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.
My parents made me go to my piano lesson when my nephew Daniel was being born, so I missed my chance to be at the hospital for the big event. (Checking: Yep. Still bitter!) Josh was born in New Jersey during March, so I had to stay home and in school. I tried to be in Georgia for twins Sarah’s and Gina’s births, but they took their sweet time, so once again: back in school. Aaron was born in Utah in December while I was at work in Houston. Jess was born in Houston while I was in school at Alabama. SO…
All that is to say that it was thrilling for me when I got to be at the hospital while my friend Kathy L was giving birth to Joey. All the photos I took that night in the waiting room are mostly blurry, but this is one of my absolute favorites in spite of the poor quality:
Kathy’s husband Mike and her father stand on either side of the corridor that leads to her. Those were the days when daddies and everyone else were NOT allowed near the mysterious inner sanctum of Labor & Delivery.
Not only was I at the hospital for Joey’s birth, but I was at Kathy’s and Mike’s apartment when they brought him home from the hospital. In fact, I changed Joey’s first diaper at home–I had plenty of that experience with my nephews and nieces and was able to put it to good use.
I just adored that little rascal and was lucky to be part of most of his early years. We moved to Texas when Joey was eight; since they moved to the Northeast, it ended up that I haven’t seen him since. He’s a grown man now. He’s been through college (graduated with honors!), the Marines, and now works in Graphic Design. His mother, justifiably proud of him, calls Joey an “edgy artist.”
I’m delighted that I still have some of his early work:
What I love most: that backwards “J” and upside-down “Y” of his signature. I’m betting he doesn’t sign his art that way anymore.
I have friends who I haven’t been able to spend significant amounts of time with for decades, but if either of us walked into the other’s house today, the conversation would pick up as if the intervening years never happened. And it’s not because we correspond frequently in other ways. We’re part of each other’s souls, and the comfort level is unending.
Then there are friends with whom I was really close at one time, but circumstances or bad choices caused a rift between us, and we let each other go. Sometimes I look back at those relationships with a twinge of regret or nostalgia, but usually moving on is the best course of action–though as I’ve been reminded in recent years as I’ve watched other people’s relationships end, that can be challenging to those who are friends with both parties.
Then there are the people who drift away. We don’t know how or why, but they go from being part of a really intense time in our lives to being friends we see occasionally, to infrequently, to…silence. Suddenly we realize we aren’t sure where they live anymore, what they’re doing, how to reach them by phone. When this happens enough times over the course of our lives, we come to realize that it’s not always necessary to hold tightly to everyone. For the time we were together, we provided exactly what was needed. It’s okay to let go.
For me, Geof is one of those friends. I met him through Steve R, and he was a vital part of the group of us who took care of Steve in the years before he died. As a musician and conductor, Steve needed music when he was in the hospital as much as he needed medication. These were the days before iPods and downloads and online music. Steve had a radio/tape player next to his hospital bed (when that one was later stolen from his apartment, I put one of mine in his room–it still provides music in our garage twenty years later). Steve always listened to NPR, but we also kept a rotating collection of tapes in the hospital for him. Some of them were–well, not mix tapes, but tapes of Steve’s and Geof’s favorite music–that Geof recorded for Steve.
After Steve died, I kept those tapes for a long time, but ultimately they wore out or I had the same music on CDs. As I got rid of them, I kept Geof’s covers. Did I mention that Geof is an artist? Here are four of those covers:
I have only one picture of him. After Steve died, Geof went to Minnesota to visit Steve’s family. They had a favorite restaurant where the owners treated them like the wonderful people they are, and someone took this photo of Geof wearing the obligatory sombrero there. A year or so later, Tom and I repeated this scene on one of our visits to Minnesota.
Steve's mom, Nan, with Geof
I have some larger works that Geof gave to Tom and me hanging at The Compound. I hope if by some weird chance he ever happens by this blog, Geof will know that I treasure and take good care of his creations. Also, I still have his book on Egypt that I borrowed and would happily return to him!
Like beautiful music and art, a friend can be a gift who lingers in our memories forever.
See how tenderly Daniel, in his Winnie the Pooh pajamas, is patting his little cousin’s head? Doesn’t she look kind of worried? I wonder if this is the same twin who, a few years later, split open his head with a wooden croquet mallet?
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.
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.
This is our friend Steve V and a puppy whose name I don’t remember. The photo caught my eye because I noticed that Steve was drinking a Starbucks Frappuccino® in 2000, LONG before I tried one. It seems like he should have told me the evil deliciousness I was missing.
This apartment, a stone’s throw from the Starbucks that Tim goes to now post-gym, had a tiny patch of yard next to it, and Steve created a garden there. I loved to visit him, not only to see how his garden was coming along, but because he had a zillion little things in his apartment that had stories. This is something our friend James (who introduced me to Steve), Steve, and I have in common: a collection of random, small items with all kinds of memories attached to them.
Steve has since moved from that apartment, but recently I showed him the painting that commemorates the space:
Bottle Caps and Friends Series, No. 15: Steve V's Garden of Peace and Healing
Steve said it reminds him of a photo he has looking down at a view of the garden from above. I think what I like best about doing these Bottle Cap paintings is feeling connected to the amazing people in my life through art.
Looking through albums, I stop on this photo, as I always do. It’s from a day when we were all at home in April, probably for my parents’ anniversary–kids, grandkids, in-laws–including three-month-old twins Sarah and Gina. I’m sure Josh, who’d just turned two, was getting lots of attention so he wouldn’t feel slighted because of his new sisters. And somehow during all that excitement and activity, Daniel, about three and a half, ended up in “Oompah’s” lap for a few quiet moments.
Never were grandkids more loved by their grandfather. For many years, these tiny shoes dangled from the mirror of his Pinto station wagon. They are still packed among my things. Though I’ve thought several times about sending them to their original owners, there’s something so sweet about keeping them together.
Josh's blue shoe, a pair of Daniel's shoes, a red shoe each from Sarah and Gina.
“April is the cruelest month,” T.S. Eliot wrote, and it’s true that it’s always pulled at my emotions. Sometimes I realize I’ve been staring into space for an hour, two hours, in wonder that April has robbed our family again. There is a shoe missing, the grandchild my father never knew.
Aaron, your cousins and your brother hold you in their hearts. We all do.
