our house

Morning Coffee

| Marie Griffith

I woke up Saturday morning later than usual. I walked into the kitchen and started the coffee to brew like I always do. I had just enough time to drink a cup while I talked with my husband before I met a friend for our long Saturday run.

Lately I’ve been treating myself to a cinnamon almond milk macchiato after the miles on Saturdays and I look forward to it. But I didn’t need to stop for coffee this Saturday. Before I left the house I realized there was coffee left in the pot so I hurriedly poured it into my Yeti cup to keep it warm and brought it with me.

After the run, I said goodbye to my running partner, opened the car door and smelled the aroma of coffee. As I started the car I wondered why there was so much…….I brewed the same amount I’ve always brewed. It took me a minute to realize why I had a Yeti full of coffee. My daughter didn’t drink her portion like she usually does on Saturday morning.

She was on her honeymoon.

Like I always do, I brewed enough coffee for me and my daughter. She enjoys coffee as much as I do and she’s up early on Saturdays for her work. We sit and talk as we sip our coffee until one of us says, “I have to get ready after I tell you this”.

We both love good conversation and our morning ones are some of the best. So good that sometimes, we can barely pull away.

Her morning coffee routine will be different now. Mine too.

But it will be good.

Growing and changing.

Endings and beginnings.

These are necessary and good and beautiful.

 

 

Photo by John-Mark Smith from Pexels

Blink
 

Passed Down

| Marie Griffith

I have a place in my home where old things are displayed. Worn books, my grandmother’s hurricane lamp, Dad’s horsehair drafting brush, eye glasses and a pipe, my other grandmother’s woven hand fan, and black and white photographs from long ago. All of it sits on an old wooden chest built by my great-grandfather.

Things passed down from one generation to the next. Reminders of who came before and how they lived. Connections with the people who, for better or worse, loved and taught the ones who loved and taught me.

But the most important things passed down to me aren’t books and photos or wooden chests.

“If you don’t know where you’re from, you’ll have a hard time saying where you’re going.”
― Wendell Berry

Pedigree

Green Thumb

| Marie Griffith

My grandmother had a green thumb. I have bright memories of her, or maybe I remember someone else’s memories of her, in the yard with her long sleeves and sun hat, weeding her flower gardens, pruning her roses, or moving plants from one spot to another. She was an award winning rose gardener. According to old, torn and yellowed newspaper clippings, roses were her specialty.

I don’t know if she was ever recognized for her daffodils and irises but they’re beautiful and bountiful. Decades after her work of transplanting, dividing bulbs, storing rhizomes, and tending to them they still burst through the top of the earth.IMG_5050

Patches of irises and daffodils (we call them buttercups) are all over our and the neighbor’s yard which was my grandmother’s place a long time ago.

The cheerful yellow flowers are the first to show their colors as soon as the sun warms the cold winter ground enough. The irises come up later and stand tall. Buttercups are my favorite.

Grandmother’s green thumb is still coloring the landscape.

Shadows

| Marie Griffith

It looks like nature had a party and pink confetti was part of the fun. The sun, shadows, and scattered crepe myrtle flowers create a colorful walkway to the front door in the spring.

And all of it makes it beautiful…..the tiny flowers, the bright sunshine, and even the shadows.

Without the shadows, the sun wouldn’t be so……..sunny.

 

 

 

Luminescent

Storms

| Marie Griffith

It was unseasonably warm last night. The air was heavy and the sky dark because the moon and stars couldn’t shine through the thick clouds. The wind was wild and the rain came fast and hard. Then it calmed and the rain drops were big and slow.

The news and sirens told us there were tornado warnings but I could feel it in the air before they told us anything. I wasn’t scared when I went to bed last night but I woke up several times because the thunder was loud and the wind was making the trees hit against the house and the barn was creaking.

The sounds of the storm and the strange low way the thunder rolled reminded me of one night when I was a little girl…maybe ten years old.

I remember Daddy sitting in the doorway on the steps that led to the carport. The screen door was propped open and all the windows were opened too.

Daddy was watching the weather. He said he could feel it in his bones that it would be really bad weather. Probably tornadoes.

He sat there lifting his cigarette to his mouth and taking a deep draw so that the tip of it turned bright orange. The smoke came out of his mouth fast. He rested his hands on his knees then clasped them together while holding the cigarette. He lifted the cigarette to his mouth for another draw. Over and over again until there was no more tobacco to burn. He threw the cigarette down onto the concrete of the carport then stepped on it. Then he bent forward to comfort the dog. Bojo stayed at Dad’s feet even closer when there was a storm.

The rain wasn’t heavy but the big trees all around our house were moving wildly because of the wind. Then the rain and the wind stopped and it was calm. The lightning flickered across the sky and the thunder rumbled deep and long and far off.

