Sounds of Hope

It's been an interesting morning already... I slept late.  A load of laundry has been started.  The dog has been walked.  Sliced some of the amazing Rye Bread I made the other day, smeared it with butter, and have had some coffee - not enough, but I've had some... There is never enough coffee. Just a normal day - except.... As I turned on my iPhone this morning, I always turn it completely off at night -my husband's phone is on all night for emergencies - as the Apple disappeared I saw a picture.   Pictures!  Pictures of my grandchildren in Connecticut off to their first day of school.  I don't say much ... most people don't realize how much I wish I could see my grandchildren more often.  I get to see two of them that live in TN but the others - hardly ever :(.  When pictures come, they light up my day. They look so big.  Is it possible that the oldest girl is finishing Middle School and will be off to High School next year? ...

I don’t know why I stayed. I supposed it was because I had nowhere to go. There were no domestic violence shelters in 1974. I still believed in miracles. I wanted one. I prayed desperately for one. Ultimately, I would understand that a miracle of deliverance did come. It just didn’t come like I expected it to. We had never gone back to Columbia First Assembly after Alvin returned from the Army. We had become quite worldly. My mother was going to Christian Chapel so we went there too. Lacking the strong leadership of Brother Parker and perhaps never really having a relationship with God, just rules, Alvin never connected there. I stayed at Christian Chapel during our first divorce. Now it was viewed as my church and First Assembly still seemed out of the question. We ended up at the new Highland Park Assembly on West Worley near Nowell’s Grocery Store. They met in the garage of the Pastor’s home, Brother Cooper. All I clearly remember about Brother Cooper is that he always wore a bow-...

I was living in a four-plex on Weymeyer Drive northeast of Columbia. Ironically, his cousin, on his father’s side, owned it. A cousin he barely knew. Now married again, he moved in with me. Nathan had started kindergarten. As a harbinger of things to come, Nathan had spent his first day of kindergarten with the principal. This is the actually apartment, second floor. Many were the exploits of Nathan. He had been thrown out of Sunday School because he would climb in the windows and bark like a dog. Nathan was just like his mother. He learned even more quickly than I, that attention comes by acting out. He also had tremendous energy and creativity. He had the nerve to do the things he thought about. Considering all the trips to the ER, it is a wonder he lived. I had gotten a job, a real job. I worked for what is now Shelter Insurance, then call MFA Insurance. I would descend to the bowels of the building on West Broadway to file thousand of little papers in hundreds of five drawer fil...

Being a veteran and older, Alvin was now credit worthy. Alvin was ready to get a business loan and be an entrepreneur. He started with a used tractor, mower, rake and baler. Soon he moved up to a brand new blue Ford tractor. It didn’t have a cab but the summer heat of Missouri was not a problem for him. I drove the red and white Rambler station wagon. He had a blue Chevy pick-up. With the boys in the car, I would travel the gravel roads to find the field where he was mowing. I would have a jug of tea, some sandwiches or left over fried chicken. Often I would get lost, as directions were always vague. Attempting to turn around, I'd end up in a ditch. Somehow I always got out. Then he found the baler. It was meant for the flat fields of Kansas, not the hills of Central Missouri. It was a novelty. We drove to St. Louis together. He returned driving this monster through St. Louis rush hour traffic with me dutifully following behind. We picked up a few employees. I think all of them...

Nathan was over three weeks old when I was finally able to hold him for the first time. I had no way to go to the hospital except when my mother took me. When I did get there, I would only look longingly at him through several layers of glass. Years later, with yet another child in an incubator, they let me scrub and reach my gloved hand into the holes to touch her. This time, no courtesy like that was permitted. Then the day came when he was no longer in the NICU. His tubes removed. He could suck. He still had no eyebrows but fingernails were forming. At church people were reconsidering whether my story of his premature birth was true.  He finally weighed five pounds. I asked about my child. An older nurse working the regular nursery was sitting in a rocking chair, holding him, giving him a bottle. I had thought about breast-feeding. I knew no one that breastfed. It just seemed natural to me. I didn’t know then how much better it is for the new infant. I just thought I’d li...

