Tag: grief (Page 1 of 2)

Growth from Grief Podcast with Sue Anderson, Part 1

September 2, 2024 / jeanne / 0 Comments

When Sue’s son died, she discovered yoga and how it calmed her body and distracted her grieving brain. A while later, she became a certified yoga instructor, offering classes online and in person. Then she began offering grief workshops (We met when I took one of her good workshops.), and recently she started her Growth From Grief podcast. Last week I was tickled to be interviewed by Sue for a podcast episode, and let me tell you: we had so much fun (yes, your can have fun while grieving), we decided to do a second interview. We talked about things you’d expect us to chat about: grief, living with loss, self care while grieving, and we also went off script and talked about other things. You’re not surprise, are you?

If you want to watch our interview, sit back, maybe grab some popcorn, and enjoy. If you enjoy it – and.I sure hope you do – maybe you’ll enjoy some of Sue’s other podcast episodes and go to her You Tube channel to snag yourself a subscription and give her a thumbs up.

If you’d rather listen as you walk, do yoga, or I don’t know, maybe make some art, click right here.

For information about Sue’s Grief Relief programs, here’s what you’ll want to look.

And that’s not all! Perhaps you’d like to join me in her Five Weeks to Grief Relief program that combines movement, writing, and sharing with other people who speak the language of grief. Best hurry on that one, though, cause early bird registration ends soon.

Here’s where she hangs out on Instagram and on Facebook.

And now, my friends, enjoy Part 1 of Growth From Grief: Stitching Stories: Grief, Memory, and the Healing Power of Art. Please check back next week for Part 2 of our chat. And now, on with the show . . .

Living Vicariously

June 4, 2024 / jeanne / 1 Comment

Bubbles, Alison, and Ava Jeanne leave the hospital to begin our lives together! (Note the beautifully smocked - if I do say so myself - dress Ava Jeanne wears home. The bonnet Ava Jeanne wears was worn by her mother when she came home from the hospital.

Bubbles, Alison, and Ava Jeanne leave the hospital to begin our lmulti-generational together! (Note the beautifully smocked – if I do say so myself – dress Ava Jeanne wears home. The bonnet Ava Jeanne wears was worn by her mother when she came home from the hospital.

Sounds of
Tiny hands slapping watermelons
and joining in with applause
until she knows an A+.
Boats making their way
through the deep water of our backyard.
Birds melodiously conversing
with birds of different feathers.
Wind chimes singing a duet
with clacking palm trees to the tune of gentle breezes.

The feel of
Really cold ice on her tongue.
The tickle of peach fuzz against her chubby cheek.
Heavily mayonnaises potato salad
squishing through her tiny fingers.
Ephemeral bath bubbles on her arms
Ocean waves stealing the ground from beneath her feet.

Scents of
Roses and peonies.
Heavy hot air of the Lowcountry summer.
A watermelon busting open.
Bubble gum flavored toothpaste.

Seeing
Her mother’s face when she enters the room.
The vast ever-changing ocean.
Her bedtime bottle.

