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On Writing and Life

Tag Archives: Memories

Christmas 1962

09 Wednesday Dec 2015

Posted by Sandie Tillery in Reflections on Life

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Tags

Christmas, Heritage, Memories, Parents

Christmas by the river that year held magic in every snowflake, expectation in every new day leading up to that one wonderful morning when the wrapping paper would fly and giggles and hurrahs would erupt. We were a budding young family, still full of innocence and uninhibited joy.

We moved a lot while growing up with our wonderful wanderlust dad. Our mom learned early not to feather her nest too completely for it was inevitable that she would have to pack whatever treasures she accumulated before too long. In 1962 when I turned eleven, we moved with all our worldly possessions packed into a small U-Haul trailer, to Trinity County in Northern California. The two bedroom house (cabin, really) that we rented was perched on a high slope overlooking the raging Trinity River. We moved there in early summertime.

All through the hot months of freedom we kids learned how to respect the rapids and undercurrents while imagining ourselves to be water and wood nymphs. I am the eldest of our troupe of adventurers and as daring as the boys and little girl who followed close on my heels. (There were four of us born in four and a half years, a built in play group.) Our parents spent a lot of time with us, Mom often more observant while our dad splashed and wrestled like one of the kids.

Dad began teaching at the little country school that year. I was a proud girl who sat in the front row, a sixth grader who adored her dad and loved to learn. The other three spent the year together in the lower grades. Dad rose early every morning to drive the school bus, then taught the fifth through eighth grades. It was a creative and challenging time for him, an idyllic time for all of us. I loved getting up early to ride the bus route along the river with him, especially when he’d let me jump out at Junction City Store to buy a treat.

Snow began to sugar-coat our world right around Thanksgiving. Our parents let us play outside until our noses ran and our ears and fingers turned red with the cold. Dad took us on hikes in the woods across the highway where we tromped through the snow with dead branches crackling under our feet. I remember coming upon a sight that inspired my young faith. While the others headed in another direction I stopped to ponder the three red holly berries poking through a snow-covered cross of branches. Yes, it was the season of Jesus birth. I knew about His earthly sojourn. I knew He was the son of God, that He came as a baby out of love for His creation. In that brief moment, I spoke my recognition and affirmation of His love for me.

The lower grades teacher played the piano and prepared us for our Christmas program. Oh how I loved to sing..loudly, enthusiastically. We sang “Oh Holy Night” for the program, I in the chorus and some other lucky girl the solo. It was a joyous occasion. And Christmas would soon arrive.

Every four months while we children grew steadily out of our clothing my mother received an inheritance check. One wealthy grandfather whom she had never met, had left her a sum of money from which the estate doled out quarterly interest checks. New clothes, new toys, a freezer load of food and all was well with the world. And every December first when her check arrived, our mom took great delight in shopping for Christmas.

I remember that Christmas morning unwrapping my Barbie and Ken dolls. I remember that the big package contained a new TV for the whole family. Dad fried Lefse (a Scandinavian flatbread made with potato dough) on the wood stove and we rolled it with butter and sugar, letting the greasy sweetness dribble down our chins. It is a good memory.

My dad is dying this Christmas, my mother gone now for 37 years. I love to remember the good times from those years that we grew from inheritance check to inheritance check, from one adventure to another, one school to another… until it wasn’t fun anymore and life became tense and difficult at home.

I love to remember the times, and they were many, when God gave me a glimpse of His faithful presence, His constant care and love for me. He showed up in the good times and the hard times. I love to remember my parents at their best, in their prime, and how they loved to spend time playing with us. Now, as my dad lingers in his last days, I remind him of those times, those sweet memories when he built in me a deep knowing of the love of God.

