Tag: fiction

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.

***

How to Get a New Bathroom

On March 25, I was in the bathroom in front of the sink, innocently brushing on brown mascara, and I missed. I usually do. I stepped across the bathroom to grab a tissue from a chest next to the commode. I don’t know why I didn’t use the cotton pads I keep in a pink carnival glass powder box on a mirrored vanity tray, or, come to think of it, a makeup sponge behind the medicine cabinet mirror. Vanity tray. I haven’t thought of using that description in how many years.

When I turned to walk back to my sink (Dave’s sink is closer to the tissues,) the second vanity drawer between our separate bowls slid out in front of me. Here we go with “vanity” again. My split-second brain said, “Get out of the way.” It’s a puzzle to me, but I didn’t hear any instructions on the correct way to step aside. My right foot went over my left and caused me to stagger four or five feet across the bathroom.

First, I hit the wooden door with the left temple of my head. I know from my foray into serious brain study that the left hemisphere controls the right. At that time, my left brain told my right to use some of that “spatial awareness,” so I bounced self-protectively off the door, turned to the right, took one step, and hurled myself into the glass shower door.

This was a big fluke, RB (Right Brain). I broke that shower door with the back of my head. Everybody knows that when it comes to who controls that section, both components collaborate. I think both of them raided the liquor cabinet in the bar and were shindigging on margaritas in my best crystal.

It was a large shatter, but very little of the tempered glass fell out, and that was inside the shower. There would be no blood.

Dave was there in the best hurry he could manage, calling, “Are you alright?”

I answered him in the loudest voice I could muster, “No.”

As he stood, bending over my body on the floor with my neck still holding my head against the etched glass, he offered his hand and asked if I wanted help getting up.

Again, I answered, “No,” and added, “I can get up by myself.”

I did, hunching up like a lazy bear. Dave tried to assist my walking, but I outran him, and plopped down in my La-z-Boy in the living room. Actually, our open-concept room is also a bar, a dining room, and a music room. The grand piano barely fits into its assigned space. I’d like to sell it. Pianos are difficult to sell. Grands may get more attention than others, but it’s still hard.

I don’t know how long I sat in the recliner. I had a headache, not a bad one, and I almost went to sleep.

Dave and I discussed the emergency room. I turned down the opportunity, probably not the best idea I’ve ever had. We have this Republican woman running for Governor, and she’s devoid of a good mind and has never come up with an idea of her own. She’s been quite successful, first running for U.S House Representative and then the Senate, sailing merrily around our government, and I suppose doing everything she can to ruin all my long-held notions of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I could be successful too as a half-wit, which is what I wound up with after the crash.

The day of this event was a Thursday, as I recall, just after my writing group’s two-hour discussion, mostly about the half-wits running everything these days.

I drove myself to Dr. Bonvissuto’s office on Monday. She has been my primary care physician for about twenty years. I love her nurse, Heather. She can answer just about any question I have. When I called that morning for an appointment, she said, “Well, yeah, you need to see the doctor. And you didn’t go to the emergency room, Ms. Revell?”

Before I could answer, she asked, “Why not?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t want to.”

She alleged with certainty that I really wasn’t operating on all cylinders when I made that decision.

So, yeah, I got a concussion, a small one, they said.

A few days later, when all the symptoms hit at once, I wanted to ask these professional football players, who make big money banging each other’s heads, how they could get back on the field and operate with a large one.

I survived dizzy spells, nausea, left- and right-side brain fog, and generally feeling like a dog turd in the hot sun. Sometimes I couldn’t walk without weaving. I didn’t drive unless it was urgent. Dr. B and Heather had spoken frankly with me about driving my old Sienna van. I tried to cooperate.

***

We welcomed the American Home Design representative into our home and gave him a seat at the dining table. He recommended removing the large Jacuzzi, creating a large shower there, and using the old shower area for a closet. The garden tub was useless, and I was glad it would be gone. We (I) chose colors and materials for the order. And got that puppy happy and done.

We have a new 72-by-48 shower. Everything works right after two weeks of installation and four service calls following. The last of the tweaks and corrections happened shortly after my phone call with the curt, maybe rude, Installation Manager, who thought he could mansplain. Uh-uh. My brain is unruly, both halves.

It’s beautiful, with faux grey marble walls, a large picture window filmed with the stuff you can see out and they can’t see in, and shiny chrome accessories. There are lots of bars and shelves to hang onto and a built-in bench. We’re still wallpapering, painting, and adding shelves in the closet and other handy places.

So we have a new bathroom. The walls are a delicate, soothing pink. It’s not girly, just comfortable. I’ll post photos when the room is finished.

*

You can have a new shower, too, although I can’t recommend my method. I might suggest a sledgehammer to the shower door and just tell your husband you broke it with your head.

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.