We moved. I don’t remember why we moved or even what we did with the camper we lived in. We may have planned to make payments on it and didn’t. We may have gotten behind in our lot rent and abandoned it. I really don’t know. I am sure some of you can’t imagine ever doing such a thing. I couldn’t either. I wasn’t in charge. Since then, I have learned that sometimes you just do what you gotta do to survive. Packing our meager belongings into our 1951 Chevy tank, we moved to another trailer. Bigger than the last, but very old. It was in town. Alvin didn’t like living in town. He was a country boy. Before the song: Thank God I’m a country boy , he was true to its meaning. I, born and raised in Brooklyn NY, we couldn’t be more mismatched. I tried to be country. I tried to learn his ways. After all, I chose the wedding song Wither Thou Goest as one of our songs. I meant it. I was determined to be a wonderful wife. Again, no matter what I did, it was never enough. I tried to can vegetable...

My mother-in-law Estella thought I should go to work. She said she had always worked. She had no sympathy for our lack of food in the house. It didn’t matter to her that we went without. She felt I should work. I tried. I had several jobs during those first few months I was married. My mother had only one job during my years growing up. It lasted one month. To me, married women didn’t work. Married women were to be like the role models Donna Reed, June Cleaver or even the young wife, Samantha Stephens. I wasn’t lazy. I told someone recently that I still hear the tape of my mother-in-law. She is still telling me I am lazy. So powerful was her influence. At times I still believe her. Getting a job at 16 was not easy. I had no clerical skills. I didn’t know how to type or take steno. I knew neither Gregg nor Pitt stenography. Most of the summer jobs were given to people who knew people, children of a friend. I eventually landed a job at a drug store on Broadway, the main business street...

I like to watch Grey’s Anatomy. I get frustrated with it because it doesn’t have enough new episodes. This weeks episode was new to me. Grey’s Anatomy is a sophisticated prime time soap opera. One of the lead characters, Dr. McSteamy aka Mark Sloan has an 18-year-old pregnant daughter named Sloan suddenly come into his life. For good drama, in spite of this being a first pregnancy, she has an emergency delivery of her son in his apartment. One of the main themes for the rest of the show is that she is still a child. At 18, she is still a child herself and too young to care for her infant son. It wouldn’t be fair to her child to keep him. Ultimately, the son is handed over to strangers who are more ready for this responsibility. It was sad. I disagree. She should have kept her child. That episode made me wonder. I wonder if anyone thought that about me when they bought wedding presents for me in 1968. Times were different one might argue. Nevertheless, I was a child. I h...

I have reconnected with people from every stage of my life. From people who knew me as a child in Brooklyn to people where I now reside, in South Dakota. My facebook friends range through all the years of my life and many of them are reading this blog. Many of these friends knew me when all these events were going on. For countless reasons, they never knew.  Any one has the chance to know now. If you are reading, I'd love to know. Comments are welcomed! Shortly before our wedding, we had also purchased our first home. We had rented a small house and cleaned it spotless. I remember the discussion with my mother of whether hands and knees scrub-brush or a mop with lots of water was better. I, always wanting to be the martyr, wanted to get on my hands and knees. She and Alvin both agreed a mop with lots of water best. Other than the day we spent their cleaning and my adventure of trying to pee in the shower since the toilet didn’t work, I don’t remember much of the details of this sh...

I've been thinking about writing a book. I've mentioned my desires to write several times now in this blog. I've mentioned the book. I've mentioned that when I was in high school, in Brooklyn NY, I thought I wanted to be a writer when I grew up. Although I haven't heard it in a few weeks now, for a while, it seemed every few days someone said to me, you should write a book. I wish I could tell you that the reason for my quietness on this blog has been that I have been busy with starting the book. I haven't started it. Nor do I have any idea of when I will write it. Then there is the book that my husband and I are supposed to write. Yes, I use the word "supposed" to because while I still may have doubts that any one is that interested in my life, I do know that "our" life is very interesting. I've wrestled with thoughts of "who do you think you are that any one would want to read about YOU?" I've told myself, "you...