A Busy Weekend

Today is Monday. I had a busy weekend. That is good.

On Saturday, Nadine, a former student and dear friend of mine, drove down and picked me up to go for lunch. As most of my women friends understand, it was a long lunch. We had not seen each other in several years, so Crabapple Tavern let us sit for three hours while we talked, laughed and had a delightful time. She was good medicine for me. And she said we were good for each other. 

I admire my friend who is courageous, unafraid of traveling anywhere she wants to go, alone. I remember when I could do that. The year after Barry died, I drove down to Florida and spent a couple of weeks alone in a condo belonging to the husband of my sister-in-law. That is a long way to drive and especially for a senior woman who had never gone anywhere without her husband in the driver's seat.

Barry and I traveled together when we left town whether to go back to south Georgia or to explore the mountains where we lived. I didn't go off on trips with my friends and leave him at home. He didn't go without me except when he traveled for work. It never entered my mind at the time that one day I would not have him beside me. We enjoyed each other's company and we enjoyed vacationing with Gay and Stu, my sister and brother-in-law. Barry and Stu were like brothers, kidding each other, finding the same outlandish things funny. When Barry's brother died, he said to Stu, "You are the only brother I have now."

On Sunday, we attended a concert by a big band here in Roswell. They did a tribute concert celebrating Johnny Mercer's music. Mercer was a Georgia native. He wrote so many of the songs I love, songs that were the sound track of my life with Barry. Moon River was our song. Also, Days of Wine and Roses, which was co-written by Mercer and Henry Mancini. Often Barry sang songs like Autumn Leaves and Summer Wind both by Mercer. When we first married, he never went to a gathering of friends without his guitar. And he was always asked to sing. That was in the sixties and folk music was popular.

As I sat and listened to all that music from those fabulous musicians, the lyrics sung by a fine singer, I thought of Barry who led his own band when he was in high school. He played drums, but he also played trumpet and later in life he played guitar. For two hours Sunday, I felt Barry was with me, listening to our music. Gay and Stu also thought of him and how much he would have enjoyed the concert. 

Barry plays his guitar and sings

Memories. What life is made of. I have some fabulous ones, but also some very sad ones. Ups and downs, laughter and tears, hold on to today, we know not what tomorrow brings. 

Barry's Favorite Vegetable

Vegetables at the Meat and Three             

                                                                                                        

            My husband Barry says mac and cheese is his favorite vegetable.

            “What part grows in the ground? Do you harvest the macaroni or the cheese?” I ask, laughing at his remark.

            He points to the menu he holds. Our favorite meat-and-three restaurant in our little mountain town lists macaroni and cheese under the green beans and sliced tomatoes, right along with mashed potatoes.

            I like macaroni and cheese, but it must be real cheese. Not a microwave dish or plastic-packaged cheese sauce thrown on top of noodles. Neither do I like to order cheese grits and have my plate served with a spoonful of grits and a slice of Velveeta lying across the top. Some things you just don’t try to shortcut.

            My recipe for macaroni and cheese elicits raves from my dinner guests. I use three different kinds of cheese. In the oven, the sharp cheddar on top melts into a golden lava flow and crisps at the edges. Beneath that sunny cover a creamy sauce, seasoned perfectly with salt and pepper, with a jar of pimento mixed in to give color and sweet pepper flavor, awaits the diner’s taste buds. Pimento and cheese go together like peanut butter and jelly and is a favorite combination in our family. I’m not bragging, but I’ve been told I make the best pimento cheese sandwiches. I use sharp cheese and just enough mayo. I am heavy-handed with the pimento. Barry said he thought macaroni and cheese couldn’t get any better until he ate it with chopped pimento.

            Still, I think my mother made the best. She simply prepared a cream sauce from scratch, stirred in grated cheese until it melted, and turned the sauce a pale yellow. She poured it over cooked elbows and layered the top with more freshly grated hoop cheese she bought at Hancock’s grocery.

             I remember Mr. Hancock, wearing his blood-spattered white smock, used a butcher knife to cut a wedge from the great round that lay sweating on his meat counter. He ripped off a sheet of white butcher paper from a nearby roll and wrapped, without a wrinkle, the pock-marked chunk of cheddar.

