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The Hoarder

by Donna Poole

He refused to talk about it.

He didn’t even want to hear about it.

“Listen, honey,” Charlene said to him, “it’s a disorder, a real condition. You need help with it, and I can help you. Please, let me help.”

Orville grunted and frowned. “And where’d you hear this? One of your whacky Facebook friends? I don’t have any ‘disorder’.”

“My Facebook friends aren’t….”

She took a deep breath. She refused to get sidetracked. Not again. She didn’t know how it had happened, but she and Orville were both eighty now, and if they didn’t get the job done soon, it wasn’t going to happen. She tried again.

“I read it on the Mayo Clinic website. This disorder can run in families. You know your mom had the same problem.”

He got that look in his eye. “Leave my mom out of this!”

She knew when to back away. She really didn’t want to argue, but this was important. She whispered a silent prayer for wisdom.

“You remember how when you had cancer you had to have that chemotherapy? It was painful, and you hated it, but it helped you. Now you’re in remission.”

Another grunt. “I could hardly forget chemo. But what’s that got to do with this?”

“Well, I read on that website that what we’re about to do can make you angry, and it can be emotionally painful, but we’re going to clean up a dangerous situation, one that can be a fire hazard or cause falls. It’s unsanitary and might even cause diseases. And you need help to tackle it, just like you needed help with the cancer.”

He turned back to the old western movie he was watching on the television. She just stood there, waiting.

Finally, he clicked the remote, and the screen faded.

“Couldn’t we tackle this job later?”

“That’s what you’ve been saying for years. Come fall, we’re moving out of this big house and into that little one-bedroom apartment we’ve been on the waiting list for. We have to get this done!”

“Okay, okay, don’t get your tailfeathers twisted. I’m coming.”

He struggled out of his recliner and grabbed his cane.

Together they went through the side door into his domain, the garage. They hadn’t been able to park the car in there for decades. Charlene had shoved aside enough clutter to make room for a chair, and she guided him to it.

“Sit here, and I’ll bring you things, honey. You decide whether to give them away or throw them out.”

“Throw them out! There’s nothing in here that should be thrown out. It’s all good stuff.”

Charlene glanced at the pile of old Reader’s Digest magazines that reached from the floor almost to the ceiling. She blinked away a tear. Crying wasn’t going to help.

Where can I begin? What’s in here that he isn’t going to feel he might need someday?

Charlene grabbed the closest box to her. It was filled with old, dust covered light bulbs.

“How about these? Throw them out?”

“Put them on that shelf over there. Those are bulbs I’ve saved from other cars, turn signals, back up lights. Never know when I might need one.”

“Honey, there’s no room on that shelf.”

“Save them somewhere.”

Charlene started bringing him jars and cans of nails, screws, nuts, and bolts.

“Keep those too. Never know when I might need one.”

“How many of these have you used in the last five years? We’re only going to live here a few more months. Where will you put any of this stuff when we move to that one-bedroom apartment in the fall? You won’t have a garage there or even a shed.”

He looked around hopelessly. The garage was packed floor to ceiling with old, warped wood, sleds, broken bikes, jars of nails, screws, nuts, bolts, mildewed cardboard boxes, metal pipes, broken power tools, newspapers, magazines, and that was only what he could see. Who knew what was under it?

He tried making a feeble joke. “You know that old tom cat that ran off five years ago? You don’t suppose he’s under all this do you?”

“I hope not!”

“Smells like he could be, doesn’t it?” he asked. “I really loved that cat.”

“I know you did, honey.”

“I really am a hoarder, aren’t I?” he asked in a voice so low she could hardly hear. “I don’t think I can do this.”

And then Orville did something Charlene hadn’t seen him do since his mom had died twenty years earlier. He buried his face in his hands; his shoulders started shaking, and he sobbed.

“I wish it would all just disappear. I can’t decide what to do with it.”

Charlene put her arms around him and held him close. “Never mind. We’ll work something out. How would you like to get away and go to Lake Michigan for a few days?”

Lake Michigan was their happy place, but they hadn’t been there in years.

He looked up at her. The tears on his face wrenched her heart. “Where would we get the money?”

“I have a little I’ve been saving. Let’s go in the house. You take a nap, and I’ll make the arrangements.”

Orville fell asleep almost instantly. Charlene felt uneasy about his color; he looked so much the way he had when he’d had cancer.

Life’s too short for this. He can’t change the hording any more than he can his eye color, not now. And only God know how much I love this man.

She went to another room where she wouldn’t wake him and started making phone calls.

Her eyes widened when she discovered how much the cost of hotels in Muskegon, their favorite town near the lake, cost now. She moved her search inland an hour from the lake; they could still drive and spend the day in Muskegon. The hotel clerk told her it was a good thing she only wanted Wednesday and Thursday nights; weekends cost triple and were booked the rest of the summer.

What in the world? Where do people get this kind of money?

Next Charlene called their six grandsons, wonderful young men. “It’s a mess,” she warned them. “Bring gloves. Bring boxes and bags for garbage.”

“Is it really that bad, Grandma?” Their oldest grandson chuckled. “I always wondered why Grandpa never let me in his garage.

“It’s worse than bad.” She sighed. “I don’t know how we’ll ever thank you. And even with the six of you working, you won’t be able to get it all done in the few days we’ll be gone, but I’ll be grateful for whatever you can do.”

The time at Lake Michigan was wonderful. They felt almost young again. They ordered take-out spaghetti from their favorite place, ate it sitting next to the channel in Muskegon, and watched the yachts sail out into the lake. They talked about what life might look like without having to keep up with a big house and yard. They held hands a lot, and Orville didn’t grunt or frown even once.

Charlene was a little nervous when they neared home. Orville had said he’d wished the mess would disappear, but how was he going to feel when he saw their grandsons carrying things out of his garage? How angry would he be?

They pulled into the driveway. There were no grandsons in sight. She was a bit disappointed.

I’m sure they did their best. They have their own lives to live too. Even if they did just a little, it’s better than nothing.

“What are you doing?” Orville asked when Charlene pushed the garage door opener. They hadn’t used it in years.

To her surprise, it still worked. The garage door slowly creaked upward, and even from the car they could see the amazing transformation. The garage was empty except for the clean shelves that still lined the walls. The floor looked freshly swept and even mopped.

Orville raised his eyebrows.

“Our grandsons,” she explained.

He got out of the car and slammed the door.

Orville walked around slowly, inspecting his perfectly clean, totally empty garage.

Charlene followed him, waiting for him to say something, anything.

Please God, don’t let him be too angry.

“Well, well, well.” He chuckled. “Stay here.” Then he went through the side door into the house. After several minutes he returned carrying a plastic bag.

“Now I have room for these!” He began taking empty medicine bottles out of the bag and carefully lining them up on the shelves.

“Orville!” Charlene was laughing and crying at the same time.

He put his arms around her.

“Woman, be glad I’m a hoarder. We hoarders don’t throw anything away. Why do you suppose I still have you?”

She stood on tiptoe and kissed his weathered cheek. “I’m the best thing you ever kept. And you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

They went into the house arm in arm smiling, but Charlene looked over her shoulder at those empty medicine bottles.

Enjoy your shelf life, because tomorrow you’re going in the garbage.

The End

***

These blogs are now available in book form on Amazon:

Backroad Ramblings Volume One: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Two: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Three: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

All of seven of my books are available at amazon.com/author/donnapoole

Please follow me on Facebook at Donna Poole, author

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My Little Big Sister

by Donna Poole

Eve was only seven years old when I was born, but Mom gave her the task of taking me for long walks in my baby carriage. Eve hated it, not because she didn’t love me, but because I was a chubby baby, and all her friends laughed at how fat I was when she walked by.

Mom said I talked early and was potty trained before I was a year old, and that was Eve’s job too. Eve went by her given name, Eva Lee, back in those days, and I couldn’t say that, so I called her “Wee Wee.” She had to watch me while I played outside, and when I needed to use the bathroom, I hollered, “Wee wee, Wee Wee!”

Her friends, who played with her while she watched me, found that even funnier than my chubbiness, and poor Eve was mortified.

