Category Archives: Family

More Thoughts On Living, Father’s Day, and Remembering

15 Sunday Jun 2025

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6/11/25
Sitting in the front porch swing, the air of midday seems still, but just alive enough to catch my attention; and perhaps too touchy with humidity for me to linger —  that is, until I check in with my senses. Lifting my eyes from the crossword puzzle I had intended to work,  I sense a sweet aroma from the deep purple butterfly bush reaching upward behind me from its neglected bed. Its blooms, larger than ever, are visited by the hum of bumble bees.
My listening is captured by the simultaneous chatter of various birds – although upstaged by the mockingbird calls. 

A hummingbird zooms in for a sip or two at the feeder. Delicate white pre-berries of the Nandina, complimented by the deep red of my mother’s large astilbe, vie for my attention. Dark yellow Stella D’Oro blooms, nearly exhausted from their show, complete the colors against summer’s green pallet that spreads across my view. And I think, what a nice day to be alive. This is living.


With Father’s Day approaching I am as usual, thinking about my daddy. He spent many days outdoors — gardening, fishing and hunting, and farming for a few years— besides growing up on a farm where milking and raising crops were his parents’ income. They cured their own hams and bacon; raised chickens and gathered the eggs; and he gathered enough enjoyment from gardens that he shared it with his own growing family for years. I wonder what he would think today of the tacky little garden I have eked out of the frequent rains. I wonder what they did back in the day when weather just would not allow tilling, nor completion of the planting. I recall my mother saying (as she would try to console me during the drought years) “honey a dry year will scare a farmer to death, but a wet year will starve him to death”.  As I look at the lush tomato vines, cucumbers, and pepper plants I was able to hill up to avoid being washed away, I catch myself talking to daddy — maybe bragging just a little. I am sure he would advise me to get Sevin dust on those green beans. He might also say I’d done well to hoe out what I could before this last rain. Whatever he would say, he would be pleased that I have continued gardening, being outside, caring about living things. He might say this is living.


As his last year took all of his vision and hearing, daddy forgot the love he had for life. He could no longer recognize which child or grandchild was in his doorway. I feel like that was the worst for him, because he had, over time, regained relationships so dear to him. Now, unable to carry on a conversation, he must have felt so alone. But I am not remembering those last days; no, I am remembering the living he enjoyed, and shared. That was living.

6/15/25
Recognizing the changes that come with age in vision, hearing, and expression, surely reminds us that we all have differences as well, in how we listen and see — our perspectives; we dance with nature to our own music. Enjoy one another’s love for life while it lasts. “Be of the same mind toward one another. Do not set your mind on high things, but associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own opinion.” (Romans 12:16) Understanding others — that’s living.

I am remembering the bibbed overalls, the fishing poles, hummingbird feeders, white cats, beagle hounds and large gardens. Thick curly hair, Old Spice, Buicks and Oldsmobiles, soup beans and fifty dollar bills at Christmas, and pea shelling. Mostly I remember “Trish, this is your dad.” I miss you daddy. And, this is living too — having memories, and remembering the living that was done.

The Round Table: Part 4 in “Old Tables and Old Times”

12 Monday May 2025

Posted by in Children, Family, MONDAY MUSINGS

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Roundtable discussions “are informal gatherings characterized by equal participation, active listening, and the exchange of ideas…roundtables encourage a more open and interactive dialogue, often facilitated by a moderator.” That’s what the internet says. In a child’s world, it is an endless sphere of participation (play-like or real), activity (of reaching, climbing, circling), and interactive ideas (imagination as troops and trucks run their courses of construction and destruction).

As the 1960s were ending, people were starting to see the value in antiques. Not museum people with historical antiques – regular Joes who had the new age, moderate-income, furnishings of the 50s and 60s. Such was the time when my mother was led to an auction by her friend whose son had gone into the “antique business”. Looking for old gems hidden by dust and paint, in need of some repair perhaps, became the weekend hobby for many. Sadly, folks were realizing grandparents had given up real value for light weight, inexpensive furnishings. In my family’s case, fires had taken most of the keepers, and the thought of finding something similar, was enticing. One find for my mother and her friend that day, was a sizable table covered with what we called antiquing, which was enamel paint covered by a dark glaze. Covered in, I believe, early 70s green, with a small chip out of one hinged area, was a coffee table with leaves dropped to the floor, which when raised, made a complete circle. A drawer in each end made the table even more useful. Mama bought it. And the seven grandchildren of her future benefitted from the purchase in the many decades to follow. Her great grandchildren, as well as friends, continued to find pleasure in the playground of the roundtable world. I am so thankful the table was saved from the fire that took my parents’ home in 1978.