            Riding home in the Nash, sitting next to my sister, the pungent smell reeking through the brown bag tempted me to open the white paper and sneak a bite. Just like the tiny mice that wintered in our farmhouse, I was drawn to the smell of what Daddy called rat cheese. Many evenings before going to bed, he cut a small piece off the wedge and baited a mouse trap.

            The next morning he held up the spring-coiled death instrument and laughed. “It never fails,” he’d say, as he carried the corpses outside for the cats.  I felt sorry for those mice. They had been tempted by the “rat cheese” just as I was, and I’m sure, even if they had known it might be their last meal, they had to take a bite.

            When we arrived home from the store, Mother would put away the groceries, but she left the cheese on the kitchen counter. The flavor peaked at room temperature she told me. When she wasn’t looking I nibbled on the triangled hunk, breaking off one small piece at a time. I wished I could eat the whole thing. But I knew Mother had to make that hunk of cheese feed our big family.

            Later, when she took the bubbling dish of macaroni and cheese from the oven, the aroma wafted throughout our house. My four teenage brothers, my sister, and I needed no coaxing to come to dinner. If it had been allowed, I’d have made my meal on that one dish, filling my plate over and over with the soft noodles.

            I was not a big fan of greens or rutabagas, or many other things from the garden that Mother put on the table every day, so, like Barry, when I was a kid macaroni and cheese was my favorite vegetable, too.

First published on this site many years ago.

What is your favorite vegetable?

Memorial Day Anniversary

This is a big holiday weekend and people are traveling like crazy. 

I will not be leaving home but did have a wonderful time with some good friends yesterday. We met at a local restaurant where we could sit outside. All of us have been vaccinated so we were comfortable with hugging again and just being together. I had missed that connection but didn't realize how much I would enjoy it. Now that we have found a good location, I plan to do more of that this summer. 

Memorial Day is a national holiday to remember fallen soldiers who were members of the United States Armed Forces. 

Several of my family and some of my friends lost their lives in war, and I always feel a sadness when I think of them and their sacrifice. But this holiday which comes at the end of May, holds personal memories for me.

Memorial Day weekend will always hold a special place in my heart and my memory. On Memorial Day weekend, 1995, twenty-six years ago, Barry and I moved here to the mountains of North Carolina.

We left a three thousand square foot home we had built and which we loved. It was located on the farm land given to us by my father. He bought this land in 1942.

Barry and I had lived there for twenty-five years, and I thought we would always be there. But our lives changed when my parents died and when the family business was sold. Looking back I realize it was one of the best changes in my life.

From early 1995, we had been searching for a house to rent in north Georgia near Lake Chatuge. After several trips to the region, we settled on a vacation home on the north end of the lake, owned by an older couple from Florida. This house was in North Carolina. It was not meant to be our permanent home, but one we would live in while trying out our new situation. We had to purchase instead of renting because we had our beloved dog, Kodi, a Samoyed, and no one would rent to us.

This little house had 1,000 square feet on the upper level, the living area, and had a daylight basement with only side walls and front sliding doors.

In the living level we had two bedrooms and two baths. The selling point for this house was the view from the upper deck where we sat with the birds high above the ground. We could see ourselves relaxing in our chairs and watching boats on the lake while enjoying the cool breezes that ruffled the hardwoods surrounding us on three sides. 

View from our upper deck in 1995. On a clear day we could see Brasstown Bald over in Georgia

On that long weekend, 1995, my brother and his sons came over and helped load our U-Haul for the final trip to North Carolina. 

Although we still owned the house, we had it listed with a real estate agent. I can't begin to describe the sadness that came over me as we drove away from everything that had been home my entire life. I knew I would come back, and I would even stay in my house before it was signed over to another, but that day sealed the deal and we were definitely leaving the farm, my childhood home, and my wonderful dream house. We had carved our setting out of the woods, doing most of the work ourselves. For years after we left, I dreamed about the house.

I wrote a poem a few years later explaining how I felt about this change in my life.