I don’t remember any of this. Nor do I recall taking her porcelain doll off her bed, the doll I’d been told not to touch. I was at the top of the stairs and Eve at the bottom when she saw me carrying her doll.

“Donna! You put my doll down right now!”

I put it down. I threw it down the stairs. I’m glad I don’t remember Eve’s tears when she saw her favorite doll shattered in pieces.

My birth turned Eve’s life upside down in many ways. Mom often told us she’d never planned to be a mother; her dream was to become a lawyer. That dream didn’t come true, but she loved her job working outside the home when Eve was little. Raising Eve fell to Grandma Peters, Mom’s mother, who lived with us. Eve adored Grandma.

By the time I was born, Grandma was getting older and not feeling well. When Mom was at work and Eve at school, Grandma Peters cared for me, but she let me fall out of my highchair once too often.

“June,” Dad said, “I married you, not your mother, and you need to quit your job, stay home, and take care of this baby.”

Mom quit her job to take care of Eve and me, but she wasn’t happy about it. I don’t imagine Eve was thrilled either; she loved having Grandma care for her.

I have only one memory of Grandma. I remember a lady in a twin bed pushed up against a wall. She had her face turned to the wall, and she was lying very still. People were crying.

Eve said that memory was the day Grandma died of cancer.  

When I was older Eve told me, “The day Grandma died, my world fell apart. I felt like I’d lost the only person who’d ever really loved me.”

Of course, Mom and Dad loved her, but Grandma had been Eve’s best friend, the one who’d held her, wiped her tears, and shared her joys.

My sister Mary was born when I was fifteen months old, and Eve’s workload grew. When I was five our baby sister Ginny was born. As soon as she was old enough to sit up in a big tub, Mary and I gave her baths. I’m sure Eve was glad we were old enough to help!

When storms thundered and lightning slashed night skies, Mary ran and crawled in bed with Eve. I felt bad because she didn’t come to me; Mary and I were almost like twins. Deep down I knew why she ran to Eve; that’s where we all felt safe.

I was a disobedient and mouthy little girl at home, but terrified and quiet in public. When I was in kindergarten the teacher told me to drink all my milk. I drank it with tears running down my face because I was too afraid to tell her a dead fly was floating in it. One day when class ended, I carried the fuzzy white jacket I loved and hurried out of kindergarten to meet Eve.

As I started down the cement steps with its black round railing, I dropped my jacket. The bigger kids came pouring out of school behind me, looking like a herd of thundering elephants. Eve found me clinging to the rail, crying.

“What’s wrong?”

I pointed at my jacket, trampled by so many dirty feet.

“Why didn’t you just pick it up?”

And then she reached into that tremendous herd of thundering feet—or so it seemed to my five-year-old self—grabbed my jacket, took my hand, and walked me home. I don’t think she noticed my adoring eyes. She was my brave hero! I’d love her forever.

Eve babysat us often. She said I gave her more trouble than any of the others. I guess my love for her didn’t always extend to obedience.

I was in grade school when some of the “popular” kids invited me to join their informal club at school, but to become a member I had to know the meaning of a certain word. At supper that night I asked what the word meant. The table fell silent, but the look on Mom’s face said things I didn’t want to hear.

“Donna Louise,” Mom said, “we do not use words like that at this table!’

Oh no. Here comes the dreaded bar of soap.

Surprisingly, no soap came. Mom said, “Eva Lee, take your sister in the bedroom and tell her what that word means.”

I was afraid; I didn’t know I’d said a bad word.

Eve hugged away my fears. “You didn’t say anything bad, Donna,” she assured me. Then she explained certain facts of life in a way that glorified God and His creation. She made me look forward to becoming a woman.

Eve was only a girl herself, but even then, she had God-given wisdom and sweetness that never left her.

When she finished talking, she said, “Whatever that club is, you probably shouldn’t join it.”

When I was twenty and Eve twenty-seven Mom had a devastating stroke. Eve and I joined hands and begged God not to let her die, to give her more years. Mom lived five more years, but they were difficult, unhappy years for her. Then a second stroke took her to heaven.

Perhaps because we didn’t have Mom, the older we got the closer we four sisters became. We loved every minute we spent together. Three of us struggled with weight and health problems, but not Eve. Can you believe it; she could eat an entire bag of her favorite candy, M&M’s, and not gain an ounce! The other three of us gained five pounds each just watching her.

When Eve was diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer, our times together became even more precious. For six-and-one-half years Eve fought. She’d be in remission a few months, and then the monster would return.

The treatments were brutal.

“Donna,” Eve said when she was first diagnosed, “please don’t ask God to give me extra years. You remember what happened to Mom when we prayed that. Just pray I’ll glorify Him with the time I have left.”

The eight of us; Eve and Bruce, Mary and Steve, Ginny and Bob, and John and I had some wonderful “sister reunions” during her cancer years. We were together, the eight of us, walking on a pier out into Lake Michigan when Eve got a phone call and heard the word “remission” for the first time. Six of us dropped behind as she and Bruce looked at each other, faces full of joy. She put her head on his shoulder; he put his arm around her, and they walked ahead of us into hope.

Eve kept hosting her magical Thanksgivings the way she always had, though her last few years she couldn’t do much. It was more than enough for the rest of us just to have her there. Our adult kids, who’d gone to Aunt Eve’s every Thanksgiving since they’d been babies, came with their own families and shared in the love and laughter.

Shortly after Eve’s last Thanksgiving, Shari and Shelly, her daughters, put up her Christmas tree, and she loved seeing it. A few days later she went blind. When her ovarian cancer had metastasized to her brain, doctors had treated her with radiation and had warned blindness might be a side effect.

 “The darkness isn’t like closing your eyes,” Eve told me. “It’s a horrible blackness like nothing you can imagine.”

She was so frail by then and not eating much. Still Eve was Eve, trying to smile and make others comfortable, asking about our lives, and always telling me to pray she’d glorify God with the time she had left.

The last time I saw Eve I knew she was dying. My sister Ginny knew it too. We held hands in the driveway behind the car where we couldn’t be seen from the house, and we cried.

Even then I didn’t ask God to give Eve more time; she was suffering too much. She was blind from November until June, and then she could see forever.

I wrote this on my Facebook page nine years ago today: “Last night my sweet sister Eve peacefully left this world. She left behind her cancer, her blindness, and every pain…. She was and is an amazing woman. She loved, gave, encouraged, and cheered on so many. What fun times we shared! When she opened her eyes in heaven, she was no longer blind! I wish I could have seen her face when she looked into the eyes of her loving Lord and Savior. Because we share faith in the Lord Jesus, I know I’ll see her again, but I’ll miss her every day until I can hear her laugh.”

So much has changed in nine years. Eve’s husband, a son-in-law, and a brother-in-law have joined her in heaven. Many babies have been born into the family who know her only from our stories.

Life goes too fast. How long is life anyway? Often, it’s not as long as you think it will be. Better get ready.

For most trips we pack. To get ready to go to heaven we unpack. We unpack a lifetime of sin by believing God meant what He said: Jesus died for our sin. When we confess our sin and accept His sacrifice by faith, God unpacks our sin as far as the east is from the west.

Eve, you asked me to pray you’d glorify God with the time you had left. You sure did that. I saw Jesus in you.

Now it’s my turn to fight cancer, my turn to ask people to pray I’ll glorify God with the time I have left. I’ll be happy if I can share half the courage, love, and laughter you did! See you at Home! And don’t eat all the M&M’S before I get there!

Eve and Bruce’s 50th wedding anniversary.

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The Man Who Never Grew Old

by Donna Poole

I could lie and tell you my dad was perfect, but I’d get called out on that. There are people still alive who know better!

Dad wasn’t perfect, but I adored him when I was a little girl and I miss him still. Dad told me when I was very young, he worked two jobs, one for the railroad and one as a mechanic. Each required a different uniform. He said when he kissed me goodnight or told me good morning, I started giving him funny looks.

Dad said, “Then one day you said, ‘I know! I have two Daddys!’” Apparently, the two different uniforms confused me.

Dad always laughed when he told me that story, the laugh I loved to hear. It was a funny laugh, a kind of heh heh heh!