Before the round table went to live at my parents’ house, her friend had her son to “strip and refinish” it. This brought out the beautiful solid maple finish of its original state, which is still its condition today – plus the many scratches, dents and wear of four generations since then. I believe my son was the first to put a scratch in Granny’s lovely table, with a toy (seems like it was one of those little silver-colored pistols, but could easily have been one of the hundreds of little animals that have trekked the terrain of the table land; he thinks it was his Hot Wheels racing). My daughter stashed “office papers” and crayons in the drawers as she opened and closed them a thousand times in her world of teaching and office work.

Next came my sister’s first child, a girl, who I am told, turned a long handled bell (another of Mama’s collections) upside down and hammered it into the table top several times. Sister’s second child, a boy, added his own marks of character, playing many sessions of Old Maid; as well as adding his sons (you see the younger one on the table in the photo above), to the activity of his Nanny Betty’s/Aunt Trisha’s table. I recall my brother’s first daughter especially enjoying the Christmas trinkets and music boxes Granny placed on the table. By the time he had more children coming along, Mama had passed the drop-leaf table on to me, and redecorated her living room. How in the world did she have the courage to place a new glass-topped table at child level? Surprisingly, it did survive. OH! That’s right, it wasn’t a round table. Far less activity could be had with four corners in the way, a smaller surface, and – like the glass-bottomed look-out towers – who can put their weight on something that looks invisible?

In my house the old drop-leaf round table continued to supply new ground for race cars, farm equipment, horse racing, army battles, board games, play-doh creativity, coloring and painting, checkers, and climbing in general. Six of my great nieces and nephews have made their own history of discoveries, battles, and masterpieces on the round table. Our friend ‘little man Ryan’ had his own activity for a short while before potty training, but we will just leave it at that. He also drove Match Box cars around and around that table, giving me great pleasure as my mother’s table continued making happy days for those we love.

I see the days of discovery for our round table coming to a close. I do hope the “informal gatherings characterized by equal participation, active listening, and the exchange of ideas” continues over this, as well as all our tables, for years to come. But it was the endless imagination of those tots who made this table so precious to me. Complete with its dents and dings, one drawer now out of function, and one detached slide-out leg that holds the leaf on that side, I have plans for repair and passing it on to someone who appreciates solid value. It is truly vintage now, and due to age, likely could soon be antique, but surely has some good days ahead in her. She now holds books, pens, and the trappings of an avid John Deere man. She comfortably holds the weight of great nephews; she doesn’t mind our feet being propped upon her, nor popcorn, coffee cups, and sippy cups.

Well, my coffee has grown cold but I have enjoyed my short trip back over the 55 or so years since my mother brought the round table home. Her own nieces and nephews will testify that she had a roundtable approach to life that carried over into the grandchildren years. If she loved anything, it was children and watching them learn. Imagination spurs learning and she was delighted to turn her house over to them to grow and learn all they could. Her love surrounded them as they surrounded the table; her guidance encouraged them as they found acceptance and inspiration to be their best. I look at the softly curved feet of the table, the scratches and dents, the missing pieces; and I long to see a world that is as willing to sacrifice parts of itself for the good of others; a world that is strong for its children and softly holds them when they need it; a world like its Creator intended it to be.

Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. (Galatians 6:2) NKJV

Dear Mama

16 Friday Sep 2022

Posted by in Family, Poetry

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“Strength and honor are her clothing; she shall rejoice in time to come. …Her children rise up and call her blessed;” Proverbs 31:25, 28a NKJV

September 16 is a nice time of year; nicer because it’s the birthday of my mother. Now, my sister always made Mama proud, and pleased her in so many meaningful ways. Our little brother had his own unique way of being dear to her heart. But for some mother-ish reason, Mama liked my words, written. So, all I’ve ever done that seemed to me, to honor her was write, for her, on her special day. Somehow it does seem better than the scorched toast and dry scrambled eggs with a bud vase holding a chigger weed or clover bloom, which in my youth I’d be serving for her today, on a tray. I can imagine the mess she had to clean up after I got it done. I share the words in her honor, and because she would want me to.