Slowly
slowly
Sometimes taking one step forward
and thirteen backwards,
The shroud of grief is pierced
at least momentarily
and she reacquaints me with
wonder
delight
and hope.

~~~~~~~

Notes:
~ Ava Jeanne is a year older now than in this photo, but the computer wouldn’t cooperate and upload the photo i want to use.
~ My mother took her last earthly breath last fall, and still I grieve. Hard.
~ This was written as granddaughter Ava Jeanne took her 2-hour nap this afternoon in my lap. I know, I know. I shouldn’t be rocking her at this stage . . . but one thing I know for sure: I won’t get a second chance to do this.

April 5 Through the Family Calendar

April 6, 2024 / jeanne / 4 Comments

April 5, 1947

Mother and Daddy (Yea Yea and Car Car to the Grands and Great Grands) got married in the Fayette County GA jail. yes, really. Granddaddy (Mother’s daddy) was Sheriff, you see, and in those days voters elected the Sheriff and taxpayers got the family – especially the wife – for free to cook, clean, and make sure the prisoners had freshly laundered white shirts and pants with the black strip down the side.

Though I love the story about them getting married in the jail, Mother did not find it charming at all. So 26 years later when The Engineer and I decided to publicly say “I sure will!”, I told Mother to plan and host the wedding she always wanted because all that mattered to me is that I got to spend the rest of my life with this man . . . and that we had watermelon at our reception. Mother went all out, hiring caterers (who brought delicious watermelon, attractively served), planting snapdragons (something she’d always wanted but never could seem to get around to it till she had a big deadline), and her front door – usually ignored by people who preferred to save steps and instead come in through the back door under the carport – got used! At the end of the night, her smile was as big as her exhaustion.

April 5, 1973 (the fourth day anniversary of our engagement)

So there we were ~~necking~~ – I mean SITTING – on the gorgeous blue one-piece L-shaped sofa in the living room, The Engineer and I, talking about plans for the next weekend when I noted that I had to go to a wedding shower for a friend, also noting that as an introvert of the first order, showers are not my favorite type of gathering. “Well,” he said, playfully tapping my nose with his finger, “when we get married, you’ll have to go to lots of showers.”

Caught completely by surprise, I sat upright, leaned away from him, and noted the obvious, “You haven’t asked me yet.” I. just wanted to make sure this Atlanta boy knew the correct order of things. They might, after all, do things differently in the big city, but he was in the country now, and we did not make assumptions about such things as being the lead actors in a wedding.

“I know,” he said, obviously pleased with himself, and taking a better position to see my reaction.

I ~~picked him up~~ met him 8 weeks before when a high school friend and I ventured into the bar where he worked weekends, drawing beer, and I took one look at him in that brown leather floppy-brimmed hat and knew that very night that this is who I wanted to go through life with. I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life ~~necking~~ sitting beside this adorable, funny, brilliant man, but even I hadn’t had time to start planning how the engagement and consequently the wedding would go.

Finally, he slid off the low sofa, got on one knee, took my hands in his and asked, “So will you?”

“Have you asked Daddy?”

“No, I wanted to ask you first.”

“You still have to talk to Daddy, but YES I WILL!!!” I said (and I didn’t cry).

That was March 31, 1973.

On April 1, 1973, we were sitting (not necking this time, just sitting, I promise) in the swing in the backyard when he had another good idea: “Why don’t we promise not to tell anybody just yet?” he asked, an idea that was fine with me because I was sure . . . and not sure. You know? We decided to keep it a secret for a while . . . which turned out to be less than 24 hours!

And the rest, as they say, is 51 years of history.

April 5, 2023

The 8 month anniversary of the day Mother took her last earthly breath. It seems like this morning, and it seems like my whole life ago. Grief still has its boot on my neck. I now cry at the most inane things. Sometimes I don’t even know what broke the dam and allowed the tears to flow.

David Kessler who studied death, dying, and grief alongside Elizabeth Kubler-Ross says the number one need of a person grieving is to have someone bear witness to their grief. I feel that strongly, deeply, near constantly, but i keep my lips zipped because most people are uncomfortable talking about such subjects deemed “sad” and “negative” and what I want to do more than anything is make people smile. So yea, I turtles in soon after that last breath, retreating to my shell and pulling down the black-out curtains. I stay away from social media, talk to only 3 people: a cousin who’s like my Big Sister, my friend Laura, The Engineer, daughter Alison, son Kipp, and daughter-in-law Marnie.

I know that’s more than 3 people – such is the thinking style of a #BrainOnGrief. I’m just glad I caught it here. Usually it’s weeks after before I see some embarrassing goof.

That’s another thing: my brain is mushy.
I can’t seem to find ground under my feet.
