Back Road Ramblings

by Donna Poole

“Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all.”—Stanley Horowitz

Little did the poet guess when he penned those words for a 1983 edition of the Reader’s Digest how many thousands of photographers, painters, and writers he would inspire. Though many may not recognize his name, searches for Horowitz’s poem skyrocket on the internet each fall. The most current statistics I could find were from the New York Public Library in 2011: “A search of his name and the first line of the poem retrieved around 1,630,000 results.”

I can see why those lines are so loved, can’t you? The metaphor is gripping and beautiful and makes us think of the mosaic of our own lives. The artists among us do that; they grab us by the collar as we rush by, oblivious, and they whisper to us, “See.”

What do you see when you look back over the mosaic of your life? Memories grow hazy along the way and are colored by our personalities too; what we see depends on whether we look back with bitterness or a benediction.

I can’t remember all the names and faces of the people who’ve walked a mile or two with me on my backroads, but I know that they each have left a piece of themselves that is now the pattern of me. Time has smoothed many jagged pieces of glass in my mosaic, so they no longer hurt as they once did. Light shines brighter from behind some pieces reminding me of people and of why I loved them.

I bend down and run my fingers over the bright colors and smile at the memories forever preserved of our four children as babies, toddlers, teens, and young adults. I see their weddings. Among the brightest flashes of color in my mosaic are our thirteen grandchildren who refuse to stop moving, even in this still life art memory.

When I look back at the pieces in my mosaic, I remember smiles that warmed my heart, encouraging words spoken when I was exhausted from the long walk, and laughter that wove its beautiful wave of color around the darker times. I see so many prayers. I recall a line in a book here, a quote from a teacher there, a hug from a friend. Woven among all the years, laughter, and tears, I find God’s Word, because more than anything it has enriched my life.

I look ahead and wonder what colors will still add to my mosaic before the design is complete.

We add something to every life we touch. Is a look of kindness, a word of encouragement, a hug to dispel the fog of indifference too much to give? I want to give more and more as we walk each other Home. The tiny piece I add to the mosaic of someone’s life may glow for them far after I am gone.

It has been a beautiful autumn here in Michigan. I agree that “Winter is an etching, spring a watercolor, summer an oil painting and autumn a mosaic of them all.”—Stanley Horowitz

by Donna Poole

“I’d like to buy a diamond ring, please.”

John was nineteen and looked much younger when he walked into Schooley’s Jewelry Store at 152 East State Street, Ithaca, New York. It was an old, well-established store and had been there since 1937.

The proprietor, Mr. Wrisley, was kind. He didn’t ask if John had any money, but he did ask how much he wanted to spend. Then he showed him several diamonds, from larger to smaller.

John’s eyes brightened when he saw the bigger diamonds. He hadn’t expected he could get anything like that for his money.

“Now I want to show you something,” Mr. Wrisley said. He gave John his eyepiece so John could see that the larger diamonds had many flaws, not visible to the naked eye, but easily seen through the eyepiece. One of the smaller diamonds looked perfect with no flaws.

Mr. Wrisley nodded. “It’s a pure diamond, perfect. It’s up to you. It depends on what you want.”

John never was all about show, but he does love perfect. He loves God’s perfection, and He loves that God makes us perfect in Him when we trust Jesus to save us from our sin. He thought the smaller diamond was a good symbol of what he wanted our marriage to be. He put down some money he’d saved from working his summer at Cornell University and promised to bring home money from his college job at Grand Union each paycheck until the ring was paid for. Mr. Wrisley agreed.

We married the summer we were twenty; it was the spring of our marriage. I wish I could tell you that like the ring it was always pure, perfect, and without flaws, but that would be a lie. We both had a lot of growing up to do. John’s mom wanted to do his laundry, and he insisted on spending every weekend at home so she could do it. I enjoyed visiting his wonderful parents, but every weekend seemed a bit excessive, especially because we were both going to college, working full time, and had little time to spend together during the week.

