Tag: books

Everybody wants this.

Jenni and I met in April, 2024, over a Facebook Marketplace althea, an old-fashioned bush more commonly referred to as Rose of Sharon. She was selling these little shrub sprouts; well, not so little. I guess they were about two feet tall, and when they would bloom, they’d have white flowers with red centers.

I’d been thinking of my dad when I saw the post. Dad loved the Rose of Sharon. He planted at least a dozen in The Compound. Two of them he planted on the front corners of the vegetable garden and trained them into trees. In bloom they showed out with round tops of blush pink flowers.

He planted a lavender one outside his office window, and it graced me after I took over his study. There are purple varieties, I don’t know where he got all these bushes unless he brought sprouts from the farm when he and Mom moved in with us in Nashville.

So I decided to buy at least one from Jenni. The trip to her house was way out in West Nashville, in the country. It took me a few trips up and down her road to find the house. On one of those forays, I wound up in what seemed to me to be a large compound of people who were somewhat unwelcoming. (Turns out it was right across the road and down a hill from Jenni’s but they’d never heard of her.) Gun signs were everywhere. I wasted no time getting out of there. I did not raise my phone to take a lasting memory.

I stopped on the side of the road and called Jenni. She directed me. I don’t think she understood where I’d been. She said something about the neighbor letting her ride her horse on their property next to the road.

The flowers in her yard were gorgeous, especially the perennial coral gladiolas. I wish I’d snapped some photos because I don’t remember much else about the landscaping.

We visited for almost half an hour, talking about mamas, plants, horses, and chickens. She was flying to Minnesota once a month, I think, to help care for her mother. I shared stories about caring for mom. I asked her if she had eggs for sale and bought two dozen. Jenni said she felt like we were friends. I asked if she’d like to be friends on Facebook in case we wanted to talk more about plants, and we instantly added each other to our lists. When I left her house, she asked if she could hug me.

I don’t remember the price of that first Rose of Sharon (it didn’t cost much), but I brought it home and planted it in front of the steps to the deck. It bloomed this year, a delight!

I must have taken home two of the little bushes, because there is one growing in a bed in the side yard.

Somewhere, probably on Marketplace, I found pink Rose of Sharon! I bought two small ones. I can’t remember where I stuck mine in the ground, but I potted one for Jenni and sat it under a holly tree facing the sun.

I took it to Jenni, in between her trips to her Mom’s and my busy-ness at home. When I arrived, we hugged and talked some more. Her mom was doing well, but the siblings wanted to give her some good attention, one of the siblings or Jenni made the trip once a week. Her mom was in her nineties! I told her there was no charge for the pink flowers, and she reciprocated by giving me a couple dozen eggs. She said we should plan getting together again. I told her she could come to my house for lunch. She was anxious to see my gardens.

“Let’s be in touch,” I said when I opened the van door to leave. “I know where I can get us some purple ones!”

*

November, 2024. I was sick and depressed with the results of the national election. January, 2024, Jenni posted how happy she was that her candidate won.

I drew back from the casual friendship. We were two poles at opposite ends of the field. I couldn’t do it. I still appreciated Jenni, but I could not, to save my soul, chat with her on FB. I couldn’t even check her FB wall.

Time went by. I found purple althea. The purple Rose of Sharon in a nursery pot lost its leaves for two fall seasons, but it still sat in front of the holly tree.

I knew I’d see her again, because I still had that promised bush. In the pot. I’d figure out a way to take it to her.

My feed came up in May of 2026 to say that Jenni’s mother had passed. She was in her mid-90s. I posted my condolences in a long list of other replies to her post. My mind went to my own mother’s last days and her death on June 24, 2022. I promised myself I’d get out to see Jenni and take her the plant.

I rehearsed a statement in case she asked why it had been so long since we talked.

“Jenni,” I would say, “as happy you were about Trump’s win of the White House, that’s how sad I was to see it.” Then we’d talk about something else…

Jenni came to lunch at my house in late August. Actually, we set the date for August 18th, my great Grandma Ada’s birthday. It’s also my great niece Everly’s birthday, this year her 17th.

We met at the front door. I hoped there would be no need for me to make my statement.

As we munched and lunched on chicken salad, pasta salad, and black cherry Jello salad, we shared our experiences with religion and churches. She left the Catholic church and is now something of a fundamentalist. I left the Lutheran Church and became an unchurched Universalist. We both hate church politics. We talked about caregiving…and horses.

She told me about the death of her mother and I shared some more about Mama’s passing. We shared our inability to pay attention. She said she couldn’t get anything done. I told her that I couldn’t, either, but I keep trying.

I mentioned, “You’re still in the first few months of grief. Be easy on yourself.”

Then she said, “It’s worse now. We had to put Chloe down on Thursday.”

