Day 18 – Your favorite birthday

Day 18 - I'm skipping over a few because this one is important to me.

My 54th birthday is, so far, my favorite birthday because it is, in fact, a re-birthday.

On my birthday this year I went and got dentures.

Some of you might be horrified, asking "Why would you go and do something so painful on your birthday?!"

Well, it all started when I was little and I have a very good reason for wanting to do this now.

I was a very sick little girl. I had kidney infections constantly! The urethra was narrowed so urine backed up and the infections went to my kidneys - and to combat that, my doctor prescribed sulfa drugs. The only side effect known then was that mosquitoes didn't like it so I never got bit.

I read years later that it was also responsible for yellowing teeth. I've told you in earlier posts that we weren't wealthy and that milk on the table was a luxury that happened once a week. We had beans, which are a source of calcium, but how many kids like beans?

When I was very young I had a terrible toothache from a cavity. For weeks I cried myself to sleep at night, the ache almost unbearable, and at times I snuck into my older brothers bed and pressed my cheek to his shoulder for the relief of his body heat on my poor face. He must have told my Mom because one day she told me that she and Daddy and I were going to get an ice cream. We ended up, instead, at Dr. Ezekiel's office - an antique dentist from the middle ages, who had no sympathy for the fear that I certainly displayed. Mom held one hand, Daddy the other, and the dentist shoved a needle full of acid like novocaine into my gum and then pulled out the tooth.

That day was my first impression of the dentists office and I never complained about a toothache again, to anyone, ever. My teeth yellowed because of the antibiotics and they hurt and I kept my mouth shut... I never smiled to show my teeth - not even for school pictures.

See - No teeth showing.

When I was a teen, the front two teeth had cavities behind them and eventually it broke through into the front - after much pain. So because it was noticable, off to the dentist I was carted. My mother and my sister went with me this time. Dr. Weeks wasn't much better as a dentist but he did use Nitrous Oxide or laughing gas, so the shots didn't hurt so much but the fillings were always whiter than my teeth so they stood out like sore thumbs. Eventually they fell out, had to be replaced, the bottom teeth had to have multiple fillings and they never stayed either. When I was 22, and my son was about a year old, I went to a dentist who took impressions for the front 6 teeth in my upper gum.

This is what I've had to "smile" with for 32 years.

The partial was going to wrap around the incisors and was supposed to fit right into the holes left by the extracted teeth. I didn't get to see them before he put them in. He pulled the teeth, shoved the partials into the holes and said " Don't take them out for three days." He gave me a prescription for tylenol 3 with codiene and left. After the first day I was nearly dying with the pain. I gently pulled them out so my gum would get some relief, and could never get them back in! I was horrified to put it mildly. So I finagled and wrangled and twisted the wires so they would wrap around the incisors while the partial rode on the FRONT of my upper gum, and was all but invisible when I smiled. I don't think my husband at the time ever knew the despair I felt that these teeth didn't fit right and that I was too petrified to go back to this dentist so he could force them back into place. I kept my secret very well. Over time the wires wore off the enamel and those teeth decayed. Teeth behind them also wore away and broke off. Throughout the years, one by one, my teeth wore down, fell out, broke off, and left me with nothing to bite or chew with. When I got sick in 2000, I took massive amounts of Prednisone and other drugs to combat a serious bowel disease. These drugs loosened what was left of my teeth and I lost a few more.

I was majorly depressed and trying to hide that from the world and my family was an ordeal that I never want to go through again. Putting on a happy face when you're embarrassed to talk to them, or to let them see you eat, was sheer misery. I began to let my hair grow out and go gray because I think I wanted to fade into that gray area where you're not noticeable... I can psychoanalyze myself with the best of them! I told people that I liked the silver - and I did, because it fit my self-esteem - gray.

I seriously didn't want to be noticed. My fear of dentists had a most extreme affect on my whole life!!!

Two years ago I went to a Christmas party with my sister, as I have done for the last 5 years. One of the girls in her office came around taking pictures... We put our heads together, my sister and I, and smiled. Jo has pretty white teeth so she proudly smiled. I closed my mouth and smiled. The girl took the pictures and said, okay, once more. Smile big. I opened my mouth and smiled big, but because my partial rode up so high under my lip, it looked as if I hadn't really smiled ... She took the picture again and looked at it and said "Don't you want to show your teeth?" I wanted to crawl under the table and I was thinking - Yes! I want to show teeth! I wish I had teeth to show! I wish I had teeth that I was proud of! But I couldn't so I shook my head and she went on.

At my grandson's birthday party my granddaughter was trying to take a self portrait of she and I. She kept taking the pictures and looking and said " Smile, Ma!" So I gave my grimace version of a smile and she took the pictures. After three or four she got a little exasperated and frustrated and said " You don't know how to smile, Ma."

She was right but she didn't know how right!

So I decided that I had to smile, for her, for the people at the office parties, for myself, for everyone, because I don't like this gray area I found myself living in. I felt like I was disappearing! I am sure it's just psychological but I felt like I was left out of parties, events, get-togethers, etc because of the way I looked. I wouldn't smile so I think I must have looked sour all the time. My teeth were an embarrassment so I seldom talked while looking someone in the eyes and eye contact is imperative for communication! I wouldn't eat around people. I couldn't bite or chew. My co-workers wanted me to go out to get a hot dog ... Ha! I couldn't bite it. I went on my own, bought them, brought them home and ate them with a fork.

So I finally made the first step and called Sensational Smiles of Charleston.

I decided that for my birthday I'd be able to smile. So I went, talked, had the impressions done, explained my history and fear with and of dentists, and felt like they knew enough to be gentle with me.

On Monday I had the first try in. I liked them but they were small.

My daddy and most of my siblings had small teeth too, but for a first time brilliant smile, I wanted it to be big! So I went back Tuesday, the 12th for the second try in. I met the doctor who would be pulling my teeth that day too.
Dr. Gutierrez was like a best friend you didn't know you had until you met her. She listened to me, and I instantly felt at ease about her. She looked at the teeth that we'd worked with the day before and we both agreed that they were a better choice with a few modifications. She was about to ask me to come in the next morning and I think someone told her how desperate I was about having new teeth and a smile for my birthday because she came in and said she had a patient she had to work with but she would take my teeth down to the lab herself, do what needed to be done, and sure enough within 20 minutes she was back and with the perfect teeth!

The next morning I took the two valium when I got to Jo's work and she drove me to the dentist office.Dr. Gutierrez worked on my mouth, swabbing novacaine on my gums, and I noticed it was taking her awhile so after she moved her hand from my mouth I asked her about the shots. I said " I'm ready" So she laughed and said " We're done!" That was one side. The second side was the same... I never felt the needle! She said she uses a Ph balanced numbing medication and that most people feel a pinprick but that the burning pressure is not the needle - it's the medicine. She was just awesome and I love her for being so considerate.
Within 5 minutes she had the teeth out, and the new teeth in!
I've been foolishly taking pictures of myself, smiling, not smiling, from the front, from the side... I can't believe it really is me! I don't really look like me  or not the me I was used to seeing; the sallow, sunken cheeked, toothless, smileless, unhappy looking woman that so many know.