Splintered
by Glenda Council Beall

The cleaver fell
and split her head-to-toe.
Racked by horrendous pain,
she continued to exist;
half her heart left behind,
the other half in the new place.

Part of her brain stayed
to store up more memories.
The other part tries to understand
what to do with this end of life.
One foot can't walk without the other
so she spins in place.

One hand waved a sad goodbye,
the other is useless here,
where both are needed
just to unpack.

Torn asunder, like the division
of conjoined twins who share
the same heart and brain,
neither part of her can live this way.

There will be a day when she
will suture her selves together
using needles of confidence,
threads of experience,
and settle both halves here,
but the scar will remain forever.

After the house on the farm was sold, we thought hard about looking for another larger place. But we had fallen in love with the location, the privacy, the quietness that was so like our home in Georgia.We both wanted to stay in our little house and make it more comfortable for us. 

First we created a new driveway, one that circled our house so we could park on the upper level instead of having to walk up about forty steps to bring in groceries. We put in a carport so we could park on the living level instead of in the garage down on the lower level. 

With Barry working from home much of the time, he needed an office. We finished the basement and made an area for him there. Later we built a bedroom and a large bathroom down there. That area would eventually become my writing studio after Barry was gone. We moved the laundry room upstairs where we also incuded a large pantry. I imagine we spent as much on improvements as we paid for the house. But it is a place I love and Barry loved. He didn't feel the need to travel or go on vacation. "Why would I want to go anywhere when I live in the best place to relax, to enjoy the lake and the mountain views?" He only traveled because I wanted to.

One of our major fears in life is change. 

I was always one who could live in a rut my whole life and not make changes. But leaving home, moving hundreds of miles away from home, turned out to be the best thing we ever did. Barry and I had fifteen years here in this house and they were the happiest years of our lives together. Unlike my sisters who both left home when they married, I had stayed and taken on duties of caring for my parents as they aged, made my own home near them and near where I had grown up. But I was not completely happy. I always had a feeling I was missing something. 

Here in the mountains, I found what had been missing. My life changed drastically, our marriage even changed as we had more time alone together. We sat on our deck and talked about things we had never discussed before. I think we came to know each other better.  We had no one else to spend time with, no one to interrupt our plans or call in need. We thoroughly enjoyed the company of each other as we traveled around the area in Barry's Jeep Wrangler, or made day trips to other cities and states. Barry always had his camera with him and made beautiful photos I cherish today.

This Memorial Day, I will drink a toast to the best change I ever made and to my dear husband, Barry Beall, who made it possible. 

Having a picnic on a rushing stream in the mountains. A happy time.

I hope you all are having a great holiday weekend. Please be safe and enjoy your family and friends and I hope everyone will be vaccinated for COVID.

Be grateful for your blessings and do what you can to help those who need it.

Need a gift for someone? Check this out.

An Acrostic Poem

An Acrostic Poem

An acrostic poem is one in which the letters going down the poem, spell out a word.

In the following poem, I wrote about my husband, before he passed away, the bold letters at the beginning of each line spell Barry Beall. 

 

 

Barry, My Love

by Glenda Beall                          

 Better than peanut butter, he

Always makes me happy.

Routinely perks my spirits up,

Romances me with a song.

Yesterdays have been fantastic.

 

Because he's in my life

Every day holds new excitement

As we progress on a marriage that has

Lasted forty-five years and will

Last for all eternity.

Try writing an acrostic poem. Look up these poems on the Internet and see all the ways you can write one. 

 

 

College Football Season

September means football season, or did, at our house. From the time I married Barry Beall, I knew that Saturday afternoons in the fall meant he would be watching or listening to Georgia football.
One time on vacation in Tennessee, we had at a nice cabin in the mountains, but there was no television at that cabin. Barry could not believe that I would book a rental where he could not see the University of Georgia play football.

We drove to the nearest town where he bought rabbit ears in hopes he could get the TV in the living room to play. Seems it was only there to play DVDs. When it became obvious that we would not be seeing the University of Georgia play football that weekend, Barry and my brother-in-law, Stu, drove into town and found a bar where they could see the game.