I spend more time in bed than ever before. Bed therapy, I call it.
I’m exhausted all the time – and I do mean all the time. Grieving is exhausting.

Even now I’m embarrassed about what I’ve told you and fear I sound like I’m auditioning for one of those tv commercials for insurance where the fella is trying to teach adults how to be young by getting them to cease and desist doing all sorts of things – like telling your life story to complete strangers! (Personally, I think I’d be a shoo-in for that role.) (And several of the other behaviors the dude is trying to eradicate in the name of not embarrassing your children.)

I binge read grief memories, seeking the magic key or password that will allow me to escape. Just last night I started reading a book on happiness. Joy is still way too far out of reach, but happiness? I might one day find my way back there. I have a plan. I’ll tell you more next time. Right now, I feel a bed therapy session coming on. Thanks for being here. Thanks for ~~listening~~ reading.

Wind Phones

February 28, 2021 / jeanne / 0 Comments

As self-appointed family historian,
I’ve spent my entire life researching in preparation
to write this book about
what happened to my family in May 1933,
In an attempt to capture information I don’t have,
I pen letters to my daddy,
my Uncle Gene,
my Grandmother and my Granddaddy.
After a brief breathing break,
I take a clean sheet of paper
and channel them,
recording their responses
in letters penned back to me.
It never fails to be an amazing event,
but oh how I long to hear their back door
slam behind me
as I walk into their house,
always invited,
never announced,
to sit with them at their kitchen table.

I ache for one
(okay, 26)
(or maybe 512)
(at least)
more opportunities to sit with them
and ask questions about their loves, their lives.
How did you meet?
Why did you fall in love with each other?
What were your favorite songs, colors, books?
Did you like to dance?
Did y’all laugh a lot?
What did you wear to your wedding?
Sometimes I’d just like to hear their smiles,
as they answer commonplace questions like
Whatcha doin’?
What did you have for breakfast this morning?
Whatcha gonna’ do the rest of the day?
So many questions I long to ask
especially questions
about that horrific weekend in May 1933.
Were you terrified?
How did you comfort each other?
What thoughts ran through your minds?
How did you stay calm?
What were the emotional after shocks like?
and so on.

Today as I gather
my thoughts, newspaper clippings,
photos, letters, and other ephemera
related to what happened that weekend
and prepare to start writing for real this time,
I remember reading about a telephone booth
installed in a field in Otsuchi, Japan,
complete with a disconnected telephone.
In 2011, the small town of Otsuchi was
eviscerated by a double-whammy:
a tsunami and an earthquake.
They lost everything, including 2000 residents.

Itaru Saski was already grieving,
wishing to share just one more cup of tea with his cousin
who died before the tsunami came.
As others around him rebuilt,
Itaru followed the urgings of his heart,
nestling an old telephone booth in his garden.
Calling it the Wind Phone,
he issued an open invitation for others
to come and place
calls to their deceased loved ones.

On the heels of this memory,
I look around me, and I move as if a puppet at the end of a string . . .
My studio is home to a chair I sat in as a teenager,
reclining in its outstretched arms
talking on the phone for hours.
Next to it I place a mid-century modern
telephone table found in a thrift shop years ago.
I have “a thing” for mid-century modern.
Atop this table now sits the red phone I announced I wanted
on a trip to Asheville years ago.
I didn’t know why I wanted it,
I just did,
and it may or may not surprise you to hear
that it was the first thing I spied upon
entering my favorite shop.
Beside the phone is one of my son’s boots
turned pencil holder
and 2 journals The Engineer
gifted me three years ago.

The front of one journal reads
Fill your paper with the
breathings of your heart.
~ W. Wordsworth

The other journal wears these words:
May today there be peace within.
May you trust that you are
exactly where your are meant to be.
May you not forget the
infinite possibilities that are born of
faith in yourself and others.
May you use the gifts that you have received,
and pass on the love that has been given to you.
May you be content with yourself just the way you are.
Let this knowledge settle
into your bones,
and allow your soul the
freedom to
sing, dance, praise, and love.
It is there for
each and every one of us.

Magic!
And it all happened in the space of 4 minutes.
I’m not kidding.

Now, when the longing punches my heart,
I will sit in this chair,
tucked into the far corner of my studio
where no one can see me without trespassing
and use my personal Wind Phone
to find solace
and who knows –
maybe some answers, too.

And you know what else?
I hereby proclaim that One Day
I will install a public Wind Phone
– 2 of them, actually
or maybe 3 –
each with an open invitation
and free long (long, long, long) distance calling.
The thought excites me,
and I look forward to doing just that.
For now, though, a photo goes on my Vision Board,
and when the time is Right
and everything aligns,
the other public Wind Phones will most certainly come to be.

