Tag Archives: family

Nov19

Thanks

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Reflections as Thanksgiving approaches

 

 

Gracious God

Lover of my soul

Maker, Sustainer, Redeemer and Friend

I give You

Thanks

 

Thanks that I and mine

we who are so few

have been blessed with so much

while there are so many

who have so little

 

Thanks that we are warm and dry

healthy and fed

and loved

 

Thanks for all those

who have come before us

teaching us how to live

raising us up to know You

before they left us

to go Home

to sit at Your feet

 

Thanks for so great

a cloud of witnesses

who await us there

 

For glimpses of Heaven

here below

 

I give You

Thanks

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Oct29

Arms

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Memories of embraces past…

Tuesday, October 28, 1997 was one of the worst days of my life.  It was the day Mama went into the hospital.  It was the beginning of the end, of Mama’s life and of an era in our family.

At this time, on that night, I was at the hospital to spend the night with her.  It was a bad night for us both, for numerous reasons.  She was nervous and agitated, and the medicine given to calm her down only upset her stomach.

There are lots of things about her last month and a half of life that I’m sure I’ve forgotten.  I was still trying to work during most of that time while staying as many nights as possible at the hospital.  Sleep-deprived and stressed out, I know there are lots if things I don’t remember now.  But I remember some moments with vivid clarity.

I remember people’s arms around me.  I remember the night Mama’s condition was so bad that they had to bring  a portable ultrasound up to her room because they needed to do tests and didn’t want to wait for transport to come and take her down because she was so unstable.  Jeff had come to visit both with her and with me, and her condition upset him.  That was his meltdown moment during the last of her illness.  He cried like his best friend was dying and I couldn’t offer him much comfort.  We just held each other.

Dad had spent Mama’a last full night with her at the hospital, and I came the next day to relieve him.  He left and I settled in to spend what turned out to be her last day at the hospital with her.  She was unresponsive, and not too long after I got there her breathing changed.  I know now that she was actively dying.  A nurse came in and asked how long her breathing had been like that, and I said about a half hour.  The nurse then told me that I could talk to Mama, hold her hand and pet her if I wanted to. She said she didn’t think Mama was in any pain and that she didn’t think anything was going to bother or disturb her now.  She told me she would check on us during the day and if I needed anything at all to just call.  She put her arm around my shoulder and just stood with me for a few minutes, saying nothing more.

Countless times during her hospital stay, people hugged me, squeezed me tight and infused me with strength for the battle.  Guardian angels from my own family held me close as we all cried with sadness over what Mama was enduring, and what we all knew was to come.  I never take a hug for granted anymore.  I know the difference it can make.

After Mama died, at the graveside after the service was over, people were starting to disperse and leave.  I sat by her casket for what seemed like the longest time, by myself.  I knew the cemetery people would make me leave soon, but I wanted to spend those last few minutes with her.  My cousin Van, a favorite person in my life who I don’t see nearly often enough, came over and sat down beside me.  He didn’t say a word.  He just put his arm around my shoulder and sat with me.  I never felt more loved, more understood, than I did at that moment.

Many times I have leaned on the arms of other people for strength and comfort.  I hope that my arms have provided strength and comfort for the people in my life as well.  I believe one of the most powerful ways God loves us is through the love of other people. As I have leaned into the arms of other human beings, I have felt the everlasting arms of God spoken of in the old hymn from my childhood.

 

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Lord of love, thank You for holding me with the arms of the people You have sent me when I needed them most.  Use my arms and hands to comfort, strengthen and encourage the people in my life who need to feel You in theirs.

May20

What 50 Looks Like

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And why it does and doesn’t matter…

Feminist pioneer Gloria Steinem once responded to a reporter who kindly remarked that she did not look 40, “This is what 40 looks like.”  Now, whatever your thoughts and opinions about Ms. Steinem may be, her response to that reporter has always resonated with me. As a woman who has always felt judged by my appearance (not by age as much as by shape and size) I love it when appearance-based stereotypes get shattered.  But this post isn’t really about physical appearances as much as what my life looks like today, as I turn The Big 5-0.

