Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign

This is in response to the StoryWorth question: What is one of the strangest things that has ever happened to you?

I remember when I was eight, my heart was broken when my great-grandmother, everyone called her Granny, died. She had been a sweet and loving presence in my daily life up until that point.

                                                 
                                                          Granny and my brother David.

When she died, my tender heart broke with the abandon that only a child’s heart can break. I don’t mean that the hearts of adults cannot break but emotions can almost consume a child. During a joyous moment, a child can get lost in the joy and unabashedly embrace it. Granny’s death so consumed me in its sorrow. I was like the phoenix being consumed up in the flames of my grief.
Sometime soon after her death, I recall looking up at the ceiling and seeing Granny. I didn’t see a spirit or anything like that. Rather it was as if I were looking at a portrait-type head and shoulders photograph of her. She didn’t move or speak, it was just like I was looking briefly at a photo of her and she was not alone. Two other ladies flanked her and I did not know who these ladies were. I just know that Granny looked happy with them.
I told Mom that I saw Granny on our ceiling with two other ladies that I didn’t know. Mom asked me if they were tall or short. I could not really say as I could only see their head and shoulders but they did look taller than Granny. When I was eight, Granny was even tall to me. I think that Mom thought that the two ladies on either side of Granny could have been Rachel, my mom’s mother, and Esther, another of Granny’s daughters who had passed away before her.


                                                           

                                                 Esther in front and Rachel in the middle back.

When I was eight, I don’t imagine that I had ever heard much of Rachel or Esther unless they were mentioned in the conversations of the adults around me. Even if my child’s ears had heard of them, I probably did not pay attention to the names of folks that I did not personally know. I doubt that even if I had remembered them mentioned that I would have been able to connect them to Granny. I don’t recall having seen photos of them back then. Genealogy would become an interest to me many years in the future.
Today, I cannot really say that I recall what the other two ladies I saw in my ceiling photo looked like but I do believe that they were probably Rachel and Esther. I knew who Granny was for certain. I do know that over the years, I have never come upon a portrait of Rachel, Granny, and Esther together amongst the thousands of photos I have studied so I don’t believe that a photo that I had seen in the past had been remembered for my ceiling portrait.
I think that my ceiling picture was a gift from God. I got to see my Granny looking down upon me and Mom may have gotten comfort that we had a sign that Granny was with Rachel and Esther in Heaven. Of course, Mom already knew that, but that ceiling photo perhaps served as a comforting affirmation.
I have never had any other “vision”, I suppose that I could call it that, past or present but I have “witnessed” what I see as signs.
I recall when my Uncle Johnnie died, Uncle Olen called me in the wee hours of the morning to tell me. I told him that I did not want to tell Mom over the phone, so I would wait until I knew they were awake and I would drive to their home to tell them.
Now, I do not live in the country. My neighborhood has some wooded commons areas but we are by no means in the country. A very busy road is a few hundred feet down the road from my house and Interstate 24 is about 3.5 miles from my house to the right and Interstate 65 is about the same distance to the left. Still, we do see the extremely rare deer or wild turkey fairly close by.
The morning I was going to Murfreesboro to tell Mom that her baby brother had died, I had just backed out of my drive and started down the road when I saw a wild turkey with an ungainly head bobbing strut hurriedly cross the road. I swear, it reminded me so much of Uncle Johnnie, I had to laugh in spite of my tears. Uncle Johnnie had a big round belly and I could just imagine if he was rushing to cross the street that he would look much like that turkey with its breast stuck out as it bobbed across! I believe that God was sending me a sign that Uncle Johnnie had crossed over into Heaven just as that turkey had crossed that road. It turned my tears into a smile.


                                                       
                                                                           

                                                                       Uncle Johnnie.


Another sign came to me in the form of a dream. It was just after my brother David had died. David and I had not had a close relationship. He really seemed to isolate himself from most of our family. Even for family celebrations at Mom and Dad’s house, he would usually not sit with the rest of us. He would take his food into the den and watch TV. He hadn’t been to any real family gatherings in years. He did come to my house for Dad’s 80th birthday celebration but that was the exception rather than the rule. So David and I were not close.
At his funeral, several of his friends spoke and others shared memories in the form of notes. The David they were describing seemed like a totally different person from the David his family knew. This bothered me as I would have loved to have known that David. I wondered what I could have done differently to have changed our relationship so I had some regret.
Now, I know that everyone dreams but I rarely feel like I have dreamed, and actually recalling my dreams is even rarer. A few nights after David’s funeral, I had a dream and I actually remembered that dream. I dreamed that I was sitting in the den at Mom and Dad’s house. I was sitting in the recliner that David usually sat in. David came into the room and knelt on the floor in front of my chair as I sat there.
David had experienced back pain for several years and he even moaned and groaned as he knelt down in front of me. He looked up at me and said “It’s okay, April. It’s okay.” That was the dream, just a few words uttered to me by my brother; but somehow, it felt like a burden had been lifted from my spirit. I consider that dream as a gift from God.


