Tag: family

Legacy Writing 365:148


This photo is from Mother’s Day weekend in 1979. My mother was probably trying to get Josh (left) and Daniel to pose. They’re holding a tiny decorative globe (that I wish I had now) and acting silly, which probably annoyed her as she aimed the camera, but they couldn’t help themselves. When they were together, they egged each other on, running through the house, knocking stuff over–one time they pulled the upper section of a hutch down on top of themselves. Consequently, they were yelled at a lot. But rarely by me. They had the same effect on me that they had on each other, and my face usually hurt from laughing at their antics. They still have that effect on me.

Born sixteen months apart, they were–and are–great cousins. And though their mothers and grandmother might have scolded them now and then, we look back on those days as being some of the best times for our family.

When I see photos of the next generation of our family’s kids having crazy fun together, I hope their parents are reminded of these times from their own childhoods.

Bonus photo:


Daniel’s wearing his Close Encounters T-shirt and holding a toy shuttle–two years before the first shuttle launch–standing next to his banana seat bike. Definitely some cultural references there.

Photo Friday, No. 296 and Legacy Writing 365:146

Current Photo Friday theme: Of House & Home

This is one of the first photos I took with my iPhone when it was new. It’s not fantastic quality, but it’s the picture connected to “Home” in my phone’s address book. Everything I see in the photo says home to me: art on the walls, dog hair on the rug, lots of books, photos of people I love on the far wall, and a table where so many friends and family have shared meals and holidays and birthdays. In this particular photo, there are cards on the table, because it’s the same place we’ve played many games of progressive rummy and Yahtzee through the years. And almost every weekend, a plastic cloth is stretched across that table for Craft Night.

It’s home.

Legacy Writing 365:145

The chances are slim that the players of this story will ever visit this blog, but I’m still changing the names to cover my ass pretend it’s fiction protect the innocent (me).

Cousin Skipper and I lived in the same city. Cousin Midge, her brother Ken, and his wife Barbie were driving through on their way to somewhere else. When Cousin Skipper was a young girl, her widowed mother took her to a far-away state, so she didn’t grow up knowing our family, even though her late father was a sibling to one of my parents as well as to one of Midge and Ken’s parents. Skipper had always longed to know more about her roots, so though I had some misgivings, I agreed to meet them all for lunch.

The first problem: Cousin Skipper was a no-show. I didn’t mind spending time with my cousins, even though they were decades older than me and the conversation went along predictable lines. Cousin Midge rehashed old (imaginary) wrongs. Cousin Ken embellished past exploits of dead family members to make them seem more heroic, noble, or flawless than is possible outside novels and old movies. Barbie asked probing questions about my life even though the answers only caused her distress as she worried for my immortal soul.

It was a blast!

But finally this staid and sober group needed to get back on the road, and we walked outside the restaurant to say our goodbyes. This is when Skipper came wheeling up, hair and makeup a little crazy, and renewed the acquaintance of cousins she hadn’t seen since she was a child. She lit a cigarette and suggested we all go back inside for margaritas, and trust me, in ONE MILLION YEARS, this was not going to happen. So instead we stood outside awkwardly talking.

Then I was moved when Cousin Midge, famous for hoarding a basement full of family treasures and mementos that none of the rest of us were allowed near, took something from her purse and held it toward Cousin Skipper.

“I wondered if you’d ever seen one of these,” Midge said.

Skipper took it and her eyes got wet when she realized she was looking at the announcement of her own birth, written in her late mother’s hand more than sixty years before.

“No,” she said. “I’ve never seen this.” She held it to her heart for a moment then looked at it again as her tears spilled down her cheeks.

That’s when Cousin Midge snatched it from Skipper’s hand and said, “I’m not GIVING it to you!”

I literally and quite audibly gasped, but that didn’t deter Midge from putting the birth announcement back in her purse.

This became a joke between my mother and me whenever I’d admire something of hers or vice versa: “I’m not GIVING it to you!” we’d say, followed by a crazy cackle.

After Mother died, I tried to remember all her suggestions through the years about who should get what, and I’m delighted to say that as far as I know, none of her children or grandchildren argued over stuff–possibly because in times past, she’d given us many of those things that held meaning for us.

However, she did swear she’d given me an engraved silver tray that was a gift to my father when he left one of his jobs. When she found out I didn’t have it, she was sure I threw it away. Anyone who knows me knows this isn’t possible (I do share genes with Cousin Midge, after all).

So to my family, if anyone has that silver tray, I think it’s time you ‘fessed up and let me off the hook.

And Debby wants to know: Who’s hiding the blue willow platter?

I hope Mother didn’t give it to Cousin Midge.

Legacy Writing 365:144

With this post, I am back on track with my once-daily legacy writing entries after almost a month.

I didn’t get behind simply because of the eight days I didn’t post when Aaron died. Even after I eased myself back here with a Photo Friday picture and gentle-on-my-system posts about Jess, Lila, the dogs, there were days when I simply couldn’t string thoughts together, much less words. I couldn’t possibly delve into the past with my heart breaking over the present. Or it seemed almost callous: This terrible loss has happened, and I’m going to talk about…what? What wouldn’t be trivial and meaningless in the face of a tragedy that’s broken the hearts of people I love so profoundly?

I know those days are far, far from over. Anyone who has grieved knows how long the process is. Years. Grief eventually weaves itself into the rest of your life, a part of it, but not the dominant part. But in its infancy, grief gives you days when you just can’t…anything. You can go through motions of those things you have to do. I hear myself making mental lists: just get up, brush your teeth, take a shower, eat something, sit outside with the dogs, sweep the floor, read your email, cook dinner, answer the phone, go to the grocery store… Some days I can’t do even those things, beyond the ones I have to do, which mostly involve the dogs. The adults around here, even though they also are grieving, willingly deal with take-out and dusty floors. The dogs depend on me, and they don’t know grief. They know only the moment and the needs that have to be met, so they keep me tethered to a bit of normalcy.