Dear Mama

If Mamas could sell every tear they cried

And if they were paid for how hard they tried;

If happiness really, could be bought

And children learned every lesson Mom taught;

There’s no end to how happy and smart I’d be,

Because you’d have bought them just for me!

You’d have spent the tear treasures on everyone else,

And, perhaps, some SAS shoes for yourself!

For your big loving heart would always know

Where needs were calling, and your sore feet would go. 

You would be 91 today and I am celebrating your life; recalling the beauty of your heart in spite of the pain. Thanking God with a smile on my face for His grace in letting me be yours. 

A grateful daughter, Trisha                                    9/16/22

Daddy’s Little Ice Cream Buckets: My final “Daddy Story”

20 Saturday Aug 2022

Posted by in Family, Reflections

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As Daddy felt his time slowly pulling into the station, he asked me to start writing down his memories and we called them our “Daddy Stories”. I did write, and had printed into a booklet for him, 15 stories most of which were his. This was after his sight had failed but in time for him to hear someone else read back his memories to him and I suppose, to feel like he would not be forgotten. The following I write today, to add to the end of my Daddy Stories, as I watch another garden season ride by.

Near the end of August the garden, like our own aging, grows old, mature, less productive in some ways, more so in others. There is for me, the temptation to begin clearing the disorganized rows again as the picking and canning slows, but the garden itself is still teeming with life. About this time I also shake my head and wonder how those little seeds and sprouts in so short a time, became all this wilderness of blooms among crowded lanes of overgrown vines; and how grass and weeds appear overnight. I love how the drooping sunflower heads draw a crowd of goldfinches and intricately designed butterflies flutter throughout the zinnia, okra and purple hull pea blossoms. This is also a time of reflection; on the ones who planted, picked and preserved gardens before me, teaching me the joy of the process. I wonder how many times I’ll get to do it all over again, and I’m glad I do not know.

For the last couple decades of my daddy’s life we had made amends and grown closer. In my memory that nearness began to grow out of our shared interest in gardening. Sometimes on sunny afternoons, I would drive the half hour or so to his farm to watch his hummingbirds and admire his garden. As life goes, he eventually grew too old to do the work himself and he and his wife, Ms. Wanda, moved to our town of Murray, Kentucky. Here, he was able to drive out often to see my gardens, give his much needed advice, and take an occasional basket of beans or peas home to break and shell for me. When I returned the visits to pick up the readied beans or peas, he had them packed into round plastic gallon pails he called his ‘little ice cream buckets”. He would say, “now don’t even think about returning that little bucket; I’ve got a dozen of ‘em”.  But I would bring them back filled with okra, hot peppers and tomatoes for their enjoyment, and get to hear another “Daddy Story”. Over the years, I did keep a few (a smarter person would have kept many) of the pails with lids, which proved to be just about the most useful thing you can own, next to a pocket knife.

I do not truly believe there is a lot of difference in taste from one vanilla ice cream to another. As long as it’s not one of those ‘low carb’ or ‘no sugar added’ or some such concoction pretending to be good ice cream, they’re all pretty much the same to me. But daddy always, and I mean always, bought the “Dippin’ Kind” or, if that wasn’t available, Prairie Farms, which interestingly enough, also had to be in a round plastic pail. Once during the Covid isolation I called from Kroger reporting I could not find a plastic pail of vanilla ice cream, so was there another brand I could bring, to which he said, “No, I think they’ll have it over here at Food Giant”. Daddy did not have a particularly scrutinizing taste, but he did grow up in a time when everything that could possibly be reused, did. I am 100 percent sure he bought the Dippin’ Kind strictly for the plastic pail. There’s no telling how many uses we have found for those little buckets. 

I am down to only one of his little ice cream buckets with a lid, because  I’ve “used the far out of ‘em” as he’d say. As I washed it today, I was overtaken by emotion in thinking of the end of good things; like multipurpose little plastic pails, old men with softened hearts that want to be forgiven, and time…time for hugs and forgiveness. 

We learn as we go; it is the only way. While my amazing mother instilled in me the love for growing flowers and the satisfaction of a pantry lined with gleaming jars of canned tomatoes, beans, pickles, jellies and relishes, it was daddy’s love of growing and tending the garden, which I seem to have inherited as well. From them both, however, I learned to put the past behind, to fill my pails with love, close the lid on bad memories and plant the good ones; to be at peace. 

