Traditions

Recently, I was thumbing through a Monticello catalog and ran across a Cypher Decoder.  This instrument is a reproduction of a the one Jefferson designed and used as Secretary of State for President George Washington.  For a moment, I thought about buying it.  I could see it being used when grandchildren came for visits or summer stays.  I could visualize a vacation house by a private lake.  Children running in and out, laughter filling the air, and the sun reflected on the water created shimmering memories. Children creating messages, parents and grandparents joining in the fun.  Late in the evening, notes left, that when deciphered, said "Stories by the Fire" or "S'Mores on the Porch."

Then I was jolted back to reality by the ringing of the phone.  There are a couple of problems with my day dream.  I don't own a vacation home on a private or public lake.  And more worrisome than that, I don't have grandchildren.  Of my two sons, only one is married, and there are no children yet.

But it did start me thinking about those folks who have traditions they follow.  I am not speaking of those holiday traditions we all have and celebrate. I mean those in summer or fall or spring.  Camping trips, vacations to the same area year after year to name a few.

When I was growing up, my family never had a vacation.  We never left home for any length of time.  The relatives went places like Grandfather's Mountain, or the Rhododendron Festival on Roan Mountain, some went to Gatlinburg, or Cujo's Cave.  But my family didn't.  We had no traditions to speak of other than trips to Big Creek to wade, or have a cook out for us and my grandma.

You see my grandma had Alzheimer's and she lived with us so going anywhere as  a family was out of the question.  We were home and that was it. I never felt as though I had missed anything.  You can't miss what you have never had.  

So when I married, I tried to establish traditions for my husband and me, some worked some didn't.
When the boys were born, once again I tried to set up some traditions for them.  We did the camping in the back yard, picnics by the fireplace in winter.  We always had home made pizza on Halloween.  Again, some stuck, some didn't.  But I think if my sons were asked they would say they liked the traditions we established although they may seem meager to some.

I hope when we do have grand children my husband and I can create memories for them to share when they are adults. I would like nothing more than knowing my grandchildren thought coming to our home was fun and that they felt excitement about coming to visit the "old folks."  That is if we ever have grandchildren!

Preparing for Goodbye

Preparing for Goodbye

     Today was a difficult day for me.  I had to break the news to my "team mates" that I was not coming back next year.   My "team" is actually "Our Team." The team of teachers I have been a member of for fifteen years.  I am the only English teacher in the eighth grade at Damascus Middle School  Damascus, VA.  That is one the unique things about DMS.  We are a small school of about 220 students in grades sixth-eighth.  In those three grades we have one teacher per subject area...Well we did until a couple of  years ago.  We lost our civics teacher in seventh grade and this year our English teacher in sixth grade.  

      This year has been a struggle with other teachers carrying the extra loads.  For instance, our seventh grade English teacher teaches three periods of seventh grade English and two periods of sixth grade English.  I teach four periods of eighth grade English and one of sixth. Our two social studies teacher and a science teacher, teach a period of civics.  Very stressful and very confusing for us and the students.  But I digress.

      DMS is a special place, the first and only place I have taught, other than my substituting.  So today, as they poured our footers, (the test for me that made it real) I told my team mates I would not return for a sixteenth year.  

I watched as faces went from inquisitive, to shock, to sadness.  I felt awful.  This was suppose to be an exciting time for Jon and me and I feel like a traitor.  My boss has known for a month now, but I just couldn't find the right time to tell these friends, this family, I was leaving them for home.

     I have been gone from home for thirty-seven years.  I came home regularly and I carried the pride of my hometown everywhere I have lived.  But there is a big difference between  going home and being home.  My Dad is ninety-two!  He is the baby of his family, the only one left. My mama died six years ago - Alzheimer's.  Such a horrible disease to have and to watch.  My daddy was very brave and did every thing he could for her to make her happy, comfortable, and loved.  As an only child, I watched their relationship change from that of husband and wife to caretaker and patient.

     In her last hours, she was granted clarity by God and she told my daddy how much she hated leaving him.  She apologized again and again, but finally she could stay no longer and she departed this realm with my daddy at her side and her only child trying to get there, before she moved on.  I did not make it home that day in a timely manner.

