Fifty Years of Love

On August 8, 2011, my parents will celebrate their 50th Wedding Anniversary.

Fifty years.

50.

FIFTY!!

Like many from the south, I call my parents Momma and Daddy. I don't know of many southerners that call their parents anything else. I don't know of a southerner that actually has a Mother. We all have momma's. I recall reading a post somewhere that anyone over the age of three that still calls their father 'daddy' should seek therapy immediately because they're too childish to function in the real world. I immediately thought that my entire family would need therapy because every single one of us (and we are legion) call our fathers 'daddy.' My 101 year old grandfather was still called 'Daddy' by his three remaining sons, and they are in their late 60's to 70's.

I reckon it might be a southern thing, but I digress ...

My parents married in 1961. In 1961, 101 Dalmations was the #1 movie, and West Side Story was the #2 movie. Splendor in the Grass and Blue Hawaii rounded out the top seven movies of the year. In January of 1961, JFK was the first president to be sworn in, in a color telecast. The Beach Boys were formed in 1961 and Stand By Me, by Ben E. King was the biggest hit single of the year ... and who could forget Patsy Cline with 'I Fall to Pieces' and 'Crazy.' John F. Kennedy established the Peace Corps and Pampers introduced the first disposable diapers, Alan Shepard made the first space flight and Niagra Falls started producing hydroelectric power.

Put into that kind of perspective, fifty years is full of amazing, wonderful things that filled the world with great cinema, some of the best music that has lasted half a century, and that, unbeknownst to them, marked the end of an era to come ... because in July, 2011, NASA flew it's final space shuttle mission - the program that Alan Shepard's flight helped to launch and continue for fifty years.

But how do you conceive of fifty years of love? How can one possibly even begin to understand what fifty years of love looks like or feels like? The fact that, considering the inattentive population of today, two people are still married after fifty years ... well, that's a miracle. And I happen to be a front-row witness to it.

So, to my parents, I wish you a happy anniversary, and I thank you for giving me that miracle.

Walking to the End of the Garden

Many things in this post are similar to a previous post, unintentionally. I wrote this a few hours after my grandfather passed away, knowing I was having to say goodbye to him.

I was raised a few hundred yards from my grandparents. In our family, you didn’t ‘grow up.’ You got raised. You were raised by a family, in a family. My parents shared 12 acres with my grandparents, Mema and Pepa. I saw them every day. I don’t have a memory from my youth that doesn’t contain them in some way.  I still look over at their house and half expect to see Mema ‘out on the stoop’ while supper is cooking. Her hand waving as she wiped the sweat off of her head (that’s where we all get it from!) and hollered ‘Hoo-ey’ in her sweet voice. Sometimes you’d just hear it and as you looked for her, you’d realize she was standing at the kitchen sink with the window open. Mema left us fourteen years ago and she is missed each and every day.

My grandfather, Pepa, always kept a garden. I’m not talking about a patch of tomatoes and peppers. He kept a full garden from lettuce and radishes to corn, beans and potatoes. All manner of greens and root vegetables, melons and a wonderful grape vine running through the fence. If it could be grown, he grew it. He even kept a garden snake or two. The garden was in two huge sections, just outside the fenced yard. The end of the garden was the half-way point to my parent’s house. There was a night watcher (city folks call them street lights) not far past the end of the garden that lit the ‘field’ between our houses.

Pepa never said no to any request of a grandchild. I can’t tell you how many times he walked me to the pond and flipped over the flat bottom boat so we could see if there were any snakes. He drove me around ‘the circle’ which was a few miles of highway five, down Bailey Cutoff, up highway nine, back to highway five to their house, often stopping at Crow’s Station for a ‘cold drink.’ There were always cold peaches in syrup to have on top of a Jumbo Lemon Cookie or some other treat. I stood on his feet while he walked around the house. We played ‘Humbledy Bumbledy Buck’ until we ran out of numbers and I used to sit in his lap and comb his hair for hours. It’s a wonder he had any hair left at all. I tilled the garden with him, rode on the back of the tractor for hours while he mowed and often pilfered through the shed to discover treasures that would have thrilled Puff the Magic Dragon down to his scales.

Some days I would stay all day, late into the evening. The phone would ring and my mom would tell Mema to send me home. She would always look at me and say, “Uh oh … that’s your momma calling for you to come home.” She’d answer the phone and tell my mom, “Why don’t you just let the little thing stay the night. She can sleep in the middle bedroom and eat breakfast with us.” Having been there all day, I’d be forced, against my will, to return home. By this time, it was dark and I was one of those kids that was scared of the dark. Scared of every scurry in the woods, of every flap of the bat’s wing and beetle scurry. Living in the country, I always imagined coyotes and wolves snatching me up and carting me off into the wild. Pepa, gentleman that he was, would walk me to the end of the garden, just before the night watcher and I’d take off running up the little hill to my house, where my mom stood with one hand on her hip, waiting for her wayward daughter to get up on the porch. Pepa and his flashlight stood there, at the end of the garden, until I hit the bottom step. “Goodnight, dumplin’ … I’ll see you tomorrow!” he’d call out after me. “Night Pepa!” I’d yell, while my mom ruffled my hair and sent me to my bath.

Yesterday, May 11, 2011 Pepa passed away at the age of 101 years, 3 months and 13 days. Until about a month ago, he was as active as a man thirty years younger. He drove, he walked every day and was very independent. The last month, his health declined and his body slowly declined. He never complained. He never professed anger. He just continued to live each day to the fullest with a smile and a kind word to anyone and everyone.

He was the very best man that I have ever known, in all my life. I know that last night he dined with the King of Kings and with his beloved for the first time in fourteen years. But tonight, I’ll walk to the end of the garden and I’ll remember my forty one years with him and I’ll thank God that we were blessed with him. I’ll whisper, “Goodnight Pepa … I’ll see you soon.”