Easter Sunday then and now

Today has been just like any day here in my place in the city. 

My family members went to church, some for two services because they sing in the choir. I don't go to church because churches are the most air polluted places on Easter and most holidays. With all the lilies and all the perfume and cologne that is worn, I would have an attack.  My bronchial tubes would spasm and I could not breathe. But, I can watch the same service tonight when I tune in to the Alpharetta Presbyterian Church on YouTube. 

The pastor just returned from Ireland where he and his wife visited their daughter. Although fully vaccinated, the pastor caught COVID. He said he had very mild symptoms. He is back with us now and I look forward to hearing him speak.

I look back on my childhood when my mother made sure I never missed attending church on Easter. Gay and I always had new dresses and dress-up shoes to wear. The church we attended was called Beulah Methodist and was located on the edge of a pine forest on a dirt road in Worth County. I enjoyed Sunday School because I liked our teachers, but I hated having to sit through a sermon by a big red-faced man in the pulpit. I can't remember ever hearing a preacher who spoke in a normal voice. They all yelled at us. They slammed their hands, and the bible sometimes, on the lectern. I wondered why the preachers were so angry at all the people who came to church. I knew I had not done anything bad, at least nothing that shouting-man knew about. 

I often tuned out the preacher and focused on a bird singing outside or a wasp that had come in through the open windows. It buzzed around the ceiling and, at times, was right over the preacher. I almost laughed out loud when I imagined what would happen if that wasp dropped down on the angry man's head. 

Lisa, Lee, and Lyn, my little nieces
absolutely adorable

I looked forward to the Easter Egg hunt held after church. Gay and I and the other girls were not dressed for climbing through the long grass and over downed pine limbs. We had no nice smooth lawn at the church. The front yard was dirt, not a blade of grass, so the eggs had to be hidden in the woods. Gay and I were very young, maybe four and six, and I was a little more assertive than my little sister. I held her hand and pulled her along with me, but there was a neighbor boy a little older than I who always found the most eggs. He crowed about it. I wanted to smash his basket against a tree. But we knew we had another Easter Egg hunt when we got home.

The hunting was much better there and we had no competition. We had awakened to find pretty pastel baskets beside our beds. A chocolate rabbit nestled in the green fake grass. Our hunt was over quickly and then all the family gathered for dinner around the big dining table. With four older brothers there, Mother prepared a huge meal. She was amazing in the kitchen. We always had homemade biscuits which she rolled out by hand, several vegetables, pork roast or roast beef, mashed potatoes, and gravy. Everyone drank sweet iced tea except Daddy who drank from his large cup of coffee with milk at every meal.  

Easter was always a time for the family to gather at Mother and Daddy's house even after we were all grown. Eventually, we had to add more tables as my siblings' families grew. The Easter Egg hunts became a ritual with all my nieces and nephews. While they hunted on the front lawn, we adults stood on the front porch and watched. Memories of those times will forever be stamped in my mind. The family was important to my parents and to all of us in my generation. I think it is still important to most of my nieces and nephews, some who are now grandparents. 

Mother in her apron on the far left with other family members on the porch, all of whom are gone now.

I hope you, my readers, have had a wonderful day wherever you are. I hope that Easter heralds Spring is coming soon to my area.

Leave a comment or send an email if you have memories of Easters past. I love to hear from you.

Who Gave Me Wings

Writer Madeleine L’Engle says of grief, in her book Two-Part Invention, that it “has to be worked through. It is like walking through water. Sometimes there are little waves lapping about my feet. Sometimes there is an enormous breaker that knocks me down. Sometimes there is a sudden and fierce squall. But I know that many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.”

My dear friend, Maureen Ryan Griffin posted a beautiful essay about her father and how he "gave her wings." He didn't give many tangible gifts, but she learned after his passing recently, he was a most generous person who donated to various charities and helped support a child in a foreign country. I think he was like men of my father's generation who didn't want to give their children too many presents or gifts because he wanted them to work for what they wanted. My mother was the one who gave me any gifts I received like my first diary, made me pretty clothes and bought me shoes like I wanted. She was Santa Claus when I was little. 