                                         
 

                                                David and I at a joint birthday dinner.


Another sign was not witnessed by me first-hand but it was “witnessed” by me real-time second hand. It happened in July of 2019.
A few weeks prior to that, I had noticed a fairly close DNA match on Ancestry. She was a second cousin match on my mother’s side. I contacted her and found out that she grew up not knowing the identity of her father. We were able to determine that her father was my cousin who had been more like an uncle to me. He had passed away but he had two other daughters and I was able to approach them for my new cousin. When I called his oldest daughter, I told her that I had something kind of big to tell her and asked if she was able to talk to me for a few minutes as I explained the situation. She listened and after a while, she laughed and said, “Thanks, Aunt Kookie for being with me while I hear this big news.” Then she explained to me that she was sitting outside and a beautiful butterfly had landed on her just as I was telling her about her sister. My cousin Kookie had passed away several years ago and she loved butterflies. The butterfly seemed like a sign to my cousin from her Aunt Kookie.


                                        
           

                                                  Kookie between her two daughters.



So this tells of a few signs that I have been aware of in my life. I am pretty sure that there were other signs along the way that just did not register with my consciousness. They went WHOOSH, right over my head. I believe these things that have happened that I call signs, have been gifts sent from God to calm chaotic thoughts, to begin the mending of broken hearts, to cause the phoenix to reemerge, alive and well from the ashes.

Games People Play

This is in response to the StoryWorth question: What games did you play when you were young?

I don’t recall playing too many games as a young child. I seem to recall playing red Rover, tag, and musical chairs upon occasion. I recall playing outside a lot as a child but I don’t know if our play was organized enough to call it games. I recall making mud pies in the dirt of the lane at Grandma and Grandpa’s. I remember trying to catch lightning bugs in the summer. I can recall trying to climb a tree or two but I was never much of a climber.
I do recall playing with my dolls. I had a baby doll and I am sure that I played with it quite a bit but my favorite was playing with Barbie dolls. I acquired about four or five Barbie dolls over time. I had an old Midge doll that had been passed down to me from someone. I had a brunette Barbie with long hair and a Stacy with shorter blonde hair. I also had a Francie doll. I had hours and hours of fun playing with those Barbie dolls.
I recall that one year my Aunt Fanny and her two roommates had used a big box to make a Barbie house for me. They cut out windows and put a partition in the center of the box so that there was a downstairs living area and an upstairs bedroom. They made furniture out of cardboard and covered it all with fabric; fabric curtains, bed covers, couch covers… My Barbies and I loved that cardboard box townhome!
When I was in grade school, I remember carrying my Barbies with me to school sometimes. My other friends did the same and there was a big rectangular piece of stone outside on the playground. That stone became a Barbie mansion and we would play with our Barbies at recess.
I think that I still have my Barbies somewhere. Even in high school, I would bring them out when my younger cousins Jennifer and Laura would come with their mother to visit. We would play with my Barbies. I recall that for some reason, I always had Stacy talk with a British accent.
In grade school, when we didn’t have our Barbies at recess, we would play on the merry-go-round, the jungle gym, and the swings. I always loved the swings and I still enjoy swinging. We would also play kickball at recess. When I got a little older, we played softball at recess.
In junior high, I played on the basketball team. That was when it was half-court and the guards and forwards remained on their half of the floor. I loved basketball when it was half-court. I was a guard and I loved defense; blocking shots, getting rebounds, passing that ball down the court. In high school, they changed girls’ basketball to full-court like the boys. My coach made me a post forward and I never liked to shoot the ball. I did have a pretty good hook shot and I recall once at basketball camp even the opposite team applauded when I made a beautiful hook shot. I didn’t keep playing ball as it just quit being enjoyable to me.
When I was a teenager, I recall playing the card game Rook occasionally with my parents. We also played Rummy. My family never really played board games that I can recall. We really didn’t play many games in general. We would sometimes go bowling but that was rare.
Now in high school, sometimes our study hall teacher would let us play cards if we had finished all of our homework. We would play Spoons until we got too rowdy. Sometimes, the last “spoon” would end up flying across the room as everyone tried to grab for it! We would also play Uno at times. Of course, Uno helped us learn our Spanish! :P
In college, I played some Backgammon with Mohammad and I would rarely play it with other people. My brother David would play an occasional backgammon game with me.

                         My brother and I playing backgammon at the 1982 Nolen Reunion.

