Thursday, the day before Halloween
I know it’s not Tuesday, but I’m sitting with Granny anyway. Aunt Birdie and Miller have gone on a long-needed vacation to the Smokies; they should be back on Sunday. I volunteered Eddie and me to take over total care of Granny for the extended weekend. Three of those days were good days; one was not—Halloween night. I should have known that the dark costumes associated with Halloween, are the worst shade of color for an Alzheimer’s patient.
Most Alzheimer’s patients have difficulty when it comes to large expansives of dark space—black and white checkered floors, dark brown doors or walls—they perceive these spaces as holes in their environment and they try to figure out how to get around or avoid the big holes. So, when trick-or-treaters started to arrive at the farm, Granny began to get more and more disoriented.
Nicole was having a Halloween party and had invited her entire 6th grade class. Of course, the most logical place to gather this large number of kids was the farm. Every day for the past two weeks, Nicole and I have headed to the farm to work on the haunted house, the flying brooms, and the mad scientist’s laboratory, not to mention other creepy, spooky surprises. Nicole was so excited; she had been wanting to have a party for several years and I kept putting her off, because I didn’t think our place was big enough. If it turned off cold the night of the party, then we could move all the kids into the barn to stay warm. Our house is just big enough for the three of us; there is no room for more people. Down on the farm, we had room for more people.
Miller had donated lots of muscle and hard work, not to mention letting us set up a mad scientist’s laboratory in his beloved garage. We had managed to move all of Miller’s tools and accessories to one wall of the garage and we hung a dark curtain to hide the items. We were left with a large enough area to set-up three folding table end to end with plenty of room for children to walk around the table in a single file. We were setting up different areas for the children to use their hands and touch slimy things—large Concord grapes, skinned, make great eyeballs; cooked macaroni turns into brains; raw hamburger makes wonderful intestines. There are all types of everyday items that take on a scary texture, especially if the room is only lit with candles. Aunt Birdie loaned us a large black cauldron, that was actually a cast iron soup pot; but it made a wonderful cauldron when we used dried ice to make steam come out of it.
Eddie helped us get the haunted barn together over the weekend. Originally, we were going to use the garage as the haunted house, but, when Miller offered us the barn, we thought a haunted barn sounded better; vast areas to haunt. We hung ghosts from the rafters and nailed skeletons to the walls. In one of the horse stall, we hung a straw stuffed scarecrow—literally—hung him with a noose around his neck. Pumpkins, gourds, corn shocks and miniature orange lights set the mood for a spooky party.
We spent one afternoon stacking hay bales onto the large tobacco wagon. We turned the wagon into a coach for hayrides we were planning. Jake and Sally—Miller’s two favorite horses—were the animals you wanted when you needed to move a heavy load.
Miller bush hogged a trail that looped around by the old tobacco bed and turned around by the big catfish pond. From there it made its’ windy way thorough the woods behind the barn and on down into the creek before heading back to the house by way of the orchard. Because Miller wasn’t going to be home for the actual Halloween party, the Tuesday night before, he decided to show Eddie all his hard work, by taking him on a trial run of the hayride.
Since it was several hours until the sun was totally gone, Nicole and I decided to take Granny with us on the test run. Of course, she made a fuss that she was too tired, but we managed to convince her it was going to be fun. Once we got her on the wagon and settled onto a blanket-covered bale of hay, I think she finally relaxed.
“I remember my daddy hooking up our old mules on Sunday morning to take us to church. We were so proud to show up at church wearing our Sunday best.” Granny had that far away look in her eyes—thinking about the past that was her answer whenever you asked her where she went during those wistful times.
“What kind of clothes did you wear to church, Granny?” Nicole asked. Even though Nicole was only eleven, she was sensitive to everyone’s needs and she had honed in on the fact that we needed to keep Granny remembering her past. Nicole is keeping a notebook with all the stories that Granny tells. Whenever she learns something new about Granny, she writes it in her little red notebook, along with the date and the situation for the entry. Maybe she will publish a book one day on Granny’s life—those would be lovely memories to read about when I get older.
“Well, I only had one Sunday go-to-meetin’ outfit, so I wore the same dress every week. It was my accessories that I had to keep changing.” Granny turned and smiled at Nicole. “You had better believe that I would never have been allowed to wear pants to church like you kids now a days.”
“I just don’t like dresses, Granny. They are so uncomfortable. . .tell me about your ‘Sunday go-to-meeting’ clothes.” I could see the tape recorder turning on in Nicole’s brain; she can remember details better than anyone.
“Well, it was the color of cream that forms on top of butter—my mother had saved flour sacks all winter in order to have enough material to make me a dress. She worked on it. . .”
“Flour sacks. . .you mean flour like what you cook with, or flowers like mom has in her garden?” Nicole was a child of the twenty first century so she had only seen flour come in throw away paper bags.
“Lordy, child—flour, like the flour I make your biscuits out of. Only back when I was a child, flour was a staple for all country homes. Everything was homemade, cooking was woman’s work.”
Granny yammered on as we bumped along the curvy path that Miller made with the tractor and bush hog. Occasionally she would point out a shrub or tree or some other type of vegetation. I was amazed at the intensity that Nicole studied her grandmother. I could almost see her memorizing every line and crease of Granny’s leathery face. Special times-these are special times when memories are being made. The more often you revisit a memory, the more vivid it becomes etched in your brain. The brain is a powerful thing.
It is during special times like this that I miss my Granny the most. Simple memories of being on the farm with family and friends—these are the types of memories I cherish. I may never get to see Granny’s face light up again whenever she would see bittersweet growing up an old fencerow, but I had that memory etched in my mind, just waiting to be recalled. These stories have been passed on to my children, and I’m ready to start handing down more through grandchildren—not that I’m trying to hurry anyone along.
To be continued ...
© Bobbi Rightmyer
Showing posts with label Deep Creek. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Deep Creek. Show all posts
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Deep Creek - Chapter Two
Tuesday, July 4
The whole family is getting together tonight—holiday celebration, the 4th of July. This is always my husband’s time to shine. Since before we were married, Eddie has been in charge of the family’s fireworks display. He started 20 years ago with a few Roman candles, but soon his show grew to be a spectacular display of flying, popping, sparking array of colored lights and sounds that could almost compete with the nightly fireworks display at the Kings Island amusement park in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Granny loved the 4th of July. She grew up during the depression and could appreciate the significance of 1776. My kids have only known the 4th of July as a time of fireworks, hamburgers and homemade ice cream. I’m sure they were educated on the history of July 4th while in elementary school, but learning about people who died over 225 years ago is just not as fun as running through the yard with a sparkler in each hand.