Dad was the storyteller in the family, the one who loved to laugh. I loved listening to his stories. He’d worked on the Lehigh Valley Railroad, been an auto mechanic, owned his own garage for a short time, and then had become an airline mechanic and inspector. So, he had lots of stories to tell.

He told sad stories; as a little boy he’d never owned a toy except for a broken one he’d taken from someone’s yard and then felt guilty about it. He’d quit school in sixth grade because the kids on the playground had teased him about his Italian heritage and had egged him on to fight with calls of, “Dominic Chick!” He’d usually won too, until he’d decided going to school wasn’t worth the trouble. He got his G.E.D. when I was in high school.

When Dad was a boy, the railroad laid off Grandpa and almost everyone else. Each week a big box of groceries mysteriously appeared on the steps to help feed the family. When the railroad called Grandpa back to work a box came that week, but the day Grandpa got his first paycheck the boxes stopped.

“It was the Mafia who brought the food, wasn’t it Dad?” I asked when he told us that story.

He nodded. “Nobody said the word, but we all knew it was them. They were good like that. They’d cut their own grandmother’s throat if the mob boss told them too, but they loved family, and they took care of their own.”

“Was Grandpa in the mob?” I asked.

Dad laughed. “No, honey. He would have been a lot richer if he had been. But we were Italian, and that’s all that mattered back then.”

Back then all the Italians in Sayre, Pennsylvania lived in the part of town called “Milltown.” And there was a lot of discrimination; Milltown was “the wrong side of the tracks.” To me, Milltown was a charming place where aunts, uncles, and cousins congregated at Grandma and Grandpa’s on Sunday afternoons, a place where the sunporch smelled like geraniums and the kitchen smelled like garlic and good things cooking.

Dad called his parents “Ma” and “Pa” and treated them with great respect as did all his siblings. Dad regretted the time they’d rebelled as children; they’d refused to speak Italian at home, so Grandma and Grandpa had to learn English, but in the process, Dad and his brothers and sisters forgot how to speak Italian.  

Most of the stories Dad told were funny, like trying to run away to California as a boy and throwing all his clothes in the back of an open box car and then not being able to run fast enough to hop on the train.

He told about working as a mechanic for Al Theetge Chevrolet. Al put a fire extinguisher in each mechanic’s bay. But he didn’t give an extinguisher to one man who was an excellent mechanic but challenged in other areas. That made the guy mad. So, one day, when a car caught on fire in the man’s bay, he just sat there and said quietly, “Far. Far. Far.”

Fortunately, someone heard him, rushed in, and extinguished the fire.

Dad never said if they gave the man an extinguisher after that or not, but I can still hear Dad laughing when he told that story.  

 Dad believed with all his heart you get to heaven only by faith in Jesus who died for our sin, and not by good works, but nevertheless, church was important to him. If we kids said we were sick and needed to miss church, Dad wanted to know exactly how sick we were.

Once I died early on a Sunday morning, and Dad told me to get up, walk it off, and get ready for church.

Dad never disciplined us kids, maybe because he was always a kid at heart himself. Poor Mom had her hands full.

Dad never thought of himself as old. When his years started to add up, Dad rode his bike up and down the steep hills in New York State to keep in shape. He planted dozens of rose bushes with a tomato plant next to each one to help prevent black spots. He gave away bushels of tomatoes. He mowed his own yard and shoveled his own snow all his long life.

There was the time, after Mom died, that dad dated a series of younger and younger women. I think he was in his eightieth decade, or close to it, when he got himself engaged to a young woman commonly known as the “town tramp.”

How young? She was younger than any of my sisters or me. My older sister, Eve, wanted me to help her talk Dad out of marrying the woman. I objected.

“He’s not going to listen to us. What reasons can we give him he doesn’t already know?”

Eve was near tears. “Just suppose Dad goes through with it and marries her! Think about that! What are you going to call her?”

“I’m going to call her ‘Mom.’”

I thought the mental image of me calling someone younger than myself “Mom” would make Eve laugh. It didn’t.

The marriage didn’t happen. When Dad finally broke up with his fiancée all she said was, “Can I keep the ring?”

Then she showed up at church on Sunday with Dad’s good friend, deliberately picked the pew right in front of Dad, and sat as close to the guy as she could get.

Dad said, “If she thought that was going to make me jealous, it didn’t work. It made me mad. I’d felt bad before then, but after that, I was just glad I hadn’t married her.”

Dad didn’t quit dating. He had a bumper sticker that said, “If you’re rich, I’m single.” But he never got engaged again. It’s probably a good thing, because, except for my mom, Dad had truly terrible taste in women. Clara was the one exception.

Clara was a wonderful Christian woman and Dad’s age. I wouldn’t have minded if Dad had married Clara, and Clara thought it was an excellent idea, but Dad wasn’t having it. She proposed to him one too many times.

Dad said, “Clara if you say one more word about getting married, that’s it. We’re through. We won’t even be friends. I won’t write you anymore letters. When you’re up here in New York visiting family, we won’t go out anymore.”

I asked Dad why he didn’t want to marry Clara; she was richer than he was, and she was single! I thought perhaps Dad objected because she looked so much older than he did, and Dad always thought of himself as a young man, but that wasn’t it. His reason surprised me.

“She likes to galivant all over the country, honey, and I like to stay home.”

Clara stopped proposing to dad and married another gentleman. He didn’t live long.

“See?” Dad said to me. “Told you so. She probably killed him with all that traveling.”

Once again Clara turned her attention to Dad, and he agreed to write letters and keep company when she was in the area, but only if she promised never to mention marriage. She agreed. She and Dad remained good friends until one day tragedy struck. Clara was bent over, working in her garden, when a teenager snuck up behind her and shot her in the back of the head.

The police said poor Clara probably died instantly and never knew what happened. I hope so. She was a good friend to my dad, and he mourned her loss.

When the detectives asked the young man why he’d shot Clara he shrugged and said, “I got up that morning and wondered what it would feel like to kill someone.”

Clara and Dad had this in common; they both trusted Jesus as Savior from sin, so they’re both in heaven now. Mom is there too. I bet Dad is glad Jesus said there’s no marriage in heaven. Otherwise, he might still be running from Clara, and Mom might have something to say about it too!

Dad lived to be ninety and a half and was healthy until just about a month before his death. When he was dying in the hospital he asked, “What am I going to say to June?”

My sisters assured him that because of Jesus’ death on the cross, God had forgiven all his transgressions and Mom had too.

I listened to my sisters, and I knew they were right. Because Dad had trusted Jesus as his Savior, God had forgiven all Dad’s sins, the ones we knew about and the ones we didn’t. And he’d forgiven all of mine too. I looked at Dad as he listened to my sisters. He looked relieved. I couldn’t resist.

“Dad, just in case they’re wrong, if I were you, I’d duck when I saw Mom.”

Dad laughed. Heh heh heh.

Dad was still driving right up until he went into the hospital, though he probably shouldn’t have been. Riding with him was a death-defying adventure.

When Aunt Mary walked into the hospital room, Dad was only semi-conscious.

“Aunt Mary!” Someone exclaimed. “You didn’t drive yourself here, did you?”

She was in the process of explaining that my cousin Tom had dropped her off at the door when Dad roused from semi-consciousness. He sat straight up and said, “I drive!” Then he fell back onto his pillow and continued sleeping. That was Dad, determined to be young and independent until the end.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad. You weren’t perfect, but you were my dad, and I love and miss you. See you at Home, around the Big Table. I don’t think Mom will still be mad at you. I can’t wait to hear you laugh again.  

Dad and Mom

My grandparents

Grandma in front of their house in Milltown.

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Cookies in Bed

by Donna Poole

Pa in his kerchief and I in my cap had just settled down for a sweet spring nap when what to our wondering ears should appear but a knock on the door of our boudoir-ere!

It was our son-in-law, the one who lives with us.

“Hey, we’ve got these two cookies left. Want to try them?”

I took one look at the deliciousness. “Thanks, Drew!”