At home, I knew that Saturday afternoons would always find Barry in his chair in front of the TV. As I moved about the house doing whatever I wanted to do, the sound of the crowd filled the space and the voice of the sports announcer rang loud and clear. Barry was with them, on the field, playing as hard as the uniformed boys on the turf. If the dogs lost, he was down for days. Unlike some fans, Barry never blamed the coach. He was a fan of Coach Dooley and later was a fan of the coach that followed him.

In the early years, I griped because I wanted him to do something with me on the weekend, not sit in front of a screen. I cared nothing about football and actually thought of it as a cruel sport. So many of those young men ended up hurt and even some died due to injuries at practice or in the game. But for a number of years, we rode up to Athens, GA with my brother Rex and his wife to sit in the stands and watch the game. That was really love on my part. In those days women dressed up for the football game in pantyhose, high heels and fall dresses that were far too warm for the summer-like weather. I hated going to those games. Not being a fan, I often had trouble following the plays. One day I fainted. I know that was embarrassing for my husband. We were on our way out when I passed out. He was sweet and kind and took care of me. I woke up with him holding me in his arms.

 Sanford Stadium in Athens, Georgia. I was often in that field of red sweating among thousands

 I liked Uga, the bulldog mascot, but felt real sympathy for him. He would get so hot on the sidelines his tongue practically dragged the ground as he panted. Eventually the dog was given a doghouse on wheels with a big bag of ice inside. I think the owners were afraid he would have a heart attack.

Among things that surprised me after my husband died, was how much I missed Saturday afternoons in the fall when our house was filled with football. I longed to hear the roar of the crowd, and the celebratory sounds coming from Barry's chair when his team won. Something I had taken for granted for 45 years was gone, and I had never thought I would miss it.

I told my friend, Karen Holmes about this and she used my words in this poem.

In Football Season, I Learn to Appreciate What I Have

Twenty-one geese just honked by, low to the gray lake.

My dogs normally ignore bird sounds, yet

rush to the window now, seem to believe

it’s their own species barking a foreign tongue.

As geese do, the honkers turn on a dime,

fly off the way they came.  I think of home,

the language of traffic, how I worry

whenever a siren screams on Peachtree,

say a quick prayer for the dying or injured flying

to Piedmont Hospital, and for the loved ones. My friend

Glenda, a widow for three years, says she misses

football sounds rolling through the house each weekend,

though she had fussed when her husband

wouldn’t turn it off.  Chris watches now.

I’m getting used to it again:  the crowd’s low thunder

under commentator prattle. Sometimes I watch a bit

or bring my laptop to the couch, look up

when the noise swells or Chris swears. Sometimes I get tired

of that TV rumbling most of Sunday after rumbling

most of Saturday, but I remember Glenda.  And I remember

my first husband’s snoring: I’d lie there telling myself

I’d miss it if he were gone, but sometimes I slept

in the other room. I remember Mother, who never spoke

of these things, hinting to me that she wished

she’d been more intimate with Father when she had the chance,

before the earthquake of his Parkinson’s. And farther back,

during my family’s three-week migration to Lake Huron,

I remember Mother mad at him for sticking to the radio’s static

as Ernie Harwell crackled the Detroit Tigers’ play-by-play,

my sisters and I picking at him to swim with us again,

carry us again on his shoulders across the blue deep

to that clear strip of aqua-- the sandbar--

where we’d splash, up to our knees in laughter.

                                ----- Karen Paul Holmes

Visit Karen's website and you can read or hear her read her poems online.

What would you miss in your life if it disappeared tomorrow?

Appalachian Memories

Down to the Soft Grass  

At the top of Windy Gap we spread our lunch of cream cheese and crackers we’d bought at a little general store in Villas. Barry and I were in our thirties and had been married for a few years. I can see him now, long legs in jeans that fit like they were made just for him, camera strap around his neck.  

We found this place, Seven Devils, and rented a rustic cabin that looked down on small towns and little roads that wormed between mountains in the far north western part of North Carolina. My memories of that day, high on a mountain in Appalachia, away from life’s reality back home, brings forth a smile. When I’m told to go to a place I want to be where I feel comfortable and at peace, I go there. That is the only way I can go back there. The place no longer exists having been developed for condos and rental houses for the skiers who fill the slopes in winter.