In the spirit of full disclosure I will admit to being a little freaked-out by the prospect of turning 50.  It’s a milestone different from any other birthday that happens to have a zero at the end of it.  A woman turning 50 often finds herself subject to the slings and arrows of menopause and all the changes associated with the end of the childbearing years.  And I am so there.  I am relieved that my new GYN actually listened to my concerns during our initial visit and started me on treatment that I hope will help me feel better soon.

I went today and renewed my drivers’ license, and I was pleasantly surprised by how similar my photo today looked when compared to the one from my last license 10 years ago.  Aside from a marked decrease in weight, I don’t look too different, or too much older.  That was a big relief!

The biggest surprise about this birthday is how much more content and comfortable I am in my life and in my own skin than I’ve probably ever been before.  I remember other birthdays with zeroes on them, and the various kinds of angst I was experiencing with each of them.  My life is in a better place now.  God has blessed me with a husband who still loves me after all these years, makes me laugh, warms my heart, has been a wonderful dog dad, and makes me feel safe.Image

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I have several longtime friendships like that as well. Those relationships are priceless.  My friend Mary K. and I spent the weekend between our birthdays together.  Her birthday is May 15 and was also a milestone.  We first met at a Methodist youth assembly when we were 13 or 14 years old.  Living in different states, we were pen-pals for decades but didn’t actually see each other again until 2009 when, after about a decade of being out of touch, we reconnected via Facebook.

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Over the years we have shared everything from braces and boyfriend stories to college, marriage, the births of her children to the deaths of our parents.  This friendship and a few other cherished ones like it sustain me, nourish my soul and, again, make me feel safe.  Above is the picture from our initial reunion in 2009, and below is from our most recent get-together this past weekend.  It just dawned on me that she is wearing the same top in both pictures, and I am wearing yellow in both.  (My sweater from 2009 would swallow me now since weight loss surgery!)

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The losses of so many loved ones have all affected me in different ways, but that old adage, “better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all,” is one I believe in.  Yes, the deaths hurt terribly…but I am so incredibly grateful that I have known and loved these precious family members and friends.  My life without them would be unimaginable.  And they’re not gone forever.  They’re just in a place where I can’t see them right now, except when they visit in dreams.  The relationships with living family members are all works in progress, just as they’ve always been.  I’m grateful for the ones still here who make me feel safe, valued and loved.

So I guess my life turning 50 is looking pretty good after all.  God has been so faithful and brought me through more sadness, disasters and changes than I ever could have imagined experiencing by the time I turned 50.  He has also brought me more wonderful surprises, happiness and joy than I could ever hope to deserve.  So, what does 50 look like?  

Sometimes it looks hazy and crazy.

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Sometimes it looks goofy and spoofy.Image

 

 Mostly, though,  it just looks…Blessed.

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May13

Cinco De Martha

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Because I had many mothers…

Last week’s calendar contained both Cinco De Mayo and Mother’s Day, which got me thinking about the many women in my life who mothered me in addition to my own Mama.  Because Cinco De Mayo/May 5 was also Aunt Martha’s birthday, I naturally had her on my mind.  She would have been 87 years old.

In describing Mama I have always said that if she were a color, it would be red because of her fiery and passionate nature.  I also noted that all of Mama’s sisters, in my mind, have a color of their own.  Aunt Martha, to me, is purple…regal, unconventional, stand-out-in-a-crowd purple.  Like Mama and the rest of The Big Five, Aunt Martha was a true original, and in many ways unlike her sisters.  But she and Mama were very much alike in their big-hearted, laugh-till-they-peed-their-pants humor and personalities.

Aunt Martha never had human children, choosing instead to be a dog mom.  I have followed in this path, and I think that being around her and her little canine companions so much as a child shaped the love of dogs I developed over the years.  The first of Aunt Martha’s dogs (or anyone else’s dogs for that matter) in my memory is Susie, a Chihuahua, the breed that Aunt Martha and Uncle John always favored.  She was a tiny little thing, even though she was overfed, and because her bones were fragile, Aunt Martha was forever reminding Reed and me, “Don’t run the dog,” meaning not to chase her.

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When Sweet Pea and I were finally able to adopt a dog, we chose a Beagle/Basset mix from the shelter.  Ernie The Wonder Beagle was not a huge dog, but he was larger than Aunt Martha was accustomed to.  She asked me once, “Ain’t his teeth awful big?”, to which I responded, “Well, they fit in his mouth so they must be the right size.”  She and Ernie would see each other at Dad’s occasionally and she was always sweet to him, and he loved her as well.  Big teeth and all.