As long as God thinks I need to, and daddy’s little plastic bucket lasts, I’ll keep wagging it and my grandpa’s half-bushel basket to the garden to watch in amazement the whole God-inspired process of decaying seeds becoming fabulous food.  I’ll keep picking pails of peppers and okra, cucumbers and tomatoes, and pouring up shelled peas to keep for freezing and dropping broken green beans into it to guesstimate a full canner. 

Satan plants weeds from bad memories in effort to tarnish and destroy and make us bitter. I’m going to keep carrying those in my little plastic bucket straight to the garbage; then wash and rinse the bucket to hold the good scraps I take to the compost can, where they will eventually give rise to new generations of beauty. 

Life can leave you buckets of blessings and pails of problems for which we each will decide a purpose, and whether or not to make good use of them. I’ve filled my buckets hundreds of times over with useful as well as useless stuff; soapy water and a good scrap of terrycloth towel, cut flowers, fishing worms, good veggies and bad veggies, canning lids and rings, and packets of seed in the freezer to plant another year; scraps of iron and chain and rocks I‘ll never use; popcorn, pecans and grilling supplies; and I’m sure that doesn’t even get near the number of uses Daddy found for his ice cream buckets. I treasure the ‘late summer garden’ time of his life when he was less productive in some things and more so in others, with stories to tell, and little ice cream buckets of wisdom and love to share with his children.

“To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck what is planted.” Ecclesiastes 3:1-2

The Rifle Shell

23 Wednesday Mar 2022

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“This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” John 15:12-13

In this first hour of March 23, 2022, I find no sleep so I may as well write. It would be my brother’s sixtieth birthday, the first since his passing. I suppose I will always feel protective of his memory just as I feel I should have been protective of him in childhood. I’ve written the following in observation of his birthday, and in honor of his proudest moments. If it sounds sad, it’s because I am sad he left so soon. Life can be sad, but life is still good, and he’d be the one to say, “Oh well…”.

THE RIFLE SHELL

A VFW gun salute shakes the silence of the air,

and over the flag covered casket is said a final prayer.

Lil’ Brother, a dad, a friend laid to rest

wearing his dress blues, the sun in the west.

Memories fill our hearts and flood our eyes

as the shots ring toward the cold blue sky.

A brass shell casing picked up from the ground

has a design inside where six points can be found.

I see one point for the courage to say “I will”

and one for the sacrifice because the risk is real.

One point stands for loyalty to country and brother,

and one for humility, heroes they claim, is someone other.

One point is for pain, in body and mind

as they endure training and leave home behind.

The last point, for loneliness, though in a sea of the same –

where all wear proudly a common name –

yet all left all familiar to them alone. And now once again he travels on.

Heroes don’t always die in active duty. They may bring home a scarred heart and torn life they die trying to paste back together again. Still others survive to live out a full and beautiful life, and become someone else’s hero. Thank you to Mark and all service men and women for your courage, sacrifice and loyalty to country and each other. I am sorry for the pain and loneliness you felt, and the humility with which you carried it all. Even though Mark isn’t here, I couldn’t let his “big six-o” go by without a special “Happy Birthday”. Love, Sis

Broken Teacup Lids and Thoughts Of Mother’s Day

08 Saturday May 2021

Posted by in Family, Friendship, Life

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The Thought Pixie brought along the Regret Rascal, arriving just in time to block the Sandman and so I began one of those nights. You know the kind, when every debate you had put away, comes back out to play. Good thoughts, bad thoughts, hopes, regrets; doesn’t matter because once they get on a roll, sleep just doesn’t have a chance. My solution is a cup of Sleepytime tea and a pen in my hand. You know, if you give those random thoughts free range, there’s no telling how long they will romp and stomp. I’ve found intentional thinking by reading or writing will either chase away, or corral them to a manageable level. Even though I am still awake, the effort seems to bring the brain to the point of resting sooner than lying there fighting demons in the dark. The writing usually brings me around to some point where most of those thoughts are connected. Such was this night, two days prior to Mother’s Day.