Granny like the arena size fireworks—the one’s that look like a diamond exploding into a gazillion pieces—the one’s that used to be seen during the opening of Sunday nights Walt Disney. There was just something about Tinkerbell exploding through a wall of sparkles—tiny gold wand in her hand—that takes you back to a calmer, quieter time. Granny was partial to the explosions of sparks that started out one color, but changed two or three times before finally disappearing in a spray of gold dust. Granny didn’t like the duds or the loud retorts—the loud boom resonated through her head and left the sound of “an angry hornet nest” buzzing to the core of her spine.
But the thing I think Granny enjoyed most about the 4th of July was the homemade ice cream—in particular, peppermint ice cream. If peppermint wasn’t available, then strawberries, peaches, or blackberries were a welcoming substitute—however, Granny always saved those large candy canes from Christmas. You know the ones I mean, they are about a foot long and as big around as a turnip—and everyone buys them to fill Christmas stockings, but nobody ever eats them. Granny managed to accumulate back all the candy cane logs she gave away as unique wrapping from gifts of Christmases past.
Granny would drop these sticks on the ground and then place the large chunks into a gallon size Ziploc baggie. Granny would then wrap the baggie into her sunbonnet and bang it against the house until the pulverized pieces resembled course crumbles. These sticky particles made the best peppermint ice cream in the world, better even than the bus station—which was the first place I ever tasted, or even heard of, peppermint ice cream.
Before Granny started making peppermint ice cream, the only other place you could get this flavor of ice cream was at the Greyhound Bus Stop in Harrodsburg. In the 1970’s, this was not only the place to get the best homemade ice cream; it was the only place to get homemade ice cream. Shortie—Eileen Lester; owner, cook and chief bottle washer—worked the counter, cleaned the grill and was in charge of making the famous frozen dessert. Shortie was a short woman, two inches under five foot, but she was feisty and could always make a person laugh. In fact, it was a rule—you couldn’t leave the Bus Stop unless you had a smile on your face.
I have snapshots in my head of me as a little girl sitting on a leather-capped chrome barstool at a worn wood counter—black patent leathers and lace trimmed socks dangles from my long skinny legs. Hard to imagine any part of me ever being skinny—under a summer dress of blue gingham, that I’m sure Granny had made for me. Beside me, Granny managed to remain propped on her bar stool, even with her silk stocking legs cross at the knees.
Peppermint was not even a regular item on the menu at Shortie’s, so I was always happy when my, once-a-month trips to the Bus Station fell on “Peppermint Patty” day. Shortie started calling me Peppermint Patty from the first time I ate the creamy concoction. I was 10 before I realized Peppermint Patty was a friend of Charlie Brown and Snoopy, the famous Peanuts’ characters. Just a few months ago, I learned that Granny called Shortie at the beginning of every month to find out when she would be freezing peppermint ice cream. Here, I always thought I was so lucky that every month was Peppermint Patty day—when in actuality Granny had arranged these monthly visits just to see my gleeful happy face every time I got to eat tasty cream.
“No, no—don’t use table sugar in that bar-b-que sauce! Use brown sugar—how many times do I have to tell you?”
Granny was sitting on a stool at the kitchen table scolding my mother when I arrived at Aunt Birdie’s. Mom was in charge of making the barbeque sauce this year. This was always Granny’s job, but Aunt Birdie had called this morning and announced that today was not going to be a good day.
Typically when Granny had a bad day, there were signs early in the morning—a gradual increase in confusion that hit a crescendo by three in the afternoon. Sundowners. As a nurse I realize that some elderly people with dementia usually get worse in the late afternoons, as the sun is getting ready to go down. It was my night to sit with Granny, which meant I wouldn’t be getting much sleep tonight.
“Ok, mother—I’m putting in the brown sugar. What’s next?”
Mom had the recipe right in front of her, but she continued to elicit Granny’s help. We have been trying to this because I feel that if we can keep Granny’s mind active—even on bad days—then we can slow the progression of her disease. I’m mot sure it is helping, but I know one thing—it is not hurting. So we try to keep hope alive and Granny’s mind active. Granny is also on a medication called Aricept, which is supposed to help with the earlier stages of Alzheimer’s, but I feel that Granny is already easing into the secondary stages of her disease. Soon, this medication won’t work and we will be forced to try something new.
“Well . . .now you need to add…” The words came hastily out of my grandmother’s mouth. In that moment you could almost see the healthy part of her brain wrestling with the approaching dementia—each trying to gain control of her frail body.
“Peanuts. Add a half-cup . . .Birdie? Birdie—where are you, Birdie?” Granny began to look frantically around the kitchen.
“I’m right here, Mama—right here.” Birdie was walking into the kitchen from the backyard, her Thanksgiving turkey platter in her hands. She felt all our get togethers were a time of thanksgiving, so she used the platter on a regular bases—carrying raw meat to the grill, washing the it and then returning the finished meal to the table.
“Damnit, Birdie—don’t back talk me!” Granny slammed her fist on the table. It never gets any easier hearing foul words explode from my grandmother’s mouth—it was even harder to accept the fact that she would lose her temper. Granny was always a patient woman and rarely would her ever hear her raise her voice.
“Now, Granny—don’t say such words around the kids.” I scooted my chair closer to her and reached out to touch her small hand.
“Don’t—touch—me.” She jerked her hand away. “When is someone going to take me to Deep Creek? I’ve got to slop them hogs.” Granny began to get up from her stool, holding on to the table as she stood. “I’ve got to go—got to feed them kids—got to . . .Cecil? Cecil, where are you?” Granny’s husband—my grandfather—was named Cecil. My brother was named after him, Cecil Camden—Papa died when I was eighteen months old. As Granny’s dementia has progressed, she had begun to ask for Cecil on a daily bases.
“Now, mother, you know you can’t get up by yourself.” Birdie tried to distract Granny by getting her banged up wheelchair from the pantry. “Here, sit in your chair and Dawn will take you for a ride.” I helped my aunt get Granny settled into the chair.
“You’ll take me to Deep Creek?” Click; another subtle little change in Granny’s mind. “Yes, Granny—we’ll go to Deep Creek.” I released the brake on the wheels and started to push her toward the door. Granny turned and looked at me—tears glistening in her bright blue eyes. She reached up to touch my hand and as we headed into the backyard, she said, “Bless you dear—bless you. Cecil’s waiting for me in Deep Creek—he’s been so lonely without me.”