Like Ruth Graham said when a reporter asked her as she and Billy Graham, the famous evangelist celebrated their fiftieth anniversary, “Did you ever consider divorce?”

Her answer came quickly. “Not once.”

“Oh, come on. You must have thought of it at least once in fifty years.”

“Divorce? No! Murder? Yes!”

There wasn’t much we didn’t argue about, but the disputes were surface, silly, and passed as quickly as a spring shower. Our first year was tumultuous, but we loved each other fiercely, and had wonderful times as breathtaking as the most perfect of spring days.

Spring marriage days slid into summer, the wonderful years of raising our four children, or perhaps of them raising us.

Then came late summer. The kids married; the wonderful grandchildren began arriving, and we have thirteen of them now.

How quickly summer became fall. Everyone here in Michigan and my family in New York says they have never seen the leaves as beautiful as they have been this year, and I feel the same about the fall of our marriage. It has never been as lovely or connected as it is now.

Perhaps we are even in the winter of our marriage. Only God knows that.

John and I have walked down so many backroads together. Some roads have echoed with joy and laughter. Others have listened to our prayers and tears. But through all our journeys, our love has grown deeper, truer, purer, more like the ring John gave me fifty-two years ago.

Why is that?

John gives great advice when he does marriage counseling. He draws a triangle with three dots, one at each corner and one at the top. “The top of the triangle is God,” he tells the couple. “The dots at the sides are each of you. What happens as each of you moves up the sides of the triangle and gets closer to God?”

The answer is simple. The closer two people get to God, the closer they get to each other.

When I sit in on marriage counseling, I tell the couple a favorite quote, “Marriage is when two people become one. The trouble starts when they try to decide which one.”

John doesn’t invite me to sit in on many marriage counseling sessions. I wonder why?

God, John, and I have more backroads to travel, but we know we are getting nearer to the end of our journey. The road we’re on now isn’t easy, but we have seen some beautiful views and have been sheltered from the winds by love of God, family, and friends.

Hopefully, we’ll travel together for many more miles, God, John, and I, getting closer, the three of us, until we reach Home.

The two have become one. Which one? We can’t tell, but whatever we are, we cherish the love we share.

by Donna Poole

You wouldn’t guess it to look at him, but this almost seventy-two-year-old country preacher I’m married to has a restless streak a country-mile wide. At least it used to be a country-mile wide; maybe it’s only a half-mile wide now. It shows up in different ways. He gets a certain glint in his eyes.

Then he says, “I wonder where this road goes? You want to follow it and find out?”

He knows I do. I always do, except for that one time.

We were in Lost Nation, a game preserve area close to our home, when he asked his question.

“No, I don’t want to. That’s not even a road! Please, don’t….”

But it was too late. Hoping, as he always did, that our 1973 Pinto station wagon would magically transform itself into a Jeep or better yet a four-wheel-drive truck, John had already started down the “road” in Lost Nation that looked more like someone’s overgrown driveway. We swerved and bumped down the path that grew more overgrown and less road-like by the minute.

“I think we should turn around or back out of here,” I suggested.

“There isn’t anywhere to turn around, and I don’t want to back out of here. Besides, we don’t know where this goes yet.”

We never did find out. Finally, we could go no farther, and John had to begin backing out, considerably harder than driving in.

We were close to where we’d started when the Pinto sunk in a patch of mud.

“Help me push the car out.”

We pushed; we struggled. John remained optimistic. I’m the family Pollyanna, but those tires were half-buried in mud. Getting stuck in the mud in an isolated game preserve in the days before cell phones wasn’t fun.

John found an old fence post. “I’ll try to lift the car up with this while you push.”

I don’t remember now if either of us prayed. Let’s imagine we did. Whether we did or not, God was merciful. He let us wait long enough to realize we were in trouble. John hiked back to the road and flagged down a truck,

The truck driver hooked on a chain and pulled us out of the mud. He refused pay, smiled at John, and politely said, “Probably not the best place to try to drive a Pinto.”