A co-worker asked me " How long did it take you to come to this decision?" I told him that it was a few months... Actually, it took me longer than I've known him - 15 years.
So now my daughter, and others, say I have taken those 15 years off. I have colored my hair again, got it cut... I feel new. I smile and it feels crazy good! It's fun!
No one knows, and probably can't understand how bad I felt about myself. It's hard to listen to people talk about going to the dentist to get their teeth cleaned, to have a filling put in, to have a cracked tooth repaired - and before they can talk to me about what dentist I use, I change the subject, or pretend to notice something else... anything to take the attention away from me - because I know they see. I know they wondered.
And now that it is done, I wonder myself, why I waited this long. Technology has progressed so far, and everyone I talked to said that the shots don't hurt... I didn't believe them.
Fear - Fear is truly a stronger, inescapable prison than the stoutest steel and concrete edifice.
I noticed the difference when I went out yesterday and today ... people spoke to me, smiled at me, LOOKED at me. And I dazzled them with a smile that came from the dentist office but more importantly it came from the heart.
So today is the best birthday I can remember because I got something I never had -  A smile to be proud of.

Happy re-birthday to me!



From this---






To this 

From this woman-

To this woman.

Day 15 - What I wore today

I'm going to venture out into the realm of daring-ness and say that whoever came up with the 30 days suffered a short-out on day 14 and 15... Really.

Who cares what I wore today?
I wore clothes.
There.
Happy?
Okay.

Day 14 - This Week

This week is just starting. It's Monday. The weather is cool because it's the 4th of October. This is a magnificent time of year... In spite of it being a Monday, the fact that the weather is so fall-like, it just couldn't be a bad day...

I may come back to this particular post later in the week and add, but for now, the outlook is pretty positive that this is going to be a good week.

Day 12 - What's in my Bag.

Which bag?

In my camera bag, I have a camera.

In a grocery bag on the counter, I have bread and milk.

In my pocketbook (bag) I have everything I need.

My keys to both car and house.

A little bit of cash.

My checkbook.

My identification.

A comb.

My camera.

A small tube of hand lotion.

A mirror.

Fingernail clippers.

Reciepts.

I don't carry the kitchen sink.

However, if my purse was big enough, I might.

It's handy you know.

30 Days of Me (Sue) Day 11 – Your siblings

"Your Siblings"

Well, as I start this, I have 4. By the time I am finished...
I'll still have 4.

I have 4 siblings, really. I have three sisters and one brother. Linda, Carolyn, Thomas, myself, and Jo... That's how we came and that's who we are.

My sister, Linda, the oldest, was 14 when I was born. Carolyn was 11, and Thomas was 7. Jo came when I was 3.



Thomas, Linda holding me, and Carolyn 1956



Linda is a beautiful woman and beautiful person. She has had her share of tough times and hard knocks, as most of us have, and yet her demeanor is sweet and humble, but strong. She's precious, patient, smart, and very much loved by me, her kids, people in her church, and anyone who has ever known her. She's talented, too!

Linda made my wedding cake, and my birthday cakes when I was young.



Me at my 7th birthday party - That's Linda holding her son Ricky.



She used to cut my hair. In fact, when I was about 8, my hair was down to my behind.

It was thick and I absolutely hated combing it because it hurt. There were constant threats to cut it if I didn't keep better care of it, and Linda used to come over and wash and brush and comb it. I must have given her a particularly hard time one day because she took me out on the back porch and cut my hair so that it was about an inch long all over my head... In my whole life, and in all the years I have known her, that day, and that day only, I both hated and loved her at once...

Once I realized that my hair was too short to have tangles, she was my hero. She still is. She always kept her own hair neat as a pin and beautifully styled,  

and she was basically the home salon for all the ladies of the church at one time. Perms, curls, cuts, styling, you name it, she did it. She sings like an angel and I have several homemade CDs that her husband, Eddie, was sweet enough to make. He has recognized finally that she is a diamond and he is probably the richest man in the world.

Chris ( Carolyn) and Linda

Carolyn is my next oldest sister and she lives in, and works for, the state of Arizona. Carolyn, or Chris as we call her, is a no-nonsense kind of woman. She too grew up with a few hard knocks and in tough times. She's frugal, and thrifty and dependable. She's an extremely pretty woman with a whole lot of willpower. She managed to raise her two daughters by herself for the most part, while selling real estate, and did a good job of it.

Me and Carolyn (Chris)



Carolyn, or Chris. See I told you she was extremely pretty!



I don't know how many years of school and college she's invested in but it shows, and don't dare engage her in a conversation wherein you aren't absolutely sure of your facts because she can out debate you on practically anything! She makes me proud! I love her and wish we lived closer together. She's definitely the kind of person I like to hang out with.

She's re-married now to an "old hippie" as she calls him, and he is a special ed teacher. Chris just became a grandmother for the first time, and if her past attempts at success is any indication, she's going to excel at 'grandmother-ness' too. 

Thomas - my brother. Want to talk about hard knocks and tough times? Try being the only boy - born between two girls, and then two more.

Me, Thomas, Jo

Thomas was the typical "Big brother" that all little girls need to protect them from boys who steal kisses on the playground, and of course, from the boogeyman at night. My mother said that I wouldn't eat for anyone but Thomas when I was little. Someone, one of my sisters probably, has a picture of him feeding me a Chicken Pot Pie when I was probably a year old. Even as I grew older, he was still the one I ran to when I had nightmares or was just plain out scared of something. He's my hero because he kept the water moccasin from biting me when Jo and I were swimming at the boat landing at Huger one year. He also helped me catch my first huge catfish!

Thomas or "Junior" as we called him, had it rough. Daddy was hard on him, and no one will deny that. When he was old enough, Thomas joined the Navy. He was stationed in Cuba for a long time, and then Spain, and then Morocco where he met and married Fatima. They had a daughter, Maria, and eventually divorced. Thomas moved to Missouri and remarried. Maria was killed, and no one knows where Fatima is.



He looks like a little boy here.