As I strolled with my fragile grandmother around the gardens that she had once loved so much, I was struck with the fact that life is a very frail thing. We should learn to take one day at a time—you never know when your life will be changed. Granny wasn’t going to be with us forever. The late stages of Alzheimer’s can last anywhere from two to five years—sometimes more, sometimes less. No one really knows the cause and reason behind this disease and there is no know cure, only medications to help slow done the progression. On Granny’s “good” days, she was a joy and a treasure to be with; on her “bad” days, she was still and joy and a treasure, but she was also very tiring and frustrating. Sometimes, nothing you did for Granny was right. Unfortunately, tonight would be one of those nights.
“This isn’t the way to Deep Creek.” Granny reached out to one of the nearest flowerpots. “Stop! Stop right now. Take me to Deep Creek—I’ve got to feed Cecil.” Granny was trying to stand up from her wheelchair.
“Now, Granny, sit back down. We’re going to have fireworks when it gets dark. Remember how you always love to watch the fireworks?” I reached out to take Granny’s left arm.
“No, No! Leave me alone. I’ve got to get to Deep Creek. Take me to Deep Creek!” She continued to smack at me with her hands. “Okay, Granny. Come on, sit down and we’ll go to Deep Creek. We’ve got to go eat supper first.”
“No, I’ve got to cook for Cecil. He’s going to be so hungry. He’s a good man, such a good man.” Granny’s eyes held that blank, lackluster look of someone dazed.
“Yes, Granny. Granddaddy was a good man. He was such a piggy back rider and he loved to pay hide and seek.” I continued to talk to Granny in a soothing tone and I urged her again to sit down in her chair. She slowly turned and with great effort and creaking of her knees, she finally sat down. She folded her hands in her lap, lifted her feet onto the foot pedals, and then quietly said, “Okay, take me on to Deep Creek.”
We finished our tour of the garden without another problem. When we got back to the house, Mom and Aunt Birdie were piling up food on the pick wooden picnic table under the large oak tree in Aunt Birdie’s back yard. The men were coming in from the pasture where they had been sitting up the launch pad for the fireworks; my brother, Cecil, and Miller looked like they were up to no good.
“What are you guys grinning like a fox for? You’re up to something, it’s written all over you.” Aunt Birdie had good reason to be suspicious because Miller was the family proclaimed “king” of practical jokes. If you haven’t been locked up in the outhouse at least once by the time you’re ten, then you don’t know Miller. If he thinks it will make someone laugh, he will do it.
“Oh, hush your mouth, woman! We’re getting ready for tonight. Let’s just say, ‘they sky will sing’.” Miller walked up to Aunt birdie and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “What smells so good? I’m hungry enough to eat a horse.”
“I just hope it’s not Jake or Sally,” said Nicole. “I’m planning on taking a ride before dark.”
Aunt Birdie had outdone herself again. The barbeque ribs were so yummy we were all licking our fingers and mouths like we had never seen food before. Fresh roasting ears of corn were dripping with butter and juicy slabs of heirloom tomato slices along with German potato salad—which, is what Granny called potato salad made with mustard—made with homegrown new potatoes; all filled the plates along side a platter that looked like it was holding a half a cow.
Granny was fairly calm during supper and even as we were clearing away the dirty dishes and wrapping up leftovers. Sometimes she would make an appropriate comment, but mostly she uttered fragments of sentences.
“That boy…get down here…all day long…they no good.” Occasionally she would answer yes or no if you asked a direct question, but then she would go on talking to no one in particular. “Now, get out of there…I’ve told’em…girls, my girls…get down here.”
When the first firework sounded, Granny jumped like she had been shot. I was sitting with Granny on Aunt Birdie’s glider, huddled under a blanket. Although it had reached a high of 84 today, once the sun went down there was a chill to the air that you only get when you’re down in a valley.
“Lordy, Cecil? Was that Cecil? Is he still hunting at this hour?” Granny’s eyes were sparkling with the burst of the next burst of fireworks.
“No, Granny. That’s Eddie and Miller. They’re shooting off the fireworks. Watch…see how pretty.” I scooted closer to Granny and wrapped her in the blanket with me. Whenever there would be a lull in the display, Granny would try to get up, but I kept bringing her attention back to the fireworks. It was going to be a long night.
Later, as I settled Granny in the bed, I kneeled on the floor beside her bed and we continued to talk about the fireworks and all the people who had been there. Granny’s eyes got heavy and slowly she drifted off to sleep, but—ah—I wasn’t going to be fooled. From experience I knew that Granny would not stay asleep. Ten, eleven, twelve…I lost count of the number of times that I patted Granny’s hand that night and said, ‘we’ll go to Deep Creek in the morning, Granny’.
“It’s dark outside, Granny. No, Cecil’s in the bed. Yes, Granny, I know—we’ll go to Deep Creek in the morning.” Over and over again, it was always the same. Whenever Granny had a bad day, the night would be the same. On those long lonely nights, all she can remember is Deep Creek. Her heart was in Deep Creek.
© Bobbi Rightmyer
The whole family is getting together tonight—holiday celebration, the 4th of July. This is always my husband’s time to shine. Since before we were married, Eddie has been in charge of the family’s fireworks display. He started 20 years ago with a few Roman candles, but soon his show grew to be a spectacular display of flying, popping, sparking array of colored lights and sounds that could almost compete with the nightly fireworks display at the Kings Island amusement park in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Granny loved the 4th of July. She grew up during the depression and could appreciate the significance of 1776. My kids have only known the 4th of July as a time of fireworks, hamburgers and homemade ice cream. I’m sure they were educated on the history of July 4th while in elementary school, but learning about people who died over 225 years ago is just not as fun as running through the yard with a sparkler in each hand.
Granny like the arena size fireworks—the one’s that look like a diamond exploding into a gazillion pieces—the one’s that used to be seen during the opening of Sunday nights Walt Disney. There was just something about Tinkerbell exploding through a wall of sparkles—tiny gold wand in her hand—that takes you back to a calmer, quieter time. Granny was partial to the explosions of sparks that started out one color, but changed two or three times before finally disappearing in a spray of gold dust. Granny didn’t like the duds or the loud retorts—the loud boom resonated through her head and left the sound of “an angry hornet nest” buzzing to the core of her spine.
But the thing I think Granny enjoyed most about the 4th of July was the homemade ice cream—in particular, peppermint ice cream. If peppermint wasn’t available, then strawberries, peaches, or blackberries were a welcoming substitute—however, Granny always saved those large candy canes from Christmas. You know the ones I mean, they are about a foot long and as big around as a turnip—and everyone buys them to fill Christmas stockings, but nobody ever eats them. Granny managed to accumulate back all the candy cane logs she gave away as unique wrapping from gifts of Christmases past.
