Family is Coming Apart, I Think

We went to Fontana this past weekend, Mama. It was tense, stressful, we left a day and a half early. I just couldn't take it.

Seemed like everybody was trying too hard, Daddy was tense and nervous with his new wife there. We shouldn't have gone. I got in a fight with everybody for making my new husband feel unwelcome and now nobody's speaking to me. There just doesn't seem to be the cohesion there was once. I wish you were here to talk to in person. I don't have anybody to talk to who understands... my husband is upset and all he can see is how he was treated and he doesn't want to have anything else to do with them because of it.

I blessed 'em all out and of course the comeback was totally defensive, they'll never see how they treated him, whether it was intentional or not... and I'm sure it was unintentional, but it hurt just the same. I feel like the black sheep... it's not a good feeling.

We had noticed a reticence, a stand-offish sort of attitude toward my husband for awhile but I thought it was because we weren't married and were living together... I think we had high hopes that the feeling would be different once we "did the right thing" and got married. Guess not. Why do we have to be so judgmental toward one another? I don't understand... it hurts so much and nobody seems to care how much I hurt... they just think they're right and can do no wrong and the gossip and backbiting and defensive walls keep accelerating... I don't know what to do!!!

I miss you Mama!

Fontana without you

Dear Mama,

Went to Fontana for Labor Day weekend for the first time since you left us... some folks who were there claim it was a great time, but for me it was a disaster. We are simply not qualified to be in charge of a family vacation. You pulled it off so beautifully every year, and it seemed effortless, so how hard could it be? Hard!

Daddy's new wife came and we, of course, hated that and pretty much ignored her the whole weekend. I'm quite ashamed of us. We are not the accepting, all-embracing family that we like to think we are... we are wary of strangers, people who are different from us... We are like a mob family... without the crime! I never realized till this year just how clannish we are.

My new husband came this year, Mama, and he was treated pretty badly... no direct affronts, that would just be bad manners! But more like he simply wasn't there at all... not included in the "men's" activities, or conversations, no matter how hard he tried to just talk to Jeff and Ethan, they quickly found something else to do every time he tried to start a conversation with them. It hurt me so much to watch it.

How did you do it? How did you make sure everybody was welcome and accepted at these things? I have no clue!

Not many people came this year anyway... just the immediate family. I guess the others have felt unaccepted during the past years and only came because of you, so since you aren't here, they stayed home. I'm rather ashamed of us, Mama.

I wrote letters to Jeff, Kevin, and Beth and Ethan, telling them how I feel, we left early and they were shocked and offended and they will be even more shocked and offended when their letters arrive this week. I was in a no-win situation... I could either put on a "happy face" and deal with it, or leave as quietly as possible, or I could blow up, bless them all out and ruin everyone's vacation... I chose to leave early. Maybe that was a mistake, but they really hurt my feelings. I'm sure they feel they did NOTHING wrong... they never do. It's gonna be hard to even participate in holidays after this, at least for awhile, don't know if my nerves can take it.

I love my life now, Mama, you would be happy for me, and Daddy seems to be happy for me... why can't the others be? I just don't understand!

I miss you, Mama!

September

The goldenrod is yellow,
The corn is turning brown,
The trees in the apple orchard
With fruit are bending down.

The gentian's bluest fringes
Are curling in the sun
In dusty pods, the milkweed
Its hidden silk has spun.

The sedges flaunt their harvest
In every meadow nook
And asters by the brookside
Make asters in the brook.

In dewy lanes at morning
The grapes sweet odors rise
At noon the roads all flutter
With yellow butterflies.

By all these lovely tokens
September days are here
With summer's best of weather
And autumn's best of cheer.

Happy September 1, I miss you Mama!

Tomatoes

Dear Mama,


Remember a few years ago when Jeff planted and grew some heirloom tomatoes called Cherokee Purples and they were so delish?

I found some for sale at the Rosewood Market today... a little health food store here in town. They were a little pricey but Oh My Goodness... so sweet and yummy! I made some tuna salad and had that with lettuce and Cherokee Purples for supper... Hugh's not much of a tomato eater but he gave them a try and like 'em OK... oh well, more for me! Ha!

Jeff always gave you the first tomato every year from his garden... he misses doing that now... it's always the little things we miss the most. He cried last winter when he went rabbit hunting and shot a rabbit... he always brought you a mess of rabbit whenever he got any.

While I was enjoying my juicy, sweet, purply-red tomato with my supper, I got to thinking about you telling me how much I loved tomatoes, even as a baby... you said I would just eat and eat tomatoes and my face would break out with those big ugly bumps, but I loved 'em. Still do... and my face doesn't break out any more!

I only bought two today... Purples don't last like those modern hybrids do.

I will think about you when I slice and devour the other one... probably tomorrow.

I miss you Mama!

Been Thinking About Fontana

Dear Mama,
I've been thinking about Fontana... we're planning to go next weekend for Labor Day. I didn't go year before last, then you left us just two weeks later and I regret not being there with you and everybody.

I didn't go last year either... just couldn't bring myself to. Beth and her family were there, and Jeff and Kevin and Hannah... I think Daddy said there were only 16 people last year... compare that to the year we had over 60!

We're gonna go this year, we don't expect too big of a crowd. Marcia still can't face Fontana without you and Beckie, she's had a tough time of it, Mama... you left, then less than a year later Beckie, and then just this past March, Richard... Just her and Robert left and, well, Robert is still sad even though he's trying harder now I think.