And Barry is no longer here to go with me, so I’d not want to go there. But I can recapture that day, the wind blowing in my face, the sweet fresh air tasting like a cool drink from a mountain spring. Little did I know how quickly the years would pass and how precious that day, that moment, would become to me, even now decades later.

I found this essay I wrote some years ago and decided to share it today on my blog. Savor every day, every moment because they are fleeting and one day will only be memories. 

AUTUMN - Is it finally here?

It seemed that we would have no autumn this year. The temperature went from nineties to fifties suddenly, but for a few days we are having great fall weather. The leaves are beginning to change and to fall, a month later than usual.

Pumpkins are a big symbol of Fall. I see them everywhere.

Morning view from my house of mountains peeking up through the fog. 

One of my favorite photos of Barry, my late husband.

My woods turn color every year, but later this year. 

Barry Beall, on left and Stu Moring at Cades Cove years ago. These men
were like brothers. We took vacations with the Morings (Gay and Stu) for many years.  

If you live where fall is happening, hope you have a brilliant and bright autumn before the cold comes in. 

March 2, was Barry's birthday. I can't let that special day go by without writing about him. I'll also share some photos.

Barry, Glenda and Gay on vacation out west-photo by Stu Moring

He was not big on celebrating his birthday, but Gay and Stu, and our friends the Clarkes, had begun a tradition of celebrating both Gay's birthday on the 23 of February and Barry's birthday on March 2 with one event. 

The Clarkes often had us over to their house or we would go somewhere, the six of us to eat and drink wine, and enjoy the day.

I remember one year when the weather was particularly nice in late February and we drove to a tumbling creek where water splashed and spun in circles around large smooth boulders. We ate our sandwiches sitting in the warm sun on one of the huge rocks. It was one of those days that stays with you forever because of the pure joy and happiness we all felt and the love we had for each other.

Glenda and Barry on a creek in North Georgia Mountains

Barry and Gay, my best friends and biggest supporters of whatever I wanted, had the same signs on the Horoscope. Pisces. In many ways they were similar. Neither liked to dwell on details but would rather glance at the big picture and move on. Barry was not a worrier and neither is Gay. At least she seems to accept that things aren't going to always go her way, so she puts the problem behind her and goes on. Barry used to tell me that I worried about things that would likely never happen. He didn't worry and if something bad or difficult came up, he handled it at that time.

That is not the way I work. That is the way the government works. Reactive thinking. I hate that.

I am proactive. I plan and think ahead about what might happen so that I can prevent it. 

 

Good planning prevents most mishaps, I believe, but Barry felt that worrying or over-thinking was a waste of good time, energy and it was stressful. He was good for me because he often talked me out of a major melt-down when I imagined the worst scenario. But I was good for him when I prevented a disaster by thinking ahead. 

We fit together like a couple of puzzle pieces, frayed around the edges, maybe, but our ins and outs matched perfectly.

Now there are five instead of six of us, and we celebrate Gay's birthday with lunch at a favorite restaurant. We don't forget Barry's birthday, however, and we can now talk about him and laugh at his zany remarks and cute ways, his comments that made us all laugh. His spirit is with us and we all miss him, but cherish the happy times we had together. 

My Stuff is Special to Me

Does anyone love Home Goods like I do? We don't have one in our rural area, but when I go to the city, I have to go in there. I try not to go. I can't help myself. I love the dishes and the lovely vases and glass pieces as well as all the gadgets and “put-abouts.” I am also a fool for kitchen items even though I don't cook so much anymore. 

I never go in one of their stores that I don't find something that speaks to me. Last week it was a white ceramic owl! I don't know why. I'm sure there was a reason and I'll understand it later. 

Don't you love those eyes?

There is no more space for stuff in my house. With all the books and magazines piled around, my place is somewhat cluttered.

I go into a friend’s house with only a few well-chosen pieces on her surfaces and the room appeals to me. It is clean and bare, and I like it. So why do I cover every spare inch of space in my living room, my bedroom and my office with stuff? 

