Tag: family Page 18 of 19

dugout

The Opening

AMBER WAVES OF GRAIN
dugout

Memorial Day weekend is the opening to summer that Labor Day closes.


Years ago, I wrote a meditation on the fall that contained some version of the line, “If Fall had an archway, this would be it.” And a similar line would work here, that Summer officially started this past weekend.

All around us, the community sprung into motion, as if the spring season had pent up some untapped reserve of kinetic force. My friends filled their Facebook and Instagram and Twitter feeds with reports and pictures of movement, point A to point B, fun all along the way, pictures of barbecues and lake outings and beaches and camping and Nascar races and parties. The pumps are running at all of the swimming pools, and thousands (or millions!) of us braved the temperatures, this spring more fitting in October than May, and splashed around in glory.

As for me, I left work Friday around lunch and picked up my golf clubs, inspired by a friend who was doing the same thing, and drove straight to the little county course near our house. I bought a pair of hot dogs, and a cold beer, and a bottle of water, and a bucket of range balls, and a round of nine holes. It had been about two years since I’d been out on a golf course. Better to ease into it.

In Memoriam: Nana

IN MEMORIAM

Nana and Julia Elizabeth in 2011.

The narrative of this wonderful life was like fabric for my grandmother.


It’s been too many days since I’ve come here to write, and my dear friends, I hope you’ll forgive me. Last week we lost our dear Nana, my paternal darling grandmother. I’ve written about her before, including last September, when it seemed that death was reaching out for her.

But this is–or was–Nana, after all, the woman whose strength and perseverance were never easily measured in days.

My family has asked me to write her obituary, and truth be told, I’m a little overwhelmed at the task, not because I’m no good with words or I worry mine won’t be good enough. Rather, Nana is (was, I must keep reminding myself) a figure whose personality far exceeded the diminutive frame she eased into in her older age. Though she was tender and warm as my grandmother, there was an undeniable fire within her.

The stories I can tell….

Deep in the Heart

FAMILY

“If anyone asks, just say you’re from Texas, and if that’s not good enough, tell ’em to go to hell.” —Nana


It’s summer between seventh and eighth grade in middle school. I would turn 13 that August, and my grandparents on Dad’s side were taking my brother, Brian, and me to Texas. It was like a family vacation, only it was two weeks and change long, and my parents weren’t coming along. I guess you could call it one of my grandparents’ retirement trips. They took off for a couple of weeks because they could. We got to go with them.

We drove the entire way in a burgundy Oldsmobile, winding west, stopping now and then to rest along Interstate 10, Nana and Brian in the backseat, Paps and me in the front seat. I was the designated navigator, outfitted with cool shades, an atlas, and a sense of direction much better than my grandmother’s. Brian played pocket video games, and his most urgent request was that whatever motel we stayed in that night had a swimming pool. We laid up for the second night of our trip some place in Louisiana. We’d pulled off the highway early, probably four in the afternoon or so. Paps was taking the drive down slowly.

It was a classic side-of-the-road motor lodge, the kind where the pool and its concrete deck were off to the side, near the parking lot, with a teal iron fence around it. The wind was blowing the bayou air, and leaves and bugs littered the water’s chlorinated surface. We had about thirty minutes to splash around (although I only remember Brian jumping in) before the thunder started rumbling beyond the interstate. Soon the thunderheads rolled over for a drenching rain. We ate supper at a Shoney’s that night and fell asleep to the glow of a television broadcasting a baseball game, the room’s air conditioner blasting away under the window.

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