Granny would drop these sticks on the ground and then place the large chunks into a gallon size Ziploc baggie. Granny would then wrap the baggie into her sunbonnet and bang it against the house until the pulverized pieces resembled course crumbles. These sticky particles made the best peppermint ice cream in the world, better even than the bus station—which was the first place I ever tasted, or even heard of, peppermint ice cream.
Before Granny started making peppermint ice cream, the only other place you could get this flavor of ice cream was at the Greyhound Bus Stop in Harrodsburg. In the 1970’s, this was not only the place to get the best homemade ice cream; it was the only place to get homemade ice cream. Shortie—Eileen Lester; owner, cook and chief bottle washer—worked the counter, cleaned the grill and was in charge of making the famous frozen dessert. Shortie was a short woman, two inches under five foot, but she was feisty and could always make a person laugh. In fact, it was a rule—you couldn’t leave the Bus Stop unless you had a smile on your face.
I have snapshots in my head of me as a little girl sitting on a leather-capped chrome barstool at a worn wood counter—black patent leathers and lace trimmed socks dangles from my long skinny legs. Hard to imagine any part of me ever being skinny—under a summer dress of blue gingham, that I’m sure Granny had made for me. Beside me, Granny managed to remain propped on her bar stool, even with her silk stocking legs cross at the knees.
Peppermint was not even a regular item on the menu at Shortie’s, so I was always happy when my, once-a-month trips to the Bus Station fell on “Peppermint Patty” day. Shortie started calling me Peppermint Patty from the first time I ate the creamy concoction. I was 10 before I realized Peppermint Patty was a friend of Charlie Brown and Snoopy, the famous Peanuts’ characters. Just a few months ago, I learned that Granny called Shortie at the beginning of every month to find out when she would be freezing peppermint ice cream. Here, I always thought I was so lucky that every month was Peppermint Patty day—when in actuality Granny had arranged these monthly visits just to see my gleeful happy face every time I got to eat tasty cream.
“No, no—don’t use table sugar in that bar-b-que sauce! Use brown sugar—how many times do I have to tell you?”
Granny was sitting on a stool at the kitchen table scolding my mother when I arrived at Aunt Birdie’s. Mom was in charge of making the barbeque sauce this year. This was always Granny’s job, but Aunt Birdie had called this morning and announced that today was not going to be a good day.
Typically when Granny had a bad day, there were signs early in the morning—a gradual increase in confusion that hit a crescendo by three in the afternoon. Sundowners. As a nurse I realize that some elderly people with dementia usually get worse in the late afternoons, as the sun is getting ready to go down. It was my night to sit with Granny, which meant I wouldn’t be getting much sleep tonight.
“Ok, mother—I’m putting in the brown sugar. What’s next?”
Mom had the recipe right in front of her, but she continued to elicit Granny’s help. We have been trying to this because I feel that if we can keep Granny’s mind active—even on bad days—then we can slow the progression of her disease. I’m mot sure it is helping, but I know one thing—it is not hurting. So we try to keep hope alive and Granny’s mind active. Granny is also on a medication called Aricept, which is supposed to help with the earlier stages of Alzheimer’s, but I feel that Granny is already easing into the secondary stages of her disease. Soon, this medication won’t work and we will be forced to try something new.
“Well . . .now you need to add…” The words came hastily out of my grandmother’s mouth. In that moment you could almost see the healthy part of her brain wrestling with the approaching dementia—each trying to gain control of her frail body.
“Peanuts. Add a half-cup . . .Birdie? Birdie—where are you, Birdie?” Granny began to look frantically around the kitchen.
“I’m right here, Mama—right here.” Birdie was walking into the kitchen from the backyard, her Thanksgiving turkey platter in her hands. She felt all our get togethers were a time of thanksgiving, so she used the platter on a regular bases—carrying raw meat to the grill, washing the it and then returning the finished meal to the table.
“Damnit, Birdie—don’t back talk me!” Granny slammed her fist on the table. It never gets any easier hearing foul words explode from my grandmother’s mouth—it was even harder to accept the fact that she would lose her temper. Granny was always a patient woman and rarely would her ever hear her raise her voice.
“Now, Granny—don’t say such words around the kids.” I scooted my chair closer to her and reached out to touch her small hand.
“Don’t—touch—me.” She jerked her hand away. “When is someone going to take me to Deep Creek? I’ve got to slop them hogs.” Granny began to get up from her stool, holding on to the table as she stood. “I’ve got to go—got to feed them kids—got to . . .Cecil? Cecil, where are you?” Granny’s husband—my grandfather—was named Cecil. My brother was named after him, Cecil Camden—Papa died when I was eighteen months old. As Granny’s dementia has progressed, she had begun to ask for Cecil on a daily bases.
“Now, mother, you know you can’t get up by yourself.” Birdie tried to distract Granny by getting her banged up wheelchair from the pantry. “Here, sit in your chair and Dawn will take you for a ride.” I helped my aunt get Granny settled into the chair.
“You’ll take me to Deep Creek?” Click; another subtle little change in Granny’s mind. “Yes, Granny—we’ll go to Deep Creek.” I released the brake on the wheels and started to push her toward the door. Granny turned and looked at me—tears glistening in her bright blue eyes. She reached up to touch my hand and as we headed into the backyard, she said, “Bless you dear—bless you. Cecil’s waiting for me in Deep Creek—he’s been so lonely without me.”
As I strolled with my fragile grandmother around the gardens that she had once loved so much, I was struck with the fact that life is a very frail thing. We should learn to take one day at a time—you never know when your life will be changed. Granny wasn’t going to be with us forever. The late stages of Alzheimer’s can last anywhere from two to five years—sometimes more, sometimes less. No one really knows the cause and reason behind this disease and there is no know cure, only medications to help slow done the progression. On Granny’s “good” days, she was a joy and a treasure to be with; on her “bad” days, she was still and joy and a treasure, but she was also very tiring and frustrating. Sometimes, nothing you did for Granny was right. Unfortunately, tonight would be one of those nights.
“This isn’t the way to Deep Creek.” Granny reached out to one of the nearest flowerpots. “Stop! Stop right now. Take me to Deep Creek—I’ve got to feed Cecil.” Granny was trying to stand up from her wheelchair.
“Now, Granny, sit back down. We’re going to have fireworks when it gets dark. Remember how you always love to watch the fireworks?” I reached out to take Granny’s left arm.
“No, No! Leave me alone. I’ve got to get to Deep Creek. Take me to Deep Creek!” She continued to smack at me with her hands. “Okay, Granny. Come on, sit down and we’ll go to Deep Creek. We’ve got to go eat supper first.”
“No, I’ve got to cook for Cecil. He’s going to be so hungry. He’s a good man, such a good man.” Granny’s eyes held that blank, lackluster look of someone dazed.