Forget the fact that I’d already brushed my teeth. Never mind the fact I’d just commented to the aforementioned “Pa,” who I never call by that name except in absurd poetry, that sleeping in clean sheets was one of my favorite feelings. We’d just washed ours that very day.

I mean, how old are we? Surely people almost three-quarters of a century old have mastered the art of eating cookies in bed without leaving a trail of chocolate crumbs between clean sheets.

Those cookies were delicious. Fantastic. They didn’t measure up to our daughter’s homemade ones, but for store bakery cookies, I’d never had anything like them. And yes, I did get up and brush my teeth again. I remember Dad saying he had a goal of dying with as many of his original teeth as possible. At the time, I thought his aspiration was pretty funny, but now I share it.

We got up in the morning and started making the bed, John on one side, I on the other. We looked at the bed. We looked at each other. And we laughed.

I still don’t know how two small cookies could have left so much chocolate or how we managed to get it in that many places, both on the bottom and the top sheets. I wish I’d taken a picture. But you can use your imagination.

How old are we? Apparently, we aren’t old enough to know better. We had to strip the bed and wash the sheets again. But it was worth it! When we told Drew how much we’d enjoyed the cookies, he went out and bought us a whole package of them. Had we learned our lesson? Did we refrain from eating them in bed? Keep reading.

In spite of our combined health problems—we won’t bore you with the list but their name is legion—there’s something fun about growing older together. The simple joys are more delightful than ever.

Remember being young and spending the day at an amusement park? When the lights came on, and the moon rose over the roller coaster, you knew the day was ending. Everything looked more beautiful than it had at high noon.

Then a voice came over the speaker: “Park closes in thirty minutes. Make your way to the gates.”

Maybe there was time for one more ride; what would it be? That last ride was the best of the day. Then with sore feet and a sunburned face you trudged out of the gate. Perhaps you looked wistfully over your shoulder at the Ferris wheel still spinning against the stars and listened for the last strains of music as you walked through the parking lot to your car. One last glance; you’d be back, or would you? Nostalgia can sweeten life even for the young.

I think growing older is like that; nostalgia sweetens life. At least it does for John and me. I don’t call us “old” just yet; someone said “old” is always at least ten years older than what you are. But we can’t deny that we’re older. And so, the simple things bring delight: morning coffee together, a drive down a country road to admire the wildflowers, a cool morning breeze, and mama robins singing their babies to sleep at twilight.

Times with family become the sweetest part of life. Change comes too quickly; we don’t want the park to close so soon.

A while back, our little Ruby held my hand with her tiny one as I walked on uneven ground. “I don’t want you to fall, Grandma.”

I wish I could paint you a picture of Ruby’s energetic sweetness; tiny, cartwheeling through life, brushing blonde hair away from beautiful brown eyes, always in a hurry, but always ready to stop and help anyone in need.

“I don’t want you to fall, Grandma.”

I smiled at her seriousness. In her mind her tiny self could keep Grandma from falling.

“Ruby,” I said, “please don’t grow up.”

“I can’t help it, Grandma. When you turn six you grow up. That’s just the way it is.”

Ruby’s right, you know. That’s just the way it is; life changes, and when we get closer to the end of the day than the beginning, we know it. Even kids know it instinctively; that’s why they beg for “just one more ride.”

Knowing life has an expiration date is a feeling that deepens with age, and that’s not a sad thing. It makes us love deeper and live sweeter. It makes us enjoy laughter as we never have before.

I tried to put it all into words to the medical assistant who was checking my vitals before my last cancer treatment. He nodded and smiled.

“And the wisdom? Did you get that?”

I laughed. “I’m still waiting for that to show up.”

At least we’re wise enough to know this: those little grudges and hurts? We don’t have time for them anymore. We’re too busy looking for the last bits of beauty before earth’s sunset and the eternal sunrise.

A little boy asked his grandpa why he read his Bible so much. The grandpa told him he was studying for his final exam.

That’s a cute reply, but we aren’t worried about the final exam. Jesus passed the test for us when he died on the cross in our place, and we made his substitution ours when we accepted it by faith. We’re ready for the eternal sunrise and looking forward to it, but meanwhile, we plan to enjoy every minute before sunset.

So, we eat cookies in bed. Even if we must wash the sheets in the morning, it’s worth it.

Those cookies though! They’re life’s sweetness baked and packaged. I ate one just now.

Our daughter and son-in-law knocked on the door of our room while I was sitting up in bed typing this story.

“Mom,” Kimmee said, “you have a chocolate chip on your shirt.”

Not anymore, I don’t. I ate it. I hope there aren’t more chocolate chips between the sheets, but there probably are.

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A Walk Among Tombstones

by Donna Poole

Just down the dirt road a bit from our country church is a peaceful, old cemetery. A brick pillar at the entrance reads:

Lickly’s Corners

Cemetery

1848—1954

Inside that cemetery rest grave markers of people we’ve loved and lost, friends and neighbors of our church. There we’ve also found tombstones carved with names of roads in our area: Carncross, Tuttle, Lickly, or is it Lickley?  There was some kind of ancient disagreement on how to spell Lickly. I don’t imagine the two families involved stood on opposite sides of the dirt road and hurled insults at each other. Whatever happened, the result was the name of the cemetery is spelled one way, but the road and our church, Lickley’s Corners Baptist, are spelled the other.

One warm Sunday, the day before Memorial Day, my daughter Kimmee and I wandered among the tombstones in that cemetery, fighting off the ever-present mosquitoes. We paused awhile at the marker of Kenneth and May Hale who’d been our dear friends and neighbors for many years.

We found elegant markers and plain ones, gravestones too worn to read, and others still legible. All were fascinating; all told a story. This one is on a tall piece of stone and the letters look hand chiseled.

JOHN LIBY

BORN

FEB. 23 1793.

DIED FEB. 12 1859.

POLLY

HIS WIFE

BORN

NOV. 26, 1795.

DIED SEPT. 1, 1894.

Who were you, Polly, and what did you do all those long years after John died?

On a stone that looks like a triangle perched on a log sits this marker:

DANIEL FIELD

1853—1901 68 YS.

SARAH M. HIS WIFE

1840—1919 78 YS.

And you, Sarah M., you outlived your husband by eighteen years. Did they seem terribly long to you? Were they healthy years for you?

It seems most people buried in our old cemetery lived long years for the time, probably a combination of fresh country air and hard farm work. We found this tombstone that read:

SEPHRONIA

WIFE OF

ELIAS JOHNSON

DIED

NOV. 6 1897

91 YRS. & 10 MOS.

I imagine you were sugar and spice, funny and spunky, Sephronia, just like a lot of the old farm women I knew when we first moved to Lickley’s Corners. I remember them laughing at the idea of Women’s Liberation.

One of them said, “We’ve been liberated to do men’s work all our lives. We wish someone would unliberate us!”

They’re all gone now, the old ones we knew when we first came here to live. They taught us so much about life, how to live it, and how to leave it when the time comes.

Kimmee and I kept wandering through the tombstones with each other and with our memories. We looked for military markers because it was Memorial Day weekend, and we found some. Our favorite was a barely legible marker. Kimmee discovered it in the back of the cemetery in a beautiful quiet spot between three trees. The worn marker read:

UNKNOWN

U.S. SOLDIER

I stood there for a minute feeling grateful for all the members of the military who’ve died to secure our freedom. That, after all, is the real reason we celebrate Memorial Day.

But the mosquitoes were especially bad in that spot between the three trees, and Kimmee and I soon retreated to the car.

I love Memorial Day.

We try to attend the Memorial Day parade every year in our little town of Pittsford. The band may be a bit out of step and not always quite in tune, but I love them. They remind me of my own high school band where our frustrated director, Mr. Pinto, once shouted at us, “You kids can play! And you kids can march! But you kids can never play and march!”

I love the fact that there’s so much time between floats in our little parade we can catch up on old times with surrounding neighbors. We could probably order a pizza and get it there between floats.

My favorite part is when the vets go by, carrying the flag. I put my hand over my heart, and I get tears. Every time. Because I love our country. I’m not blind. Nor am I deaf. I hear the shouts from the left and the right; I hear you. Yes, our country is far from perfect; perhaps we’ve never been in this much trouble before. Some claim America is dying.