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Some of my musical genes came from Aunt Martha as well.  She had a lovely soprano voice that I loved listening to when we would gather around the piano after Christmas Eve supper, harmonizing out of the ancient hymnbooks that lived in Mama’s piano bench.  Her voice singing songs like “Ivory Palaces” and “Sunrise Tomorrow” echoes through my memory.  She wanted to take voice lessons but Granddad would not allow her to, so to spite him, she quit high school before graduating.  When I graduated from college with a degree in voice, she wrote in the card she sent me that she was proud of me and doubly proud of my majoring in music.  Maybe she lived out a piece of her dream through me.  I hope so.

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She and I always seemed to be kindred spirits and we spent a lot of time together throughout my life.  I spent many nights at her house as a child and teenager.  There were the Friday night TV shows we both loved watching and the trips to the Pixie Drive-In for onion rings and milkshakes.  There was the favorite housecoat I wore when I was there and the stash of “feminine supplies” she kept on hand for when I visited.  (She was always very compassionate about cramps.)

She was a meticulous quilter, her stitches so tiny, close together and uniformly spaced that even a machine couldn’t have done better work.  It seemed like there was always a quilt up on frames in her basement.  Countless nights I would go with Mama, Aunt Ruby and Mrs. Allred to Aunt Martha’s house.  They would work on whatever quilt was in the frames until they couldn’t see straight anymore, drinking tea and Cokes, telling stories and laughing.  ALWAYS laughing.  And even though I wasn’t helping them, they included me.  I didn’t sew then and I don’t really sew now.  But when I concentrate, I can do decent hand work.  I wish now that I had pulled up a chair with them around the frames.  I suspect that I would have learned much more than how to stitch.

Christmas Eve 1994, I presented her with a special little gift.  I had found a picture of her and me together with Susie, the one from earlier in this post.  I set about shopping for the right frame for it and ended up choosing a beautiful silver frame with a heart-shaped opening that fit the photo perfectly. It was like it had been made to hold that very photograph.  I placed the picture inside and gave it to her that Christmas.  The picture below is of her opening that gift as I looked on.  Her expression is priceless.

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I think my penchant for collecting things comes from her as well.  She collected all sorts of things.  Cartoon character glasses and figurines from fast-food places, Beanie Babies, state quarters and California Raisins.  Little things like that gave her huge pleasure.  She also really enjoyed jewelry and sparkly things, another trait I inherited.  She was gone before I bought the Original Kissy Shirt, but I know she would have loved it, because it is funny and splashy…much like she was.  She would approve of the new smaller Kissy Shirt as well, although the weight loss surgery I had and the shrinking process that made the smaller shirt necessary would have worried her to death.

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I miss her all the time, just like I miss the rest of them.  I imagine that her house in Heaven has quilting frames and that she and Mama, Aunt Ruby and Mrs. Allred are reunited there from time to time, working on a quilt for the next family member who arrives there, a warm covering for the bed in their mansion.  When I go to meet them, I will have sense enough to pull up a chair and join them around the frames.

May2

Gifted

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Everything in my life came from somewhere…

Sometimes I am just plain overwhelmed by how gifted my life has been.  It seems as though everywhere I look, there is something to be grateful for, some gift I’ve been given that warms my heart.  Whether tangible or not, gifts surround me.

As I chose today’s clothes and accessories to wear to work, it dawned on me that many of the things I’m wearing were gifts from important people in my life.  The denim jacket with the Cinetel logo embroidered on it came from my friend Sam, who gave it to me as he was moving away from the area years ago.  I was too large to wear it when he gave it to me, but since weight loss surgery and shrinkage have happened, it now fits with room to spare.  It’s a warm reminder of Sam’s friendship and the laughs we’ve shared over the years we’ve known each other.  When I wear it, it’s like a hug from him.

I am wearing the Vicki treble clef earrings and the Olivia bracelet I mentioned in an earlier post called “Hand Made”, shiny reminders of these beautiful women whose lives have touched mine as we crossed paths through faith and music.  Such gifts are a tribute to their thoughtfulness.  While I treasure the jewelry (and I definitely do!) I treasure the women and their friendship even more.  Each of them is entering a new phase of life right now.  Vicki is getting married in 2 weeks and Olivia is finishing up her doctorate and about to begin a new teaching position.  My prayers are with them both as they continue on the paths God has set for them.