“Yes, Granny. Granddaddy was a good man. He was such a piggy back rider and he loved to pay hide and seek.” I continued to talk to Granny in a soothing tone and I urged her again to sit down in her chair. She slowly turned and with great effort and creaking of her knees, she finally sat down. She folded her hands in her lap, lifted her feet onto the foot pedals, and then quietly said, “Okay, take me on to Deep Creek.”
We finished our tour of the garden without another problem. When we got back to the house, Mom and Aunt Birdie were piling up food on the pick wooden picnic table under the large oak tree in Aunt Birdie’s back yard. The men were coming in from the pasture where they had been sitting up the launch pad for the fireworks; my brother, Cecil, and Miller looked like they were up to no good.
“What are you guys grinning like a fox for? You’re up to something, it’s written all over you.” Aunt Birdie had good reason to be suspicious because Miller was the family proclaimed “king” of practical jokes. If you haven’t been locked up in the outhouse at least once by the time you’re ten, then you don’t know Miller. If he thinks it will make someone laugh, he will do it.
“Oh, hush your mouth, woman! We’re getting ready for tonight. Let’s just say, ‘they sky will sing’.” Miller walked up to Aunt birdie and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “What smells so good? I’m hungry enough to eat a horse.”
“I just hope it’s not Jake or Sally,” said Nicole. “I’m planning on taking a ride before dark.”
Aunt Birdie had outdone herself again. The barbeque ribs were so yummy we were all licking our fingers and mouths like we had never seen food before. Fresh roasting ears of corn were dripping with butter and juicy slabs of heirloom tomato slices along with German potato salad—which, is what Granny called potato salad made with mustard—made with homegrown new potatoes; all filled the plates along side a platter that looked like it was holding a half a cow.
Granny was fairly calm during supper and even as we were clearing away the dirty dishes and wrapping up leftovers. Sometimes she would make an appropriate comment, but mostly she uttered fragments of sentences.
“That boy…get down here…all day long…they no good.” Occasionally she would answer yes or no if you asked a direct question, but then she would go on talking to no one in particular. “Now, get out of there…I’ve told’em…girls, my girls…get down here.”
When the first firework sounded, Granny jumped like she had been shot. I was sitting with Granny on Aunt Birdie’s glider, huddled under a blanket. Although it had reached a high of 84 today, once the sun went down there was a chill to the air that you only get when you’re down in a valley.
“Lordy, Cecil? Was that Cecil? Is he still hunting at this hour?” Granny’s eyes were sparkling with the burst of the next burst of fireworks.
“No, Granny. That’s Eddie and Miller. They’re shooting off the fireworks. Watch…see how pretty.” I scooted closer to Granny and wrapped her in the blanket with me. Whenever there would be a lull in the display, Granny would try to get up, but I kept bringing her attention back to the fireworks. It was going to be a long night.
Later, as I settled Granny in the bed, I kneeled on the floor beside her bed and we continued to talk about the fireworks and all the people who had been there. Granny’s eyes got heavy and slowly she drifted off to sleep, but—ah—I wasn’t going to be fooled. From experience I knew that Granny would not stay asleep. Ten, eleven, twelve…I lost count of the number of times that I patted Granny’s hand that night and said, ‘we’ll go to Deep Creek in the morning, Granny’.
“It’s dark outside, Granny. No, Cecil’s in the bed. Yes, Granny, I know—we’ll go to Deep Creek in the morning.” Over and over again, it was always the same. Whenever Granny had a bad day, the night would be the same. On those long lonely nights, all she can remember is Deep Creek. Her heart was in Deep Creek.
© Bobbi Rightmyer
Friday, August 1, 2008
Deep Creek - Chapter One
Granny died of lung cancer the spring of 1986. It’s actually kind of ironic—she lived in Central Kentucky—a hot tobacco state; growing up in rural Washington County, smack dab in the middle of the boundary with Mercer County. I remember Granny complaining about having to pay taxes in both counties.
“The government’s going to get you coming or going!”
I heard my Granny state this expletive so many times, and she always made it sound like the foulest curse words known to Man. I don’t think I ever remember Granny uttering an actual foul word—with the exception of the time she called my ex-mother-in-law “that whoring bitch from Cornishville!”—But, as Alzheimer’s disease began to claim more of her memory, the curse words became more frequent.
Harrodsburg—the home of Old Fort Harrod and a shrine to Daniel Boone—is the major city in Mercer County, and in addition to it's obvious tourist attractions, is also the home to acres and acres of rich, rolling farm land.
Granny was prim and proper, but by no means dainty. She was what you’d call “big-boned”; just like Aunt Birdie and me—Aunt Birdie is Granny’s oldest daughter. We were built like female football players; not really fat, but sturdy—pleasantly plump.
Considering she grew up in a tobacco culture, Granny never smoked, chewed or dipped a day in her life, yet the black hand of cancer claimed her at the end of her seventh decade. She knew for a long time that there was something wrong with her; she just didn’t want to go to the doctor and have him tell her she was really sick. So, she delayed treatment until there was no hope but a fool’s hope for survival.
This is her legacy—this is the special essence—and spirituality of the most wonderful woman I have ever known. She was a brave woman and she gave her family enough strength to deal with the end of her life. Some of us are still feeling the strength of Granny and some of us are just beginning to find the strength that Granny instilled in us.
By the end of her time, the whole family had settled into a nightly routine and rotation of caring for Granny. With her son in another state, she only had her two girls close to home. Some of us grandkids pitched in to help lessen the burden of the increasing care that our grandmother began to require.
My Aunt Birdie brought Granny home to live on the family farm. Birdie’s husband—Miller—is a carpenter, so he added a small separate apartment onto their house for Granny to putter around in, so she felt on her own, yet it was handy enough to be accessible to the rest of the house and instant help. If Granny were having a good day, she would clean her small apartment or work on mending we all left for her to do. She loved to work in her garden more than anything, so Miller built Granny her own garden around the perimeter of Aunt Birdie’s wildlife area.
Birdie Camden married Miller Rainey more than 25 years ago, after meeting at a wildlife retreat in Pineville, Kentucky during the early 70’s. Miller is a retired Fish and Wildlife officer—giving the government more than 50 years of service—fighting fires, maintaining forestry concerns, and developing expansion projects to allow for community growth, but maintain the native habitat. He serviced a seventeen county area around Central Kentucky, and in addition to day-to-day government operations, he gave lectures and workshops occasionally to stimulate “buzz” around the subject of reforestation. These intimate workshops were his passion; he had so much enthusiasm for teaching a country farmer how to manage their shrinking farm lands, but at the same time maintain the native wildlife—both vegetative and living.