I have never really forgiven myself for this "failure " as I see it.  But I know one thing, I never want to be in that situation again.

      So my wonderful husband has done everything in his power to make my dream a reality.  We are moving home, to be among family, long time friends, and the love and connections we have missed out on for so long.

But that does not stop the tears when I think of everyone I am leaving here and the connections, love, and friendships I have had here.

     So many things have happened while I have been in Southwest Virginia.  I have learned lessons I will never lose.

I have learned:

I can fit in with anyone, if I put my head to it

I am smarter than I give myself credit for

I am stronger than I thought I was

I am weaker than I knew I was

I count on God for everything

My friends became my family

And leaving them will make me extremely sad

But with God's guidance and help I will be able to leave knowing I will always have good friends - Family -  here.

So today, I got the initial shock out of the way.  I can move forward now and do what I need and have to do knowing I treated them fairly and respectfully and hope they will always know they are welcome in our home.

Where I Am From

Where I Am From

I am from generations of strong, proud people who left their homes and rowed to unfamiliar shores and ways.

I am from a small town nestled in the hills of Tennessee.  From a place called Appalachia.  A place pitied by outsiders. A place of pride for us insiders.

I am from parents who must have wondered at the imagination of their only daughter.

I am from Sunday dinners at my Grandmas where children swarmed in and out of the house like bees to a hive.

I am from Sunday night episodes of Lassie Come Home and body- jerking, uncontrollable sobs when that front paw was raised and the whimper escaped her lips.

I am from summer nights of catching lightning bugs and frogs.

Telling ghost stories and then running all the way home from imagined monsters lurking in the shadows.

I am from church services on hard wooden pews, and stern older folks who could break out in smiles as warm as the sunshine. 

Where all the adults were your “parents”

And where sitting with my cousin, Janice, caused uncontrollable laughter and pops to the sides of our legs

or worse yet-

Separation!

I am from hard working parents who gave all they had and did all they could to raise me right.

I am from crinoline slips, white anklets, and patent leather shoes.

I am from games of Red Rover, Mother May I, and jump rope rhymes:

 “3, 6, 9, the goose drank wine…”

I am from skinned knees and elbows, bruises, and broken hearts.

I am from a place where cars still pull over for funeral processions

– even on four lane roads.

I am from a place where folks wave and speak to you as you pass - know you or not.

A place where food and love are interchangeable words.

Where Mama taught me to sing, pray, and always think before I spoke.

Where Daddy who taught me to fish, shoot, respect the earth, and have a love of reading.

I am from a place where I met the love of my life, married him, and learned happily ever after is not to be taken literally

 Yet taken nonetheless.

Where the births of two remarkable sons gave me a joy I had never known before, but have known every day since.

I am from a color-laden patchwork of people, experiences, influences, and love.

Most of all love!

A Changing Year

I am a teacher, a facilitator of knowledge, a mentor, a role model, a parent, a friend.  My role is ever changing.  What I am to one student, I may not be to another.  It depends on the student.

When I was in school, teachers were authority figures; they were revered and feared. We were not ever sure they were human.  Did they sleep?  Did they live at the school, hiding away in some secret passage while devising more plans of torture for us?  I can’t recall ever seeing a teacher in the grocery store.  I knew they ate, I saw them in the cafeteria, - maybe that was the only time.  And, what was it like to have a parent who was a teacher?  The word that came to mind was mortifying!  Now that I am a teacher, the word is fantastic!

I did my best to keep a low profile.  Don’t talk, don’t tell, and don’t call attention to yourself.  That is how I made it through the first four years of elementary school. 

Then something wonderful happened.  I was promoted to Miss Wanda Morrell’s fifth grade class.  This was during the time when teachers still did home visits. ( I cannot imagine that in this culture.)  Miss Morrell came to visit my mother and me on a sunny July day.  She had called a few days before to set up the meeting.  Mama had scrubbed our small home until it shone.  Even the front porch was scrubbed in those days. 