Things are not important in my life. I am not and have never been a materialistic person. But at Home Goods, I turn into someone else. I get the idea that I can toss out all the old stuff in my house that I've kept for 45 years! But when I come home, I realize that I only have things in my house that have a special meaning to me. 

I have horses in all my rooms. I have framed photos of my family in every room. I have my husband’s cowboy hats on a rack in the hall. A large print of hunting dogs hangs on my wall. I would never have bought that for myself although it is by David Lanier, a well-known nature artist. It is not the kind of picture people hang in their living rooms, but in a den where men smoke cigars. 

For five years I worked for a good friend, part time, in her office where she was one of the first women to become a district manager for State Farm Insurance. About fifteen men - agents - answered to her. All those years the agents called the office to complain, to let out their frustrations, and most of the time my boss was not in. I listened to them and I empathized with them. 

To my surprise, when I resigned because we were moving to the mountains, those agents presented me with the large painting, framed with a small brass plate with an inscription to me. I admit it. I was moved to tears. It was to show their appreciation of me. I didn't feel that I had done anything special for them.

That is why I can't throw out things even though I've had them for many, many years. What I have on my walls and on my tables are not as gleaming or startling as what I see at Home Goods. But my stuff is special to me and I enjoy it, especially when it is made by the hands of someone I love like the sculpture by Gay Moring, my sister, the photographs taken by my husband, Barry Beall.

Barry called him "Billy Bob"

My house is probably a decorator’s nightmare, but my niece once told me that she always felt comfortable in my house no matter where I lived. She said my house is warm and it represents me and what I like.

So I guess I’ll never have one of those spare clean rooms that I admire so much. I will have to stay out of Home Goods unless I am buying for someone else. I’ll try to think about Christmas presents next time I go. Hope they don't have any more owls. 

What about you? Do you have space on your tables or do you keep collecting things you like?

The Love Month

Oh, tell her. Brief is life, but love is long.
               --- Alfred, Lord Tennyson


February is the month of love. All over the country children and grownups are giving valentines, home made like the one my father left in my mother's desk when she was ten years old, and those fancy red hearts on store shelves everywhere this month.

My Barry never hesitated to tell me he loved me, not just on Valentines Day. For forty-five years he likely said those three little words to me every day, often more than once a day. But he had some wonderful ways of showing me he cared, as well.


Things I miss:
He always took my hand when we crossed the street.

One February when I was sick with a cold and had whined that I longed to see the flowers blooming again, he slipped outside while I slept and fastened paper flowers all over my azalea bushes. When I awoke, he invited me to check out "spring."



He never once forgot our anniversary, although I often did. He carefully picked a beautiful card and included a handwritten note inside. His gifts were varied and many but the little note was special.


Do you show your loved ones how much you love them? Tell them, but find ways to show them, also. Those precious little things they will always remember.

What is the most memorable way your husband or wife showed love for you on Valentines Day?

How did I show my love? It wasn't on Valentines Day, but I let Barry go to the Georgia - Florida Football game with my best friend, Joyce. I didn't want to go and I didn't want him to have to go alone. In fact, he wouldn't go alone. They turned heads when they boarded the bus and tongues wagged as gossips started. I was in St. Augustine with another friend and welcomed the happy, and a little inebriated, husband and friend there for the victory party later.

FAMILY

Family is one thing that cannot be replaced. Whether we enjoy our family or whether we simply endure them at times, I find that family will go the extra mile when my life is in the dumps.

We all dreaded this Christmas knowing it would be sad without Barry, my dear husband who always made our present opening time one of laughter and joy. Knowing the children present were anxious to get to their own presents, Barry would deliberately drag out opening his gifts taking extra pains to cut each piece of tape, not tear the paper, and just when we thought he was ready to open the box, he would pretend he was going to tell us a tale, and he'd simply lay the box down on his lap as though he had forgotten it.
Little Jon and Paige would groan with frustration because we had a rule that only one gift was opened at the time. He pulled these same shenanigans with my nieces, Lee and Lyn. We adults got a kick out of seeing how many ways he could put off opening the gift in his lap.