Those old markers in the cemetery remind me of each dying bedside I’ve sat beside. They are sacred memories. I’ll share just one, from my dad.

Dad said many things when he was dying, some funny, some heartbreaking.

He said one thing that brought tears to my eyes. He woke up, looked around the room, and said, “So sorry. So sorry. Long ago.”

Each time Dad said he was sorry for something my sister assured him that because he’d trusted Jesus as Savior, all was forgiven.

America has a lot to be sorry for too. And God will forgive us if we repent, but I’m afraid we’re so busy shouting at each other we can’t imagine “our side” has anything to repent of.

I’m not one for standing on street corners and hurling insults at the opposing side, but people have died to give us freedom to do so. How many people?

“Since the revolutionary war ended, 646,596 American troops have died in battle and more than 539,000 died from other non-combat related causes.” –military.com

The fact is America isn’t going to be spelled one way anymore, and I don’t think it ever was. What’s the answer?

I wish I knew, but here’s a novel idea of a way to celebrate Memorial Day, and I wish it could happen every year.

Take my hand and come with me. Let’s walk among the tombstones and remember how short life is; one day our lives too will be just a story someone else is telling. Let’s stop hollering about each other’s sins, confess our own, and let’s pray for our country.

Then we’ll leave the tombstones behind and find a small-town parade. When the veterans go by carrying the flag, I’ll put my hand over my heart, and you put your hand over yours. We’ll silently thank God for the U.S.A. and for the wonderful freedoms we still enjoy! Maybe your eyes will fill with tears. I know mine will.

The End

***

Some of my blogs along with extra stories are now available in three books on Amazon:

Backroad Ramblings Volume One: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Two: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Three: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter.

All seven of my books are available at amazon.com/author/donnapoole

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Signs of Spring

by Donna Poole Title by Laura Cooper


Spring fought hard for the win in Montana this year. It snowed five times in April; we got a foot on the twenty-second. My rows of daffodils bloomed that day in the snow. Stupid things, I hadn’t watered or weeded them in ten years, and still they thrived. They were always the first signs of spring.

“May we all be blessed with the resilience and determination of daffodils.”

I pushed away the thought. I’d had a friend named Lonie who’d liked to say that. Well, my resilience and determination died a long time ago along with my friendships. And so did my fondness for inspirational quotes. And for reading. And for everything else.

This Hal Boreland quote had once been a favorite: “No winter lasts forever, no spring skips its turn.”

Yeah, right, Harold Glen Borland. You never met my heart. Spring has skipped right over it for a decade.

I never realized until my entire family shut me out of their lives what a cold, unforgiving place the world really is. So, I’d been a terrible Christian; I admit that.

Back when I’d still loved my books, I’d read something by C.S. Lewis that stuck with me: “The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual: the pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronising and spoiling sport, and back-biting, the pleasures of power, of hatred.”

There can be a perverse sort of pleasure in hatred. My family hates me for what I did, but I hate myself more. Part of me understands why they turned away when I begged for forgiveness. My husband moved out of state to try to start over. My children, teenagers then, chose to go with him. As years passed and I realized forgiveness wasn’t coming, I tried to forget that part of my life had ever existed.

Sometimes I’d wake at night, though, thinking I’d heard a voice calling, “Mom!”
Sometimes, when I woke in the morning, my pillow was wet with tears.

What had I done? It doesn’t matter to this story. Was I sorry? Ridiculous question.

I guess you could say I’d repented, though I hadn’t talked to God for ten years. I’d think, now and then, about the Bible story of the Prodigal Son and how his father welcomed him home and smothered his apology in a hug. I knew that story Jesus had told pictured God waiting to welcome me back, but I wasn’t having it.

I tried to stuff all thoughts of God into the icebox that had once been my heart.

Music was my enemy. One song returned to my memories every May with the lilacs; it would have made me cry if I’d let it: “Lord, to my heart bring back the springtime. Take away the cold and dark of sin. Oh, refill me now, sweet Holy Spirit. May I warm and tender be again.”

Every spring the lilacs and that song threatened to crack the ice protecting my heart. I hated them both.

Back home, Mom used to say, “My favorite time of year is when lilacs bloom!” She’d fill every room with vases full of them. During the long, cold winters that followed, she’d say, “My heart still smells spring.”

Lilacs were the scent of my childhood and Mom’s favorite flower. She called them “purple sunshine.” Corny, I know, but sweet. My mother was like that.
She’d bury her face in a bunch of lilacs and say, “The sweet smell of spring. Promise me, honey, you’ll always listen when lilacs speak.”

I’d roll my eyes. “Mom, lilacs don’t talk.”

“They do. They say spring always comes.”

Mothers and Daughters. You know how it is; we weren’t much alike, Mom and I. She lived in the sunshine of God’s love, always sure of his smile. She woke every day certain something wonderful was going to happen. I got out of bed expecting the worst.

I’d been hard on myself as a child. If I’d done something wrong during the day, I’d refuse to eat the ice cream our family enjoyed together each evening. No amount of coaxing from Mom could get me to touch that ice cream I loved.

She’d sigh and say, “Honey, don’t be harder on yourself than Jesus is.”

I grew up to be like Mom in one way, though. Lilacs became my favorite flower. I’d married in May and carried a bouquet of them, burying my face in them after we’d said, “I do,” and my new husband had kissed me.

The lilacs had been in bloom ten years ago when my bitter, disillusioned husband had left me, and the children had gone too. I knew from social media I now had a granddaughter I’d never met, a beautiful child with my mother’s smile. Would my daughter even tell her about me? Would my granddaughter, when she was grown, perhaps want to meet me? I tried not to hope. For me, hope was a four-letter word.

Mom had been right and wrong. Lilacs do speak, but they didn’t say what she’d said they would. Their words were memories tearing me apart. I would have prayed the bushes would die if I’d still prayed.

Spring fought hard for the win in Montana this year, so the lilacs were late, but when they bloomed, it was like nothing I’d ever seen. The blossoms were enormous, and the smell hung so heavy in the air I couldn’t bear to open the windows. Memories threatened to leak out of my eyes. One tear, just one, and I’d be undone.

I had to get rid of those cursed flowers. I dragged the ladder out of the shed and clipped off every lilac. Arms full, I headed for the burn pile, but I thought about Mom and couldn’t do it.
So, I set up cinder blocks in the front yard and laid boards between them. I had dozens of vases stored in boxes; in my other life I’d filled my house with lilacs the way Mom had done. I arranged the flowers in vases, added water, and lined them up on the board with a sign that said, “Free.” I left the boxes there too.

Exhausted, I sat in my lawn chair quite a distance behind the lilacs. I couldn’t wait for someone to stop and take them. I knew I wasn’t being rational, but I thought perhaps if the lilacs left, the memories threatening to win this year, the song wanting to bring back the springtime, the tears trying to come, the prayers struggling for release—maybe all these things would leave with them. I didn’t want spring to thaw my frozen heart. Spring hurts too much.

It didn’t take long for someone to stop. An old man got out of his van and began putting my vases into the boxes. He was taking every single one. I watched him for a time. Then something in me snapped.

Just take everything. This was selfishness! This was people for you! This was me!

What if someone else might like a vase? What if one little girl with her great-grandmother’s smile wanted to give a vase of lilacs to her grandma? And this… old lilac man…was going to take them all. Probably he was going to sell them at the farmer’s market.

You could have heard my voice a country mile away as I charged toward him. I called him every name in the book, names I certainly never learned in Sunday school. He listened quietly to my accusations then slowly began taking the vases from the boxes with trembling hands and putting them back on the board.

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I live in a nursing home where most residents can’t drive. Many never leave their rooms. I thought I’d take the flowers to them, but you’re right of course. I wasn’t thinking of others who might want them.”

I stared at him for a moment. And then I started to cry. The old man patted my back and mumbled comforting sounds like you’d make to a small child. I thought my tears would never stop.

When I finally finished sobbing, he asked, “Can I do anything to help?”

My whole story came tumbling out to this stranger. He didn’t interrupt; he just listened with compassion growing in his eyes.