When I was 7, I got a bicycle for Christmas one year. It was a red Western Flyer with a shiny Chrome fender and it was the most beautiful bike ever. Thomas had busted his somehow and in order to engage in some playtime one afternoon, my sister and I coerced him into playing " Taxi" with him driving my bike, as the taxi driver. The fee was some candy, an early version of Star Burst, and he was more than willing to participate in the game. I had just come out of the front door from making a withdrawal from the candy jar for a ride on the handlebars of the taxi. I ran around one corner of the house calling " Taxi!" and was about to make the second corner, when he did. The angle of the bike had the fender practically vertical, which liked up perfectly with the front of my shin, and from that 'wreck' I ended up with 11 stitches. That scar eventually wound up turning into NLD, which occasionally is the result of trauma. The interesting thing is that some 21 years after that initial wound, I had to go and have a minuscule fleck of lead paint removed from beneath the scar.

I came along after Thomas, and for two years (well as soon as I could talk) I begged my parents for a baby.
I think it started when my Dad needed some piece of wood, plywood I guess, for one of his projects. We were at Charleston Lumber Company, which later became Pelican Building Center, which later became Builder's FirstSource, which later became my employer... But I digress.

I remember clearly sitting in the backseat of the car that day, waiting with my Mom, for Daddy to come out of the lumber store. Before he did, however, several other people came out, and at least two of them were women with their husbands and they were holding babies.
Naturally, or not naturally, I figured that babies did not come from beneath cabbage leaves, but you bought them, instead, from the store where you buy everything to build anything, including babies.
I leaned across the front seat, excited beyond words, as first one, and then another woman came out with a baby in her arms. I was bouncing!
" Mama! Where is Daddy? When is he going to come out? What kind of baby is he getting?!"
"What? What are you talking about, Sue?"
"Daddy went in the store to get a baby! See! There's another one!"
And indeed, another couple came out, and the Dad was holding his little boy.
"Daddy went in there to get our baby, didn't he?!"

My disappointment was probably tangible when Daddy came out pushing a cart with a piece of plywood instead of a carriage holding a new baby.
However, later that same year I guess, Mama and Daddy both went somewhere and three days later, they came back with my baby. My baby sister - Jo Ann.




Me and Jo

 She's smart, she's got talent, she's beautiful, and she's had her share of tough times, just like everyone else.

We fought like little kittens as kids. We jumped on the beds and knocked each other's teeth out when our heads collided. She and I see-sawed, we dug worms, we played Barbie, we shared our playhouse that Daddy built, and we were each other's companion through our childhood.  When I was hanging out with Daddy in the shed, she was in the kitchen with Mama. She can make Sweet Potato pies just like Mama did, and I am happy for that!
We loved each other then and we love each other now. We're still each other's companion, and when either of us needs a shoulder to cry on or an ear to bend, we know the other is there.

These are my siblings. Each of them contributed so much to my life and my memories and I am so thankful that they are all still with me today.

I love all of you.

Day 10 - 30 days of me - What I wore today.

What I Wore Today

Clothes, consisting of paisley capris, pink blouse and proper accoutrements beneath. Ahem.

.

Two shoes (Because I have two feet) - Reebok Tennis to be exact.

Socks. (Two, to match my shoes)

Silver anklet.

Earrings.

Hairband.

My mother's wedding ring.

Glasses.

Exciting.

Shh! Be thankful I don't live in a nudist colony, for crying out loud.

30 Days of Sue: Day 09 – Your beliefs

Your Beliefs

My beliefs. I believe in gravity. I believe in the moon and the sun. I believe in the wind and water and the power of both.
I believe that this particular blog post would like for me to try to establish my religious beliefs. I won't do that.
I may go as far as saying that I believe that I am responsible for living my life in such a way that I hurt none, comfort many, and sleep well at night knowing I did my best in all things.

I believe I am a little bit crazy.
I believe that it is normal.
I believe that I am not a particularly good judge of what is normal and what is not.

I believe that intelligence is learned.
I believe that sense is a treasure, common sense being the most rare, and good sense worth it's weight in gold. Book sense counts for nothing unless you have good sense and common sense to use what you have learned from those books.

I believe that everyone should read a book of fiction at least once a year.

I believe that reading makes the mind exercise by ascribing faces and features and landscapes to words.
I believe animated discussions are good for the inner me, and I believe that reminiscing is healthy.
I believe that sharing shared memories helps keep us grounded in truth.

I believe that if you don't care for the life of a caterpillar, you can't truly appreciate the beauty of the butterfly.

I believe that my fear of spiders and wasps is probably exaggerated and I believe that I don't care.

I believe that clouds are some of the most beautiful expressions of mother nature's ability to inspire awe and serenity.

I believe that the smell of a baby's skin is the most heavenly perfume ever known.
I believe that the laughter of a baby is the absolute pinnacle of joy.

I believe that you should not judge another unless you have lived a life equally as troubled as those that you are judging.

I believe in love at first sight.

I believe in myself.

I believe most humans are born with a sense of right and wrong.

I believe some people are not. Avoid them.


I believe there is no greater love than that of a mother for her children, or her grandchildren.
I believe the same of a father, and a grandfather.

I believe you should encourage your children to do things that require thought and patience.
I believe you should spank your children when they are misbehaving, rude, or when they do mean, or malicious things to people or animals. Discussing it comes -after- they can't sit down.

I believe that we should be careful what we wish for because we might get it.

I believe that we take the roads that we must, either because we want to, or we have to, but I believe that the journey will be interesting, and frightening, and enlightening, and that we'll meet people and do things that are important to the whole, piece and parcel, of us.

I believe that I am not perfect.
I believe everyone is capable of creating something beautiful.
I believe that some people are too scared to try.

I believe fear of failure is a greater shackle and barricade than any prison wall or cell could ever endeavor to be.

I believe that jumping out of an airplane is a foolish dare to death.

I believe that we are predestined to die eventually. Jumping out of a plane is not how I intend to do it.

I believe that if you drink too much the floor WILL come up and hit you in the face, and then lie there acting as if it knew nothing about it.

I believe that dogs have this 'life' thing figured out, and are role models for people - without the bit about sniffing butts of course.

I believe that cats are the aristocrats of the animal kingdom.

I believe that if you can't love an animal, you can't love a person. People are a lot more difficult.


I believe if someone forgives you, you should forgive yourself.

I believe that looking back will cause you to wreck your future. It's like driving forward while looking into the rear-view mirror.

I believe that life is short. Don't spend it being miserable. If you are happy, cherish it. If you are not, it's time to take a different road.

I don't believe that speaking your mind is always the best thing to do. People tend to use that as an excuse to be rude because they think you can't fault them for speaking their mind.
I believe it is easy to forget that your words could hurt someone irrevocably because you spoke and didn't think.
I think it is better to speak from the heart - those words tend to hurt less.

I believe that if you can't appreciate your shortcomings and faults and find humor in them, you're going to be a miserable person.

I believe in fairness.
I don't always believe in equality because we are not all equal, and some people confuse equality with entitlement.

I believe that you shouldn't let your mouth write checks that your ass can't cash. In other words, say it, be it, and mean it. Don't over extend yourself and don't promise more than you can give.