~~~~~~~

This just in:
my friend Margaret Williams
just sent me a link to
a text version of the wind phone.

Twenty Years Is Both a Long Time and No Time At All

December 2, 2020 / jeanne / 2 Comments

“In the language of the deaf, the sign for ‘remember’ begins with the sign for ‘know’: the fingertips of the right hand touch the forehead. But merely to know is not enough, so the sign for ‘remain’ follows: the thumbs of each hand touch and, in this joined position, move steadily forward into the future. Thus a knowing that remains, never lost, forever: memory.”
~~~ Myron Uhlberg in Hands of My Father: A Hearing Boy, His Deaf Parents, and the Language of Love

Twenty years.

My daddy died died twenty years ago today, and I still ache with grief, crave one more hug, long to hear him call me Doll just one more time. Every December 2 I become a cauldron of grief – sorrow, anger, pensiveness, no sense of direction. I usually spend the day doing soft, soulful things like writing, remembering, walking, but with the recent fullness of my life, I had no time to pre-plan. My waking thought was to read something written by someone else remembering and grieving for their daddy, and while that felt like a winner of an idea, what, exactly, I would read remained a question mark. Then, as Magic would have it, I went to the bookshelves in my studio this morning in search of another book for another reason, when the book aforementioned book leapt off the shelf and into my hands.

Remembering.
It’s what I do.
It’s who I am.
Stories of remembering are my oxygen.

In August 2000, two weeks after delivering the book I wrote about my father-in-law to each of his children and grandchildren, Bones woke me up whispering, “Write a book about your daddy, and do it now.”

“Are you kidding me?” I countered. “I am exhausted, depleted, worn slap out.” (I kept the father-in-law book a secret even from Andy, which meant much writing at night) The Voice of my Bones was not amused or swayed, and I’ve learned (the hard way) not to argue with Bones, so the following week I began gathering stories, photos, newspaper articles, interviews, whatever I could get my ears and hands on, about my daddy. I wrote. I scanned. I wrote some more, and the Monday before Thanksgiving, off it went to the printer and binder. Everybody in the family would receive a leather-bound copy of this 400+ page book of memories about Daddy.

Four days later – the day after Thanksgiving – Daddy fell, hitting his head. Hard.

The Monday after Thanksgiving, I called Karen, the book binder. “I hear voices, you see, and well, Daddy fell last Friday and the voices I call My Bones tell me I need to get those books back asap. Can you help?” Without a single audible sign of exasperation, Karen said, “I can have one book to you on Saturday and the rest next Monday.”

First-Book-Arrives-Saturday started with all Daddy’s bells and whistles going off, his machine creating a cacophony of alert. I called family members. “If you want to see Daddy alive, you need to get here before noon,” I told them. They came trickling in. Friends followed. Finally, husband Andy and son Kipp walked in, brown package in hand.

In a rather bold move for a Southern girl raised to respect hospitality above (almost) all else, I asked the friends to leave, gathered family around Daddy’s bed, and opened the package. I began reading at 1:05 p.m. A nurse stayed well past her shift’s end, keeping the machines shushed by holding her finger on the quiet button.

We took turns reading, arriving at “The End” at 4:50 p.m.

Daddy took his last breath at 4:55.

Though he never said a word, I know Daddy could hear his life review because from my position to the left of his pillow, I watched tears make their way down his face throughout the afternoon.

Take from this post whatever you will, just please promise me this:
~ If, God forbid, anybody you love should ever be in a coma or otherwise unable to communicate, take it upon yourself to make sure that only positive loving kindness is spoken within those four walls because I know – know to my very core – that they hear everything, and we all know that words are powerful.