Birdie loved birds—Cardinals, Chick-a-Dee, finches, woodpeckers, blue birds—all feathered friends were welcome to forage, nest and patrol the 125 acre farm that Granny and Papa worked. She was a really plain, mousy young lady growing up, and because of her flat affect, most people saw her as cold, unfeeling. What most people didn’t see was the way my aunt was transformed when she left the harsh reality of her ordinary life and entered the raw wilderness of the “back forty”. The back forty is what we have always called the controversial area of the farm that straddles Mercer and Washington county—75 acres on the former, 50 on the latter, thus causing Granny and Papa to have to pay the double tax for one piece of property.
When Birdie comes in sight of the back forty, her face begins to melt and years of reserved behavior crackles away, just like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis. Where once there was a plain, uninviting persona, now there is a beautiful miracle of God’s hand in this world. Facial muscles relax and a dime size dimple appears in her right check. Her eyes brighten and her soul takes a huge deep breath of genuine relaxation. It was this incredible creature that Miller met that summer in Pineville. Love at first sight? I’m not sure I really believe in that, but I guess Birdie and Miller are as close to that miracle as I’ll ever be.
So, on good days Granny would tinker in her garden—cutting bouquets of zinnias, cosmos, and sunflowers. Clip, clip, snip. . .Granny was apt at deadheading flowers and pruning dead or diseased branches. Gardening was her passion, just like nature workshops were Miller’s, and she embraced every aspect of this passion just like a lover attending a mate. Kitchen scraps were sorted from kitchen trash on a daily basis, and after the supper dishes were washed, Granny would make her last nightly patrol of the garden and deposit the potential fertilizer into the mounded compost heap near the south side of the garden. The south side always got full sun on a daily basis and Granny always said this would cook the compost faster so the wonderful new soil could be used quicker.
She gave individual attention to all the mundane tasks involved in gardening, but her favorite children in the garden were her dahlias.
“The dailies are going to be beautiful this year.”
This was a common theme every spring, as Granny would work the soil of her dahlia bed to a fluffy rich consistency that arboretums would be envious of. Every spring on the Monday after Easter, Granny would start to plant the dahlia tubers lovingly into the soil. She carefully excavated a hole, amended the backfill dirt with blood meal, and then tucked the fat swollen tubers into there warm cozy home for the summer.
Dahlias aren’t winter hardy in Deep Creek—the tubers will freeze and die if the ground temperature drops below 30 degrees—because the weather in Kentucky is just as unpredictable as the old saying “you can tell how bad the winter will be by the stripes on the wooly worms”. A common saying in Kentucky is if you don’t like the weather then just wait a day and it will change. I can remember a winter when we still had roses blooming on Christmas Eve, but I also remember the winter of 1977—there was so much snow, we were out of school from Christmas break until after Valentines’ day. At the tender age of 14, I didn’t realize the significance of the deep freeze, but as my own garden knowledge grows, I now know this meant that all perennials in too cold of a zone were frozen out, never to return.
So, just as the dahlias start going into the ground after Easter, Halloween is the hailing sign of harvest season. November first was the day Granny would begin the arduous task of digging her prized dahlia tubers. Just as she pampered the plants into the ground, she used the same tender care to lift the amazing root systems from the ground. She would leave the tubers lying on top of the soil for several days, allowing the sun to dry the membranes slightly and prevent rot during the winter. After the tubers were cured, they were packed away, in shallow layers, inside old wooden vegetable crates—sand and wood chips from Miller’s construction projects were packed around the tubers to provide insulation and constant temperatures.
Granny was a semi celebrity for many years in both Washington and Mercer counties. For 15 years, Granny was the grand prize winning at both county fairs for her marvelous dahlias. Her babies were so spoilt during the summer, us grandkids were almost jealous. Watering, staking, and primping . . .these were daily tasks, with more attention given to prizewinning contenders. Obvious prizewinning contenders were isolated down to one bloom per plant because this helped the remaining flower to grow bigger and healthier. The day before each county fair, Granny would be out in the garden before the dew dried, tying ribbons around blossoms she planned to enter in the competitions.
Because of the rural location of the county fairs, competition was always furious between die-hard dahlia growers. The contests were divided into categories for each certain types of plants, so in the dahlia category alone, there were 10 different categories. Largest and smallest were a given, but there was also classes for different colors, multiple blooms, and arrangements. The Best of Show was the dahlia that was the healthiest and most gorgeous overall the dahlias at the show. Granny was the Best of Show winner for so many years, there is now a sweepstakes named after her—the Ellie Myrtle Camden Award. This honor is awarded to the person who ends up with the most blue ribbons in the dahlia category.
As Granny’s disease progressed, she began to have difficulty breathing, especially when she would bend over to weed or work in the soil. So Miller built her some raised planter beds with seat edging all the way around. The beds were only four feet wide, so Granny could sit on any edge and reach the center of each bed. This was the summer I was pregnant with Dawn, my oldest daughter. I was huge and miserable, having gained 60 pounds—my brother said I looked like I was going to have a small calf! It really upset me then, but I’ve had my revenge because he, and his perfect wife, are now much larger in size than I am. Everybody has a little vain edge to his or her personality—mine has always been my weight.
Miller worked on the planter bed boxes in his barn the winter before, so when the first signs of spring arrived, we had a garden raising—kind of like a barn raising, only with dirt and plants. My mom, Aunt Birdie, and my uncle John from Pennsylvania all bought Granny dump truck loads of dirt for an early Mother’s day present. The day of the raising, Aunt Birdie fired up her outdoor grill and we slow cooked one of her young hogs on a spit over the coals. She had killed and drained the hog the day before, and by the time everyone arrived, the meat was skinned and already taken on a tan color from the coals, and frequent bastings with homemade apple cider. As we all labored happily on Granny’s new garden, the succulent smell of roasting pig keep us motivated to finish our tasks.
Once the men—Miller; my dad, Gene Sallee; my brother, Cecil; and my husband, Eddie—had the boxes secured into the ground in the exact locations that Granny pointed out, we women began the task of helping haul soil from the dump site near the front of the house, to the back yard where the garden was. That morning, I had grumbled about the cold 40 degree weather, but as I began to sweat and labor under the loads of soil, I stripped out of my double layer of sweats shirts, rolled up the sleeves to my denim button down, and silently praised God for the cool temperature.
By lunchtime, we were all starving, but Aunt Birdie only gave us cold bologna sandwiches with icy bottles of Pepsi-Cola.
“What about that hog out there? When do we eat that?” The men folk all grumble under their breath.