I believe you should never loan out more money than you can afford to lose.

I believe I would die to save your life if I love you.

I believe that flowers are mother nature's way of smiling at us.
I believe that this is probably enough to muddle your mind and cross your eyes.

I believe that this is
~ The End~

Day 08 – A moment

Day 8 - A Moment

There certainly are a few of those. A few thousand, in fact.

I'm not sure which 'moment' I should be sharing here so I think I might share several.

The moment can be an " Ah hah!" moment. I had one of those.

Moment # 1

Years ago when I was very little, we took trips to Georgia all of the time to see relatives. We crossed a long bridge which spanned a river.

As intelligent as I was, my Daddy let me 'read' the roadmap, and I diligently followed our route from South Carolina to Georgia. I use the word 'read' very loosely here. I could not read, but you didn't have to read to know that South Carolina and Georgia were the only two states. Therefore when we crossed that long bridge over the river, it was followed by my finger trailing down the strip of land into South America. When we crossed over and I recognized the " Welcome" sign (They were green then), my finger landed right down there in South America and I proclaimed that we were here, in Georgia. After I learned to read and after I realized that the United States was shared by many more states than just mine and one other, and that in fact there was also a ~South America~ as well, my " Ah Hah!" moment occured.

Moment # 2.

There are NOT millions of tiny people living in the radio, ready to sing or talk to you at a moment's notice.

This wonderful revelation came when we moved our console television/radio/record player away from the wall when we got carpet put in. I looked. There was tempered hardboard panels on the back and tiny holes (which I presumed were for the multitudes to be able to get air through), and no doors. I peered through the holes and saw tubes and wires and no people. I understood that something called a Radio Station had records and microphones and managed to send all that sound to our house and car by something called air waves, which were, as I understood it quite invisible and not at all like water waves. When my mother and sister won a contest from a Radio Station, and I heard their voice coming through the speakers, I believed and it was a moment. "Ah Hah!"

Moment # 3

No little man runs out and turns on the light in the refrigerator when you open the door. There is a button that pops out when you open the door and that turns on the light. " Ah Hah!!'

Moment # 4

 It takes more than flour and grease to make gravy.

When my mother went to Arizona to be with my sister for the birth of her second daughter, I was left home with my dad and my youngest sister. As the oldest girl, and soon to be married myself, I felt that I should show off my prowess in the matters of homemaking... I wanted to prove my kitchen skills, and make supper one night. I managed to cut up a chicken into all the proper pieces. Two legs, two wings, thighs, breasts, the neck and all the 'innards'. I battered it in flour, salt and pepper, just like Mama. I got the skillet hot and melted enough shortening to fill it almost halfway full. We didn't use oil. Mama made biscuits with lard, we fried everything in shortening, and that was all we had.

I fried the chicken to a beautiful, crispy golden brown. I made rice and opened a can of green beans and heated them up. Once the chicken was all done, I spooned the flour into the hot grease, and kept doing that until it was the consistency of gravy, was nice and golden brown, and bubbling. I ladeled it into a bowl, and set the table. Daddy, Jo and I sat down to eat and Daddy looked pretty impressed. He took a bite of the chicken and declared it very good. The beans were good, too. The rice and gravy, however, gave him a pause. He looked at it, and then at me, and took another bite. He asked me how I had made the gravy, and thinking that he was really impressed, I told him how I had spooned all of the flour into the hot grease and fried it to a nice, creamy golden brown. I had a 2 quart bowl full, you see... Daddy said " What else did you put in it?"

"Salt and pepper."

"And what else?"

"nothing..."

I was getting a little nervous now.

Daddy got up from the table and picked up the bowl of gravy.
 "You didn't add any milk or water to it?"

"no... Was I supposed to?"

Here it was... My "Ah Hah!"

Somehow I had missed this -very- important step in making milk gravy.

Daddy laughed and went into the kitchen. He poured out all but about a cup of the base for gravy and put it back into the skillet. He heated it and when it was hot enough he poured a can of milk and a can of water into it and finished making my gravy. He told me that I had enough mix to make enough gravy to fill a 55 gallon drum. I think that was an exaggeration.

Moment # 5

When you realize, for the first time, at 17, that you -ARE- allergic to Poison Ivy, and that you probably should not have sat on and straddled the large gas pipe that was covered in it, in your short - shorts when you and your boyfriend decided make a date of playing in the fields next to the river...

Definitely an "Ah Hah!" moment.

"Calamine lotion ... Ahhh!"

A moment happens when you hold your babies for the first time. There is nothing like that.

A moment happens when you realize that they really are smiling at you.

A moment happens when you realize that your children are honest to goodness individual people and NOT an exact replica or extension of you.

A moment happens when you look at your babies and they're holding their babies and your heart just can't hold all of that love inside so it comes out, and we call it tears of joy.

A moment is when your 2 year old granddaughter looks up at an mid-summer night starry sky and asks if you hear it... You hear the Cicadas buzzing and whirring but you've tuned that out because you could hardly talk over it, and so you don't 'hear' it. She asks again

"Do you hear it, Ma and Mommy?"

"Hear what, sweetheart?"

"That - listen"

Silence.

Then again " Do you hear it, Ma?"

"Hear what, Bethany?"

"The stars are singing!"

And indeed they were...We only thought it was the Cicadas.

A moment is when your best friend calls you at 4 in the morning and says " We've got puppies!"

Some moments happen when you realize how small we really are compared to our universe.

The moment can be an "Oh, no!" moment.

Some moments happen when you realize that something is ending and that there is nothing you can do about it.

A moment happens when the doctors come out and tell you that your Dad has cancer and has but a few months to live. A moment happens when you feel like everything is speeding past because you are standing at a window and you can actually see the sun sinking into the Ashley River while you watch and you realize you have never seen that before.

When my Dad passed away, I have a moment locked in my heart when I kissed his cheek and told him goodbye. Along with that is the sound of my mother crying for him not to leave her.

A moment is when you are with your mother in her hospital room and you walk over to her bedside to tell her that you're going to go get lunch, and you realize that she is slipping away, even then... and you have a moment when your own heart stops because you realize this is your mother and she can't be replaced and she is leaving and you can't stop her. And inside your head you are crying the same cry you heard from her two years earlier... " Don't leave me."

Life is made of up moments. These moments are indelible.

These moments, brief poloroid snapshots of a fragment of time in our lives, are memories...

They make us smile, sigh, laugh and cry.

Moments are the true fabric of our lives.

Day 07 – Best Friend

 Best Friend

 

Diamonds are a girl's best friend.

Dog is man's best friend.

I suppose it's all relative. To an infant, a bottle of milk might be a best friend - To a homeless person it might be a warm blanket.

The point is that just about anything can be a best friend at any given point in time. So what is a "best friend".

I won't go to "wikipedia" for a definition on this because it is simple to define. Right?