~ You’ll take the time to capture your family’s stories. Start today. Record, write, ask, clip, copy, scan – gather and preserve those stories by whatever means available. You can shape them into narrative later, step one is to capture, and let’s face it: we never know. Preserving these stories will change your life (among other things, you will learn a lot about yourself) and future generations will call you good things and be forever grateful. Count on it.

If a Tree Falls in the Middle of a Waterfall, Does It Make a Sound?

April 16, 2020 / jeanne / 3 Comments

View from my Studio Window, Before

She buds.
She blooms.
Over the course of ten days, she comes into her full glory. Every day I sit looking out my studio window, mesmerized at the splendor of her branches gracefully sheltering the spot my log once called home.

Today, as I eat a pack of crackers and call it lunch, I listen to Clarissa Pinkola Estes tell the story of her trumpet vine and how its raucous blooming annoyed the neighbor man. One spring he harrumphed over and asked her to cut it down. “I can’t do that,” she told him. “It’s an old vine. And beautiful.” One day she arrives home to find that the neighbor man has cut the vine down to the ground. And on her side of the fence, mind you. Once the initial wave of grief passed, she digs up the vine, plants the roots, and in a short while, the vine is growing again.

blooming tree lays across waterfall

blooming tree over waterfall

broken tree

I cover my mouth in horror of the neighbor destroying the trumpet vine, pick up another cracker, and look back out at my tree of graceful blooms . . . to find it laying in the water. Tracing it back with my eyes, i see where the tree trunk snapped, the blooming limbs landing in the falls. Once again I cover my mouth in horror and disbelief.

Later, while I am on a business call, The Engineer and Mother go out, cut off a few small branches, smash the ends, dip them in a root-activating powder, and plant them in soil. The trumpet vine grew back, so I’m hopeful these will begin to sprout, too. Maybe in a few years, I’ll sit mesmerized under the beautiful blooms framing the waterfall (I’m on my 17th day of yoga, so I might be able to get down and back up by then – it could happen.) I’ll spread out a quilt and picnic under the gloriously blooming tree, telling her the story of her grandmother who once thrilled my eyes and salved my broken, grieving heart with her beauty.

32: A Surprise Encounter

September 1, 2015 / jeanne / 0 Comments

AlexFamily2 14 15

Facebook Post
2.14.15

So there I am, looking at pocketbooks, arguing with myself that I surely don’t need another pocketbook but gosh darn, it’s my birthday and I can be frivolous if I want to be, when a young teenage girl crosses the store to get to me and hands me a purple square of paper on which is drawn a heart holding these handwritten words: Don’t forget to smile. Don’t forget to love. Happy Valentine’s Day from Alex.

I want to know more, but she is gone. I don’t see her anywhere. I kick myself for not asking her what she was handing me. Eventually, though, I spot her and run to catch up. She is with a woman and a tall, lanky young man. “I’m curious,” I tell her. “What’s the story behind this valentine?”

The woman tells me that Alex is her son who died last October. His last words were “Don’t forget to smile. Don’t forget to love.” As she tells me more of the story, tears spill. I’m quite sure we’ll soon need to call for clean-up on aisle 14, and I don’t care.

“Today’s my birthday,” I tell her, “and this is the best gift ever.” Hugs are swapped and enthusiastic wishes for a happy birthday come from Alex’s sister and brother (who’s wearing a t-shirt with a photo of Alex on it, and you know, nobody thinks it the least bit odd when I reach out and touch the brother’s chest.)

Alex’s mother asks to take a photo, then more tears are shed and hugs exchanged before we part ways. I don’t even know their names, but Alex will live forever in the mind and heart of this woman called Jeanne who never had the honor of knowing him in this life.