As if by an unseen force, my hand reached for Mama’s old Hallmark tea mug with a matching lid for steeping. It lives on a shelf, at eye level, where I can see it, but never use it for fear I’ll finish breaking what I started years ago when I dropped the lid. It broke in half, and is glued together with a dark scar, but I treasure it for a couple reasons. First just because it was Mama’s and it was given to her by one of her friends. I can just see her dipping the tea bag up and down in the hot water, then placing the cover to steep the tea and finally, placing the bag to dry on the upturned lid while she sipped her Earl Gray. Rarely ever did I visit her kitchen or den without seeing a dried tea bag where she left it. Secondly, the message written on the cup would probably have been her motto had you asked her. “Life’s truest happiness is found in the friendships we make along the way.” So, in anticipation of this Mother’s Day, I drank my herbal tea from the little blue friendship mug as I wrote to Mama.

Even good things can be broken. Good broken things can be repaired if we care enough to do so. God uses broken things; why shouldn’t we? Although they probably will never be the same, they may be even better – like this tea cup lid. It’s better because it has a new purpose: to remind me that broken is not always forever. It reminds me that people too, are breakable, repairable, and often better than new.

Hearts, relationships, a promise or teacup 
once broken, will leave a scar.
Will one see light shine through the cracks
Or will one see a mar?
Finding hope or substance to patch, stitch or mend
Will prove the thing to have been worthy
When love comes peeking in.

Thank you Mama for being my friend, and for teaching us how to find friendship in life. Happy Mother’s Day to all the amazing women we call sisters, daughters, mothers and friends! Trisha

FROM THE PORCH: Much Has Changed, Much Has Not

29 Saturday Aug 2020

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The other day I ran across a picture of my husband and me sitting on the front porch of a house we rented for a year in a subdivision off Hwy 94 West. I don’t know who took that picture, but I could hug them.

Who were those youngsters? Lean and strong, the summer of 1983, and that was our real hair color! It is no longer; and that’s just one of many changes. The two sweetest kids on earth, ages “almost 4” and 6 years old called us Mama and Daddy. Thankfully only the ages have changed – they’re still sweet, and we’re still Mama and Daddy. We were ten years into our marriage with no clue as to what would become of our dreams and aspirations, but we just got up and did what we did each day to make those come true. Some of that changed too. I cleaned a lady’s house for $10 once a week and stuffed envelopes for a neighbor. I have no idea what he paid me but it was rich for me just to stay home with my little ones and still earn enough gas money to get one to kindergarten, then first grade, and keep the other one and her sippy-cup safe. It let me pay a little each month on the Sears account that carried our important ‘must haves’.  My mother told me, “As long as you send ten dollars each month, they can’t say a thing about it.” (She knew from experience.) Boy, has that ever changed!

But now,  that man in the picture – oh my oh my, that right there was my giant. And that hasn’t changed! He kept two or more jobs going at once; farming for us and driving spreader trucks for Hutson’s Ag Co. from before daylight ‘til after dark. By night, we remodeled the farm house on the 50 acres we were finally able to buy that fall. There on our rented porch sat the desire for our own home and the gumption to get it done. If he spent five dollars on himself in a week, it was rare. As long as his little family was safe and sound, he kept his nose to the grindstone and then came home to love us just as hard. I did what I could to help in farming, which was mostly running him back and forth since we didn’t live on the land he tended. I think I helped in the tobacco fields that summer as I always did, to some extent, but without his leadership and determination my part would have amounted to nothing. The experience he brought to that porch was of doing everything the hard way, as his dad had also farmed alone, and seemed to make any task all the more tedious. Well, the truth is just the truth. 

As the year on that porch went by we encountered several other alterations; a scary diagnosis for our son, which was resolved, but grew our faith and proved the love of our family and friends. It was from that porch we saw our children make new friends, and learn to ride a bike. Carrying our belongings up those steps one January and back down the next, my husband shouldered more than furniture and boxes. He knew it was make or break time. Never a fan of paying rent, he wasn’t about to any longer than necessary. That year though, renting was exactly right for us. The span between getting back up on our feet, and easing back into the saddle of debt, was the breath of confidence we needed. It was both humbling and inspiring. I’ve always suspected that someone was paying a portion of our rent because it was so affordable, and because my mother was determined to get her grandchildren back in her school district. I smile as I write that. But we managed to pay what we were told, and still believe, was the monthly rate, and I do recall a portion of the rent was paid by my husband hauling in dirt and single-handedly shoveling it around the foundation of the house to take care of a water drainage problem. Seems he was always moving earth to make ends meet. We were too busy to know we were living at poverty level, as we were told later; but we never were hungry for anything and slept like babies.