Maybe not.

Girls usually proclaim a particular "Best Friend" which, sadly, but honestly, can change as frequently as the weather. It might be Katherine today and Sherry tomorrow. However, for that day, Katherine was the perfect friend because she was there, she listened, she talked, she said what you needed to hear or she didn't say a word and that was what you needed most from her.  I remember my best friend in first grade. Her name was Michelle and we were best playmates on the school grounds. During recess we took turns pushing each other on the swings and we raced each other across the monkey bars. When Jack Steele attempted to bump into me in a rather profane way one day, my best friend took matters into her hands. Literally. She tried to hit him in the stomach but since he was hanging about two feet off the ground, she couldn't reach that high. She got him where it mattered most and punched him in the 'offending' parts.. He dropped off the bars and never crossed them when we were on them.

We were best friends for a year... and then no more. She moved away.

Throughout school I had several more best friends. Never more than one at a time, which is apparently acceptable, but oddly conflicting, I think. Best is best, right?

When I met and eventually married my husband, Joe, he was my first "THE best friend". I like to think that I was his.

Over time, and many years, I met people whom I called my friends. I worked with people that I called friends. My daughter is my dearest friend. It is a moment that has to be magic when you think about your child and you realize that you are talking to them about things that friends talk about. You're not condemning them, and you're actually fascinated at the things they talk to you about. Their outlook and ideas are refreshing and  you wonder when you became the parent of a friend... a real, true, trusted friend. I love my kids! They're incredible people!!

My best friend, not related to me, however, was Patricia.

She wasn't just the kind of friend that was always there, although she was. She wasn't like any best friend I had ever had before. From the first day that I met her, and spent 10 minutes talking to her, it was like we had known each other all of our lives. She loved to garden so we had that in common. She loved to cook and we had that in common. She loved dogs and we had that in common.

Pat had grace and she had charm and she managed to bundle all of that up into a tough as nails, tender hearted, highly educated, dirt digging, southern lady... Her friend Lynn, and my friend also, once said that Pat was honestly a woman who could tell a person to go to hell, and have them be glad to go after asking her for directions - which she gladly would give.

She truly was one of a kind. She and her husband Buddy called often to invite me to dinner. They would never let me pay.

If we weren't eating out, Pat would call me and the conversation usually went like this: " Whatcha doing?"

"Nothing... watching television."

"Oh okay. Got your clothes on?"

"Yeah..."

"Good! Meet me in the street."

That was the cue to get ready for something delicious. We often traded dinners, and the transaction took place right in the middle of the road that separated our houses.

Ours was a comfortable, dependable friendship. I could go into her house without knocking if I chose to. I had a key to her house and she had one to mine. We babysat each other's pets. Once she and Buddy went to Florida to Disney World and I was house-dog sitting. Pat had given me the new key to her backdoor. When I got off work I tried to open the door to let the dogs out but the key, apparently, was the wrong one. There was no other way into the house but to climb into her bedroom window which she had left up about 4 inches. I wasn't tall enough to climb through however. As I was pondering this with her, via mobile phone, our other neighbor came over to see what was wrong. I told him that Pat was out of town and had given me the wrong key. He said that he could probably lift his friend, a slight young man, up to the window and then he could open the back door. I asked Pat if that was okay and she said "Sure... Put him (Chris) on the phone." I did and after a moment, he busted out laughing. Pat had asked him if I was trying to talk him into breaking into her house and she told him not to do it, that I was telling a lie about her giving me permission to go into her house... And of course she did finally tell him to please let me in because she'd given me the wrong key.

That was the kind of relationship we had. We laughed together. Her oldest son had drowned 4 years before I met her. One afternoon she came over and asked if I wouldn't mind putting on some coffee. I was happy to do it and after we'd settled in with a cup  and talked for a few minutes, she looked over at me and with tears in her eye she said " I just needed somewhere to cry today. I miss my son." I instantly began to cry too and she laughed through her tears and said " I needed someone to cry with me, too...I knew you were that person." She didn't want someone to tell her to not cry, or to try to calm her into not crying, as people do when you get upset. She said she needed to cry so her soul would feel a little better... I understood. Sometimes it feels wonderful to cry - like a sweet, gentle rain that rinses off the dust and soot from living. Sometimes crying over the ones we miss the most, the ones we love the most, clears off the mist of time that dims our memories. It washes off the years. So we boo-hooed together. I over a young man I had never met, and she over her first born, taken all too soon.

Pat had all kinds of medical issues and there were days and weeks when all she could eat was soft food. At her request I made chicken and dumplings, sweet potato soup, cheesy grits, oyster stew... homemade vegetable beef soup and cornbread and I know she loved me for it. Yes, she told me so, but there was something in her face that said " I appreciate you."

And that went both ways. She didn't hesitate to tell anyone and everyone, that I, me... was her best friend in the whole world, and that I had been the best friend she'd ever had. To me, to hear that from her, was a badge of honor.

Pat got very sick in February, 2009, and it was cancer. In April she died at a hospice center. She came to tell me that she was leaving and that she loved me. I told her that I loved her and that I would miss her, but that I knew she had to go.

I awoke feeling oddly comforted and later that morning, when I talked to Buddy, he told me that she had passed away not 2 minutes earlier.

Not a day goes by that I don't miss her. I think about her so often.

She was my friend. She was not my best friend. She was

THE best friend.

If you're lucky enough to have a friend that doesn't condemn you, to have a friend who compliments you when you make the slightest change to your hair, who picks up some little thing because it made them think of you and that they thought you would enjoy it, if they can come to you and cry just because they know you will let them, and perhaps you might cry with them, and if you can tell them anything and not feel shame, or regret, and if you don't feel like you have to hide moments of your past from them because they might think less of you, then you too have THE best friend.

If you can call them, anytime, day or night, and if you don't mind if they call you anytime day or night, if you can walk out of your house and into theirs without calling first as if it were home away from home, and if your friend lets you know that you're priceless to them and you feel the same about them, then you have THE best friend...

Sometimes you don't need a best friend. You need the best friend.

 I miss you Pat, and thank you being the best friend for me, and  for the honor being your friend. Your best friend - ever.



Patricia



Day 6 - "Your Day"

Well, I certainly timed this right... Today my day was hell! Okay, maybe not Hell... There was not any fire and brimstone, the face of Satan didn't appear on my grilled cheese sandwich and the smell of sulphur was muted and barely distinguishable from the smell of asphalt. We had a few potholes in our contractor yard repaired and filled so fresh blacktop does a pretty decent job of taking out any other competition in the arena of odor. Also, I didn't have a grilled cheese sandwich, which might explain why I didn't see the face of Satan. I heard that showed up in someone's bathroom floor tiles anyway.

