Back Road Ramblings

By Donna Poole

November 12, 2019, 9:00 A.M.

The sun is turning the snow-packed gravel roads to diamonds on this frosty November morning. After the funeral we will drive down a diamond road to lay Anna May, one of our own, to rest in the Lickly’s Corners Cemetery.

The next stop will be the “Corners” where two dirt roads meet. Neighbors and family will sit around tables in the old one-room school where Anna May was part of the last graduating class back in 1948. Anna May was also part of the community club that met in the schoolhouse for many years. So was I.

We opened each community club meeting by singing, “Sew, sew, sewing on our quilts, helps brighten someone else’s world. We are happy as can be, because we’re community clubbers, you see….”

I wish I could remember the rest of the song. Sadly. of the twenty-four members there were then, only one other is still alive to ask. Perhaps I’ll see Sandy today and ask her if she can remember the words to our club song.

The community club sold the building to the church at the corners for $5.00, and the church has used it for potluck dinners ever since. For many years, Anna May was part of that church, our church.

Our church ladies will serve the funeral meal, a turkey dinner, at the old schoolhouse. Two of our women offered to make turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, and corn. The rest of us will fill in things like salads, rolls, meatballs, calico beans, and a dessert table worthy of the name. There will be  lots of hot coffee to warm frigid hands and laughter to warm hurting hearts. Fixing food for others is one of the things the church at the corners does best. It’s one way we can show our love and the love of Jesus.

“How do so few people make so much food?” someone once asked of our church ladies. The question surprised us. We just do; doesn’t everyone? I suppose they don’t, but sharing food, love, and support is still a way of life at our Corners, and I hope the same is true in many places.

“Little House on the Prairie” knew the value of community. We’re lost, isolated, stranded without each other. You don’t have to be back roads country the way we are to cultivate community. It can happen anywhere. It just takes one person to realize we all need each other and to do something about it. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if someone needs you where you are right now.

We could talk about community today as we walk together through the snow on my gravel road and listen to the snow crunch under our feet. But first, I have a funeral dinner to help serve, and a few hugs to share. I might need a hug myself. I’ll dearly miss my friend.

By Donna Poole

“Just go for a walk.”

How many times has John said that to me when my brain tangled around a writing assignment or my heart knotted with the pain of a friend?

The rhythm of a singular walk on a country road isn’t a panacea, a cure-all, but it sure is a great detangler.

Not all roads detangle thoughts. I walked in New York City once with our Maine-Endwell High School Band. We visited the 1964 World’s Fair, and we walked downtown. I remember the exhilaration and shock I felt when the light changed and the massive crowd moved as one to the other side of the street. There was no room for individuality at that point. Turning back would have been impossible. The crowd carried me forward whether I wanted to go or not. I loved visiting the big city but knew even then that the rhythm of small town and country would always call me home.

At home, I listen to the rhythm of my steps on gravel and hear what the seasons say. The winds erase extraneous thoughts, and my mind clears enough to try to think God’s thoughts after Him. I may be singular on my walk, but I’m not lonely.

God and I were almost to the bridge where the St. Joe River, looking more like a meandering creek, passes under the gravel road. It was a quiet day; I saw no neighbors, and no tractors hummed in the fields. Started, I heard footsteps pounding behind me.

I whirled around. A young deer was running right at me. Deer don’t run toward people; they run in the other direction. She looked into my eyes. I held out my hand, and she nuzzled it. Would she let me touch her? I barely breathed. She wasn’t as soft as I thought.

We talked without words for awhile. I told her this is how it will be someday. She won’t have to fear anything then, and neither will I, because God promises nothing will hurt or destroy in all His holy mountain. We told each other we can’t wait for that day, when death and her sickly children of sorrow and suffering are forever banished, and our God makes all things new.

For now, sorrow and suffering are still with us, as is death, the defeated enemy, but the enemy just the same. We said goodbye this week to a friend of forty-five years.

“Just go, Anna May,” we told her. “It’s okay. We’ll be coming along soon.”