I don’t remember what I said to John. Let’s imagine I was a good wife and didn’t say anything.

John’s restless streak used to show up in other ways too. He often got requests from churches looking for pastors. Would he come preach for them? He went every time and after a favorable vote asking him to come as pastor went through agony trying to decide if he should leave our church.

Finally, our church board asked to meet with John. Bud, our oldest deacon, spoke for the board. “Pastor, you’re driving us crazy! We never know if you’re going to leave or stay! Please make up your mind one way or the other.”

That time of many churches asking John to come preach and slowed and stopped. Many years passed. We didn’t get another request from a church looking for a pastor until John was seventy. It came from an adorable church with a small congregation near the shores of Lake Michigan. If you don’t live in Michigan, you may not know that many Michiganders drool at the thought of living near the lake. Including me.

John wasn’t tempted. He wrote the church a sweet note declining the request for him to come preach with the possibility of being considered as their pastor, smiled at me, and tossed the letter in the garbage. He didn’t tell anyone at our church. I confess, I got on the internet and researched the beautiful area; I’ve always hoped to someday live closer to the lake. But the beautiful road that beckoned me to the lake couldn’t compete with the heart of the people we love right here. Most important, John knew God wasn’t calling him to go down that road. I’m glad I don’t have to figure that out for him, and he doesn’t have to for me. We each must listen to that still small voice in our hearts and choose what road to take.

Still, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t God calling John to drive down that forsaken path in Lost Nation. That is one back road adventure he never tried again.

We drove back to the scene of the crime today so our daughter, Kimmee, could take pictures for my blog article.

“Dad, you drove down that? But it isn’t even a road!”

Exactly, Kimmee.

“Well, it was wider back then,” John said, sounding defensive.

Not by much it wasn’t.

“Take a picture of that sign, honey,” I said. “The one that says no vehicles.”

The sign makes me guess there must still be people with a restless streak a mile-wide looking for adventure. Too bad the sign hadn’t been there all those years ago. But then I wouldn’t be taking this backroad adventure with you.

by Donna Poole

Summer doesn’t stomp off in a fury announcing her departure like some drama queen leaving a party, high heels clicking on a hardwood floor.  Summer is a lady. In her whisper-soft ballet shoes, she glides off when no one is looking.

“Where’s Summer?” someone asks.

“I don’t know. She was here just a minute ago. Did anyone see her leave?”

“I wish I’d paid more attention to her. She was a delightful addition to the party, wasn’t she? Will someone close that window? It’s getting cold in here!”

The calendar and Kimmee, our daughter, tell us it’s the last day of summer.

We occasionally spot a rare butterfly or a hummingbird reluctant to fly south, but these sightings happen infrequently now.  No joyous bird songs greet us when we step outside. It’s so quiet I can hear the dry leaves falling from the leaves and hitting the grass. The slant of the sun is different inside the house now too. I like that; it’s lighter inside than it was.

On one of our backroad ramblings the other day we passed a field and saw the last cutting of hay. Nothing says the end of summer more clearly than that. And nothing makes me feel more nostalgic, except, perhaps, the geese practicing for their flight south, getting the V formation right, but flying in the wrong direction. When it’s time to go, they’ll know when and where. God will tell them, and they will listen.

Before they were old enough to have “real” jobs, our boys, Johnnie and Danny, hired out to farmers who needed help baling hay. They were hard workers, so they never had trouble getting jobs. When they were very young, they’d stand on the moving tractor, pull bales and stack them, or load them onto the elevator, or stand in the barn stacking the hay as it came tumbling off the elevator. When they got a little older, they learned to drive tractor and rake the hay. Haying was hot, hard, exhausting work. The boys came home covered with sweat and hay and with funny stories of equipment cobbled together that a farmer somehow stubbornly kept running, of how they had almost fallen off a wagon when a tractor had jerked, or of the amazing food they had eaten.