On our last adventure trip to Las Vegas, Sweet Pea and I drove out into the desert to Primm, where there is a huge outlet shopping place.  That drive into the desert was astonishing, the rugged beauty of jagged rocks and a huge sky overwhelming me with a view so different from home.  That is where my white gold emerald and diamond anniversary ring came from, which I am also wearing today.  It was an early 19th wedding anniversary present.  The ring is beautiful and I love it…but the relationship with my husband is the true gift.  The ring serves as a reminder of what really matters.

I also wear a little silver bead and crystal cross bracelet.  This came from my cousin Judy.  She slipped it onto my wrist last August on a hot, muggy morning.  It was the morning we buried Aunt Ruby and my cousins had asked me to conduct her graveside service.  I think Judy knew I’d need a little extra strength for the day, and the bracelet carried her love and prayers with it.  It continues to do so and I wear it with love and gratitude.

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Thanksgiving following Aunt Ruby’s passing, our family gathered at my cousin Holly’s house for the first time without Aunt Ruby’s presence among us.  It was a bittersweet day, with both laughter and tears as we remembered the joy of Thanksgivings past when we gathered at Aunt Ruby’s house on Arnold Street.  My cousins presented me with a gorgeous pair of earrings, a love gift for preaching Aunt Ruby’s funeral and a reminder of the many roles she had served in our family, among them, the resident ear-piercer.  And the gem of choice?  Rubies.  Of course.  Doubly meaningful because Aunt Ruby’s name was also Mama’s birthstone.

 

 

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Everything I have, material and otherwise, came from someplace, from someone.  As meaningful and special as the material gifts are, they are just reminders of the true gifts, which are the people whose lives touch mine and the Lord Who brought all of it together in the first place.  He put me in the family He chose for me and brought into my path the friends He knew I would need to make my life rich, fun, musical and colorful.  

So yes, in all honesty, I can say that I am indeed greatly gifted.

Apr14

Blue Hydrangeas and Youth Dew

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Memories of Mom Cutshaw on her birthday…

My mother-in-law, Mary Lynn Clark Cutshaw, was born on April 14, 1923, and like Pop Cutshaw, would be turning 91 on her birthday.  It seems impossible that she would be that age if she were still with us, and it seems impossible that she and Pop have been gone as long as they have.  They died less than 11 months apart, with Pop leading the way in July of 2000.  I know there must have been a reason for the timing of their respective deaths, but it was a hard thing just the same.

I don’t want to think so much about Mom C’s dying as her living.  She was one of the toughest, strongest, most determined women I ever had the good fortune to know.  She intimidated me for the longest time.  I felt like an interloper; I was stealing her baby boy, after all.  I was marrying the little brown-haired-brown-eyed child she loved so very much.

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When Jeff and I got married, she said that she only wanted one thing as far as our ceremony was concerned, and that was for Jeff and me to sing a song.  I knew I would be too preoccupied to sing well on the actual wedding day, so we arranged to pre-record a duet the night of the rehearsal. I adapted the words of The Lord’s Prayer to fit the Bach-Gounod “Ave Maria” music, and Jeff and I recorded it between the rehearsal and dinner.  It was a wonderful gift to be able to honor her request and she was pleased with the result.

Once we were back from our honeymoon, she came up to our little rental house one day and helped me get things set up, including literally taking a knife and helping to scrape who-knows-how-many years of muck out of the oven!  She measured windows and made some of our curtains.  Less than a year later, when we were moving to Florida, she and Pop packed themselves up and made the move with us, spending the weekend (along with Jeff’s sister Bridget and her husband Michael, who lived in New Orleans and came over to meet up, share family time and help unpack) getting us bare-bones settled in.  I remember Mom C looking at all the canned food I had stockpiled to move down with us and telling me she was glad my Mama had taught me how to shop!  She had been worried that we would be moving down with no groceries of any kind to get us started.