But I wasn’t scared.

Daddy was watching the weather.

 

 

Unusual

Quitting

| Marie Griffith

The sound of the doorbell startled me. When I opened the door the man asked for Wayne. Before I answered him, the man asked if I knew him. He had a familiar smile but his face was aged and different. And the voice……..the voice was familiar too. For the next few seconds my brain tried to match a name with the kind face and his recognizable voice.

Before I could make the match he told me who he was. I was glad to see him and especially happy that he came by to see Daddy.

Daddy would have been thrilled for the visit. The man was shocked and saddened to hear that Wayne, my dad, had passed away. After he gave his condolences, we caught up.

It was a strange mixture of emotions…….remembering what was, learning what is, and trying to summarize thirty years of life in thirty minutes or so.

Then he asked the most amazing question. “Did your dad ever stop drinking?”

Oh how I wish he’d have known the man that Dad had become. The gracious man that cared for Mom so tenderly while working his job from his home office. The man that overflowed with generosity…….with his time and resources. The man that forgave so easily because he knew he’d been forgiven so much.

Daddy stopped drinking in 1990 or so. Never took another drink.

He quit to save his life.

His quitting saved our lives.

And who knows what else his quitting did. Whatever it did, it was good and right.

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.          

                            1 Corinthians 15:10

Names

The Edge

Image | | Marie Griffith

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At the edge of my grandmother’s yard there was a rock wall that separated our yard from hers. My little sister and I jumped over those rocks a thousand times. We used the rock wall as a hurdle in the pretend race courses we created.

“Run around the pecan tree and back to the barn, from the barn to the apple tree then run and jump over the rock wall. To the gravel road back through the yard over the rock wall and down to the pines. Climb the mimosa tree and down the mimosa tree then up the gravel road to the mailbox. Whoever touches the mailbox first wins.”

I can’t remember who won most of the time. Maybe we took turns winning. I do remember that when we finished the course we felt we’d done something big. Our rock wall hurdle seemed tall way back then.

The rocks are still there……exactly as they were when I was a little girl. Now I can step over those large old rocks with ease.  img_4544

The rocks haven’t changed.

But I have.

“Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.”         Colossians 2:7

In response to the Daily Prompt Cusp.

Live On

Image | | Marie Griffith

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I remember playing in the shade of this old pecan tree when I was a little girl.

A long time ago the tree was struck by lightning. The wounds from the strike are only scars now.

Although damaged and misshaped the tree lives on. It’s a resilient one. It found a way to survive…..thrive even.

Birds still perch there. Shade is still given. It’s a generous tree.

And the hole in the center of the tree is the perfect place for a squirrel to rest from his scampering.

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In response to The Daily Post’s Weekly Photo Challenge Resilient.

Memory

| Marie Griffith

I’ve been sorting through moments. The kind caught with a camera. And we all know what happens when you sort through photographs. You look and you remember. Memories flood your heart and mind and you keep looking through the photos and you keep remembering and you smile and laugh and want others to look at them with you.

Then there are the photos that you’ve never seen before of people you loved and that loved you. You see these moments and you wonder then you learn something about the people in the photos.

Another feeling comes when you look, really look, at these moments gone long ago. It’s a strange strong feeling. And it’s a new one to me. It has some yearning in it, mixed with a little sadness and some happiness……..restlessness too.

But it’s good to remember because as Frederick Buechner wrote, “…even the saddest things can become, once we have made peace with them, a source of wisdom and strength for the journey that still lies ahead.”

My favorite photos are the ones I’ve never seen. The photos of people and places and happenings before I was born.image

Like this school picture of my dad from 1956. He was 14. His dad died when he was 14. I don’t know if this picture was taken before or after his father died.

Or this picture of my mom with two of her five sisters. She is the tallest one. Mom had two brothers also. She was the baby of her family and she was a daddy’s girl.

Or the one of Mom and Dad on a beach somewhere. That’s Mom in a green bikini! I never knew Mom wore a bikini but Dad always wore a hat.

They’d lived a lot of life before I was here. They had the same experiences common to all of us. Joy and pain. Sorrow and regret. Infatuation, rejection, hope and despair. Friendship and betrayal. Fear and love and faith.image

Then I became part of their story and they lived more life and we had more joy and pain. Regret, fear and sorrow. Faith, hope and love.

Now they are part of my story.

“Memory is more than a looking back to a time that is no longer; it is a looking out into another kind of time altogether where everything that ever was continues not just to be, but to grow and change with the life that is in it still. The people we loved. The people who loved us. The people who, for good or ill, taught us things”.    Frederick Buechner

A Discover Challenge post:The Things We Leave Behind.

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