We knew this Christmas would be one of the hardest we'd had to go through, and my sister and her husband tried to make it as painless for me as they could. Such dear and loving people. I knew they were sad just as I was but they kept up a positive and cheerful demeanor for me until after the gifts were opened and Gay raised her glass.

"To Barry," she said, and we couldn't hold back our tears.
 But it is all right to cry for those we love and miss. Why shouldn't we mourn? We love him and we miss him so much.

The evening ended however, with much laughter as the girls came and brought a cute and funny game. We sat around the table with our charming little great nephew who is growing up so fast, and the eight of us hooted and guffawed as we tried to explain words that flashed up on an electronic board. It reminds me of charades, but we could talk.

I am grateful for that short span of time when I was lifted up beyond the pall of grief and was able to forget the sorrow hanging over me all day. Laughter is a fantastic way to enhance or stimulate our endorphins, to balance the chemicals in our brains to lift depression.

June, Christmas, 2008

But the best gift I received today was the news that my sister, June, above, had actually walked yesterday after a serious back surgery two weeks ago.

That is a blessing we had all been praying for, and I believe now she will be able to go home and live independently once again.

Our lives take many turns and curves and ups and downs, but with family and good friends surrounding us with love and compassion, we can face whatever comes.

Post written December 26, 2009

Barry's Last Christmas - 2008

Althought he was not his usual jolly self, cracking jokes, or teasing Will, I never expected it to be his last Christmas. It was not a good time for him. He was in pain and already the cancer was coming back strong. But we didn't know it at that time. My sadness last December was because he suffered and I didn't know how long that might be. Christmas gifts seemed insignificant last year. But this photo of him is very significant to me. I know why isn't smiling, why his eyes are sad. I'd seen that look in my brother's eyes and I hurt when I think of the pain he suffered in silence.

Saying Goodbye My Way

We didn’t have an old fashioned southern funeral with open casket, and visitation on the night before the service. We didn’t have everyone come to my house and neighbors bring tons of food. We didn’t do it that way here in Hayesville where I live and where Barry and I lived for some of the best years of our long married life.
We discussed our desires for the final ceremony of our lives and we both, after lots of thought, decided on cremation with a memorial service to be held at a later date. My memories of my mother’s funeral and Barry’s mother’s funeral were just too painful, and we didn’t want to have our loved one go through the traditional ritual.

“Make it as easy on yourself as you can,” Barry told me, “but be sure you don’t ever have me in an open casket where people come and gawk at me.”
At my mother’s visitation at the funeral home, I walked in weighed down with sorrow and there was the open casket with a body that did not look like my mother at all. Her hair was beautifully done, just as she always wore it because her hairdresser, who loved my sweet mother, asked to fix it.
I went over and touched Mother’s hand and drew back in horror. Her skin was cold and unreal. That did not feel like my mother. That did not look like my mother and I told myself that is not my mother. She is not here.
I could not talk to the visitors who came to offer condolence to the family. I could not stop crying. The visitation, a barbaric ritual, is torture for the family and undignified for the person who lies there unable to have a say in the whole thing.
Barry and I decided we would never put each other through this. Although that is the only thing I knew for sure that he wanted, I am so glad we chose cremation and I could wait until I recovered from my own exhaustion from round the clock care giving.

In that time, I could think about what kind of memorial Barry would want and had the time to plan, with wonderful singers and friends, two services in his honor, both filled with some of his favorite music, a constant theme throughout his life. These services were celebrations of the life he lived and the kind of man he was.Those who attended actually enjoyed the services and exclaimed over how perfect they were.
No person can be justly honored in one hour. We can’t explain all the generous things he did for me and others, all the ways he impacted lives of those who knew him, the achievements of his career. Barry was not defined by his work. That was only a small part of who he was.
The service held in Georgia was attended by my family and his family and close friends from his past. Jeff eulogized Barry, and his talk was so beautiful I’ll never forget his words. This friend met Barry after we moved to North Carolina. Barry, unknowingly, impacted Jeff's life in a wonderful way.
Roger, Don and Michelle, who spoke at the service in Hayesville, also met Barry after we moved to North Carolina. Richard, long-time friend of 29 years, spoke, and still the words were about the warmth, the humor, the loving manner and gentle nature of this man.
No one is perfect and Barry certainly wasn’t. But wouldn’t we all want to be remembered as “a man who made you feel good when he entered the room.” “He was fun to hang out with, just to be around him."
Our niece, Lori, sent me a quote. “People will forget what you say, and people will forget what you do, but people will never forget how you make them feel.”