“You haven’t worked up an appetite yet! When the job is finished, that’s when we feast.” Aunt Birdie liked to prolong the anticipation as long as possible; although she may have sounded gruff, I had no doubt that the supper table would be laden down with so much food we would need our wheelbarrows just to roll ourselves to our cars. But not before a sense of accomplishment. The job had to be finished—and to her satisfaction.
By four o’clock the sun had started its downward spiral—there was still two hours of daylight left, but we had finished filling the planter beds and raking the soil smooth. Tomorrow we would help Granny to amend the soil with her fertilizer concoctions and compost. Within three weeks, she would start to plant her precious tubers. But for today, we had finished our task. The men were sent to the small summerhouse to shower and clean up—us women took turns with Aunt Birdie’s bathroom, while Granny used her own bathroom. As I predicated, by five, we were all seated around Birdie’s big harvest table, which creaked with heaviness each time a platter was added to the growing spread.
These types of activities occurred on a frequent basis; sometimes we would work on a project at my house, or my sister’s house, but we came together most often when it concerned Granny. The next summer, we all laid a flagstone path around garden to accommodate Granny’s growing need of her wheelchair. We dug a small pond that same winter, so Granny could listen to the nightly opera of frogs. The last two years of Granny’s life were filled with Saturday afternoon gatherings and Sunday dinners, everyone making a concentrated effort to see Granny several times a week. During the last year of her life, we were deeply devoted to our nightly companionship with Granny, working together to make sure she was never alone, and to help with the constant burden of her care.
Tuesday was my night—every Tuesday I left my loving husband and young pre-teen daughter, Nicole, to fend for themselves while I took my turn “sitting a spell” with my wonderful grandmother.
Some nights, Granny would be too tired to do anything more than lay in her bed and watch the television. Other nights she would be energetic enough to take a moonlight stroll in the garden. We would read, we played cards, we drew sketches of wildlife, and we bonded in a special way that will live in my heart for eternity. These are but a few of the loving memories of an amazing lady.
© Bobbi Rightmyer
“The government’s going to get you coming or going!”
I heard my Granny state this expletive so many times, and she always made it sound like the foulest curse words known to Man. I don’t think I ever remember Granny uttering an actual foul word—with the exception of the time she called my ex-mother-in-law “that whoring bitch from Cornishville!”—But, as Alzheimer’s disease began to claim more of her memory, the curse words became more frequent.
Harrodsburg—the home of Old Fort Harrod and a shrine to Daniel Boone—is the major city in Mercer County, and in addition to it's obvious tourist attractions, is also the home to acres and acres of rich, rolling farm land.
Granny was prim and proper, but by no means dainty. She was what you’d call “big-boned”; just like Aunt Birdie and me—Aunt Birdie is Granny’s oldest daughter. We were built like female football players; not really fat, but sturdy—pleasantly plump.
Considering she grew up in a tobacco culture, Granny never smoked, chewed or dipped a day in her life, yet the black hand of cancer claimed her at the end of her seventh decade. She knew for a long time that there was something wrong with her; she just didn’t want to go to the doctor and have him tell her she was really sick. So, she delayed treatment until there was no hope but a fool’s hope for survival.
This is her legacy—this is the special essence—and spirituality of the most wonderful woman I have ever known. She was a brave woman and she gave her family enough strength to deal with the end of her life. Some of us are still feeling the strength of Granny and some of us are just beginning to find the strength that Granny instilled in us.
By the end of her time, the whole family had settled into a nightly routine and rotation of caring for Granny. With her son in another state, she only had her two girls close to home. Some of us grandkids pitched in to help lessen the burden of the increasing care that our grandmother began to require.
My Aunt Birdie brought Granny home to live on the family farm. Birdie’s husband—Miller—is a carpenter, so he added a small separate apartment onto their house for Granny to putter around in, so she felt on her own, yet it was handy enough to be accessible to the rest of the house and instant help. If Granny were having a good day, she would clean her small apartment or work on mending we all left for her to do. She loved to work in her garden more than anything, so Miller built Granny her own garden around the perimeter of Aunt Birdie’s wildlife area.
Birdie Camden married Miller Rainey more than 25 years ago, after meeting at a wildlife retreat in Pineville, Kentucky during the early 70’s. Miller is a retired Fish and Wildlife officer—giving the government more than 50 years of service—fighting fires, maintaining forestry concerns, and developing expansion projects to allow for community growth, but maintain the native habitat. He serviced a seventeen county area around Central Kentucky, and in addition to day-to-day government operations, he gave lectures and workshops occasionally to stimulate “buzz” around the subject of reforestation. These intimate workshops were his passion; he had so much enthusiasm for teaching a country farmer how to manage their shrinking farm lands, but at the same time maintain the native wildlife—both vegetative and living.
Birdie loved birds—Cardinals, Chick-a-Dee, finches, woodpeckers, blue birds—all feathered friends were welcome to forage, nest and patrol the 125 acre farm that Granny and Papa worked. She was a really plain, mousy young lady growing up, and because of her flat affect, most people saw her as cold, unfeeling. What most people didn’t see was the way my aunt was transformed when she left the harsh reality of her ordinary life and entered the raw wilderness of the “back forty”. The back forty is what we have always called the controversial area of the farm that straddles Mercer and Washington county—75 acres on the former, 50 on the latter, thus causing Granny and Papa to have to pay the double tax for one piece of property.
When Birdie comes in sight of the back forty, her face begins to melt and years of reserved behavior crackles away, just like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis. Where once there was a plain, uninviting persona, now there is a beautiful miracle of God’s hand in this world. Facial muscles relax and a dime size dimple appears in her right check. Her eyes brighten and her soul takes a huge deep breath of genuine relaxation. It was this incredible creature that Miller met that summer in Pineville. Love at first sight? I’m not sure I really believe in that, but I guess Birdie and Miller are as close to that miracle as I’ll ever be.
So, on good days Granny would tinker in her garden—cutting bouquets of zinnias, cosmos, and sunflowers. Clip, clip, snip. . .Granny was apt at deadheading flowers and pruning dead or diseased branches. Gardening was her passion, just like nature workshops were Miller’s, and she embraced every aspect of this passion just like a lover attending a mate. Kitchen scraps were sorted from kitchen trash on a daily basis, and after the supper dishes were washed, Granny would make her last nightly patrol of the garden and deposit the potential fertilizer into the mounded compost heap near the south side of the garden. The south side always got full sun on a daily basis and Granny always said this would cook the compost faster so the wonderful new soil could be used quicker.
She gave individual attention to all the mundane tasks involved in gardening, but her favorite children in the garden were her dahlias.
“The dailies are going to be beautiful this year.”