My roommate and other college friends loved to play Spades! We had a Spades game going any time we had free time. We would also play the board game Clue and another one called Stop Thief. Stop Thief had a board, but it had an electronic gadget that would make sounds to give you clues to solve a crime. It was kind of like a fancy Clue. We also played Pictionary occasionally.
Of course, back then, we didn’t have electronic game systems like many kids have today. Oh, sometimes we would play Pac man if we went out for pizza and had money to play. I really enjoyed Pac-Man. I tried it years later on an electronic device but it was a handheld Gameboy and didn’t have a joystick. You had to use the arrows to move Pac-Man around the maze. I wasn’t coordinated enough to get the hang of it using the arrows.
Over the years, I have played several games with the kids. We have enjoyed Phase Ten, Rummy, Apples to Apples, Battleship, Charades … I really love to play charades as I love to try to act out the clue. The only trouble is, my acting must rank right up there with my singing as folks seem to have a hard time deciphering what I am up to! We play Rummy occasionally. My husband loves to play Rummy.
Now, my favorite game is a memory game that I made from photos of family members. I made it to play with my granddaughter Jooniebug. She seems to like it. I plan on adding photos of our ancestors to the game. She loves to climb up into my lap to see the “great-greats” on my phone so I think that she will like it with her ancestors too.

Jooniebug playing our memory game with me.

                                    Jooniebug playing the memory game with Dayee Cammy.

So this is about the games that I have played over the years. I am sure that I have left some out but I believe that I have covered the highlights. One thing that I can say about playing games; they are much more fun when you can play for the fun of playing. Playing solely to win can take a fun game and make it rather boring. Being able to lose and still enjoy the experience of having a little carefree fun with family or friends is the best kind of game playing to me.

Challenge or Blessing?

This is in response to the StoryWorth question: What is one of the greatest physical challenges you have ever had to go through? What gave you strength?

I am extremely fortunate as I have never really had to go through any great physical challenge. Thanks God!

Oh, I remember when I was on the basketball team in high school the last person who touched the wall during those touch the line sprints had to always run an extra sprint. That was irritating as heck because I was usually the last person and I knew that I was trying my hardest. That was a physical challenge of my coach’s making and didn’t intrude on my life in general.

I have always been physically challenged by not looking like the beautiful celebrity du jour, but I am not alone in that challenge. I have never had a truly great physical challenge like so many folks do.

My greatest physical challenge happened when I broke my wrist after slipping in the bathtub. It happened during a mountain vacation in early November of 2019. I had to spend one evening of my vacation in the ER in Sevierville. I was in a splint until I could go home and schedule surgery. I did get to pick green and purple for my splint, I love that color combination!

 

                                                         ER fun!

My injury was irritating as I could not help much with anything during our vacation. I was still able to explore along the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail though and that is my favorite part of visiting the mountains. I was still able to take a bunch of pictures of the beauty of the trail even though it was a little more difficult because I took them with my left hand. In some of the photos, you can see my sweater at the bottom where I steadied the camera on my right arm to take the photo. I wasn’t able to help my dad drive back home from the mountains but he doesn’t let me help much anyway.

 

                                   You can see my sweater along the bottom edge.

I had to have surgery after I returned home. I had some discomfort initially after the anesthesia wore off, but I seriously had little pain. Even when I fell and broke my wrist there hadn’t been any great pain, More than anything I was aggravated and worried about how I was going to pick my fat, wet, slippery, and naked butt off of the floor of the bathtub when my right wrist was broken and I was using my left hand to hold it! Fortunately, my daughter Alex was there if I needed her. I got out of the tub okay but I did have to have her drive me to the ER.

I am most definitely a right-handed person. If I ever had thoughts that I had a touch of ambidextrousness, breaking my right wrist quickly disavowed me of that notion!

It was a challenge to do things with one hand and especially with my non-dominant hand. Gradually, I would try to use my right hand a bit. The hardest part of that was hearing everyone tell me that I shouldn’t be “doing that” with my right hand. I told them that the doctor had told me that I could use it as long as it wasn’t too painful, still, they were full of cautions. Even nearly three years later, Mom will tell me that I shouldn’t be carrying something a bit heavy with my right hand! So it was definitely a challenge for me to not have full use of my right hand.

The hardest part of this challenge was that it happened just a couple weeks before Thanksgiving. My folks usually come to our house for Thanksgiving and it has become a sort of tradition for my brother-in-law and his family to come down from Ohio for Thanksgiving. So, I was really worried about how I was going to be able to do Thanksgiving. I wasn’t going to be able to really clean house like I usually do and cooking a big Thanksgiving meal was kind of beyond my abilities. I was really worried that we were going to have to cancel our usual get-together and have a year without a proper Thanksgiving.

Fortunately, I have three really, really great kids. Cammy told me that he could clean the house and Roxanna told me that she would come home from Memphis and cook Thanksgiving dinner for us. So, Thanksgiving was still on!