She arrived on a walker.  She explained she had fallen and broken a hip and would be on the walker for quite some time.  Then she explained that she had a problem.  Our classroom was on the second floor, which required a climb up two flights of concrete stairs.  She would need someone to meet her at her car each morning, get the room key and carry her belonging up to the room.  Then bring the key back to her while she did her morning duties.  Then she asked, “Sherry, would you be willing to do that for me?”  She looked me straight in the eye when she asked. 

Of course I said, "Yes!"  What was this?  A teacher, one of the elite, had noticed this shy, over-weight child, and was not repulsed?  She did not look at me as if I was a disappointment?  I did not know what to think.  Little did I know this woman would influence me to become the teacher I am today.

Our classroom that year was enormous.  It was rectangular with “coat closets” in the back.  The outer wall was windowed, and the interior wall near the hallway was covered with a long bulletin board.  The front wall was all long black chalkboards.  In the middle were our desks, all 31 of them.  Under the windows were bookcases with encyclopedias and dictionaries; an aquarium and a pencil sharpener were near the end of shelves.  That room became my haven from the bullying I experienced at the hands and mouths of kids my own age and older.  It is hard being fat, no matter when or where you live. 

It also became the place, I learned to play the autoharp, heard my voice on a tape  recorder for the first time, looked into a microscope to see what lived in pond water, studied geography outside under the large oaks that graced the old school campus. We had field trips to Mr. Cope’s book store, the post office, and down on Crockett Creek looking for salamanders and hoping we did not find any snakes. 

In the spring of that year, we came in one morning to find a full size loom set up in the back of our classroom.  That spring, we learned to weave.  We added woven lines on tea towels for our moms for Mother’s Day. 

We painted a mural on the long bulletin board.  The theme: “What we do for fun!” There were tempera paintings of families, baseball games, characters throwing footballs, basketballs, fishing, riding bikes, and sitting under trees reading.

That year, we transversed the globe and our small town, because one teacher deemed us worthy.    That year, we were all equal in that classroom.  We were friends.  Some of those friendships still exist almost fifty years later.  How can you put a price on such a special experience? 

Lots of water has traveled down Crockett Creek, and our small town has seen prosperity and hardships since those years in Miss Morrell’s fifth grade class, but one thing has not changed.  If adults gave those different children half a chance to feel normal, the outcome might amaze the world, even if that world is one of their own making. 

Welcome to Southern Connections

Sunday, Feb. 26, 2012  

This would have been my mama's ninety-first birthday.  Unfortunately, she died October 26, 2005.  She had suffered from Alzheimer's for almost a year; it did not progress gradually as the doctor had said it would.  It moved rapidly, by April 2005, she did not recognize me, her only child.  By June, she had stopped speaking in sentences; she could no longer walk on her own, or feed herself.  By early fall, she stared off into space and ate little.  

Then on Sunday, October 23, as I prepared to return to my home in Virginia; she called to me as I stood in the doorway talking to my Dad, about her prognosis.  She called me by name and then told me she loved me!  I had not heard my mama call me by name in six months, and I must admit it took me aback.

I went to her, told her I loved her also, and I would be back the next weekend.  She smiled at me and said, "OK." Then she drifted away from me again.  

The following Wednesday afternoon, I had the call I had tried to prepare myself to handle for over a year.  She was at the ER, come quickly, it was not good.

I prayed and broke traffic laws, but I was too late.  She passed away, ten minutes before I arrived.  For the longest time, I carried the guilt that I had not been there for her passing.

I now realize, I was not supposed to be there.  She spent the last hour or so of her life, as clear, as if nothing had taken her from us.  She spent that time with my daddy talking about leaving and how much she loved him did not want to go.  It was their time, not mine.  I had mine on Sunday afternoon.  

They began their life together fifty-two years before, without me; it was only fitting that they have the last few hours together, as a couple, just as they began the journey in 1953. 

I miss my mama more each day. I seem to need her more, the older I become. However, I refuse to lead a sad existence.

I, in no way, want you to think this blog will always be depressing, but I had to tell you about the later part of my mom's life today on her 91st birthday.

There will be other memories I will share about my family, growing up in the south in the sixties and seventies and some days wanderings that have little or no connection to me, but things I want to write.  

I hope you enjoy my musings and visit from time to time.  

You'll always be welcome! 

Sherry