Mom Cutshaw was a wonderful cook who made legendary pies yet somehow often scorched the green beans or burned the rolls.  It seemed like there was nothing she couldn’t do.  She knew how to sew and keep finances in order.  She was an Opti-Mrs. (the lady counterpart to The Optimist Club) and took care of children during Sunday school.  And she did more for Pop after he began suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, for a longer period of time, than was humanly possible, keeping him at home up until just the last couple of months before he died.

During this time, she gradually lost some weight, which was to be expected given the physical and emotional demands of being a 24/7 caregiver.  I don’t guess anybody really thought much about it, hoping that once things settled down, she could rest up and regain some of her physical strength.  As it turned out, just months after Pop’s death, we learned that she was experiencing a recurrence of the cancer that had shown up in her colon in 1997, this time in her liver.  Treatment was unsuccessful and she was placed on palliative care at home.  I remember asking her if she was scared, and she said she wasn’t afraid of dying, but she didn’t want to suffer.

She faced her battle bravely, just as she had faced everything else in her life.  She died in the wee hours of the morning on June 18, 2001.  The house was full of all her kids, 2 of the 3 kids-in-law and 2 of the 3 grandchildren.  I feel sure that she knew we were there, and I hope that it comforted her.

She has come to me many times in dreams.  The most vivid and telling one happened more than once.  The estate was in the process of being settled and their house was on the market for a while before it finally sold.  In my dream she kept quoting me a very specific number saying, “____ thousand and the house is sold.”  The number was low for a house and it didn’t make sense.  As it turned out, though, once the house sold and the proceeds were divided among the 3 children, the figure that came to each sibling was the number she had quoted to me in the dreams.  She knew and she shared it with me.  It still gives me chills to think about it.

She wore Estee’ Lauder’s Youth Dew, and to this day when I catch a whiff of it, I remember her… and smile.  She also grew lots of beautiful flowers.  Her blue hydrangeas were the prettiest I’ve ever seen.  I have a few dried ones in the china cabinet that came to us after she died.  Every time I see them I remember her…her strength, her beauty and youthful spirit, her courage in the face of adversity and her love expressed in meals cooked and clothing sewed, dream visits and oven-scraping with a new daughter-in-law.

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Apr9

Pearls Of Great Price

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There are many kinds of value…

I love jewelry.  I have loved it since I was a little girl.  My earliest memory of wearing a piece of jewelry is the time Mama put a little heart necklace on me when she got me all gussied up in a dress no doubt made by Aunt Ruby for some Pixie Pin-Ups pictures.

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Ever since then I’ve been hooked on all kinds of jewelry.  Gold, silver, (rose gold is a real favorite!), with gemstones or not, rings, earrings, bracelets and necklaces are all fair game for me.  From the daintiest studs to enormous earrings, as fashions have changed over the years, I have experimented with different jewelry styles.  But there are some items that are classic, timeless, always right, always appropriate and always ladylike.  Like pearls.

As far as I know, Mama never owned a strand of genuine pearls, but she had good pearl earrings that I borrowed for dressy occasions until I received some pearl earrings of my very own.  For Christmas 1991, my sweet husband gave me a beautiful, luminous 18 inch “princess” length strand of pearls.  I was thrilled!  To this day I think they are the prettiest pearls I’ve ever seen.  I wear them for dressy occasions and, because pearls are part of my chorus’s concert attire, I wear them for concerts as well.

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And sometimes I wear them with casual clothes just because they are beautiful and I love them.  However I wear them, I take good care of them because natural and cultured pearl jewelry is expensive and I want them to stay as beautiful as they always have been. Someday I’ll be gone and someone will inherit my pearls along with my other belongings.  I hope that someone will receive as much pleasure from wearing them as I receive.

The most recent addition to my pearl collection is not of the expensive sort…but its value is beyond measure.  When Aunt Ruby died last August, my cousin Alan had the family gather at his house after the graveside service.  He mentioned that he had her old sewing machine out in his garage and asked if I wanted to poke around in the drawers.  I asked if everybody else had been through them and he said, “Yes, there’s not much of anything in there.”  So I had the chance to gather a few little treasures from Aunt Ruby’s sewing machine.  I took home a couple of little boxes not knowing what all they contained until I sat down for an afternoon of “pilfering” (what Mama used to call it when we went digging/rummaging/hunting for something).  In a tiny old-fashioned medicine bottle were a few random fasteners, the snap kind that Aunt Ruby put on housecoats, as well as a couple of sewing machine needles, the kind that served double duty as ear-piercing instruments.  And there was one small plastic “pearl” button.  It wouldn’t surprise me if she had used the other buttons like that on one of the many little-girl dresses she made for me.