I am certain, however, that the devil is not always in the details. Occasionally he makes it into the very center of the situation - the "program".

Yes indeed. Apparently at 9:30 last night, according to an email, our sales system went down. Down.

Down as in defunct, not working, wish you had called in now I bet, your morning is going to be miserable - down.

We've got a backup plan for such situations. We do it like the old investment commercial guy used to say - "We make money the old fashioned way - we earn it" - which means we hand write every single ticket. That's never hard. What is hard is trying to find the item code and the right price... Needless to say, it was a long and tedious process and to add insult to injury, (not literally) I had a headache.

However, my daughter, wise and sweet, suggested I take an Ibuprofen and hide in the corner. She also suggested that I put this issue in perspective, that was that it was just a snafu, it was not killing anyone, and compared to the problems that others face on a daily basis, it was, perhaps, nothing major. She is absolutely right. After I took the Ibuprofen, I tried to find the dark corner to hide in. Unfortunately we've had the electrician in and all of the flourescents are working. There is never a dark corner around when you need one...

But you know, I woke up with a roof over my head.  I didn't have to grind my coffee because I was able to buy it from a well stocked grocery store and the hardest part was choosing between Folgers and Maxwell House - Folgers won...  and all I had to do was plug the coffee maker into the wall outlet. I turned a faucet on and got water out of it. I flipped a switch and was able to see everything in my closet and when I pushed a button on a little remote control, I was able to see what had happened in the world. I didn't have to milk a cow to get cream for my coffee and I didn't have to feed horses and hitch them to a wagon so I could get to work. I didn't have to plow a field to get wheat for flour so I could have toast, and my hands won't be blistered from holding a pitchfork or a hoe. I was able to get into my car and ride to work.

I wasn't shot at, nor did I have to kill anyone to get to where I was going. There was coffee already made when I got there. The air conditioning was on and the building was cool. In the winter it will be warm.

Yes, all things considered, I feel fortunate to be where I am in my little pie wedge of time. I have no right, although I forget occasionally, to complain when I have to work a little harder to get something accomplished. I need only think about what our ancestors had to do for a living, to get water, to get the makings of a day's meal, or to get somewhere, when I feel agitated about technology's failure now and then.

If I feel like I have it tough, or rough, now and then, I need to consider what our soldiers are dealing with, and all that they had to work through to become a soldier, and what they go through on a daily basis to survive.

I won't promise never to fuss or complain when things don't go smoothly. I do promise to remember that I tend to take too many things for granted, and I shouldn't.

With that being said, for all that I had to pick up a pencil and not a plow or a gun, to earn my paycheck, today was a damn good day.

" What is Love"

My Definition of Love

This is Day 5 of the blog titled 30 Days of Me.
Today the subject is "What is your definition of Love?"

Well, what the heck is it?
I took an English - Literature class once. One of our assignments was an essay on personification; giving life to something intangible or without substance- A figure of speech in which an inanimate object or abstraction is endowed with human qualities or abilities.
In writing that essay I had to consider what thing, or feeling, could be written about, and given life to, so that it became, breathed, took on life... I chose love.
It wasn't as easy as sitting down and typing it out and handing it in.
My essay was titled "Mother; Love personified"
I got an A+ and a note from the professor that she had never read anything as touching as my paper. She actually thanked me.
She was a mother. She knew what love was.

There are a lot of ways people love. There are a lot of things that people love. People, men usually, love their cars and give them names. Some people love money and don't mind killing for it. Some people think you can buy love and they lavish gifts and flowers and things on the people they care for... Sometimes those people find that tangible gifts are enough and they're happy as can be with their things. Some people only love themselves and without meaning to, hurt others who love them. Sometimes they just don't understand that it might be important to love self, but its equally important to nurture the love of those who also love you.

I love.

 I love my kids. I love my family. I love my dogs. I love my true friends. I love my bed. I love my hobbies. I love green tea with raspberry. I love fishing and camping and fireside oyster roasts with my neighbors on winter nights. I love winter and fall and the mountains... I love sunrises and sunsets. I love the smell of burning leaves and the feel of cool grass underfoot. I love the way the earth smells when I am working in my flowerbeds. I love the way the ocean smells. I love the way the air smells after it rains. I love storms and lightning. See, I've used the term love rather loosely here. I love these things.
I love a lot of people, pets, places and things.
But what -is- real, honest to goodness love? Is it just the feelings that you get when you kiss? Is it the feeling that you get when you look at something beautiful? Is it tangible?
I love my parents. When I was young I thought I was obligated to love them. I belonged to them, you know. As time passed I grew older and I grew up, and I realized that I loved them by choice. I miss them terribly. I grieved for them for a long, long time when they passed away. They were my friends, and my heroes and my role models.
I love my friend, Pat, who passed away. I think about her every day and I miss her more than I can say.

But what IS love?  - For me this is where I came to understand what love really, truly, means.
Love is when a mother carries a baby inside of her for 9 months, sharing her entire body's resources and doing it without compensation.
Love is suffering the agonies of childbirth, for hours and sometimes days, willingly heading into this realm of pain, just to hold your baby in your arms.
Love  is braving  the uncertainty of a future of being a parent, always wondering if you can do what is best for them, regardless of how much it hurts them, or you.
Love is spanking a child to teach them right from wrong so that they understand that there are consequences for bad behavior even though it breaks your heart to cause them even that little bit of pain.
Love is when you cry with them afterwards.
Love is when you dread taking your kids to the doctor because you know that the shots are going to hurt and you almost, almost, turn around in the parking lot and want to take a chance that they're invincible... and don't.
Love is delighting in the smile from a baby and getting a sense of euphoria from the sweet smell of their skin.
Love is a mother getting up in the middle of the night to comfort a crying child.
Love is when a father gets up with her.

I loved my babies and my husband, and I loved being a wife and mother. I loved everything about both, even though I had my share of complaints. I'm not a wife any more. I will always be a mother. No judge can divorce you from your kids. Thank goodness!
I love my kids even though they are grown and have babies of their own. They too understand what love really is. They learned, as did I, that it all came about when that first wordless, newborn cry demanded that you lay down your life for them if need be. At that moment, in that very instant, you realize that you would indeed die, on the spot, for that child, even though you've known them for all of two seconds. In that moment of time, when you see your son, or daughter, for the first time, you understand that you no longer own the heart that beats inside of you because as big as it is, it is now in the tiny fist waving triumphantly in the air...They do indeed own you, and you're ecstatic about it.
You breath. You sigh. You smile. You cry with joy, because now, you, lucky beyond understanding, are truly blessed to understand what love is...
It is a moment that you never forget.
Indelible, undying - Love.

30 Days of Sue - Day 4 - What I ate Today

Okay, so this one is going to be really short... I'm behind anyway so this one ought to be nearly as exciting as Jo Ann's blog... and then I'll move on to the next one. No one said that they had to be consecutive days, anyway. So if I skip one, or twelve, whos counting, right?