Maureen's prompt, she gives one in each of her newsletters, grabbed me today. Having lost my last brother in the past month, her prompt to write about someone who gave you wings made me think about each of my brothers and how they gave me the gift of wings. 

https://www.wordplaynow.com/the-gift-of-wings/

Maureen wrote about her father, who seemed a lot like mine because he was rather aloof. But in her essay, she remembers the many things she had not noticed when she was younger, that her father gave her and they were intangible gifts rather than tangible. 

I have so many people on my list of those who gave me wings, I could write a book about them and fill many pages. I would start with my mother, my sister June, her husband, Stan and Gay, of course. My other brothers, Ray, Hal and Rex were all there for me after I was older, but Max was there when I was a child.

Terrible picture of Gay and me, but pretty good of Max

 
My brother Max took Gay and me under his wings when we were little girls. His gift of telling us stories from books he and Ray, my older brother read, probably led to my love of reading. He told us a chapter out of a book or maybe two chapters each night as we cuddled beside him in a large hammock hanging on a big limb of the giant oak tree that stood like a protector of our home. My Friend Flicka was one of my favorite books he shared with us. Max had a fantastic memory like no one I have ever known and that is why he could tell us what he read and make it exciting and fun.

I felt such love from Max and that helped me deal with feeling unloved by my father who was distant and seldom gave me any attention. I think back on the good times I had with Max growing up. He loved nature and was curious about all creatures on the land and water. He took us with him into the woods and we learned about the birds and looked into the nests. He knew the bird by the color of her eggs. He took us to the hill where the Easter Lillies grew and helped us find the wild violets. He was in his teens when I was five or six. But he enjoyed sharing what he knew with Gay and me.

I won't tell about how his teasing sometimes left me in tears, but, as Mother said, he was just playing.

I am like Max in that I am curious and interested in learning about people, places, and nature in all its forms. It sometimes makes me sad that I can't learn all I want to learn in the years I have left. But it won't stop me from trying. 

Visit Maureen's website https://wordplaynow.com 

You will love her as all who know her do. Sign up for her newsletter. I wish I could attend one of her writing retreats at the beach. That would be such fun.

As I try to get my life on track after having COVID in January and losing my brother in February I am trying to learn how to live in two places, travel back and forth, and get medical help lined up, please bear with me and send positive thoughts.

Thanks for reading and hope you are having good weather and good health.

I can't save the world. I can only do so much.

Sisters, June in front, Gay on the right and me, Glenda in red

This past weekend, I finished watching the 2000 TV series Parenthood. Although I watched this show when it was first on television, I watched it with new eyes. Was it being older that made me see this story of a family in a fresh view? Is it because I have lost so many of my family, that I understood the members of the Braverman family so much better now?

The characters make the story for me. I fall in love with them and embrace their flaws as well as celebrate the good in them. This show is filled with interesting characters, as are most families.

One Reviewer said: As a 50 something with grown children this show is so right on. The episode when they found out Max had a real problem was exactly how it went for my wife and I when we got similar news, and the reaction of the grandfather was also spot on. This show is happy, sad, and everything in-between, just like real life.

No one is perfect on this earth, and no one is perfect in the Braverman family. Sometimes conflict comes when one wants to help a brother or sister or spouse. Sometimes the conflict is brought on by an accident or illness. 

For me, this series which ran 8 seasons, was the perfect escape from all the bad news, the horrible sights of suffering and death we see every day if we turn on the television or social media and I was not created to handle all of the world's problems. I can't help the suffering people all over the world and in our own country. With my aging issues, health problems, and financial woes, I can only deal with what is near me, in my community, or in my own family. 