Anna May left behind these gravel roads she dearly loved to walk when she was younger, and she went Home. I hope she finds some gravel byways up there with some wildflowers and a deer that walks right up to her, and I hope she waits for me there. Because I don’t imagine Anna May will like streets of gold any better than I will.

• 

By Donna Poole

As we walk each other Home, not all our meanderings will be on sunny paths. Will you journey with me awhile in the darkness, my friend?

Huddled in the darkest corner of my empty house I sit on the floor, rocking back and forth, head on my knees, arms wrapped around my legs.

I don’t have to open my eyes to know it’s dark; it’s the midnight of my soul. Is this coldness what it feels like to die? If it is, why can’t I just get it over with? I’m too exhausted to cry, too numb to call for help, too bone-weary to look for my bed. Is it even here any more?

I feel someone shake my shoulder. “Make me a cake.”

“Make you a what? I have nothing in my house. Look at me. I have given the last ounce of my love, sung the last note of my song, written the last word from my heart.”

He studies me, and He smiles. “Make me a cake. Just a little one. Make it from your weariness, your bitterness, your loneliness, your despair.”

My bones chill. Who is this monster alone with me in the dark asking me for an offering of my deepest pain? I shrink in fear.

“Are you the devil?”

“Look again.” The voice is mellow and strong.

A light, soft at first, glows and fills the room. I bend and hold His feet. “My Lord and my God!”

He laughs, a beautiful sound. “And now, my cake!”

He lifts me. Surprised I can even stand, I begin mixing all I have, exhaustion, heartbreak, loneliness, fear, pain, and despair. I hold it out to Him.

“Too dry! I have nothing to dampen the batter.”

“Try your tears.”

I shake my head wearily. “I ran out of those years ago.” He puts one hand on each of my cheeks, bows low with grace, and kisses my forehead. Suddenly, I’m sobbing healing tears, bursting from a place in my heart I thought had died with my long-lost saints.

I stir the batter and pour it into the pan. Still, I’m sad. “I have no fire to bake this little cake for You.”

“Thanksgiving always works.”

“Thank You! Thank You, Lord that You can use the emptiness, the grief, the suffering that is me.”

A fire begins within. It’s no longer cold and dark. I offer it up, all I thought was nothing but ugliness and pain. I give it with thanksgiving, and He wraps His arms around me and gives me words to sing again.

Dedicated to Lois Pettit with love, and with gratitude to Elisabeth Elliot and Amy Carmichael, because everyone we love and everything we read becomes part of us and makes us who we are.

By Donna Poole

We punch the address into Waze and choose the fastest route, because that’s how life is for all of us. We have too many places to go and too little time to finish what needs to be done. So we take the interstate, the four-lane highway, or at least the best available two-lane. And if a detour sends us down a gravel road, or we find ourselves trapped behind an Amish buggy, we fume, sigh, and sputter. How are we going to finish that to-do list now?

Do you ever get tired of the interstate? When I was a little girl Mom used to sometimes beg Dad to take us for a ride. We’d all pile into the station wagon and drive slowly down country roads looking for wildflowers. I miss those days. Even though we’ve lived on a gravel road in the country for forty-five years, life is too often a hectic whirlwind for us. I love long walks down these country roads, but we don’t meander often anymore.

I’m tired of the interstate. If you are too, join me here when you get a minute. We’ll walk together down gravel roads in all of life’s seasons. We’ll listen for the first frog to sing a welcome song to spring and look for the first red-winged blackbird sitting on a tall, dead weed. We’ll watch for the winter wheat to green, a sight so bright it will hurt our eyes. Together we’ll enjoy the scent of the first cutting of hay, and watch crops and gardens ripen in the mellow summer. We won’t regret the coming of autumn but instead dance with the rhythm of the falling leaves and pray that our later years will be as lovely. When snow comes we’ll walk together just long enough to hear it crunch under our feet and then retire to a warm fireplace with coffee, tea, or cocoa and talk about what it all means.

I hope you’ll meet me here often at “Back Road Ramblings,” and we’ll walk each other Home.