A BUNCH OF BEALLS ON OUR DECK

Indoor pollution is killing me!

This scene is outside our house where the air is healthier than it is inside. Pristine and pure, our air we breathe must be as clean as the driven snow. photo by Barry Beall

Do you know anyone with chemical sensitivity? You might have it yourself. Do perfume and other fragrances bother you? Can you use Clorox in your laundry without it taking your breath or making you cough?

I first noticed my chemical sensitivity when anyone wearing perfume came close to me. My husband had to stop wearing the cologne I'd always loved on him. When I was in the room with my sister June, I had to stay as far from her as possible because she loves perfume. I had to leave our church choir one Sunday because a sweet lady wore her favorite perfume.

This is a malady that is affecting more and more older people. It also hits children pretty hard. One woman said her two year old suddenly developed asthma and she learned it was from the cleaning products she used in the house. The child, whose immune system is not as strong as an adult's, couldn't handle the dangerous chemicals polluting the house.
This week, although I've gone as green as possible in my house, we are having a renovation done and after the plumber had come to put in the pipes for the washing machine, I had the worst attack I've had in many years. Turns out it was the glue used on the PVC piping. The harsh chemicals took my breath and I had to go outside to breathe. We closed off the new laundry room, placed an air filter machine in the living area but I had to retire to my little cubby hole of a room with my own air cleaner which runs day and night, close my door and hibernate.

When we can't get oxygen into our lungs our bodies shut down. My brain stopped working properly. I grew extremely sleepy, and coughed and wheezed until my throat hurt. I felt like my chest was weighed down with heavy bags, and I couldn't empty my lungs.

After that experience, my system was so overloaded that everything triggered asthma for me. It has been a hard week because of this ,and I can't wait until John finishes his work and we can, hopefully, clean the air in the house and get rid of the indoor pollution that seems to be killing me. Did you know that we have about 85% more pollution inside our houses than we have in the outside air?
My sweet sister, Gay, who has come up this week from Atlanta to help me, discovered today that her hairspray brings on my asthma attacks. She was so sure she had an unscented hairspray that would not bother me, but I can smell it on her clothes, and it triggers a coughing spell and difficulty breathing.

I am hoping that within a few days, I'll feel better but until then I might have to become a hermit and stay in my little room with my computer.

The Council Brothers Quartet

My brothers, Ray, Max, Hal and Rex Council used to sing at the Council Family reunion in Crawfordville, Florida. My husband, Barry Beall, played guitar and sang also. Although Ray is gone now and they don't sing together anymore, we have tapes of their music and many photos of them singing. Mother was proud of her sons and accompanied them whenever she could to hear them sing in churches or at the reunions. Daddy seldom went anywhere but I don't remember him ever going to one of the little country churches when they sang. The Council Brothers were well known around south Georgia and sang on WGPC radio in Albany when I was still a teenager. Blanche Crosby played piano for them for many years and Billy Berry accompanied them for awhile.
I was happy that my husband enjoyed being a part of the group and was always ready to accompany the quartet on his guitar. He usually had a solo part some where in the performance. The brothers had an excellent sound and their harmony was good like that of many siblings. Barry was a music major in college and he had and still has a beautiful voice.
For the past few years he has sung with the Methodist Church choir in Hayesville, NC and also with the Singing Disciples, a men's group led by Roger Hove.
Max and his wife, Salita, sang as a duo for some years but lately Max only sings with his friend Jerry Marlowe.
I think Ray's death ended an era of singing for my brothers. They had always been the four Council brothers and it just wasn't the same with only three..