Historical Perspectives

14 Wednesday Oct 2015

Posted by Sandie Tillery in Reflections on Life

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Tags

Heritage, Memories

A Cowboy Heritage

A Cowboy Heritage

I’m reflecting on family connections in a new way today. This summer we attended a first ever family reunion for my mother’s side of the family. What a surprise to see our faces in old family photos in someone else’s albums! I had saved a few of theirs from my mother’s collection of old photos when she died so many years ago. At long last we not so distant relatives came face to face, surprised by resemblances, shocked by aging changes, delighted to share old stories and tell new ones.

The disconnect came about when both my mother and her father died in the same year. Our “cowboy” grandpa had really been our only link to that side of the family. My mother’s mother died shortly after giving birth and the baby had been shuffled from relative to relative for the first few years. She eventually became the responsibility of her grandmother who did her best to raise a reportedly feisty girl who grew into a beautiful and “scrappy” teen, according an estranged step-sister who told us some favorite stories of our mother’s young adult antics.

We visited our grandfather on the southeastern Montana ranch a few times when we were young. Grandpa visited us once a year at Christmas, descending from the train with his leather belt and silver buckle slung low below his beer belly and walking with legs bowed by numberless years of riding the range. Once I was invited to spend a summer on the ranch when I was 15. I’m pretty sure my grandfather hoped to marry me off to a cowboy before the end of the summer. It didn’t work.

As we five siblings grew into adulthood our fractured family and personal pursuits overshadowed our diminishing relationships. I was only 25 when my grandpa died and then our mother passed away suddenly three months later. Even then it didn’t occur to us that something had been severed. Not until the past year.

My youngest sister has felt the loss of family connections to our mother’s family the most acutely. She was only 12 when our mother died. When she asked and I began to dig, we found a cousin of our mother’s and began a correspondence. At last, my two sisters had a face-to-face with this cousin and another invited to join the mini reunion. Thus the family reunion became a plan and a reality.

From that wonderful reconnection with our grandfather’s clan, a new interest and connection with our grandmother’s family began to take shape. Now we enjoy a flurry of Facebook and email communication with people who live all over the US and who share our ancient history, have added us to their expanding genealogies and who have embraced us as eagerly as we have sought them out. We look alike, share similar interests and talents. We all have stories of tragedy and triumph, joy and sadness. I so love hearing about their life journeys, commiserating when our lives mirror each others, rejoicing in their accomplishments and they in mine, and learning more about our mother and why she became the person we grew up knowing.

I didn’t realize how wonderful this connection could be or what I had been missing all these years. Now I know. This feels right…connected to my past and my present through the diverse family that shares it with me.

Celebrating Life

16 Wednesday Sep 2015

Posted by Sandie Tillery in Reflections on Life

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Tags

Good Choices, Heritage, Memories, Parents, Role Models

Jacque rests uncomfortably in the hospital with her daughter sitting vigilant through the night. Surgery went well, says the doctor. Got all the cancer they could see. Waiting for tests that will show if there is more and what course of treatment may be required in weeks to come. No visitors right now.

The older we get the more often we come face-to-face with the inevitable end of life. Its easy to ignore when we are young and vigorous, full of the future. When the future has a time limit looming we look at life much differently. Each day counts more. Every family event holds more poignancy. Some decisions seem more trivial while others become more urgent.

I love Jacque, my friend, my mentor, my encourager, my sister in Christ. She has a devoted family and large circle of influence. Much prayer has been offered for her healing and return to life in the NOW. There are so many of us wanting her to stick around for awhile longer.

Not long ago we shared sweet memories of a brother-in-law at a gathering in his honor. I learned many things I didn’t know about him. He lived a good life, suffered a long time with chronic and worsening pain. We gladly let him go. Just two years earlier we gathered round Ruby, my husband’s mother who had only the month before turned 99 years old. As we all said goodbye to the shell, the well-used temple, left behind by her heaven-bound spirit, relief and joy and sadness and loss, smiles through tears, celebration and song floated among us in the room. She too lived a good life.