This was a common theme every spring, as Granny would work the soil of her dahlia bed to a fluffy rich consistency that arboretums would be envious of. Every spring on the Monday after Easter, Granny would start to plant the dahlia tubers lovingly into the soil. She carefully excavated a hole, amended the backfill dirt with blood meal, and then tucked the fat swollen tubers into there warm cozy home for the summer.
Dahlias aren’t winter hardy in Deep Creek—the tubers will freeze and die if the ground temperature drops below 30 degrees—because the weather in Kentucky is just as unpredictable as the old saying “you can tell how bad the winter will be by the stripes on the wooly worms”. A common saying in Kentucky is if you don’t like the weather then just wait a day and it will change. I can remember a winter when we still had roses blooming on Christmas Eve, but I also remember the winter of 1977—there was so much snow, we were out of school from Christmas break until after Valentines’ day. At the tender age of 14, I didn’t realize the significance of the deep freeze, but as my own garden knowledge grows, I now know this meant that all perennials in too cold of a zone were frozen out, never to return.
So, just as the dahlias start going into the ground after Easter, Halloween is the hailing sign of harvest season. November first was the day Granny would begin the arduous task of digging her prized dahlia tubers. Just as she pampered the plants into the ground, she used the same tender care to lift the amazing root systems from the ground. She would leave the tubers lying on top of the soil for several days, allowing the sun to dry the membranes slightly and prevent rot during the winter. After the tubers were cured, they were packed away, in shallow layers, inside old wooden vegetable crates—sand and wood chips from Miller’s construction projects were packed around the tubers to provide insulation and constant temperatures.
Granny was a semi celebrity for many years in both Washington and Mercer counties. For 15 years, Granny was the grand prize winning at both county fairs for her marvelous dahlias. Her babies were so spoilt during the summer, us grandkids were almost jealous. Watering, staking, and primping . . .these were daily tasks, with more attention given to prizewinning contenders. Obvious prizewinning contenders were isolated down to one bloom per plant because this helped the remaining flower to grow bigger and healthier. The day before each county fair, Granny would be out in the garden before the dew dried, tying ribbons around blossoms she planned to enter in the competitions.
Because of the rural location of the county fairs, competition was always furious between die-hard dahlia growers. The contests were divided into categories for each certain types of plants, so in the dahlia category alone, there were 10 different categories. Largest and smallest were a given, but there was also classes for different colors, multiple blooms, and arrangements. The Best of Show was the dahlia that was the healthiest and most gorgeous overall the dahlias at the show. Granny was the Best of Show winner for so many years, there is now a sweepstakes named after her—the Ellie Myrtle Camden Award. This honor is awarded to the person who ends up with the most blue ribbons in the dahlia category.
As Granny’s disease progressed, she began to have difficulty breathing, especially when she would bend over to weed or work in the soil. So Miller built her some raised planter beds with seat edging all the way around. The beds were only four feet wide, so Granny could sit on any edge and reach the center of each bed. This was the summer I was pregnant with Dawn, my oldest daughter. I was huge and miserable, having gained 60 pounds—my brother said I looked like I was going to have a small calf! It really upset me then, but I’ve had my revenge because he, and his perfect wife, are now much larger in size than I am. Everybody has a little vain edge to his or her personality—mine has always been my weight.
Miller worked on the planter bed boxes in his barn the winter before, so when the first signs of spring arrived, we had a garden raising—kind of like a barn raising, only with dirt and plants. My mom, Aunt Birdie, and my uncle John from Pennsylvania all bought Granny dump truck loads of dirt for an early Mother’s day present. The day of the raising, Aunt Birdie fired up her outdoor grill and we slow cooked one of her young hogs on a spit over the coals. She had killed and drained the hog the day before, and by the time everyone arrived, the meat was skinned and already taken on a tan color from the coals, and frequent bastings with homemade apple cider. As we all labored happily on Granny’s new garden, the succulent smell of roasting pig keep us motivated to finish our tasks.
Once the men—Miller; my dad, Gene Sallee; my brother, Cecil; and my husband, Eddie—had the boxes secured into the ground in the exact locations that Granny pointed out, we women began the task of helping haul soil from the dump site near the front of the house, to the back yard where the garden was. That morning, I had grumbled about the cold 40 degree weather, but as I began to sweat and labor under the loads of soil, I stripped out of my double layer of sweats shirts, rolled up the sleeves to my denim button down, and silently praised God for the cool temperature.
By lunchtime, we were all starving, but Aunt Birdie only gave us cold bologna sandwiches with icy bottles of Pepsi-Cola.
“What about that hog out there? When do we eat that?” The men folk all grumble under their breath.
“You haven’t worked up an appetite yet! When the job is finished, that’s when we feast.” Aunt Birdie liked to prolong the anticipation as long as possible; although she may have sounded gruff, I had no doubt that the supper table would be laden down with so much food we would need our wheelbarrows just to roll ourselves to our cars. But not before a sense of accomplishment. The job had to be finished—and to her satisfaction.
By four o’clock the sun had started its downward spiral—there was still two hours of daylight left, but we had finished filling the planter beds and raking the soil smooth. Tomorrow we would help Granny to amend the soil with her fertilizer concoctions and compost. Within three weeks, she would start to plant her precious tubers. But for today, we had finished our task. The men were sent to the small summerhouse to shower and clean up—us women took turns with Aunt Birdie’s bathroom, while Granny used her own bathroom. As I predicated, by five, we were all seated around Birdie’s big harvest table, which creaked with heaviness each time a platter was added to the growing spread.
These types of activities occurred on a frequent basis; sometimes we would work on a project at my house, or my sister’s house, but we came together most often when it concerned Granny. The next summer, we all laid a flagstone path around garden to accommodate Granny’s growing need of her wheelchair. We dug a small pond that same winter, so Granny could listen to the nightly opera of frogs. The last two years of Granny’s life were filled with Saturday afternoon gatherings and Sunday dinners, everyone making a concentrated effort to see Granny several times a week. During the last year of her life, we were deeply devoted to our nightly companionship with Granny, working together to make sure she was never alone, and to help with the constant burden of her care.
Tuesday was my night—every Tuesday I left my loving husband and young pre-teen daughter, Nicole, to fend for themselves while I took my turn “sitting a spell” with my wonderful grandmother.
Some nights, Granny would be too tired to do anything more than lay in her bed and watch the television. Other nights she would be energetic enough to take a moonlight stroll in the garden. We would read, we played cards, we drew sketches of wildlife, and we bonded in a special way that will live in my heart for eternity. These are but a few of the loving memories of an amazing lady.
© Bobbi Rightmyer
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