My father’s mother, my greatest inspiration, passed away on December 8th at age 91. So this season has been one of introspection and reflection for both Don and me. I’ve been thinking a lot about her life and what it was that made her so very special. She was definitely the hardest worker I have ever known, running a dairy farm with my grandfather, outside of Scranton, PA for over 50 years, and raising five boys. When times got hard, and with two of the boys headed off to college, she went to work at Bendix Aviation Plant, helping on the farm during the day, and then heading off to work the night shift at Bendix for 14 years. She only slept four hours a night during that time, but somehow she found the energy to do what had to be done. She always did.
But she also found time to play. She loved to dance and sing and play shuffleboard and pinochle. And Christmas was her very favorite time of the year. She was always a child at heart. The smallest of things gave her great pleasure, hand-picked wildflowers, a four-leaf clover. So many times I heard her say, “God has given us such a beautiful world,” and she would gaze out over the green of the fields, the majesty of the mountains, and say, “This is the most beautiful place in the world.” She didn’t understand the notion of travel as she was happiest on her porch with her beautiful view. It was this appreciation of place, of nature, and her love for family that made her so content. Though her life wasn’t an easy one, she accepted it as it was, and always kept her sense of humor. She loved to tell the story of when she was feeding the cows in the barn one evening with her youngest son, and one of the cows pulled her pants down. She was so mad, but the two of them got to laughing so hard they were crying.
Month: December 2009
Uncluttering
Today I did something that I’ve been putting off for awhile: I gathered up the volumes of notepads and notecards and journals and audio tapes that constitute my novel in the making, and packed them all away in a huge plastic tub upstairs. This does not mean that I’ve given up on getting my novel published–I just needed to clear the way for the new. I am now working on a short story cycle set here on the eastern shore of Maryland, and every new project takes complete concentration. I realized I was still bogged down in my novel (no pun intended, as the Jersey bogs are part of my novel). Just as we clear the flower fields this time of year to make way for the new, my mind, and shelves, are now clear of past clutter. Onward.