I am not proud to say our focus was not on God those years. Oh we believed, and took the kids to church;  we listened to John Dale’s encouraging lessons on the radio on Sunday nights, but our focus was surviving and enjoying our children. God’s focus however, was on us, as His hands were all over us, preparing us, pruning us and proving us. Somebody was praying mightily for that young couple sitting there on that porch. The hardships we had faced for a decade were lain on the steps of the porch and we stood on them to look forward in spite of our imperfections. The fear and uncertainty that must have gripped my husband’s heart each morning were felt by our Lord Who anointed  his head for protection and filled our cup to overflowing. 

None of us know what the next day will hold, but I can tell you Who holds each day, and He sees your pain, your effort, your joy. He works wonders with the poorest of seasons. “Remember His marvelous works which He has done, His wonders and the judgments of His mouth.” (I Chronicles 16:12 NKJV) One day, you see an old photo and think, oh my, who were those children? It doesn’t matter. It does not matter, if they didn’t know who they were, for God did. If you’ve never been through a drought, you can’t imagine how good the rain feels. 

“For the Lord your God has blessed you in all the work of your hand. He knows your trudging through this great wilderness. These forty years the Lord your God has been with you; you have lacked nothing.” (Deuteronomy 2:30 NKJV)

Roses Are Red, Pansies Are Yellow; I Get to Do Life With a Mighty Fine Fellow.

14 Friday Feb 2020

Posted by in Family, Life, The unexpected

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Valentine’s Day at 46 years of marriage looks a great deal different from those first few years and before. Today went like this, at 8 AM:

  • G: “Aww, you got me again!”
  • Me: “Well it’s just a card, and you asked me so many times what I wanted, how could I forget?”
  • G: “Well you said ‘I don’t want anything’ “.
  • Me: “I said I didn’t want you spending on stuff I can’t keep and if you brought candy, I’d crown you with it!”
  • G: “I’m sorry.”
  • Me: “You have nothing to be sorry about; you always go overboard on Christmas and gave me my valentine, birthday, Christmas and Mother’s Day gifts at one time. So hush.”

Out for breakfast, back home, took my doggie out and back in to find hubby, feet up in his recliner. I thought, no way can I listen to another episode of Gunsmoke! So, off to a nap. I have the luxury of that today, which is better than a whole truckload of gifts. Fast forward, post-nap, house is empty, sun is shining, I’m feeling pretty good, planning a little supper hubby will like – by the way, where is he?

Three PM, door bell rings. There stands G., holding a single red rose in a lovely vase of greenery, and said “delivery for my girlfriend.”  Zing! Boom!

You just can’t teach an old dog new tricks. Suddenly I remembered that I had started a blog post a few years back, Old Roses and Whine; I don’t think I ever finished it. In it I mention that I have a jar full of old rose petals from occasions I have forgotten. The point being that it is the intent of the heart that matters when it comes to men; not the timing, nor the gift; the heart.

Forty years ago I’d have thought the setting of the sun depended on my getting a valentine or not. It did not; and I did not. Watching all those sun ups and sun downs for forty plus years was the real gift! Those years taught me that the heart expecting something is nowhere near as happy as the heart that does not expect, but is grateful for what already is.

When the center of your heart belongs to God, and you already have Him, the rest is just fluff. Really nice fluff, for sure, but still just fluff.

 

 

Saying Goodbye to Ewing Stubblefield

27 Sunday Oct 2019

Posted by in Celebrating, Faith, Family

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Any day I get to see my dear friend is a happy day, but today was a happy and sad  occasion to see her. Linda Pugh and her family were here for her father’s funeral, and I knew before they concluded the touching service that this would be an evening of writing for me.

Listening to Ronny Stubblefield deliver a portion of his dad’s eulogy, I felt unexpected tears begin to gather; not sad tears, but sympathetic ones for a family saying farewell to their daddy, and from a sort of recognition that I didn’t anticipate. I say unexpected because this was the celebration of a life well lived; 90 years of life and those years lived with full expectation of eternal life with his Lord hereafter. Also, I thought I really didn’t know Ewing Stubblefield very well, even though his daughter is one of my dearest friends. Linda and I were roommates at Freed-Hardeman College our first semester away from home. I began to know her family through her voice, and today as the three children and several grandchildren conducted Mr. Stubblefield’s funeral, I realized that I did know him better than I thought.