“Mom, we’d work for Reeds for free just to eat Mrs. Reed’s food!”

While some of their friends loved lazy, hazy summer days with nothing to do, our boys enjoyed, to quote one of their favorite radio programs, “the satisfaction of a job well done.”

The boys were about twelve when they started hiring out to hay. They were skinny kids, all legs brown and sunburned, and I desperately loved them and their determination to work like men. That’s what their dad and I heard most about them, “Your boys work like men.”

What do they think of those haying days now? Do they regret the loss of summer freedom? John Jr. says, “That tough work made me the kind of man I am today. After baling, most the jobs I’ve had felt easy.”

Danny says, “I baled hay because I love the hard work. You instilled a good work ethic in all of us kids. All these years later I still bale hay and love it (although most of the time it’s round bales). If you work hard you have a better appreciation for what you earned.”

And now when I see the last cutting of hay, I think of how fast all those growing-up summers passed by for our boys and our girls and now are for our grandchildren. Just like summer leaves us quietly, so does childhood.

Soon the “Bye Dad! Bye Mom!” isn’t because the kids are going off to hay on a hot, summer afternoon. It’s because they’ve come for an hour, or an evening, and it’s time for them to go home with their own families, with their own children whose summer of childhood will soon be gone.

It’s so quiet then we hear the dry leaves falling from trees and whispering across grass. We notice that the slant of the sunlight is different for us now than when we were younger. We hear the lonesome sound of geese honking and look up to see them in perfect V formation but flying in the wrong direction.

We laugh then, my John and I, as we wrap our arms around each other, wave goodbye to kids and grandkids, and watch the geese. They’ll get it right when the time comes. When it’s time to go, they’ll know when and where. God will tell them, and they will listen. Our kids did, and our grandkids will too. Our prayers will help them find the way.

The last cutting of hay may be nostalgic, but it brings promise too. As long as the earth endures, there will always be another first cutting of hay; there will always be another spring. Our grandchildren will grow up to be hard workers who love God, and our children’s children will too. They won’t be alone. The world will always have some good people who work hard, love God, and love each other. I hear the promise in the sound of the wild geese who are in perfect V formation and look! Now they’re flying in the right direction.

by Donna Poole

John was wrapping a used brown paper grocery bag around his old, dented, black lunch pail. It took a lot of tape.

“She’ll think it’s funny,” he said, convinced his daughter must have inherited at least some of his irrepressible sense of humor.

“I’m not so sure.”

Tomorrow Angie would be six years old. All she wanted for her birthday was a lunchbox she’d showed us several times. She couldn’t wait to carry it to the first day of first grade and show all the friends she’d made in kindergarten, even Wendy, her least favorite friend. When I’d asked her why she didn’t like Wendy as much as the others she’d said, “Because, Mommy, she tells the other kids what to do, and I want to tell the other kids what to do.”

Wendy might not be her favorite person, but Wendy and all the other kids would love the cute lunchbox.

I kept working on the butterfly birthday cake. Our little girl adored butterflies. I thought about her other gifts. Her Daddy got her a used bike from Fees, church friends, and hid it from her. When she was napping or sleeping that summer, he sanded it, painted it, and shined it until it looked new. Grandma and Grandpa Poole sent money for a new bike seat and streamers. We bought her training wheels. Her other gifts were a package of chenille pipe cleaners from us, crayons and a coloring book from three-year-old brother Johnnie, and magic markers and a notebook from one-year-old brother, Danny. Grandpa Piarulli sent money for material for me to make her a new dress.

Angie sat on the floor when it was time to open gifts. She opened everything but saw no lunchbox. Then her Daddy handed her the bulky, ugly wrapped package. She, opened it, and looked up at him, confused.

“It’s your new lunchbox! For first grade!”

Her bottom lip trembled. Tears spilled out of her huge brown eyes.