This year we're gonna have taco salad (of course), Beth's bringing the taco meat, I'm gonna bring chips and cheese and salsa... we'll get some of the others to fill in the blanks there... we're also gonna have BBQ and Kevin's gonna make that. I'm taking buns.

I think I'll make pimento cheese and maybe a sour cream pound cake. Hugh and I found custard powder like Beth brought home from Scotland that time and I may make some of it to pour over the pound cake... should be yummy!

Daddy's new wife will be there and that's gonna be hard, Mama... she just does NOT fit in with us and we try, I promise we do.

I love you Mama, we'll miss you this year... there's nobody left to do the "dam dance." And nobody to sing "Going to the Chapel."

We'll enjoy it I'm sure, but it won't be the same...

I miss you Mama!

Mama Used to Say...

Dear Mama,

These days I start a lot of sentences with "Mama used to say..." I don't want to ever forget the words of wisdom... some in fun, some serious... I heard from you all my life. It amazes me the things that come out of my mouth and I remember it as something "Mama used to say!"

This morning at work somebody asked, "Is today Wednesday?" Before I thought, I automatically said, "all day if it don't rain!" Immediately I was asked, "what if it DOES rain?" "Well, then it's a rainy Wednesday!" I replied... my Mama used to say that... I never really understood why!

Just like "you lie like a rug... and step on it!" or...

"I'm just like Ol' Mis' Duncan... always in the way!"

Hugh and I were watching the movie 2012 the other night and in the movie California has these massive earthquakes causing the whole state to pretty much collapse into the ocean... of course I said to Hugh, "Mama always said one of these days California was gonna fall into the ocean. And it just did!"

Old superstitions that you never took seriously but always did anyhow, without thinking... like throwing salt over your left shoulder, knocking on wood, "Oops I dropped the dishrag, somebody's coming hungry!" or "My left hand itches, I'm gonna get some money" being careful to put your left hand into your pocket to scratch it so you didn't scratch the luck away... "the bottom of my foot itches means I'm gonna walk on strange ground" and "don't let a baby look in the mirror before they're a year old or they'll die" or "get married in green, ashamed to be seen!"

These are the silly, foolish ones and they're the ones that come to mind today... I promise, Mama, the serious stuff has stuck with me too, I'm just not thinking about them right now.

Talk to ya later... right now my ears are burning... somebody must be talking about me!

I miss you Mama!

Corn and Green Beans and other summer Veggies

Dear Mama,

Stopped by the produce stand on my way home from the grocery store this morning... bought some green beans and field corn, among other things. We like a good, down home, vegetable dinner sometimes.

I sat this afternoon, watching the tear-jerker movie Carolina, and strung and broke beans, put them on to cook with some whole tiny red potatoes, an onion, and a little butter and salt... out of bacon or I would have used good ol' bacon grease.

Cut off the corn for "fried corn" to have with my beans and maybe I'll cook a mess of okr-y with it all.

Memories flooded as I broke beans and watched Shirley McLane as "Grandma Mirabou" on TV... a one-of-a-kind family, the Mirabous... just like we were always a one-of-a-kind family... not the same, but with similarities...

I remembered as a little girl, before the days of air conditioning, sitting in the shade of the apple tree in Nanny Sensing's back yard, many of us together helping out, many hands make light work... stringing and breaking green beans for canning. It was too hot in the house with Nanny's old pressure canner going with the first "run" of beans processing while we sat in the relative cool shade of that old apple tree stringing and breaking, and talking and laughing, making the tedious work so much more pleasant with the socializing...

Some years later, as a young married woman with little ones playing underfoot, you and I, and sometimes Linda and Marcia, would do the same thing at your dining room table with the fan going full blast, or sometimes in the back yard under the black walnut tree for shade... those were wonderful memories, the hard work, the aching back and feet, but in the end... 100+ quart jars of green beans canned for the winter... sometimes it was tomatoes we canned, sometimes peaches, pickles, jellies, soup... sometimes corn or okra or squash for the freezer... but it was always more fun doing it together and the hard work flew by as we talked and laughed and gossiped.

Remember the time you sent Beth into the kitchen for something while we were stringing and breaking and she found a black snake stretched out in the kitchen floor?

When I cut off my three ears of corn this afternoon to make a small "mess" of corn for just Hugh and me to have for dinner, my mind went back to when I was about 9 or 10 years old, watching Nanny Sensing cut off bushels and bushels of field corn to put in the freezer for winter... we teased her a lot about the fact that she ended up with more corn on her than in the plastic freezer containers or freezer bags she put the corn into... She would have corn all down the front of her flowered apron, all over the wall above the sink, and covering her glasses so thickly it was amazing she could see to cut... but when she thawed that corn and made fried creamed corn in the winter, it was worth the mess and hard work... us kids were in charge of carrying the corn shucks and cobs to the pig pen and throw them in to the hogs...

Which brings another amusing memory to mind... the time the hogs got out and Papaw and Daddy were both at work so you and Nanny had to chase them down and pen them back up... a funny sight to a seven year old... Nanny in her cotton house dress and you in your polyester pantsuit, sticks in hand, chasing hogs all over the neighborhood and finally VICTORY!!! getting them back into their pen and fixing the exit hole as best you could till Papaw and Daddy got home to fix it more thoroughly...

Hard work and laughter... those were truly the good ol' days!

I miss you Mama!