Viola Jane. Two sweet names that play on my lips. Their syllables ring bells and its melody releases a cool smooth mist to my brain. Some undisturbed ancestral bond begins to awaken. I love her deeply for she is flesh of my flesh. I see the old repeating in her. I see eyes of my aunties and toes of my uncles. I hear ancient wisdom whispered in her voice. I see the new too. Her daddy’s nose and her mama’s cowlick. The first time I felt the weight of her warm little body wrapped up so tight some primal call stirred deep in my soul. She fills my arms like the firm, quick click of a jagged missing piece to this crazy puzzle called life . Her eyes are bright blue like a new morning sky, the shape of fresh raindrops falling soft on their sides. She peers innocently from their delicious depths. Her tiny dimpled hands reach for my face and the feel of her kisses mangles my heart. That desolate empty room I kept locked up so tight, bursts right open and reaches full occupancy now this cheeky little chamber maid
fills it so well. Her plump little nose, upturned so perfectly, perches uniquely above her fresh white, gap tooth, smile. A face full of secrets, a face of innocence, her future wide open, her future not told. I ruffle the baby hair that tickles my nose and I nuzzle her neck and I kiss that lone lock of hair that adorns her forehead. This wonder filled child smells of mysterious wisdom of some other life I dare not peek. She brings me her humor jingling from her rose perfect lips. Her simple giggles and quick teases radiate from those eyes, those bright blue eyes. She works her perfect sweet magic and pulls me into her little girl world. She commandeers this adoring audience, as she observes the world in her quick quiet way. With a blink of her eye and a bat of her lashes, she chirps out words on musical notes. Her pure sweet beauty squeezes my old lady chest and it’s all I can do to breath in her love. Then she gives me a hug and she blows me a kiss. I rock my love and her sleepy small voice calls out, a melancholy reverb bouncing through my bones and my mind and my soul. “Mee Maw, Mee Maw!” She calls to her granny. My arms are content, my heart is complete. I hear a distant ancestral sigh as she closes her eyes. Then sweet baby girl, sweet grand daughter of mine, whispers so quietly, “I wuv you Mee Maw!
Sweet Viola Jane
10 Jan 2014 2 Comments
in Heart Talk, Uncategorized Tags: ancestral, Child, childhood, family, Grandchild, granddaughter, grandma, grandmother, granny, home, Human, life, love, memories, primal, Soul Mate
Oh Daughter of My Daughter
10 Jan 2014 Leave a comment
Oh daughter of my daughter
Oh granddaughter of mine
Beautiful of most beautiful that God can create
Your tiny soul peered up at me
Our age-old destiny set
As our eyes met
Your heart took mine
You smiled at me
Like old soul mates do.
Her Forgotten Days
06 Jan 2014 Leave a comment
in Childhood Musings, Heart Talk Tags: Alzhiemers, Blog, Child, childhood, God, home, hope, Human, life, love, memories, Mother, Parent
My fingers glide effortlessly on this keyboard with a will of their own. I begin to type and a love song banters and begs to be freed. Sweetly my words flow as sounds and memories mesh and nostalgic joy begins to sing of her forgotten days.
I want to tell you about a woman. My words can never recreate the person she really was. Words will never show that special twinkle in her eye as she swept up an unsuspecting visitor with her inquisitive conversation.
She loved to engage people in banter.She had a way to pull them in and warm their hearts. She was always interested in where they were from and who they knew, places they had traveled.
I often wondered how she knew so much about so many things. She had always just been there at home with us twelve children and dad. How did she lead friends and visitors along and have the knowledge to take them with her across the ocean or up a mountain and down to the devil, back up to God.
As I would quietly climb onto her lap and lay my head on her shoulder, she would rock me back and forth; talking on and on for what seemed like hours.
Yes, my mother loved people, truly, genuinely loved to interact with them. Cared about what they had to say, enjoyed hearing of their adventures, hurt when they hurt, rejoiced in their happiness’s, triumphed in their successes.
She was my idol as I would sit on her lap at the kitchen table and she rubbed my back while discussing what flowers to plant and and how to put up garden vegetables with the neighbor lady. She was my idol even when I would take my little hand to turn her face to me, vying for her attention.
I loved her voice and her absent hands on me as she gave herself to her visitors. I loved her laughter and the way her words wove and bound those around her and held them close and made them feel important.
I love the legacies she has left my family. I love the movements she started in the seventies. I love the stories of all the strangers she brought into our home, giving them food and drink and support, listening to their sorrows and bolstering them up. I love the person she was and the person she wanted to be. I love that she was my mother and I was her daughter. I love that she gave herself whenever she could.
I love the memories I hold in my heart of her.