What a treasure!  And I knew just how to use that solitary little button.  It now lives on the gold pin that holds my Confidence Charms, the talismans I wear for every important event in my life. It has found a perfect home there.

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Just a little plastic pearl button, not what could be considered valuable…but it’s priceless.

Apr2

The Song Of My People

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My kind of Southern…

A Facebook quiz recently asked, “How Southern Are You?”, and several friends of mine had taken the quiz and shared their results.  I was curious about the questions and what my percentage might be, so I took the quiz.  I had done 19 of the 36 things listed, giving me a paltry 53% Southern score.  I was disappointed until I realized how limited the quiz was in its scope.

This whole thing started me thinking about what “Southern” really means, realizing that it varies by state, region and individual.  My reflections on Southern-ness are unique to me even though many other people will have shared the same experiences.  So, if I may wax rhapsodic for a few minutes, I would like to share a bit of what being Southern means to me.

 

 

The song of my people

is dinner on the grounds and

breakfast for supper

 

front porch swings and rocking chairs

and the squeak of Granny’s old aluminum

glider

always moving

never going

anywhere

 

aprons dusted with biscuit flour and

women like Southern tea

sweet and strong

 

white-glove gentility and

hard-nosed grit

 

I can talk about my family

any way I like

but you

you best not

 

cast iron skillet and mason jar

vessels of promise

 

fifth Sunday hymn service

and shouts from the Amen corner

the song of my people

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Mar26

Hand Made

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Genesis 1:1—In the beginning God created…

I spent part of an afternoon recently with my cousin Jim (aka Bobo) and his wife Donna in the home studio where she makes original fused glass art pieces, jewelry, bookmarks, window hangings, Christmas ornaments and just about anything else imaginable that can be made with glass.  She had posted pictures on Facebook of art pieces/caricatures she had made of Bobo and his brother, Hazen, doing their favorite hobbies, golfing and fishing, respectively.  I was so taken with them that I asked Donna if she could do one of me singing, and she said she’d give it a try.  When she contacted me to let me know that my art piece was completed, we made a date for me to go over and pick it up.  And when she unveiled it, I squealed with delight!

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We enjoyed a wonderful visit, someplace other than a funeral home, which is where we tend to run into each other these days.  I looked around her studio and learned the story of how she got into working with glass.  The colors, textures and shapes fascinated me as I poked in every corner of the space, and Donna explained that each piece is one of a kind because when it goes into the kiln for firing, she never knows exactly how it’s going to turn out.  Colors and finishes change when they are fired.  That element of surprise is part of the joy of fused glass work.

Donna was a hairstylist for years before retiring and beginning this new creative chapter of her life.  I commented that doing hair was an art form and she replied, “Well, it should be.”  Her daughters are both creative as well, with enterprises and interests ranging from music to photography to embroidery.  And they’ve passed that creativity to their children as well.  It runs in the family just like brown eyes or blonde hair.

My friend Vicki recently sent me a surprise in the mail, a beautiful pair of handmade silver earrings shaped like treble clefs.  She wrote in her card that she’d seen them where a lady was showing her handmade creations and they made her think of me.  I’ve worn them numerous times since receiving them and people always comment on how beautiful and unusual they are.  And with gratitude,  I always share the story of how they came to me.

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Several years ago, my friend Olivia, who was a member of the fraternity I serve as chapter mother, made me a bracelet in the fraternity colors, with a heart charm and my initial.  It’s a treasured gift and a reminder of the gift of creativity that lives within her, and within all of us.

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I am primarily a musician, a singer.  But I also write, make scrapbooks and greeting cards, and take pictures.  My friend David told me years ago that all creative people have more than one outlet for expression, and I believe that is true.  There are writers who also paint, painters who also dance, dancers who also quilt, quilters who also play instruments…the combinations are limitless.  

Genesis tells us that “In the beginning God created…”, (emphasis mine) and that He “made mankind in His image…”.  It stands to reason, then, that we are all endowed by the Creator with the gift of our own creativity, in whatever ways it manifests itself.  I count myself blessed to come from a heritage of so much music and creativity on both sides of my family.  I may not express my creative instincts in all the same ways as my predecessors have, but I try to express myself to the best of my ability and in the ways that best suit me.  And I continue to explore new ways to express those creative urges.  God gave them to me to use, and I hope to use them to bless other people.

