Small Town America

This post is in response to the “the city you live in” prompt from the 52 Weeks of Gratitude Challenge.

 

For most, this is a drive-by town. The kind of place that forces you to slow down on your journey, simply because you have to obey the law when the signs read “reduce speed ahead”. It’s a small stretch of civilization amongst a sea of cornfields. It’s a passing glance or perhaps a stop to refuel and stretch your legs.

Those who have time to spare may cruise down the city streets to see small Main Street businesses flourishing in old brick buildings of times gone by. The town has a touch of class as well as evidence that it’s part of a farm community. There are more churches than banks.

Strangers move in and are greeted by a welcoming smile and homemade brownies. The town is big enough to remain anonymous but small enough to begin to recognize the familiar faces. It’s almost impossible to go outside and not receive a friendly wave or two from a neighbor or someone just passing by.

While most days are slow and without a lot of activity, there are days when the sides of the city streets are lined with the cars of people who travelled miles to visit, sometimes even tour busses. The town is full of talent, craftsmanship, and artistry which attracts visitors from all over the Midwest.

There’s excitement in the air when the high school football team makes it to the state championship. There are small town celebrities who’ve gone on to play college football and everyone claims them with a sense of pride as if they know them personally and they’ve come from the same family.

Almost everyone is a volunteer in some way. There are volunteer firefighters, medics, and organizations which build community and help the poor. When disaster strikes, everyone helps each other.

It’s not all perfect, the city has its share of crime, drugs, and violence. But it’s the kind of thing that most don’t hear or know about. There is always a friendly officer patrolling the town, talking to the locals, or even just stopping to pet a dog.

It’s the kind of place that’s easy to call home, a place you’re always wishing had more of the big city offerings, but would also find hard to leave.

Neal’s Violet

Both excitement and nervousness ran through my veins about the at-home school project that my third grade teacher, Mrs. L, had just assigned. I was lucky because I had been assigned the state of Illinois, the most coveted of the 50 states of all of my classmates because it was home to us. I couldn’t wait to tell my mom when she picked me up from school! She would be so excited, I just knew it.

At the end of the school day, I flung my backpack on one shoulder, the way that the cool kids did, and made my way to the parking lot where my mom was waiting. The assortment of key chains attached to my backpack jingled and made a pat-pat-pat sound with every step. I wanted to run to get there as fast as I could but I had to appear calm, collected, and cool.

“Hi mom! Guess what?,” I exclaimed immediately after I climbed in the car and closed the door.

“Why hello! I don’t know, tell me,” she replied with a laugh.

“Mrs. L assigned us a state project and it’s due in two weeks. I have to get started tonight so that I get it done in time. Can we work on it after supper?,” I inquired.

“We’ll just have to see. Why don’t you tell your dad about it when he gets home,” she sighed.

I waited anxiously for dad to come home, the table to be set and the meal prepared. The news was bouncing around in my chest, hardly to be contained, but I waited until after we prayed and dad had eaten a few bites of the meat loaf before I let it out.

“Dad, I have a very important project for school that I must get started on right away but I will need help,” I requested with urgency.

“Oh yeah?”, he said as he took another bite, “did you tell your mom about this?”, he said in between chews.

“Yeah. She said to tell you about it,” I responded.

“Oh did she now?,” he chuckled as his laughing warm brown eyes met my mom’s grinning baby blues.

I giggled because they were giggling.

“What’s so funny?,” I asked.

“Nothing. Nothing at all,” my dad said with a smile and another playful glance at my mom, “I’ll help you with it another night.”

Looking back, I’m sure my mom was exhausted with the unending tasks of trying to take care of four children, cook the meals, clean the house, take care of the dog, do the laundry, pay the bills, and care for an elderly friend, just to name a few. When dad arrived home at the end of a long work day, all he wanted to do was eat supper with his family and then sit in his recliner, read the newspaper and relax. But a child doesn’t have a clue about all of the work that a parent does and to me, this time-sensitive project required immediate attention.

Every night after supper I asked if we could work on my project. It seemed like it was an eternity until he finally said yes, but in reality it was only a few days. When the stars aligned, we got started on my important project.

Dad always had fun with these projects. He has always been a dreamer at heart and he had the perfect idea for Illinois mobile construction. We sat at the kitchen table carefully cutting rectangles out of a white poster board and I did my research on the state of Illinois, thrilled to have the time and attention of my dad all to myself.

Dad cut small wooden dowels into foot long pieces and used a knife to cut small kerfs into the wood. He began the tedious process of connecting the dowels with clear fishing line and hanging shorter pieces of fishing line from the dowels where the pieces of poster board would attach and the creation began to come alive. My mobile was going to the best one! I was so proud of how talented my dad was.

Each cut-out poster board rectangle contained facts about the state of Illinois on one side and a hand-drawn picture on the other. The state bird was the cardinal, the capital was Springfield, Illinois was the “Land of Lincoln, the state tree was the oak, and the state flower the viola which is part of the violet family. My dad helped me draw some of the pictures and then I colored them in, but the picture of the violet was up to me.

“I can’t do this—it’s too hard to draw,” I whined.

“Yes you can. You just have to try,” he wisely advised.

I tried again, getting more and more frustrated by the minute while flecks of pink eraser began to cover the table. My older brother of four years, Neal, had been sitting at the table watching.

“I’ll draw the violet for you,” he kindly offered.

“Okay,” I accepted.

I remember taunting him while he drew the picture and told him it didn’t look like a violet, even though I hardly knew what a violet looked like myself. I could be so cruel sometimes and I didn’t really understand how hurtful words could be.

“Believe me, this will look awesome,” he assured me, “just wait until I’m done.” He made his way to his room to finish the drawing in private and away from my critique.