I finished. “And there you have it,” I said. “The whole rotten story of me.”

He patted my hand. “Do you know about Jesus?” he asked. “When God’s Son died on the cross for us, he did more than gain forgiveness for our sins. He took sin into his heart and made it not to be. For those of us who believe Jesus died in our place, there’s nothing left for us but the sunshine of the Father’s face.”

I nodded and wiped my face. “I’ve believed that since I was a little girl.”

He said something. I was sure I hadn’t heard him correctly. “What did you say?”


“I said, then don’t be harder on yourself than Jesus is.”

And then, I kid you not, in an old, quavering voice, he started singing, “Lord, to my heart bring back the springtime.”

I started crying again, but this time my tears were a prayer. And while I cried, I loaded the vases back into the boxes. All but one.

Lilacs might not be flowering in my heart quite yet, but there were signs of spring. Rows of daffodils were definitely blooming in the snow.

“Mom,” I whispered as the old man continued to sing, “I think maybe my heart still smells spring.”

The old man stopped singing. “Did you say something to me?”

“Do you like quotes?” I asked. And then I shared the Hal Boreland one. He liked it. He liked it a lot.

After he left, I took the last vase of lilacs and got into my car. My friend Lonie had tried to keep in touch, but I’d been ignoring her for a decade. She’d always loved lilacs, and I had taken her some every May. Would she remember? I could only hope.

What would I say when she answered the door? Maybe I’d say, “Hi, Lonie. Spring fought hard for the win.”

The End

Thank you to everyone who contributed title ideas for this story. Laura Cooper won with her title, “Signs of Spring,” but all your ideas were creative!
Even though your ideas didn’t win for title, the following people will find your titles used somewhere in the story: Mark Trippet: “Back Home,” Bill Baker: “The Old Lilac Man,” Joan Russell: “Behind the Lilacs,” Ron Kratz: “When Lilacs Speak,” Peg Ramey: “Would She Remember?” Carolyn Wescott: “Mothers and Daughters,” Susan Blazer: “Purple Sunshine,” Jackie Pearson Pickinpaugh: “My heart Still Smells Spring,” Linda Barvinchak Hackley: “Scent of My Childhood,” Elisa Margarita Eppstein: “When Lilacs Bloom,” and Ruth Kyser: “The Sweet Smell of Spring.”

“May we all be blessed with the resilience and determination of daffodils”.—Lonie Hutchison

One idea in this story came from a true tale Joan Tejkl told me.

I had fun! I hope you did too. Let’s do it again sometime.

Photo Credit: Kimmee Kiefer

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Meme’s Maxims

by Donna Poole

Lucilla felt like she was swimming up, up, up from somewhere deep and quiet.

How long have I been sleeping?

Semi-conscious now, Lucilla was once again aware of her surroundings, but she was still too tired to open her eyes.

I wish the nurses would stop calling my family and telling them I’m dying. I have no intention of leaving until I’ve finished writing my Meme’s Maxims.

She listened to her family talking quietly; it was a comforting sound. Then she heard the quick footsteps she recognized.

Oh, no, not young Pastor Osten, my least favorite pastor from church. Please, Lord, help me be gracious.

Lucilla hoped her inner grin wasn’t showing on her face as she remembered how many times Jerry had asked her to stop calling Pastor Osten “Pastor Ostentatious.”

“Honey,” he’d said, “I know you only call him that at home and would never hurt his feelings on purpose, but what if you slip up and call him Pastor Ostentatious at church sometime?”

“I know you’re right, but he brags about everything, his suits, his car, his degrees; he even said he has more books in his library than all the other staff pastors combined! I don’t know how they put up with him.”

Jerry said, “He’s young, honey. Give him time.”

Memories were forgotten as the footsteps came closer, too close. She could feel his breath on her face.

Ugh! Personal space. His nose must be about touching mine. I can’t stand the smell of that flowery fragrance he calls his signature scent. And he even brags about how much it costs. How does he even afford that stuff on an associate pastor’s pay?

Lucilla held her breath to keep from gagging.

“Oh no!” Pastor Osten shouted. “Is Sister Lucilla no longer with us?”

She forced her eyes to open. “Perhaps,” she said, with just a tiny edge to her voice, “Amazon might have a book on pastoral hospital visitation etiquette.”

She winked at the granddaughter who’d giggled then closed her eyes again, so she didn’t have to converse. She was too tired, and besides, supposedly dying people can die in peace if they so wish.

Pastor Osten mumbled a few hasty words to her family and then prayed for her. It was a sweet prayer, minus his usual formality, and he stuttered a few times, something she’d never heard him do. She felt sorry for him, but she didn’t open her eyes again until she heard his footsteps going down the hall.

Then she looked at her family, blue eyes sparkling with life, and grinned.

“Mom!” a daughter said. “You’re terrible!”

Then the whole room erupted into laughter.

“I guess you have no intention of dying today?” a son asked.

“I do not. So, you might as well all go home and wait for the next call from the nurses. Go on, now. I think you’ve probably been here all night.”

They looked hesitantly at one another. “Well, if you’re sure….”

“I’m sure. Now, go.”

With hugs and kisses they left. Last to leave was a granddaughter, the one who’d giggled.

She hugged Lucilla and kissed the top of her head. “I love you, Meme.”

Lucilla sighed. “I shouldn’t have said that to Pastor Ostentatious.”

“Meme!” Her granddaughter roared with laughter. “What did you just call him?”

Lucilla groaned. “God still has a lot of work to do on me. Please, honey, don’t grow up to be like me.”

“Too late. I already did.”

Lucilla smiled at her, their first-born grandchild, the one Grandpa always called “Number One.” “I’ll love you forever and like you for always,” she said to her.

The room felt a little darker and colder when her granddaughter left, even though a bright warm sun was pouring through the windows.

Then Lucilla took out her notebook and pencil. “Now, let me see, where was I?”

At the top of the page she’d written, “Meme’s Maxims.” There was so much she still wanted to say to all her family, things she couldn’t remember if she’d said a hundred times before or not at all.

So far, she’d written just one thing on the paper: 1. Always do everything you can do and then do a little more.

She tapped the pencil on the paper and wrote, 2. Via con Dios—always go on with God.

3. Remember I love you.

4. Show love to everyone, even people you don’t like. I’m still learning this.

5. You don’t have to let every thought in your head come out of your mouth. I’m still learning this too.

Thoughts tumbled over each other in her mind.

 I think I’m going to need another notebook to get all this down!

She felt the pencil slipping from her fingers.

It was dark when she woke again.

A voice whispered, “Is she still breathing?”

She felt a hand on her chest. A tear dripped on her face.

“I’m still here,” Lucilla said to her daughter. “Have you been taking lessons from Pastor Osten?”

Her granddaughter giggled, and then the entire room erupted in laughter.

A nurse came into the room smiling.

“Nurse, you people need to stop calling my family. I’m not going to die until I finish writing my Meme’s Maxims, and at the rate I’m going, that’s probably going to take me at least another year.”

The nurse laughed. “Hospice has been wrong before. We had another patient, a lot like you. Only every time she had a spell she fell out of bed. Her heart stopped beating; she’d signed a DNR, so we did nothing. She’d wake up and be upset because she wanted to go to heaven. She’d say, ‘Oh no, am I still here?’”

“Well, I want to go to heaven too, just not quite yet,” Lucilla said. “How long did that other woman live after the first time she almost died?”

“At least two years,” the nurse answered.

“What did I tell you?” Lucilla said to her family. “Now you people go home and get some rest.”

“We’ll be back tomorrow,” a daughter-in-law said. “Tomorrow’s Mother’s Day!”

Lucilla smiled. “I’m too tired this year, but next year I’d love it if we could all go to church together on Mother’s Day!”

When everyone was gone except the nurse Lucilla picked up the notebook and pencil. “I want to finish this. I have hundreds of things I still want to say.”

“You look tired. Why don’t you write more tomorrow?”

“Okay. Was that story about the other lady you told me really true? And do you think I might still be here next Mother’s Day?”

“It was true, and I think maybe your family better decide where you’re all going to go to church together next year.”