Mar20

Reclining Chairs And White Flowers

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Pop Cutshaw’s birthday and my memories…

My father-in-law, Floyd Houston Cutshaw, was born on March 20, 1923.  He’d be turning 91.  That seems unfathomable to me.

I have to say that the Pop Cutshaw I knew was probably a very different person than the father his kids grew up knowing.

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By the time I came onto the scene he was about to retire, and I think that growing a little older and developing some health problems had mellowed him some.  To me, he was always easy to be around, with a dry sense of humor and a favorite chair.

Jeff’s growing-up memories include Pop making old-school, stove-top popcorn in a pan that was, in Jeff’s recollection, beat-up and black from all the stuff that got cooked and/or burned in it, and no longer flat on the bottom but “bowed up in the middle”.  Pop Cutshaw brought home a swirly brown ball from someplace and drilled holes in it to make Jeff’s first little bowling ball, a treasure we have to this day.  Jeff spent countless hours propping up a pillow in their kitchen or den behind his set of little plastic bowling pins as he practiced big boy bowling.

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My history with Pop was a lot shorter because I came into the family as the last child-in-law.  I always liked him and I felt that he liked me too.  A routine developed over the years when we would go over to their house for dinner or whatever reason for a visit.  We always went in the sliding glass doors into the den, and Pop was generally sitting in his recliner in the corner watching sports on TV.  Mom Cutshaw might be in her chair as well, opposite his, or she might be in the kitchen.  I always leaned down to kiss Pop on the corner of his forehead (usually leaving a lipstick smear behind) and he always said “Thank you!” when I did it.

I mentioned that he developed health issues as he got older. One of those was prostate cancer.  It scared all of us to death, because he already had a heart condition, and there was concern that side effects from treatment could make his existing problems worse.  Fortunately, no surgery was needed, just radiation (which was still no walk in the park).  When he began treatment, I sent him an arrangement of white roses, the flowers I always choose to express respect.  Our phone rang that night and it was Mom Cutshaw saying, “Your father-in-law has something he’d like to tell you,”.  He told me he’d never gotten flowers from a woman before and he was touched by the gesture, and he thanked me.  He did very well during radiation, especially for his age and considering his heart problem.

He endured bladder cancer prior to the prostate cancer, a heart attack, several angioplasties, double hernia surgery and an enormous aortic aneurysm that he didn’t want to get fixed until he finished building the carport for the motor home!  That was just how he was.  In his younger days, he could build or fix just about anything thrown his way.  He and Mom Cutshaw eloped to Ringgold, Georgia after he came back from The War, a period of his life that he never talked about much.  The war, not the marriage.

How strange and sad that after surviving so much, in the end it was Alzheimer’s Disease that took him from us.  How ironic that, after years of lipstick-smeared forehead kisses, I should be wearing the original Kissy Shirt the night he died and I kissed him for the last time.  And how poignant was the conversation we had in a dream following his death.

I dreamed that, like every other time we had gone to their house, Pop was there in his recliner, stretched out with his feet up.  The whole family was there for dinner and everyone else was in the kitchen.  I leaned down and kissed him on the forehead just like always, leaving my mark behind. And he thanked me.  I sat down in Mom C’s chair. He and I were by ourselves in the den, and I knew that he was dead, but he had been allowed to return for a visit with me.  He thanked me once again for the white roses I’d sent him years before, and said he would like me to plant a garden of white flowers for him, whatever kind I wanted, but all white.

And then he was gone, I was awake, and tears of joy and gratitude were flowing before my eyes even opened.  Dreams like this are so vivid, real and beautiful when they come, and I would endure every bad dream gladly for the chance to experience these occasional visits from my departed loved ones.  I miss them all so much, but now and then I am granted the gift of a visit like this one with Pop.  I have never gotten around to planting that white garden.  Maybe this year that will happen.  But every time I see white flowers of any kind, I remember Pop and that precious moment we shared in my dream.

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Happy birthday in Heaven, Pop.  I’m sending you a big forehead smooch.  ❤