Journal
Atlanta, GA
9.1.15

Today Alison and I go to the surgeon’s office on the twelfth floor to have the drainage tube removed from her throat. When the elevator doors open on the eleventh floor, a woman pushes a stroller from the back of the crowded elevator to the front, and as she’s exiting, I see that she’s wearing a shirt that says “Don’t forget to smile, Alex”.

It all happens so fast.

I see the shirt, the memory floods me just as clearly as if it happened yesterday. She pushes past me, exits the elevator cab, and in a split second decision, I go after her, turning around to hold the doors open long enough to assure Alison that I’ll be along in a few minutes.

“Excuse me,” I say to the young woman in the t-shirt. “I see your t-shirt, and well, last February on Valentine’s Day, a teenage girl stopped me in a store in Newnan to give me a purple piece of paper bearing those same words: “Don’t forget to smile. Don’t forget to love, Alex.'”

The young woman’s face lights up into a broad smile and in her best broken English, she says “That’s my sister.” She goes on to explain as best she can that the t-shirts and valentines are how Alex’s family deals with their grief and how they keep Alex’s memory alive. She reaches out and hugs me warmly just like her sister did 6.5 months ago.

And just as I did 6.5 months ago, I leave smiling and blessing Alex’s family for honoring his memory in such a fine, meaningful way and vowing that though I’ll never have the privilege of knowing Alex in this life, I’ll never forget him – memorializing him by remembering to love and remembering to smile. Seems a fine legacy to me, Alex. A mighty fine legacy.

An Improvisational Anniversary

December 2, 2014 / jeanne / 1 Comment

Arrowleaf

I spy the leaf
as I walk to the truck
to begin our 12-hour ride.
Not the way I’d wanted to spend
the fourteenth anniversary of Daddy’s death,
but business meetings being what they are and all,
off we merrily go.

“Talk to me,” I pray silently to Daddy
as the sun stretches awake and water colors the sky.
“At least wave to me at 8 a.m. just to say ‘Hey’.”

At 8:00 a.m. on the dot,
(not knowing a thing about my secret ritual,
perhaps not even remembering the significance of today)
The Engineer pulls the truck into a Hardee’s,
the place where Daddy breakfasted with friends every morning.
“I’ll see y’all later,” the man in the John Deere hat says
as he exits the table.
“I’m gonna’ go do something bad enough to lift my spirits.”
I excel at eavesdropping.

As we ride down the country roads,
I remember . . .

Barn1

Barn2

the chicken houses and barns
my Daddy helped his daddy build . . .

Field3

how Granddaddy hired out his tractor
and his 12 year old son
to bale hay for neighbors . . .

Partiallyhidden2

Abandoned3

Abandoned2

the adorable little house
Daddy and his brother
built for their grandmother.
“We were just teenagers,” Daddy told me once.
“We didn’t know a single thing about building houses,
so we built Mimmie’s house right on top of the ground.
You never saw so many termites.”

Watersky

I look at the water

Clouds

the clouds

Moon

the early moon,
I watch the black bird in the morning
and the black bear in the evening
cross the road in front of us,
and I think this day is
the best conversation I’ve had with Daddy
in a long, long time.

It really is all we need, you know.

March 21, 2014 / jeanne / 2 Comments

DahliaStruts

One

Alison’s recovery is nothing short of remarkable.
Yesterday, her surgeon came into room 713
and sat on the bed with Alison to remove the drainage tube.
Dr. Shaw: Now sing me an “eeeeeeee”.
Alison sang an “eeeee”.
Dr. Shaw, with a big smile on her face: “That was beautiful.”
Alison: “But it was only a G.”

Art and science collide.

Dr. Shaw,
the surgeon who loves science,
speaks in terms of the particular sound
that will allow her to gauge the performance of Alison’s vocal cords.
Alison,
the professional singer with perfect pitch,
and for whom music is oxygen,
hears and responds in terms of musical notes.

