunately these two families are not the only ones who have lost their very young children to the senseless and unexpected gun fighting of young men with disagreements that should have been resolved with discussions, even strong words, maybe fists. Not guns shot in an alley. Not a shootout on a street corner where parents drove home from grocery stores or taking a child to McDonalds. These babies cannot be replaced, these families’ broken dreams cannot be rebuilt.

    According to Brady every year 7,957 children and teens are shot in the United States. More than 1,600 will die from gun violence. Gun sales in the United States grew over 65% increase in 2019 and continue strong in 2020. Like icebergs, there is no true tally of general U.S. gun possession that accounts for arms purchased illegally or stolen. 

    A child’s funeral is about the saddest gathering on earth. Eulogies for a child describe their smiles, their bright eyes, their wonderful laugh, their love of sports or dancing or swimming, their helpfulness, of pride in being a big sister or brother. All the ways a young child’s life should be talked about when families gather for birthdays or holidays, but not in a solemn church or temple service while mourning the one resting in a small pink coffin.

    We have all lost Aniya Allen and Trinity Ottoson-Smith and the other 1,600 children and teens dead because of gun violence.  So many broken dreams.

  • Bunny in a Basket

    Weather wizards are implying a decent Easter weekend. Warm enough for plastic eggs to be hidden outside amid rapidly growing daffodils while avoiding winter piles of rabbit turds.

    My husband remembers Easter egg hunting as a wonderful annual event in Indiana. Every single year while our kids were growing up he was disappointed by rain, or slush, or plain old snow and would tell them about how the Easter Bunny hid eggs and treats outside when he was a child. The stories returned when a grandchild appeared. And we watched her search for plastic eggs and her basket in snow last year. This year will be different.

    Now there is a reality check-my husband’s brother and sister don’t have that same Easter memory. They remember wearing winter coats to church on Easter a number of years, other years when sleet froze the daffodils, and maybe one or two years that all came together in the way he holds as the “every year” family happening. One time we took our children to Indiana for Easter and an outdoor egg hunt. Part of the drive included iced over car windows and slipping on icy roads from Indianapolis to his hometown. Not even living bunnies were out that morning.

    My father’s parents had a tradition (I was told) of giving us live critters for Easter—little chicks or bunnies or a kitten. There are pictures of me as a toddler with a skeptical face as a real, live bunny sits in a pretty basket next to me. Being rural and practical, my grandparents insisted my parents take these critters home to become future egg bearers or dinner. I never heard what happed to the kitten, but I assumed it went elsewhere because my mother hated cats. And the bunny? It’s fate was settled after biting me on the finger and chin. Again, that is what I was told, and knowing the players I believe it to be true.

    One year my mother and father fully celebrated the end of the Easter Vigil with friends. That night they did hide our eggs outside. My mother planted them next to the back porch and set the chocolate bunnies next to the row of colored shells to protect future egg trees. These were not plastic eggs or plastic wrapped bunnies. She was too sick to supervise the morning hunt. My dad did what he could to pull some fun into setting dirty eggs and messed up chocolate bunnies in our baskets. After church, we headed to our grandparents for clean jellybeans and the annual disagreement about taking home live chicks. 

    Eventually we moved to a city. My parents changed friends. Easter became safe fun followed by Mass where we squirmed about in new church clothes. Two states south my future husband, a time or two, searched outside for eggs and other surprises appropriately hidden.

    May your holiday be peaceful. Peace for our country is all I want in my basket. Save the bunny.