One of the major causes of depression and other mental health diagnoses is feeling responsible or worrying about things that we have no control over. I can do nothing about what is happening in Afghanistan. I am just so happy that someone is strong enough to bring this twenty-year-old war to an end. War is always Hell. This one has gone on much too long and is ending with bloodshed and sorrow for many people. But we will be better for giving that country back to the people who live there. It is not possible to change the culture of a country, thousands of years old, but that seems to be what we were trying to do there.

For my own health, I need to concentrate on good and positive thoughts and put into play what will best get me through this COVID crisis so I can live a productive life. News junkies sometimes thrive on what they see and hear each day, the same stories over and over with the hateful media reporters stirring up the ire of all in their listening audience. 

Maybe it is because I have such empathy for others the horror on the screens is just more than I can take in every day. Maybe that is why a TV series like Parenthood helps keep me sane. It is real. Real people have problems like I have dealt with all my life. I relate and I hurt when they hurt, I celebrate when they are happy. I am fortunate to hear from my writer friends when they are published and I can do something. I can post their success. I can cheer them on and praise them. I can invite them to be guests for our Zoom meetings and invite them to take writing classes.

The daily news depresses me and makes me feel guilty. I feel guilty because I can't make it better. I can't stop the fires in the west. I can't bring back the homes destroyed. I can't stop Hurricane Ida from flooding homes and destroying lives in Louisiana tonight. Even if I had millions of dollars I could not fix all the problems that slam us every single day. 

So I will donate to local charities. I will try to help my church help others. I will lift up my students and encourage them to not be afraid to tell their truth, to leave their legacy for future generations so their grandchildren will know the sacrifices made to keep this country moving in the right direction. We can tell the truth of what happened because we were there and if the history books in the public schools do not tell the whole truth, we can tell it in our stories and in our books. 

Well, I have gone on and on tonight, but Gay is visiting me and we have had two wonderful days together. We did not turn on the television or watch any news channels. All we have wanted to know is how much rain and bad weather we will get from this huge hurricane hitting the gulf coast. Although we are in the NC mountains, we will be affected by this storm. These are my thoughts as we begin another week. 

I hope you all are safe from the flooding, the fires, the devastation of this virus, and that your families are as well. Be safe this week and let me hear from you.

 

Life on the Farm for a big Southern Family

Clearing New Ground

His lunch packed in a syrup can,

he mounts his John Deere, leaves at dawn.

She churns the cream, bakes a pie,

washes shirts and hangs them on the line.

West behind the pines, sky reddens.

Worry working on her face, she leaves

his supper warming in the oven,

trudges miles to new land he is claiming. 

Stone silence sounds a warning long

before she spys his lunch pail biscuits

spilled on up-turned earth, before she

spots his checkered shirt crushed 

beneath the green.

                        ---Glenda Council Beall

This poem is in my poetry book, Now Might as Well be Then, published in 2009 by Finishing Line Press.

Memories of childhood can produce poems and stories you have not thought of in years. I was a young child when I heard my parents discussing the death of a neighbor who was clearing new ground to plant more crops. 

My brothers and my father cleared most of our farm in the first couple of years we lived there. The boys worked all summer every day. At first they cleared the fields of rocks and loaded them on a wagon. There were several rock piles on the farm where the wagons were unloaded. 

Some acreage had to be cleared of brush and trees. I could hear the dynamite blasts from my safe playground under the big oak tree in the yard. Pulling stumps with a tractor was dangerous work. Mother worried about them. How easy it must have been to overturn those new machines. Even the youngest son drove the tractor and when I was six years old, I inched along, my foot on the clutch, between the rows of cornstalks while the boys and Daddy pulled the dry ears and tossed them into the wagon. 