So, what did I eat today...

Does coffee and creamer count? The creamer does because it was a solid - before I liquidated (I always wanted to use that word  and I don't care if I used it right) it.

So I had creamer for breakfast.
Then I had a Kit Kat - snack size.
For lunch I had a couple of bites of fish and a little bit of red-rice. Fish makes me nervous. I dread getting one of the little bones in a bite because once I do, that ends the entire enjoyment of eating fish...
We grew up on Bream, Red Breast, Catfish, and Crappie. 

This is Daddy and my brother with some catfish caught in The Hatchery, Moncks Corner.

I didn't like fish as a kid and it had nothing to do with the bones. I would eat, and still will, coleslaw and hush-puppies and be satisfied with that.
My parents never forced me to eat fish. (Thank you Mom and Dad). But neither did they reward me by offering me an alternative. Or they did... It was "Eat what's there. Or don't."
My Aunt Molly used to come down with Uncle James and her kids. We'd have fish. They were plentiful. Daddy used to go catch the Spots out at Breach Inlet on Sullivan's Island all the time. That's where the boat capsized that time and where Mr. Guy drowned... You can read about those in my other blogs - I think you know the links.
Anyway. Aunt Molly loved fish - absolutely adored it!! But she wouldn't trust herself to get the bones out. And she wouldn't let her kids eat one bite! She was adamant that they would get a bone caught in their throats and they'd choke to death right there at the table.  It was frustrating for my parents because we were all sitting around, picking bones out of our fish ( even I succumbed to a small catfish now and then), happily munching away, and her kids were staring at us with this look of eager, and somewhat dreaded, anticipation. Oh, yes, they knew, thanks to Aunt Molly's dire warnings, that kids who ate fish invariably choked on the bones and died. It didn't matter that NONE of us knew anyone who actually had died from choking on a fish bone. I am sure it has happened, though... We just didn't know about it. So we ate our fish and disappointed our cousins. I'm sure though that for a while after they went back home they were curious as to whether or not perhaps one of Uncle Tucker's kids might not have swallowed the bone and that it might possibly even now be working it's way through the "innards"...
I digress. Aunt Molly, as I said, loved fish but she didn't trust them - dead or alive. So she would pick through the platter of fried fish, supposedly and speculatively looking for the least boney one. After she'd made her choice, it was lifted off the platter and set on Uncle James' plate. He diligently and carefully, poked, prodded, plied and pried and picked out anything that even looked like a bone. Satisfied, and with Aunt Molly carefully supervising the operation there was no room for error, he pronounced her fish " safe"...
I think, in some small way, that scarred me. If a grown woman wouldn't let her kids eat the fish and if she couldn't trust herself to get all the bones out, then what were MY chances of success? Slim. Slim indeed.
So I muddled through, and avoid eating fish with a lot of bones. I like fillets of any kind of fish (except Bass)and I love shark. One bone per steak. Yes!
Still, sometimes you just see that golden brown, fried crisp, flounder or baby catfish and you are, pun intended, hooked.
Still... I hate bones and love fish so... I compromise.
I have to eat it somewhat strangely. I pick it apart, flake by flake, and if I am in doubt, I just don't eat that bite. I know, it's weird. It's the same way with egg salad or deviled eggs. If there is a bit of shell in a bite, it's finished.
My mother, bless her heart, loved fresh water fish. She loved Spot - the salt water fish. She wouldn't eat shark if she was starving to death and it was served on a silver platter. " They eat dead people." It was the same with crabs. " They eat dead people."  When had all these people died and where were secrets only she seemed to know. Regardless of where the fish were caught, or the crabs, the waters had apparently been teeming with dead people. When we tried to reason with her that eating catfish was far worse than the crabs or sharks, who had probably never even SEEN a dead person, she would have no part of that. "Catfish are bottom feeders, Mama... They eat anything that drifts down... including fish poop." She shrugged. " That's natural."  "Mama, sharks don't eat dead people."  Her answer; " Hmpf."
Forget crabs! She, as well as we, knew they did feed from the bottom and they fed on the detritus that drifted down to the sea floor. We caught them on rotting chicken necks so ... they weren't particularly picky eaters. Daddy and Joe and my brother went shark fishing one day. Mama didn't know where they were fishing. We didn't tell her. But they caught several and cleaned them and cut them into the little steaks before they came home. We agreed to tell Mama that they were "salt water catfish". She fried them and proclaimed them the best catfish she'd ever eaten and constantly pestered daddy to go out and see if he couldn't catch some more of them. We never, EVER, told her different.
As for the crabs... she ate them too. And loved them. My sister came out from Arizona one time and wanted seafood. We packed up and headed out to the Lorelei which was a very nice seafood restaurant, famed for it's crab dip. We all were seated, and the waitress brought our tea and several bowls of crab dip and club crackers. Without anyone actually saying it, we all let Mama dig in first. She professed that it was deeeelicious! She nudged a bowl of the dip closer to her and made herself quite happy dipping and snacking on the crab. One bowl was quickly finished, and the waitress, seeing it, promptly removed and replaced it. Again Mama dug in and helped herself to the dip. The waitress came by to fill our glasses, and Mama asked the waitress "What kind of dip is this?" even as she was putting a bite into her mouth. When the waitress said "Crab" out came that bite and into the napkin it went and away went the bowl, pushed down to whoever else wanted to eat something that ate dead people.

So, here I am, and supper is a piece of fried Whiting  from lunch, along with my red rice and turnip greens...
So, yeah, its a little more than "What I ate today" but honestly, how interesting can a piece of Whiting be?

Day 3 - My Parents

My parents.

Me and my Daddy.

Me and my Mama

Daddy

Mama

It's everything I can do not to say " They were perfect and we had an idyllic life, they lived long and happy lives and ..." But that wouldn't be true. I have a list of things I would like to change. I would love for them to have had an easier life. I would have loved for both of them to have had more leisure time together. I can't wish for much more to be different than that. To do so would possibly delete myself from their life or from the life we had together and that, knowing what I know now, is something I wouldn't change.

My dad, Thomas, also known as Tucker, was a big man. He was 6 feet tall, had green eyes that turned brown when he was angry, and fists as big as hams. His mother was a Cherokee princess. His mother died when he was just a little boy and his Daddy remarried. Daddy was the baby of 11 siblings. He was, according to my Aunt Hattie, spoiled rotten. But he was smart, too. She told tales of how daddy would have a nickel, and although Aunt Hattie was 3 years older than him, he would convince her that a nickel was more than a dime because it was bigger.