Lucilla smiled. “I think I want to hear Pastor Ostentatious preach next year. Maybe he and I will both be more grown up by then.”

The nurse chuckled. “Is that really his name? That’s a funny name for a pastor.”

But Lucilla was already asleep and dreaming of heaven, the place she wanted to go, just not yet.

The End

***

These blogs are now available in book form on Amazon:

Backroad Ramblings Volume One: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Two: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Three: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

All of my books are available at amazon.com/author/donnapoole

Please follow me on Facebook at Donna Poole, author

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What Will Take Me Out?

by Donna Poole

Our three oldest children played the “What in Case” game with their dad when he drove them to school in the mornings.

Sometimes the questions were serious, “Daddy, what in case you and Mommy both die? What would happen to us?”

They worried about the free-range chickens they saw near the road. “Daddy, what in case one of those chickens runs into the road and we hit it?”

Most often, though, they laughed as they tried to out do each other with ridiculous questions like, “Hey, Daddy, what in case a plane falls on our car?”

John and I were on our way to one of the many doctor appointments we’ve had in the last month when we started our own half laughing half serious “what in case” conversation.

What in case you die first? What in case I die first?

“Hey, honey,” I said, “sometimes I wonder what will take me out. Do you ever think about that?”

We laughingly discussed some bizarre ways to die; gallows humor runs in our family. Curious, I decided to do a little research on unusual ways to die.

You probably know that most people in the United States die of heart disease or cancer. But some people take far more unusual exits. Allan Pinkerton, who founded the famous detective agency, fell, and bit his tongue. Infection set in, and it took him out.

Basil Brown died of too much of a good thing. In 1974, during a ten-day period, he took 70 million units of Vitamin A, and drank ten gallons of carrot juice. Shot his liver, it did. It turns out too much Vitamin A is as bad for your liver as too much Jack Daniels.

Jack Daniels, yes, the Jack Daniels you think it is, got so angry when he forgot the combination to his safe that he kicked it, mangled his toe, got an infection, and died of blood poisoning. I wonder why that’s not in any of the Jack Daniels commercials.

You’ve heard the catchy tune, “I want a Hippopotamus for Christmas”? Don’t get one. They kill over 300 people every year.

And don’t shake a vending machine either. They’ve killed more than a few people.

Please don’t shop on Black Friday. Greedy shoppers injure and even kill several people each year. I can think of better ways to go out.

You can die by getting hit with a golf ball; that happens, or more often by falling out of bed.

Laughter is good medicine, but don’t overdo that either. Apparently, there’s an entire list of people who’ve died from laughing too hard. But I say there are worse ways to go!

I often tell my family I don’t plan to die of cancer, but I have no idea what will take me out; few of us do. I do wonder what my last words will be if I’m conscious. Being an author, I think it would be funny if my last words could be, “That’s all she wrote.”

There are so many things I’d like to say to my family and friends, paragraphs, and books full of last words, but I don’t imagine at that point I’ll have enough strength left to speak volumes! I guess I hope I can say just this to them, “I love you. Via con Dios—go with God.” That’s what I want for everyone I love, for them to always go on with God.

But it’s not my time to die yet, as far as I know, unless the roof of this century plus old farmhouse suddenly collapses on me. Now that’s one “what in case” John and I didn’t discuss.

“What will take me out?” I asked John. “Hey, maybe we could write a country song about that and get rich.”

It took him about two seconds to start singing his original lyrics to his original tune.

“I don’t know what’s gonna take me out,

But I know who’s gonna take me in!”

(He sang those words three times, the third time in a loud, high falsetto.)

“It was settled long ago,

When my Lord said come to him!”

He looked at me laughing. “That’s the chorus. I don’t have the verse yet. I want to sing it and sit on that box drum thing and play at church.”

“You’re going to get fired from being pastor if you do that. That’s not going to fly in our conservative church.”

He just laughed.

“And,” I warned him, “if you start doing choreography I’m going to get up and walk out.”

He laughed again. He’d been to our grandkids’ school concert the night before and had been impressed with the boy who’d played the box drum and with our first-grade granddaughter’s choreography. He’d even demonstrated it for me. I’m sure it was cute when she did it. But the reenactment by an almost three-quarters of a century old grandpa who’s never danced….

John’s original song was much better than his choreography. The tune and the words stuck in my head. Maybe he does have a million-dollar tune going for him. I know his words have eternal value: “I don’t know what’s gonna take me out, but I know who’s gonna take me in. It was settled long ago when my Lord said come to him!”

I’m impressed, honey. But work on that vibrato! You sound like Tiny Tim!

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Mistakes

by Donna Poole

Mistakes. Authors dread them. We might call a character Rose all through a book but for some reason name her Lily on page 103. Not even the best of editors can catch every mistake.

I was pretty proud when our local newspaper published an article I’d written about an Easter ice storm on the front page until I noticed that every time I’d typed “friends from church” they’d printed “fiends from church.”

Then I wondered, had the mistake been theirs or mine? I’d sent them the only copy of my manuscript—beginner’s mistake—so I’ll never know.

Writing mistakes are nothing new. I recently read Daniel Defoe made a rather big blunder when he wrote Robinson Crusoe. When that famous castaway found himself on the Island of Despair he looked out at the ocean and saw the ship sinking. Knowing he’d need supplies to survive, he stripped, swam to the ship, hastily grabbed what supplies he could get, and shoved them into his pockets.

Wait. What pockets?

Poor Daniel Defoe. If only he’d lived in the twenty-first century and had published his book on Amazon. Some helpful reader would have pointed out to him the error of his ways and he could have gone back and edited the manuscript before the next printing. Simple fix.

If only life’s mistakes were such simple fixes.

I’d rather be an author than an inspirational speaker, a teacher, or a preacher. At least we can edit our manuscripts before they appear in public. Someone standing before a microphone doesn’t have the luxury of backtracking a botch before the audience howls or gasps.

Perhaps you’ve heard the true tale of the preacher who, referring to Psalm 6:6, said, “David wet his bed. David wet his bed every night. David wet his bed every night with his tears.”

On the way home from church the preacher asked his wife her opinion of his sermon.

“Honey,” she said, “the tears came three sentences too late.”

Some mistakes are funny; some are awkward, but some are devastating.

We even trip up in casual conversation. Yesterday, the mechanic working on our new to us truck called.

“Wait and let me put John on the phone,” I said to the mechanic. “You guys don’t speak English.”

Silence. Dead. Silence.

“You aren’t laughing,” I said.

More. Dead. Silence.

Kimmee, who overheard the whole conversation because I had it on speaker, later said, “Mom, he could have interpreted what you said as a racist remark.”

I winced.

Of course, he could have. I meant to convey I don’t speak mechanic.

Well, the mechanic called again today, and John wasn’t home. He was perfectly friendly, and we both ignored my yesterday’s gaffe; I didn’t try to explain it. He did explain to me the work that needed to be done, and I learned some words in mechanic, the language I don’t speak. Now, I could tell you what “idler arm” and “pitman arm” are. I could explain today; though, I’ll probably forget by tomorrow since mechanic isn’t my native language. It should be my second language by now, as often as we have our vehicles in for work!

The mechanic had the parts; John wasn’t home, so I told him to go ahead and start working. Let’s hope that wasn’t a mistake. Though from my new understanding, people can’t just go around driving with defective idler and pitman arms; they may encounter a complete loss of steering ability.

We do make some mistakes so disastrous we experience a complete loss of steering ability. We crash and burn; relationships lay mangled on the side of the road. And sometimes they can’t be resuscitated. There’s no going back then and editing out the words or actions that led to the demise of the job, or the friendship, or the marriage.

What then? We apologize to God and others. We spend the time we need to mourning beside the side of the road, but then, with God’s help, we move on and begin to heal.

Scars remain; most of us have memories we wish we could rewrite. But Robinson Crusoe is still a beloved classic, though flawed—a fantastic tale of survival even though the castaway put his loot in his non-existent pockets.

We don’t have to be perfect to be beloved. We’re all sinners; Jesus loves sinners, and he gave his life to wipe our hearts clean of sin.

