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.