The Garbage Can.

As I backed out of my driveway this morning, I was reminded that it was Wednesday. Humpday to weary 9-to-5ers, but also garbage day for those of us on the mid-week rotation with Franklin Disposal. I put the Pilot in park. As I wheeled my big blue receptacle to its resting place, I felt a sense of peace. No big deal, I know this. However, there were many Wednesday mornings at the beginning of this 9-year journey that I felt ‘not peace.’ At times I felt sad, or angry, but not usually peace. I remember that first day in May 2008 when I rolled the garbage can back down the driveway in my fuzzy pink bathrobe. It was probably the first time I had done that in 5 years. Always in divide and conquer mode, Brian did garbage can duty. I did morning routine duty. I did hair, sock searches, and refereeing of early morning squabbles over cereal and pop-tarts. Brian did garbage duty for almost 20 years. I remember looking up and seeing my neighbor, Julie, as she watched with tears in her eyes. She also knew that Brian King did garbage duty. Brian was gone.

I was not sure I could do it, not garbage-can-duty, of course. It was everything all at once and nothing would ever be the same. The garbage can became a symbol for me over the years. 

I am not sure why, but I didn’t adjust well to the garbage-can-duty-thing. I was confused about how early the garbage guys would come, and what about holidays? Seems so simple as I type this, but I often found myself trying to race, bed-head and barefoot, to get to the street before the schedule-conscious truck passed, often leaving the can at the curb past the HOA acceptable time limit. This of course causing an appointed deputy of all things Homeowner Association-like to issue me a helpful reminder delivered by personal post. It was a struggle. However, there are many things I handled with ease, much more complicated, time-sensitive, and consequential matters that others might find overwhelming, but I never quite fused the nuances of refuse disposal into my sub-conscious. When I forgot the schedule or missed the memo concerning holiday pick-up in those early days, I can remember just being angry all over again at the thought that garbage-can-duty was supposed to be Brian’s.

In case you were beginning to worry about me, I am actually quite adept at the job of Trash Captain now. I made a deal with “The Man” when I moved to let me leave my “Big-Blue” by the house so there is no remembering to put it on the curb, only to put bags in the can. Smart! This morning, though, I was reminded of all those feelings in those early days, and I realized I hadn’t felt that way in a long time. Peace.

More changes are in store and I am moving into new space again. My baby-girl is out of high school and she is not a baby. She is grown-up. She will not be living with me in just two short months, and I feel different but good. 

It is almost like reluctantly moving to a much smaller home, but then finding out that the view is more amazing.  

I am transitioning to a new place. I am going from I have to, to I get to. I no longer have to have milk in the house because I am responsible for other humans, but I get to cook dinner when everyone comes home because it brings me joy... There will be no lunches to have to pack (even though I enjoyed it) for Hatty this fall, but getting to schedule coffee or lunch with her across town when it works for both of us. She buys her own shampoo and tampons. I don’t have to check the school calendar. I don’t need to pull the parent duty.

I get to choose how I spend my free time. Weird.

 I get to check in with my older girls to see what is important and have meaningful exchanges without the need to make all the decisions for them. I am a silent investor now. I am still deeply vested, but they have their own big-blue-responsibilities and I have mine (Yay). It is the same with the garbage now. It is my big blue receptacle. Who’s else would it be? I get to roll it back to its resting place and be thankful to have a curb on which it can sit, at the corner of a yard, where the house is my own.

#justwrite

Indian Corn

From 2009

Some of the best times the most golden moments are the ones that happen right before "lights out" at our house. I wonder at how quickly the bedtime routines have gone from reading the well-loved and worn story books to "just thirty more minutes on the computer, please?" But for today my youngest, Hatty, still wants to share her bedtime thoughts and prayers with me...as they say "priceless".

It was one of those nights a few months ago, Spring maybe, and I was on the ladder that leads to Hatty's loft bed where she lay. Standing on the ladder I am face to face with my sweet girl as she pours her heart out in prayer to God. Oh my, I wish you could hear the things that are on her heart, I am amazed at her tender words.

But anyway, this night as she looks me over as we are so close she plays with my hair. And after "Amen." and before "I love you." she says..."Mom your hair is so beautiful! It has so many pretty colors...just like Indian Corn!" (she should be a diplomat or at least in PR) She was right my hair has many colors (dark brown, red, gray, blonde, gray)..just like 'Indian Corn'-Priceless!

#warroom #justwrite #bedtimeprayers

Remembering Mom

My Mom on right with her beloved sister Darlene on the left.

Janice Theola Simpson Shockney was born in a time that seems very far from here. Far from cell phones and email messages, Mom recalls the first telephone in her home when she was the age of 9 or 10. Not only a time without TV but without air conditioning and hot water heaters as well. Her childhood was a time when milk-men made deliveries instead of UPS men. It was a time when stories were told for evening entertainment and doctors made house calls. When no one was afraid to leave doors unlocked or worried over children disappearing outside for hours because that’s what kids did, played outside. Until dark!