Chloe was, I think, fifteen. Jenni and her husband wanted her to be at home for her ending, so they called for someone to come to the house to give her the injection.

“I haven’t posted anything on Facebook. I’m not ready.”

“You have to allow yourself some time, Jenni. Give yourself some grace.”

After we walked to the fishpond and sat for a few minutes, Jenni left for home. “Oh yeah,” she said, ” I better not forget my bush.”

I explained that I had no idea where we’d planted that purple Rose of Sharon, but that it was here somewhere, and I’d eventually run into it. Told her I’d dig it up and bring it to her, hopefully in the fall.

She bent double laughing and so did I.

So, there was no talk of politics, just two women, one in her late 70’s and the other in her late 50’s, sharing personal hopes and wishes, not separated by the condition of the world and the state of our country.

One afternoon while I was outside with Dixie Dog, I found the purple bush. It was in a big pot right in front of the house along with a green and burgundy coleus. When I messaged Jenni, we both shared a laugh. She said it was okay, because it would be a reason for us to get together again.

I can’t push aside the need for all of us to be active in our communities and to vote our conscience, but finding something in common just might change the world. Then we’d be able to talk to each other.

Jenni and I seem to need this relationship. It may feel like something of a chance, but it also feels like we might already know each other. Someday, we might even talk about democracy and share our wishes for our country.

We want this.

Everybody wants this.

***

Memorial Day

This is the second year we honor my brother, Denny. He was named for our Uncle Dennis Smallwood, who was killed on Iwo Jima. Today, we memorialize all those who died in service to their country.

Back in 1967, my brother’s number was up. Yes, young men’s lives were auctioned off by chance. But Denny held a religious deferment as he declared he would be a Christian minister.

Some months passed, and my father initiated a severe conversation with his son. Was he serious about becoming a minister? If not, was he being truthful with the Draft Board? Denny joined the Marine Corps.

I held nothing in my mind as to what each of them thought at the time. I wonder now if Dad ever regretted that conversation or if Denny would have reacted differently had Dad not challenged him.

Here was a guy who gave all of his body and mind in Vietnam and came home to deal with that loss. He built a radio station there and had a show. He counted bodies. He sent out endless letters as a public relations soldier. He led his men on countless patrols, and too often, he returned to base without some of them. And while he was out in the jungle-like terrain, the U.S. Military sprayed a killer defoliant. It was called Agent Orange. Denny got some of it.

Back at home, he was sent to Hawaii and then Arizona to serve as a recruiter. I never understood how he could do that. One time, when he was telling stories, he asked me, “Can you imagine being so scared that you literally climbed into your helmet? That’s what all of us felt.” It’s still a mystery to me why anyone would volunteer when there was a good chance they’d wind up in horrible conditions with guns pointed at them.

After he left the Corps, Denny suffered physically and sometimes mentally. He met periodically with a psychiatrist.

Denny was poisoned by his own country. He developed tumors in his back. He was born with only one kidney, and that one failed. He developed 5-minute seizures. I know his wife, Bev, could furnish a longer list. He spent half of his life in a wheelchair, one he could maneuver around in. In the end, he developed cancer of the esophagus, and it was untreatable.

The Veterans Hospital in Reno was semi-good to Denny. Often, they sent him to other, more suitable hospitals for treatment not available at the VA. Bev fought the bureaucracy with bear-like fervor to get him the care he needed–and deserved. She was strapped to help load him and his chair into an ill-fitted van, put him in his chair, help him to the toilet and back, and act as his 24/7 caregiver. Was she able? Not entirely, but she did it anyway.

A few months before Denny made the choice to discontinue dialysis and die, the VA declared him 100% disabled.

It took dying to get it done. Today, my brother is on my mind. He gave all.

The things that come to mind

Dad’s birthday was September 25. He would have been ninety-two this year had he not died at eighty-nine.

I don’t really believe in heavenly birthdays. I mean, if you’ve arrived at that perfect resting place to walk streets of gold and sing in that angel choir, I can imagine a more logical celebration might be of the day you got there. That would be that day you made the transition from earth, flying to the skies. For Dad, that would be November 19.

Still, I think of Dad every September 25, and small and large events always pop up to remind me of him.

This year, a Saturday, I was in my study editing a book for a friend when Neil (our semi-permanent houseguest) knocked on the door. He held out an old pocket knife with a faded tiger-painted pearl handle and said, “I just found this. I bet it was your dad’s.”

I took it from him and answered, “Looks like his. Now if one blade is broken…” It was. I didn’t know Dad still had the knife, but I remember asking him, “Why don’t you get a new one?” He told me, “Because I like this one so much. I’m used to that broken blade. In fact, it’s come in handy in some situations.”