And if we’re blessed, we’ll find people who will love us too, just like we are, flawed classics made beautiful by Christ in us, the hope of glory.

And what if we don’t find someone to love us? We can find someone who needs our love; broken lonely people aren’t hard to find. If we don’t know where to start, we could visit the nearest nursing home and ask for a resident who doesn’t get any visitors. If we don’t know what to say once we get to that person’s room, we could always read them Robinson Crusoe. We might save them and ourselves from the Island of Despair.

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Spring in Michigan and Life Everywhere

by Donna Poole

Spring in Michigan is a guy with hairy legs sticking out of a pair of shorts, feet shoved into flip flops.

Spring in Michigan is a guy with hairy legs sticking out of shorts, feet shoved into flip flops—and wearing a winter jacket, a John Deere knit beanie, and gloves.

Spring in Michigan is that same guy, head down against driving snow, trying not to step on his wife’s tulips as he runs to the mailbox and hurries to get back into the house before frost bite gets his toes.

This April we’ve had summer and winter in Michigan, and that’s what we call spring in these parts. It’s not unusual to have eighty degrees one day and thirty degrees the next. We can say this about our weather: It’s not boring.

When will real spring come, warm weather we can count on to stay with us and not turn fickle tail and run as soon as a north wind blows? This morning the meteorologist said we’ll have it by the second week in May. I say I’ll wait and see.

We have a photo of our oldest daughter, Angie, when she was perhaps three. She’s playing outside in the snow, wearing a yellow fuzzy winter jacket, hat, and mittens. The leaves are fully out on the trees.

The old timers, now long gone, told me to plant peas on Good Friday but not to plant beans until after Memorial Day.

In our part of Michigan, it’s never snowed after Memorial Day in my lifetime, though I don’t doubt it’s happened.

People in Michigan boast about our beautiful summers and then add, “Last summer was fantastic. It happened on the Fourth of July.”

In all seriousness, summer in Michigan is lovely, though sometimes a bit too hot. But for people who can spend time at one of the beautiful Great Lakes that make our state a peninsula, a Michigan summer is pretty close to heaven.

I love camping near Lake Michigan. At one of our favorite campgrounds John and I take our morning coffee, sit on a bench, and watch the large ships and the yachts navigate through the channel and out into the wide blue lake. We like to sit on that same bench in the evening and watch the boats come back in.

Sometimes we hike down the long pier stretching out to the lighthouse and watch the sunset over the lake. When the flaming orb seems to touch the water, I wonder if I can hear a hiss if I only listen carefully. Then we double time it back to get to our campsite before dark.

Breathless and laughing, we make a campfire, relax in our chairs, and talk awhile before bed.

There are few things I enjoy more than camping. For most of our married life we camped in a tent. I loved tent camping, still do. The nostalgic part of me agrees with whoever it was that said, “If you can’t smell the canvas, it isn’t camping.”

We tent camped with our children and sometimes with friends in a rustic state forest in Michigan, a place with no running water or flush toilets. It more than made up for its lack of civilization with a beautiful lake and quiet trails weaving through the forest. The canopy of leaves made it feel like a cathedral.

The kids rode bikes, swam, split wood, and picked blueberries. Now that they’re grown-up they have happy memories of those years…I hope.

Come to think of it, two of our four grown up kids don’t camp and the other two camp in large campers in places that have full hook ups: water, electric, and sewer. Maybe being uncivilized for a week is fun only in retrospect.

We took the kids tent camping in the Smoky Mountains. By then the zipper was broken and we had to pin the flap shut with clothespins. We watched the sun rise over the mountains. We took a hike and saw a mother bear and her two cubs. She took one look at us; we took one look at her, and time stood still. No one moved. Then she growled a warning to her cubs. The first obediently scurried up a tree. The second started up but stopped and looked curiously back at us. She growled louder at it, took her paw, and swatted it on its hind quarters. It let out a yelp and followed its sibling.

We slowly backed away. It was a closer bear encounter than was safe, but oh what a wonderful memory!

No bears entered our tent held together with clothes pins, but we watched a skunk almost go in.

After our kids grew up and our bones grew older it became a bit more difficult to sleep on a tent floor in a sleeping bag. We bought a camper.

We named the camper we have now Old Bertha. She’s a 1988 fifth wheel, and don’t even get me started on the number of repairs she’s demanded John make on her. On some vacations he’s spent more time working on the camper than he has relaxing.

Bertha has no working furnace; we use a space heater. Her main drawback right now is her hot water heater is broken, but we haven’t bothered to fix it. We didn’t think we’d ever be able to go camping again. We last camped in the fall of 2020.

That last camping trip was beautiful. We camped in the remote part of Brown County State Park in the “Little Smokies.” My head was bald from chemotherapy, and I wore a beanie to keep warm. I didn’t have the strength to hike any trails, one of our favorite activities. I could barely climb in and out of the truck.

But the weather was beautiful, and the leaves were gorgeous. We spent hours reading, talking, playing card games, and dreaming around campfires. John drove me through the park countless times so I could see the fantastic views.

When we left to come home, I cried. I had one of my gut feelings we’d never be back, and my gut feelings are seldom wrong.

Our old truck died after that, and at times we weren’t sure I was going to make it either.

But when spring came, I wanted to camp. Without a truck we couldn’t haul Bertha, but we still had our tent, and I begged John to let us try tent camping again. It’s a good thing one of us has common sense. He knew neither of us could get up off the floor, or even a cot, let alone make it to the campground bathroom or outhouse however many times needed in the middle of the night. John seldom vetoes my ideas, but he did that one.

So Old Bertha stayed home, and so did we. There was no camping for Bertha or us, spring, summer fall of 2021; spring, summer, fall of 2022. We mourned the loss of our old truck.

Used trucks are expensive, especially ones heavy enough to pull Old Bertha

Yes, we prayed about a truck, and so did family and friends, but God isn’t Santa Claus, and I really dislike the attitude some people have that he is. I heard a preacher say once that as God’s children we don’t have to take a parking place far from the store, we can demand one close by, and he’ll give it to us, because we deserve it. Say what? I never listened to that preacher again. And no, that preacher wasn’t John!

We don’t demand, as some do, that God do anything for us. We don’t command him to give us a truck, or make my cancer disappear, or help the people we love—and their needs are many. We do ask, with love in our hearts, for him to do those things, but always end a prayer by asking for his will.

Life for everyone is a guy with hairy legs sticking out of a pair of shorts, feet shoved into flip flops.

Life for everyone is a guy with hairy legs sticking out of shorts, feet shoved into flip flops—and wearing a winter jacket, a John Deere knit beanie, and a pair of gloves.

Life for everyone is that same guy, head down against driving snow, trying not to step on his wife’s tulips as he runs to the mailbox and hurries to get back into the house before frost bite gets his toes. And sometimes he doesn’t make it. And sometimes toes need to be amputated.

Through it all we have God. No, he isn’t Santa. He doesn’t promise to rescue us from all life’s troubles, or give us a charmed life, or hand us everything we want. But God does promise to stay with us, to give us strength, and to help us find joy. And if we start to lose hope, he reminds of  the cross and empty tomb and promises to those who believe that an eternal spring is coming.

And sometimes God gives us springtime surprises here on earth too. Today we’re buying a 2007 Chevy Silverado truck with plenty of guts to haul Old Bertha wherever we want to take her. Its rockers are rusty, but what do you expect from a Michigan truck that’s weathered fifteen snowy winters with its salt covered roads? The price was the best we’ve seen, an answer to prayer, and John is pretty happy. Why not? He’s a guy with a truck.

Who knows what other good things may be just ahead? Cancer hasn’t won yet and maybe it never will. Sometimes gut feelings are wrong. Life, like spring, is funny. We never know what’s coming, and every now and then it’s something so wonderful joy runs out of our eyes and down our faces.

Lake Michigan! Brown County! Here we come, so look for us. We’ll be the two people wearing flip flops and winter coats….

The End

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These blogs are now available in book form on Amazon:

Backroad Ramblings Volume One: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Two: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

Backroad Ramblings Volume Three: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

All of my books are available at amazon.com/author/donnapoole

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