Life is short…an old adage with little meaning until life really is short. I am a grandmother now. Life is short. I want to love the living, love the moments and the days, love the people and the experiences we share. It is time to celebrate life for all its worth. I do believe in the after-life; heaven will be my home someday. But right NOW, I choose to make the most of the time remaining. Get Well, Jacque. Let’s celebrate!

A Wonderful Legacy…WORDS

09 Wednesday Sep 2015

Posted by Sandie Tillery in Reflections on Life, Writing

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Communication, Heritage, Memories, Parents, Role Models, Wisdom

My Dad and my Granddaughter...Passing on the legacy

My Dad and my Granddaughter…Passing on the legacy

Family time growing up with my dad always included interesting conversation. We memorized classical poetry while hiking in the Trinity Alps of northern California and listened by the warmth of winter fires to The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas and The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Dad stimulated our interest in politics, philosophy, religion, social issues, and current events. He asked us to share our ideas and opinions. He introduced us to interesting places on the globe and described exotic animals. We often entertained creative people. His own hunger for knowledge defined the culture of our home.

My brother Wallace has become the great philosopher of our family, a theologian and teacher who expounds from insatiable reading. He is an impassioned purveyor of knowledge. Aaron learned early the need for practicality and hard physical labor, yet he writes wilderness adventure tales from a sensitivity and respect for nature birthed in those early woodland jaunts and years as an avid outdoorsman. Both brothers, embracing opposing political and social views, enjoy a good and vigorous debate.

We three sisters have lived very different adult lives. Janice and I each have a passion to write, both have degrees that validate our skill and training, both speak from lives rich and full. She has lived as a world-travelling cosmopolitan while I have lived as a traditional country homemaker. Our youngest sister, Linnea, races at mach speed through life, a mover and shaker in the fitness world, training pageant contestants and conducting on-line workouts. She knows how to influence others with her encouraging words. All three of us enjoy lively debate, share enthusiastically from our own points of view, and love the challenge of keeping up with “the boys” in any conversation of substance.

“Invictus”, “Lord Randall”, “The Raggedy Man” and “The Highwayman” may be heard recited even by our progeny now at family gatherings, remnants of our childhood entertainment with our Dad. We all look forward to biennial family reunions with extended family. Pinochle games often end in enthusiastic (even sometimes flush-faced) conversation about current events or social responsibility.

My husband is a wise man born of a family with roots in common sense, careful planning and practicalities. I am born of a family rich in words, lofty dreams and spontaneity. I gained knowledge, he gained wisdom. As we’ve blended our lives these past 43 years, John speaks and writes more emotionally and I listen and speak more carefully. We both love words. He whistles and sings harmonies from his Baptist upbringing, I recite epic poetry. What a wonderful heritage has been passed from our forebears that we now pass on to our offspring.

Forever Friends

05 Saturday Sep 2015

Posted by Sandie Tillery in Reflections on Life

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Friends, Good Choices, Memories, Role Models

Today Janet celebrates her birthday. I am among a whole tribe of people who love this woman and feel honored to be called friend by her. One of the rare gifted people who LOVE middle school-aged kids and old people and babies equally, Janet has a following of fans reaching back through her years of teaching, mentoring, mothering, ministry and missions. She puts others before herself most of the time.

Her creativity and passion have left lovely, enduring impressions on those of us lucky enough to have relationship with Janet. Gifts designed to encourage left on doorsteps, homemade treasures given on holidays, home visits to shut-ins, community service with her students, potlucks with friends, conversations on the trail during regular runs, adventuring on rock faces and wilderness trails with her husband, and often with others who never grow too old to learn from her, and on and on…these are things of which I know. Others would tell more.

Janet is a giver. She thrives on doing random and planned and purposeful acts of kindness. The bible says, “A friend shows [herself] friendly.” Janet is a friend to many.

Through the years I have come to know her well. We are sisters and friends. Janet is the foremost initiator of  adventures with our intimate group. Our time together waxes and wanes as we all have busy lives and other commitments. But, the fact remains: we are forever friends.

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Barbara Bryant on A Slice of Life
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