Children who grew up on a farm in the forties and fifties were not exempt from farm work, even girls, if they were needed. Daddy only asked us to help out once or twice when we were small, but my brothers found ways I could help when I was old enough to keep the front wheels of the tractor going the right way. It was fun for me until one of them complained about something. Then I just put the gear in neutral and climbed down. Boy, those brothers changed their tune as they all began to call me back and promise they would not say another word. At six or seven, I knew I didn't have to help, and was doing the boys a favor. With all four of them on the ground they covered more of the corn field than if one of them had to drive the tractor. They could get done quicker and go home to take a shower. I don't think I have ever been so much in demand. 

My four brothers enjoyed working together. They sang and told stories. They laughed and made fun of each other. That made the hot sweaty days pass faster. My father had a philosophy he taught his sons. He told them they should always work together and depend on each other because "a bundle of sticks are harder to break than one stick alone."

1955 Council Brothers sing at a family reunion

We three sisters, June in front, Gay on right and me in red in 2008

Few families can spend their lives working so closely. Some families just can't get along that well. I didn't know it was unusual for a family to work and play together as we did until I was older and people seemed incredulous when they heard it. "I couldn't work one day with my brother," I heard from a friend.  

Our family not only cleared new ground on the land where we all lived, but also with their unusual business plan and responsibility for each other. The brothers' wives were expected to understand that none of them could ever draw more salary from the business than the others. Damages occurred along the way. One marriage failed because a wife couldn't understand this kind of loyalty to family. Having come from hard times on the farm, my brothers determined to build a better life for themselves and their children. 

Taking risks is easier when you aren't the only one responsible. If the man in my poem had not been alone that day when his tractor overturned, perhaps he could have been saved. My father and his sons worked together. C.L. Council and Sons was the platform on which a number of corporations were built. All seven of us were involved in some way. Life was exciting as we grew and created more opportunities in which we found our niche. 

I think of us as a pioneer family but we were not out west. We lived in southwest Georgia just after World War II. I have not seen much written about real life on a farm in the deep south at that time of our history. The ups and downs of building a successful farm business took a toll on my father. With the physical help of his sons as they grew older and the financial support from his oldest daughter who generously handed over part of her salary each month, the positive attitude from Mother who never let anyone give up on himself, the family business prospered.

I am so proud of my family, my brothers who worked so hard, my sisters who have always been there for each other, and my parents who never let set backs stop them. When someone asked me what was the key to keeping it all together and keep moving up, I say the key is love. Simply and purely, love. We have all had our disagreements and periods of being so mad with each other we can't stand it. But anger passes. Love lasts. Forgiveness heals. 

Our house overflowed with love. Mother was the fount from which unconditional love poured out and warmed the home in which we lived, no matter if it was the drafty old farm house or the new brick ranch built later. If I close my eyes, I can smell bacon frying and biscuits cooking as I approach the back screen door. 

Sun has set behind the  pines to the west and light reflects from a clear sky. Inside I see my dark haired mother in her worn house dress at the stove with her back to  me. That image alone floods my mind and my body with a feeling so intense I want to linger, suspend time, with eyes closed and never have to open them, never have that moment disappear. 

We gathered as a family on Sundays and all holidays, and some of us dropped in to see Mother and Daddy every day. I lived nearby after I married, so I usually dropped in on my way home from work. If other siblings stopped by, none of us wanted to leave because we enjoyed being together. Mother often stretched her evening meal to include enough for several of her children. 

Is that unusual? In today's movies set in cities or other parts of the country, it seems the parents are often divorced, the children are complaining about their busy-body parents, the parents are upset because the kids never come to see them, the grandchildren make fun of their grandparents, and all of this gives me the feeling we have lost what made our culture so special. 

I hope that what we see on TV and in movies is not the norm today. Are there still families with young children that gather each evening for a meal? Are there multi-generational families that still meet up on Sundays and holidays and have a wonderful time just being together, laughing and telling stories?

What is your family like? Close or not? Do you see them often and do you enjoy those times? If not, why and what could be done to change that? Would you want to change it?
Tell us your thoughts in our comment section.