To be sure, he was smart. He could build anything he wanted to. He built the cabinets in our house, and the nightstands beside our beds. He built little footstools, book shelves, what-not shelves, boats, flying Jennys, and gun racks. He gardened for as long as I can remember. He fished, and took us on vacations every year. We spent two weeks traveling through the mountains every year and every year he and Uncle Ray went on a little side trip after we'd set up camp, and they came back with a 5 gallon gas can full of moonshine. I can remember seeing him drink a half of a coca-cola, and filling the rest with what I thought was water, and then drinking it. He would rub his thighs, and say " That's mean whiskey." 

Daddy was a man of opinions, and he never hedged on saying what was on his mind. When my sister and her husband divorced, she wanted to bring her new friend over to the house to meet Daddy. He saw them coming and when she came in the front door, he was in the kitchen. She told daddy she had brought someone for him to meet, and not missing a beat Daddy said " I know enough people already. I don't need to meet anymore."

He served in the Army and broke his ankle ice-skiing in Iceland.  Mama used to tell us how when he was sent over-seas, he wasn't allowed to tell her where he was being sent. The Army would open and read your mail so he couldn't tell her where he was. They had worked out some kind of code because they had an idea of where he would be going. He managed to get a postcard to her that asked about Mary, his sister in law, and that meant he was in Iceland. If he'd asked about Mattie, his other sister, it meant he was going to England. He spent time in Germany and told us how they would heat an iron poker in the fire and shove it in your beer when you ordered one because they didn't serve cold beer over there unless you specifically ordered it.

After he got out of the Army he came home to Georgia to my Mom and two older sisters and brother. Times were hard and went to work with my Uncle Ray at the cotton mill in Greensboro.  After that closed he moved the family down to Charleston and went to work at GARCO as a spinner and mule operator in the asbestos mill. He worked there till he retired on disability after 2 heart attacks. He died in 1984 of lung cancer, caused by asbestos.

My mother was a beauty. She had green eyes, dark brown hair, and long, shapely legs. She apparently caught my Daddy's eye and then his heart. They got married in January, and shortly after that Daddy was sent to Germany. Mom was pregnant with my sister. When she went into labor, my great-grandmother went outside and got the axe from the woodshed and put it under the bed - to cut the pain. No joke... Wive's tales were rampant.

Mom was a housewife. For years she stayed home and raised babies. My two sisters and eventually my brother, kept her busy enough. For a time, however, she worked in a sewing factory making mens' shirts.  I believe it was called Schooltimers.  I remember hearing stories of how they had to ration things during the war. You got coupons from the government that allowed you to get sugar once a month, flour once, or twice a month, coffee, tea, and other items. They rationed it out because the soldiers needs were priority.

My mother, for all that she was a stay at home mom, uneducated beyond high school, and was not in a circle of women who were her equal in education, was an extremely intelligent woman. She read biographies, loved history, and could tell you practically anything you wanted to know about Hitler, the Reich, Mussolini, Churchhill, Kennedy... She amazed me. Listening to her was almost like listening to one of the PBS history shows.

She wrote. She wrote poems and songs, and for some unknown reason, she felt it was important to scribe every song on every album that she owned. Over and over, day after day, she would play a 33 rpm record, lifting the needle to play a few words of the song until she could manage to write down every single song. She worked crossword puzzles and NONE were too hard for her. She did a lot of embroidery and I am so grateful to have a couple of dresser scarves and pillow cases that she did her handiwork on. And cook? Oh my gosh, could she cook! Her coconut cake was the real deal! Fresh coconuts, cracked, shredded, the milk saved, flour, eggs, sugar... No cake mix ever sullied her kitchen cupboard. It came from scratch only and tasted like heaven. Chocolate cake, homemade chocolate icing (which I make when I want a cake and which everyone wants to know what icing I use...). I'd set my mother's biscuits against any you can find and we'll bet that hers were softer, lighter and tastier than any you've ever eaten. My sister worked for a restaurant in Charleston, and the cast of Land of The Giants were coming in to town and were going to have dinner there. My mother made a whole pan of biscuits that were no bigger than a nickel for them. They raved about them!

She had the patience of a saint. One of the radio stations had a contest where you had to write the radio station call letters as many times as you could on a postcard. I remember her trying pen after pen, finding the finest tip, and using a magnifying glass to write WQSN all over that post card. My sister Linda entered it also, and between the two of them, I think they took first place and second place.

As parents, I couldn't have asked for better. They struggled and did without to make sure we had food, clothes, shoes, and a roof over our heads. We had so little it seemed but looking back, we were so rich. We didn't have a pantry full of cookies and candy, our shelves were stocked with instant grits and soup... We got our popcorn from the big 4 quart pot and some lard, and popcorn on the eye of the stove. No microwave for us. We didn't even know what a microwave was. Back then a computer that would store 6 or 7 kilobytes of information took up an entire room and it ran on spools and tapes and wheels and dials... Weird.

If we wanted grits, we cooked them. Nothing instant. Now, when Kraft Macaroni and Cheese came out in the box, we DID get that and I honed my skills as a culinary chef slaving over the right blend of milk, and butter and salt to taste. My little sister and I would stay up late on Saturday nights, each of us would cradle a bowl of hot macaroni and cheese while we watched Out Of This World... My older sister would pop a big bowl of popcorn and we'd melt a little butter on it, and watch scary shows till the National Anthem came on the screen and the television station went off the air.

Daddy went to bed with the chickens and he got up with them too, so he wasn't up for all the late night goody fests.

Years later when my mother went to Arizona for the birth of my neice, Daddy apparently thought I could cook... That's another story all together but he gave me heads up on one thing - men won't survive on Macaroni and Cheese, popcorn and french fries. If I expected to get married, I needed to learn to cook.

I miss them both with such an ache in my heart. If you have your parents, you can't begin to know how much you take them for granted without meaning to.

This is my Mom and Dad. That chair off to the left is his chair. The door behind them leads to their bedroom and that heater behind them was the sole source of heat for our whole house.

I remember running as fast as I could to get in my Daddy's chair when I heard the car door shut and his footsteps on the porch. If I claimed the seat first he had to buy me out of it with a candy bar... I know now how much a nickel bar of candy was worth back then, and yet, he had one for me almost every day.

I miss my mom. I remember on a whim asking her for french fries and her getting up to peel potatoes and fry them for me.

I hated liver. When she cooked liver for the rest of the family, I was the only one who wouldn't eat it. She always cooked me a hamburger instead. She loved me. I love her.

She suffered a major stroke and discovered she had diabetes in 1980 and Daddy took care of her. Years of her pampering him paid off, and he treated her like royalty until he got cancer. He couldn't hardly do for himself but he still managed to do for her. When he died, it was like someone turned off the light in my mother's heart. She had no will to live, and in her eyes I am sure, no reason.

Two years after he died, she followed.

My parents. To have known them was to love them. Ask anyone.

Tucker and Helen.

Rest in Peace and know I love you.