A harder thing is to stay focused even on passive entertainment, like watching a show, reading a book, listening to a conversation. My mind wanders. Or worse, it locks on remembered words or images I wish I’d never had to see or hear, and suddenly I’ve read ten pages without having any idea what they said, or the show is over and I’m not sure what happened, or I try to catch up with what the people around me are saying and I can’t. My brain is in Austin, in Nevada, in Utah, in Ohio, in Alabama, in Indiana, tuned in to faraway hearts that are aching, hearts that are ever connected to mine by blood and by love.

So…

Two lessons my father taught me when he died.


The first… Kind words and actions will not fix or erase grief, nor should they. I mourn because I love. You can’t take away one without diminishing the power of the other. I would not give up love to spare myself grief. But kind words and actions do recognize and honor my loss and my love. In that way, they help connect and heal me. It’s been twenty-seven years since he died, and I still remember who sustained my family and me.

The second… The only way not to be paralyzed by my grief is to express it creatively. My father’s death and other events in my life at that time left me almost incapacitated. I was scheduled to take my Masters comps and was so removed from that process that I knew I couldn’t pass. During a two a.m. study session, I shoved my books aside and wrote a poem about my father. It didn’t matter whether it was a good or bad poem. It opened a mental door I’d been keeping locked; going through that door was my first step toward healing. Sadly, because I’m getting older, and because I’ve known people with diseases that ended their lives, I’ve used this lesson many times: processing my way through grief through creating something, whether it was cross-stitching, painting, sewing, shooting photos, making quilt panels…

And yes, writing. So that’s why I will keep coming back to this environment I created, my little corner of the Internet, because no matter what I talk about or what I say about it, it’s all an affirmation of a life and a family and a group of friends to whom and for whom I’m grateful every day.

ETA: Related post: Aaron Buchanan Cochrane

Legacy Writing 365:143

I have shared the story before about how my nephew Daniel came to have a horse named Fido. I wonder if my own horse had a name? If so, I don’t remember it.

When the family was together recently, David told Debby if he won Publisher’s Clearing House, he was going to buy them a horse farm. As they talked excitedly about their fantasy fields of green, I was all, “HELLO! I’m sitting here, too.” They both turned blank expressions my way, and Debby said, “You don’t even like horses.”

“But I want to be there, too!” I said. “I can cook. Let me run the chuck wagon.”

Apparently this was acceptable, and now I have to answer to names like Hop Sing and Wishbone.

It’s for the best. I have two humiliating horse stories in my past. One was the horse who just went his own way and did his own thing when Lynne and I went horseback riding that time my parents took us to Callaway Gardens. Because of that experience, a few years later on a first date with a really adorable guy, I was leery of his suggestion that we go to his sister’s and ride horses.

“I don’t really–I mean, one time–horses don’t like me,” I fumbled through an explanation.

“We’ll give you the gentlest, best-behaved horse there,” he promised.

Right. That freaking horse turned into a wild bronco. I’m not sure how I made it back in one piece.

See? It’s a good thing I can cook.

Legacy Writing 365:137


I told Cousin Rachel that I don’t seem to have any photos of her father, Cloyce, but when I was looking at my laptop, I found this one. That I have it scanned in there means it’s among the other Mysteriously Missing Photos that are hiding from me somewhere in this house. In email exchanges, I reminisced to Rachel about the dogs her father raised, trying to remember whether they were chihuahuas. She said she’d forgotten all about those dogs, and they were actually Toy Manchester Terriers. As soon as she said so, my memory of them became much clearer.

When talking to David and Debby about this, David reminded me that Uncle Cloyce could bark exactly like those dogs, which I’d forgotten. It’s funny how just a few words can open a door to a flood of memories. I loved sitting outside his store next to Uncle Cloyce. He always gave me an icy cold soft drink and a lot of laughter. Rachel said he probably talked my ear off telling me the same old stories. How I wish I could recall those now.

In the picture above, taken the same Christmas as earlier photos I’ve shared, Rachel and her then-boyfriend Charles are standing next to David and Debby, then Papa and Jane-Jane, then Uncle Cloyce, and Mother’s holding me. I’m either three (Hanley’s age now) or four (Lila’s age now), and clearly I’ve been crying. Who knows what was wrong with me, but what really bewilders me is how Debby looks a little sulky. She’s standing RIGHT NEXT to her favorite coconut cake! She probably got caught taking a swipe at the frosting with her finger. Most notable: This photo apparently predates my brother’s habit of sneaking bunny ears on the person standing next to him. Or else Aunt Drexel, who may have been wielding the camera, could have given him the schoolteacher stare and put a stop to his shenanigans.

Button Sunday and Legacy Writing 365:136


When I was rooting through my mother’s mementos the other day, I spotted this button. It reminded me that I had this certificate stashed away.


That is from when I was five, and either Miss Edwards or Mrs. Lane certainly had a creative approach to my last name. I don’t know why they didn’t just also call me Betsy and be done with it.


The front of my certificate reminds me very much of the pictures on those old hand fans we used to have in church to try to stay cool. Debby and I were speaking of these just the other day and rating the artistic merits of their depictions of Biblical scenes.

Frankly, I believe that sticking a bunch of hot, sweaty kids inside a building with NO AIR CONDITIONING on summer days in the South was a clever way to plant a concept of the fiery pits of hell in our impressionable brains.

Only without the lukewarm Kool-Aid and sugar cookies.