I laid the knife on the base of my computer monitor and stared at it for a while. The last time I saw Dad use it, he was cutting bright red string to secure tomatoes to their cages. I tried to get him to use something less showy, maybe green, but he got a big roll of crimson twine, free, from a packing company and was proud to use it.

Since Dad died, I moved my office from The Cellar to The Study. The Study was Dad’s place on the ground level of their apartment. He had it framed and made into a room when they first moved in. It was where he hid from Mom and the TV. His old wooden desk, a sofa, and all his books (about 600) and sixty years of sermons lived there, too. I sold most of his books and moved his desk out, and brought over all my furnishings and books from The Cellar, the efficiency apartment in the basement of the main house and now Neil’s place. This year, I got artwork on the walls and started using this room every day.

I come down to The Study about 6:00 am every morning. Saturday, September 25, 2021, was the same. I don’t see anyone until Mom wakes up, and I go upstairs to help her get her day started. After Neil presented himself and the pocketknife, I thanked him and, since I’d been whisked away from my editing tasks so suddenly, took a few minutes to get back into a work mood.

I hadn’t slept well the night before, so an afternoon nap was in perfect order. When I woke after an hour-and-a-half, I grabbed my phone to see if I’d missed any messages. Somehow I wound up on Gmail instead of Messages, and a New York Times headline caught my eye. “Breaking News: An Amtrak train derailed in Montana, At Least 3 Dead.”

When it was time to give Mom supper (about 4:30), I sat down for a few minutes in her living room. “Mom,” I said, “Did you see that a train derailed in Montana?”

“Oh, no. You know, that’s what your dad was afraid of when we were on that train trip to California.” My brother Denny and his wife, Bev, had given Mom and Dad tickets on the train from Nashville to California. Mom loved every minute; Dad hated it. He swore everyone that was on that train (the one to California) would be killed. He told Mom that when he got to California, he was going to get back the money paid for the return home from Amtrak and find an airplane with a flight to Nashville.

“No, you are not,” she told him, probably a bit firmly. “The kids gave us this trip because they thought we’d enjoy it, and you’re going to behave yourself.”

He did, but he didn’t like it.

We picked Mom and Dad up in Kentucky, and Dad swore he’d never get on a train again. He didn’t.

Now, sitting with Mom, I pondered what this coincidence meant, if anything.

“And on his birthday,” she said. “Amtrak. We were on an Amtrak train.”

It was time to get home and start dinner for the rest of the family. I took some compost to the porch and happened to look to the lower garden. The red dahlias had burst into bloom. They were always in bloom for Dad’s birthday. He loved red, especially red roses. “Hey, Sis,” he would ask me every September, “Are those red roses blooming in your lower garden?”

“No,” I’d answer. “They’re not roses; they’re dahlias.”

“Well, they sure are pretty. You’re certain they’re not roses…”

“I’m certain.”

This past weekend was the date for the Southern Festival of Books. Dad loved any event featuring the written word. He preferred non-fiction: politics, theology, biography. I’ve been a volunteer host for sessions for years, and Dad always wanted to know about my authors.

Like last year, the event this year was staged virtually, for the most part. I received notice of the authors who would be in conversation for my session. I got three favorites: Bobbie Ann Mason (she wrote In Country), Wiley Cash (A Land More Kind than Home), and Ron Rash (my favorite book from him is Saints At the River.)

Volunteers receive the author’s current work in the mail to use for preparation. We usually make a short introduction for each author, and we prepare questions to stimulate discussion between the authors. Serenity, the woman in charge of the sessions told me, “You don’t have to do much for these three. They know each other, and I expect them to just take off between themselves without much help from you.”

I didn’t get to read all three books before the session. I received Wiley’s novel, When Ghosts Come Home, and Ron’s collection of short stories and a novella, In the Valley, about a week before the event. I finished Wiley’s and read three selections from Ron’s. I received Bobbie Ann’s Dear Ann this week, several days after the SFB. The day before the session, I was still preparing, and the day of the session, I was trying to wrap up bios for each author. I found good information on the publishing house’s author website for Bobbie Ann’s and Wiley’s. I had to go to Wikipedia for more information on Ron Rash.

While I’d talked to each of these authors at book events, I’d never really engaged them. I hoped they played off each other as I’d heard suggested by Serenity.

They didn’t. I had to lead a bit during the session. It felt somewhat awkward at times.

Bobbie Ann appeared a little wafty, but some say that’s normal. Wiley was cute, young, and animated. Ron…well, Ron was thoughtful and quietly funny, subtly spiritual, I guess, the type of guy you just want to pat softly on the shoulder. But I knew what he’d be like. I’d seen on Wiki that his birthday is September 25.

I almost told him the red dahlias are in bloom.