He hugged her. “Don’t cry! Open the lunch pail.”

Inside was a note she could read with little help: “Look on top of the refrigerator.”

John held her up so she could see the exact lunchbox she’d wanted. Tears turned to squeals of joy as she pulled it down and held it close, but Daddy’s eyes and face filled with regret as his look met mine. He feels bad about those tears to this day.

“Let’s go outside,” he said.

When Angie saw her new wheels parked next to Daddy’s car, she forgave him, but she too still remembers the not-so-funny ugly lunch pail.

Angie’s birthday was on Monday that year, Daddy’s day off, so he had time to help her learn to ride her new bike. Our good friends and neighbors, Hales, came for ice cream and butterfly cake and brought Angie a new dress. She went to bed a happy girl, thinking of her blessings, not the gift her Daddy had thought would make her laugh but instead had made her cry.

My heavenly Father has handed me a few packages wrapped in ugly paper with even uglier looking dented lunch pails inside. I know he doesn’t do it expecting me to share a sense of humor I can’t understand, but do I cry? Sometimes.

“God is too good to be unkind and He is too wise to be mistaken. And when we cannot trace His hand, we must trust His heart.” –Charles Spurgeon

I need to remember to keep looking inside the lunch pails for the notes. I don’t expect God to lift me up and show me everything I asked for waiting for me on top of the refrigerator, but I do expect the notes to teach me to trust His heart. So far, I’ve found some breathtakingly beautiful notes in my dented pails, and I hope you have too.

by Donna Poole

Our picnic finished, we sat in chairs under trees next to the quiet water. Lazy isn’t the word to describe how I felt; inert is better. I was simply there, merely being. Too tired to read, but somehow having a book on my lap brought be comfort.

I looked down at A Circle of Quiet by Madeleine L’Engle and touched the cover. It too, had a picture of trees by the water. I knew I’d love the book if I could get energy to open it; I’d read it before. But this time, my hands refused to turn any pages. They were content to lie folded on top of the book. Maybe I could absorb it by osmosis.

On the other side of where we sat a piece of land stretched out, and then the river-like water curved around and widened into a lake where children splashed and played. They were far enough away that their laughter and shouts sounded like soft background music played in a candlelit room. It was sweet, but I couldn’t quite connect with it. I just sat. I couldn’t walk over the bridge and go to the swing where John and I love to sit looking out over the lake, but I didn’t care.

“Happy?” John asked. “Tired? Want to go home?”

“Happy, tired, don’t want to go home. I’m a tree now. Leave me here in my chair by the water and come back and get me when I have enough energy to get up and leave.”

He chuckled and opened his book. I napped on and off, and listened to the trees, their roots deep by the water. Their quietness sinking down deep into the mineral rich earth below.

It’s alright just to be sometimes; it’s okay not to have anything left to give. It’s fine to rest awhile by the still waters of God’s grace and soak it in deeply, to regain strength, and light and joy.

But the trees are always giving. They are giving me shade and peace. Their leaves are making delightful patterns on the water. They bring joy to the people who sometimes fish from these banks.

That’s because it’s their season to give. Soon, their leaves will drop like yours are now. They will stand silent and still against the cold of winter, and they will wait for spring’s renewal. You, too, must wait for renewal. But for now, just rest. Be.

The sun began to sink in the west, and John closed his book. “Ready to go now?”

“No. I really can’t go. I don’t have the energy. I’m serious. I have to stay here. I think I’m a tree.”

He laughed, pulled me to my feet, and steered me to the car.

“You’re not a tree.”

I looked at the trees one more time as we left the park. They whispered a goodbye message. You can be a tree if you want to be a tree.

I don’t want to be a tree forever, but maybe I’ll be one for a little while. If you see me, slouched down in my chair beside the water, baseball cap covering my bald head, looking too tired to move, don’t worry. I’m okay. It will get better. Just for now, I’m being a tree.

“And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season.” –Psalm 1:3