Sure enough, Cammy took care of cleaning the house. I think that Alex probably came home and helped him out some too. Roxanna pretty much took care of what I normally cooked for Thanksgiving. Of course, Mom and Dad usually bring a few dishes and Alex also helped however she was needed. My sister-in-law and nieces always pitch in and help; so everything was covered.

 

                                Even Jooniebug threw on an apron and pitched in!

Thanksgiving was wonderful; my husband and I along with our children, son-in-law, and granddaughter all together, Mom and Dad, my brother-in-law and his family, our nieces Mahdieh and Sahar, my niece Sydney and her then-boyfriend/now-husband Casey, Cammy’s girlfriend and her daughter, Cammy’s friend Adam, and Cammy’s friend Will and his girlfriend. Adam and Will are almost like two more members of the family. We could all be thankful to be able to enjoy a wonderful meal together with wonderful company in a comfortable home.

 

 

                                                             Post Thanksgiving meal prep.

I could be extra thankful that Thanksgiving. I knew that my broken wrist would heal in a few weeks and I would be back to being able to use it as I did before. Being able to see the light at the end of the tunnel made this challenge easier to bear. Some folks aren’t so lucky to experience such temporary physical challenges. I also knew that until my arm healed, if I needed help, I had all of the help that I could need. Many folks have only themselves to rely upon but I had plenty of loving family happy to pitch in.

Ironically, a broken wrist turned out to really be one of those blessings that come wrapped in ugly paper. As in the end, a broken wrist helped me to better appreciate the blessing of a beautiful, loving family.

A Memorable Mom Moment

This is in response to the StoryWorth question: What is one of your favorite memories of your mother?

When it came to my parents, I hit the jackpot. I have many good memories of both Mom and Dad and I hope to make many, many more in the future. I have one memory of Mom that has stuck with me these many years.

When I was in high school, we lived on a farm on the outskirts of Wartrace, Tennessee. Our land was all we could see to the fore and to the aft of our house. We had neighbors to the left and right but they were several yards away and their houses were barely noticeable.

I remember one night after we had all gone to bed, I woke up. I heard sounds so I got up to investigate. My parents were in the kitchen talking with Mr. Crow, a neighbor from up the road. I looked out the window and I could see our neighbors, the Wildish family’s home going up in flames.

Ms. Wildish was a school teacher and she had three children with her first husband and a son with her second husband. She and her second husband had been divorced for a while so Ms. Wildish and her four kids lived in the old farmhouse alone.

The oldest boy was Robbie and he and my brother were good friends. We were good friends with Ms. Wildish. I think that Mr. Crow had probably told us that night that the Wildish family was okay, but it was still sad to watch their home and all of their belongings go up in flames.

In the days immediately after the fire, folks started providing clothing and personal items for the family. Mom decided that she was going to go shopping for Sondra, the mother. I recall asking her if she was going to get the kids anything and she told me that many folks would likely provide for the children, but they may not remember the mother. Mom was going to make sure that Sondra was remembered.

So, we went to the Castner Knott in Tullahoma. That was our favorite place to shop. We loved that store.

I thought that Mom was just going to hurriedly buy a few things but that was not what she had in mind. Mom searched through the clothing; and when Mom searches, no stone goes unturned. It can take fifteen minutes for Mom to pick out a loaf of bread!

She got blouses. She got slacks, skirts... She put that blouse back because this blouse was prettier and would go better with those slacks. Sondra may not have had the same fashion sense as Mom, but she was going to be able to dress nice to Mom’s way of thinking.

She bought clothes for Sondra just like she did back to school clothes shopping for me. She bought underwear, bras, socks… I don’t think that she bought shoes but if Sondra had been with us to try them on, she would have likely gotten shoes too. Mom probably gave her money for shoes.

So anyway, Mom had Sondra clothed from head to toe and clothed in a pretty way. She tried to buy things that were nice, things that she herself would like. She bought clothes for Sondra from our favorite place to shop just as she did for her own family.

We never had a bunch of money when I was growing up. When I went to college a bit later, Dad gave me five dollars a week for spending money and I managed on that through four years of college. We never had an abundance of money but Mom was willing to spend what she had to help out our neighbors when they needed help. She didn’t skimp on that help. She did for our neighbor just as she did for her own family.

So, this is one of my favorite memories of Mom. It shows Mom’s giving and loving nature. It also shows how she is mindful of those folks who others may tend to look over and forget. Mom has been looking out for and caring for people from early childhood. She has been as generous as possible when it comes to her limited resources, but most importantly of all, she has always been generous with her love. I reckon that Mom has an unlimited supply of love. She loves well and she is well-loved!

                                                         Caring and loving from way back!

                                                                              

                                                                            Still at it!