He spent considerable time drawing the flower so that it was perfect. Proudly, he emerged from his room with his masterpiece and handed it over to me.

“This is ugly,” I laughed, “it doesn’t look anything like a violet. I don’t want to use this. It’s dumb.”

His heart having been crushed, he escaped back to his room and closed his door. I never saw his tears, but my dad did.

“Give me that picture,” my dad said angrily. He looked at the drawing like he had never seen something so beautiful before.

“This is perfect! I never could have drawn a picture so well,” he said loud enough for Neal to hear.

He opened the door to Neal’s room and said, “Neal, you color this in and I am going to keep it on the mirror over the dresser and I will treasure this beautiful violet forever.”

“But I want to use the picture in my project,” I complained, suddenly seeing the value of it now that dad had approved it.

“Nope, it’s too late. You didn’t appreciate it and now it’s mine. You made Neal cry, you know,” he said sternly, “you will have to draw your own flower and you also need to tell him you’re sorry—and mean it.”

I understood how much I had hurt him, but I was too proud to show I or even admit it—instead I was mad and angry. I offered him several unapologetic “sorry”s at my dad’s insistence that each “sorry” I offered was not truly from my heart, and retreated to my room in tears.

It broke my heart that I had disappointed my dad. I felt horrible for the way I had treated my older brother who had only been trying to help out of kindness. My heart ached, but I never truly said I was sorry—even though I was, but had not yet learned the humility to admit that I was wrong.

I drew a violet which, in my mind, never measured up to the one Neal had drawn. I was ashamed of it. I felt like it ruined my entire project.

I brought the completed project to school in sadness. My heart was heavy as I presented it to the class. My classmates “oohed” and “aahed” over its greatness. It was most definitely the best one there, but I only felt ashamed. No one in my class knew how hurtful I had been to my own big brother, and the perfect score I received wasn’t as gratifying as I had imagined.

As the years passed, I felt a pang of guilt every time I saw the violet proudly displayed on my dad’s mirror; a constant reminder of the effect of hurtful words.

My Illinois state project mobile has been long gone, but I can still see Neal’s violet so clearly. The soft pencil strokes that had been so carefully and artfully drawn; the purple petals and the green leaves colored perfectly within the lines—imprinted in my mind and on my heart.

I will always remember that the official flower of Illinois is the violet and that one should always accept gifts from the heart graciously and with kindness.

This post is in response to the prompt “something someone gave you” from the 52 Weeks of Gratitude Challenge.

A Mishap at Day Camp

It has been a while since I wrote a post from the 52 Weeks of Gratitude Challenge prompts, so I decided I should write something for the next prompt, “a family member”.

“It’s ok—just climb down, Michael,” said the camp counselors. He shyly shook his head no and continued to remain firmly planted on the top of the blue monkey bars in just the right position to hide the rip in the back of his hand-me-down denim shorts that was threatening to show his red, blue and green briefs. He planned to stay there forever or at least until everyone else went home and it was dark enough that no one would see him.

It happened so quickly. At six years old, he was desperate to be like his cool older brother who could climb anything. He was so awesome that he could climb to the very top of the tallest trees and even the big round dome that covered the entrance to the slide! Michael thought if he just practiced hard enough, he would get there someday. But he attempted a maneuver to get to the top of the monkey bars that proved to be detrimental to his shorts. And so here he sat. Stuck.

I was busily running around the playground in my tired white tennis shoes with red socks, pink and blue flowered shorts, and a navy and white striped t-shirt that was too tight for my ever growing body. My braided brown hair was frizzy and forming a mane around my face.

One of the camp counselors informed me that Michael was refusing to climb down from the monkey bars and they didn’t know why. Like a mama bear, I quickly ran over to the monkey bars to see what was going on. I spied the rip in his shorts and knew exactly what the problem was. Hold on a couple of minutes, I said assuredly.

On a mission, I ran inside the school and found the craft supplies. I grabbed the masking tape and made my way back to Michael. His hazel eyes were ready to cry as one of his friends laughed and pointed at him.

On my tippy toes I reached up and carefully mended the shorts back together with the masking tape. Instead of a hole, he now had a masking tape patch. I convinced him that the hole was completely covered and finally he agreed to climb down.

I was beaming with pride as I stayed close to my little brother’s side—my friend who was the daddy when we played house with my dolls, my swimming buddy in our kiddie pool in the back yard, the little boy who I was so proud of because he could sing eerily like Britney Spears. He was my little brother and I knew I would always protect him, no matter what.

Thank you so much, he said with relief.

No problem, that’s what sisters are for, I said.

20 years later I still feel the same—even about all of my siblings, but especially about my little brother who isn’t so little anymore. Now he drives a shiny black Camaro (which I refer to as his bat mobile), lives in his own fancy apartment and has a great job. But if he needed me, I’d still run over and find a way to patch whatever needed mending.

Family

(source)

When I started thinking about the “family” prompt in the 52 Weeks of Gratitude Challenge, I first thought of the family that I grew up with. For some reason, I had never given much thought about the fact that hubby and I have formed a family of our own.

Isn’t it amazing that with one choice and the two little words of “I do”, you begin a family? I am forever grateful that I met my soul mate and best friend. There is no other person in the world who loves me like he does. I’m still glad that he asked me and I chose to make him my family, all because we fell in love.

Now we have our pretty little baby girl who makes us smile every single day. She’s a little bit of me and a little bit of him—the perfect blend of us both. And with her birth, we became a family of three and I can’t imagine our little family any differently. I’m grateful for this precious gift of love that has been entrusted to our keeping, all because two people fell in love.

This post is in response to the 52 Weeks of Gratitude Challenge on Pinterest,”family” writing prompt.