~~~~~~~

Two

~~~~~~~

Three

This is a love story written by a friend and former coworker of my son, Kipp.

they helped make me who i am in ways i may never know

December 19, 2013 / jeanne / 9 Comments

GeneCrawfordSrMontieresized

we’ll never know if granddaddy died on 12/19 or 12/20. he simply went to bed on the 19th and never woke up. the death certificate says 12/19, though, on account of that’s the date his son – my uncle gene – was killed years before. the town’s doctor (the small town wasn’t big enough to have a coroner – shoot, we were glad to have a doctor there) thought it fitting that father and son died on the same date.

GeneOnTractorPortrait001 copy

GeneDogsTruck1

i still ache for them – all of them, even though uncle gene died before i was even an idea. i’m named after him, you know. there are still people around who actually knew him, and when i say “tell me about him,” the first thing they all say is “he was funny.” i have two lamps he made from turned wood, i have his wallet (complete with the photo of his girlfriend), and i have photos of him on a tractor – probably not the tractor he was using to pull up stumps when it flipped over on him, killing him. but maybe. i don’t know. granddaddy reportedly found him, shoved the tractor aside, then my wiry little granddaddy picked up my rotund 18 year-old uncle and carried him all the way back to the house. the next day, in a fit of grief, granddaddy drove a silver stake into the ground to mark the spot.

HCHSrFeedsChickens001

CrawfordSr001

when i ask people what they remember about my granddaddy, they all – every one of them – say there wasn’t a dishonest bone in his body. that he was a good man. some even tell me about a time when he (the town’s banker) loaned them grocery money cause they left their checkbook at home. i have the clock that sat on his mantle; the tag he kept on his key chain asking finders, should he lose his keys, to return them to brooks bank; and i write sitting in the chair he sat in at the bank. it still has the original green leather.

nobody seems to know my grandmother very well. they tell me she was quiet. i remember her arriving home from a vacation, getting out of the car and walking straight across the street to see me – even before she went in her own house. later memories are of her being still, quiet, and lethargic, which i now know was a condition resulting from a series of strokes, but back then i didn’t know what was wrong until the day i was converting the pump house into a studio and got stung by wasps several times on each hand. by the time i got to the front door of our house, my hands had swelled up so much i couldn’t bend my fingers, and hurt – oh my goodness how they did hurt. then just like that, my little girl brain knew why grandmother sat quietly in the chair with a washcloth over her hands that were always idling in her lap. i spent three days like that, but the swelling went down, the pain subsided, and i was back out turning over bushel baskets upside down to become stools. grandmother never saw the results of my labor.

granddaddy and grandmother . . . well, if i ever walked as one who was once cherished, it’s because of them. they adored me, their first grandchild, and the feeling was mutual. they clothed me in ruffles and lace (i could seat 6 on the petticoats they bought me to wear under the dresses they bought me); shoes in every color; frilly fold-down socks; dozens of pairs of gloves. i even remember one dress – brown plaid. white collar with piping to match the dress fabric. sash. one of daddy’s favorite stories is of little me driving nails into the floor at granddaddy’s feet as he (granddaddy) sat in his rocker watching the news on tv. “JEANNE,” daddy said loudly, startling me out of my reverie. “junior,” granddaddy told him firmly, (daddy was named after granddaddy, and he hated being called junior, probably because he spent a goodly part of his life working to distinguish himself from his dad) “jeanne is in my room now. she can hammer wherever she wants to.” i rest my case.

i have lots of stories starring grandmother and granddaddy stored in my memory bank, but there are still stories i long to hear, questions i’d love to ask – questions and stories i didn’t know to ask back then.

i’m told that the internal voice that scolds me, saying i should not be living in the past or grieving because these people died long ago and besides, they weren’t my spouse or my parents or my children, they were only my grandparents. i’m told this is actually a caring voice, a voice that just wants to keep me safe. i’m told i should love this voice, thank it for protecting me, for caring so much about me . . . but i’m feeling more like thanking it through clenched teeth (by way of suggesting, you understand) to shut up and leave me to my grief and remembrances. i don’t care how long it’s been, i still miss them something fierce. and i don’t care about any alleged hierarchy of appropriate grief, they were my grandparents and we adored each other. and i don’t care that i never met my uncle, i can and do still love him and mourn him sight unseen.

maybe it makes sense on paper that i should be over this grief all these decades later . . . but on my heart, this grief will not be denied.

[ ::: ]

Jeanne Hewell-Chambers has spent most of her life collecting photos, stories, and information about the day in May 1933 when bandits knocked on her grandparents door and held the family (grandparents, midwife, newborn gene, and 5 year-old crawford) hostage overnight until the bank opened the following morning. next year she intends to pull it all together, and she’s very excited about that because she knows that event somehow impacted her life, shaping her into the women she is today even though her daddy was only five years old at the time and not even thinking about girls and raising a family.