I knew something of Ewing Stubblefield for one thing, through the strength he passed on to his daughter. His quiet and gentle spirit as well, lives in his children. Also, because of the dedicated way he had worked to be sure his children attended college, I knew him as a lover of education and reading even before his sons Terry and Ronny spoke of that today.  Their college degrees fulfilled the dream of a hard working farmer/factory-worker/preacher who never had the opportunity himself to go beyond high school.  Every time I visited his assisted living apartment, he had an open book in his hands, pictures of family everywhere, and even with dementia setting in, he was the most courteous gentleman! So, I knew of his love and respect for family and friends. Many moons ago I had attended church services with Linda, and her daddy was the preacher; I knew he loved the word of God. I also knew that he had a distaste for denim overalls – now I know that included jeans as well. It’s a generational thing I think.

As I looked over the family area of benches today, there were many brown eyes, dark hair, and tall ‘straight’ statures, (as my Grandma used to say of those with good posture), all carrying the genetic traits of Ewing Stubblefield. I have a feeling that what mattered more to Mr Stubblefield though, was that he passed to his descendants the torch for God’s word; that they were continuing his legacy of strong but gentle people, proponents of education, and loving family in their own way. Terry mentioned that his dad didn’t express love and affection so much; men of his generation generally didn’t, but oh my how he lived it! If a kid from Lynn Grove could visit New Providence a few times, go to school with the man’s daughter, and observe from outside his circle that he was a strong, dedicated man full of love and devotion, then he absolutely lived it.

What a blessing when a family can be gathered around their father and watch as he breathes his last breath from that tired and temporal body, being transformed as Paul states in Philippians chapter 3:

20 For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself. (NKJV)

Whether you read this as being in His glorious body, the church, or as becoming a glorious spiritual body as Christ is now, there is clearly the thrilling knowledge that for God’s children, leaving this earth is the beginning of a wonderfulness we can only imagine. Oh happy day!

THIS DAUGHTER’S DADDY

16 Saturday Jun 2018

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I never called my daddy by the more popular ‘dad,’ nor the formal ‘father’. Dad was someone who belonged to my more sophisticated friends; and Father was the one to whom I prayed, the father in Heaven. No, only one name for my daddy – Daddy.

I was born on his 20th birthday, his first child and the apple of his eye I’ve heard, for four and one half years. That’s when his second daughter, a little cherub, was born along with a cradle of other changes in life. But for almost five years, he was all mine, lunch box and all! They say the first few years of a child’s life sets a pattern for giving and accepting love, among other attitudes. After that, we set about real soon trying to abolish every rule, change every ideal, and break every parent’s heart. But for those glorious preschool years, daddies and daughters are pretty tight. In most cases, certainly in mine, all those attempts to become ‘my own’ self of the 1960s and 70s were for nothing. The roots were already down. Deep. In my heart.

Because of my daddy, I still love the smell of wax paper in the lunch box. I happily anticipated his return home after work because I knew I would find a little gem of something left for me in his lunch box.

Because of my daddy, I like the smell of a gasoline engine and oily tools in a garage. I used to line up old spark plugs, nuts and bolts and tools along the wall of the dirt floor garage we first had. A strong pair of hands that held my head up when I was sick often had that grease and oil on them. Thanks for washing them first, Daddy.

Because of my daddy, and my maternal Grandpa, I love the smell of Old Spice aftershave. They both wore it when I was very young, and wrapped my arms around their necks, and sat on Daddy’s knees in church.

Because of my daddy, I love straight young rows of green in the garden. Later, baskets of produce with various colors washed and arranged like flowers in a vase were brought to the door; I love to do that too.

Because of my daddy, I am crazy about breakfast outdoors, and roadside spots to stop and eat bologna and crackers with a coca-cola. He introduced us to camping, too, or I wouldn’t know that this is not always a desirable thing to do. Thanks for the experience Daddy.

There’s nothing magical about wax paper, or motor oil, Old Spice and gardens. The magic that makes these memories mold us is love. Knowing you are safe and surrounded by acceptance is what every child deserves, just for being brought into this world. I had it, and I drip tears onto the newspaper reports of children who get none of it, and worse. Thank you God for a good daddy. Thank you Daddy for loving me, even when I wasn’t lovable.

Happy Father’s Day, to my Daddy, and all the other great dads, grandpas and uncles, and my brother, too! I love you guys!