Mom was the middle child of Theola and John Roscoe Simpson. Darlene her older sister was her best friend and they both adored and spoiled their younger brother Donald. My mom’s simple upbringing in Nashville Tennessee would prepare her for the life she lived with my Dad, Nelson Gary Shockney, Sr. She and my Dad were neighbors as kids in East Nashville but did not begin dating until after High School. My dad told her almost immediately, “He wanted to make her his bride.” But they didn’t marry until Dad returned home from his service in the Army because Mom wanted to be sure and not make a mistake that might lead to divorce like her parents.

Mom and Dad lived in Atlanta and then settled in Goodlettsville with my brother, Gary, and then later me. Our little house on Moss Trail was destroyed by fire in 1970 which led to a move to Robertson County where we tried to blend in with the locals and learn to be country folk! The house where we lived was remodeled around us and over us and we endured calamity and chaos including a flood in the basement, a barn that burned, and a well that constantly needed re-priming to insure enough water.

We tried hard to become farmers but we weren’t fooling many onlookers in those early attempts at planting and harvesting. It was much closer to an episode of Green Acres than a panoramic view of Scarlett O’Hara’s Tara in Gone with the Wind. I assure you. But we all enjoyed living in the country with fruit trees and fresh produce. Mom became an expert at canning our bounty and we raised a few ponies and cows which Gary and I thought was pretty cool. Mom worked at the Social Security Administration until taking early retirement in the late 80’s. When Dad’s health declined to the point he could no longer work, they moved into Gallatin and enjoyed what Mom would say were the happiest years they had together until Dad died in 1996.

We are all shaped by our parents and I am no exception. I hear my Mother‘s voice when I remind my girls to take a sweater or they will be cold in the movie.

Mom believed in being prepared.

As a teenager, like mine today, I would head to the door in a hurry to leave only to be stopped by my Mom’s warnings to buckle up, have plenty of gas, drive safely, lock my doors, etc. And, like my teenagers today I would roll my eyes at the familiar speech. But that was my Mom always ready and trying to prepare me as well.

Similarly, Mom began Christmas shopping in January and would proudly announce being finished sometime in late summer. She had the presents all wrapped of course too! In December we smiled as we opened slightly ragged gifts with flattened bows that had been stored away in tight spaces. There was the occasional Easter when a forgotten or well-hidden Christmas gift was found unexpectantly and appeared in our Easter Baskets instead!

I remember when a much discussed and anticipated Y2K really got my Mom in an uproar. She saved milk jugs and filled them with water and lined the storage shed with provisions so she would be ready for the weeks of survival that might accompany said Apocalypse. The funniest part of this memory is she decided if all life as we know it were ending it would not matter if her house was dirty, so she stopped cleaning as the impending time approached, and vowed not to clean again until the threat had passed.

She loved planning for Holiday parties and special events as well. I can see her cook books in a pile on the floor of the den as she made her menu weeks in advance. Mom was a great cook and she loved to make big meals for family gatherings. My cousins Brenda, Linda and Gina would rave over her fried corn on Easter lunch. Nothing made her happier than to prepare a good meal and have all the family come to enjoy it.

Mom also loved to travel. The most fun though was the preparation. Her trips she would plan by researching her destination and then writing and typing the information later cataloged in a photo album like a copy of National Geographic. It was impressive.

One of the greatest joys of her life was her Journal writing. In them she recorded weekly and sometimes daily the seemingly ordinary events of our lives. By doing so she gave herself the gift of many precious memories otherwise lost in the folds of time. In her last years she would revisit them like old friends to help with her fading memory being depleted by the cruelties of dementia. She wrote these memories down for herself and all of us as well because she knew one day they would be precious to her children and grandchildren as a record of our family.

But more than the sweet, funny memories of my Mom and her ever-ready habits, Mom lived everyday making the most of her words and time. She began everyday in bible study and prayer. She looked after everyone that needed her attention. She always ended a phone conversation with “I love you”. She always let us all know how proud and thankful we made her. She wrote letters to loved ones to make sure important things were said and not forgotten. She told us that she prayed for us every day and she did.

A few weeks ago she had the chance to spend a day with my daughters, she spent the day playing games, telling stories of her childhood, laughing, and telling them how important it is that they marry a Christian man and raise a Christian family. She didn’t know it would be the last day they would have to spend this way but she made the best use of the day because it was a day she would never get back like every day that we live. That was my Mom. 

If July 18, 2012 caught her family and friends a bit ill-prepared and not ready to say good-bye, Janice Theola Simpson Shockney and been preparing her whole life for this day. She was ready that night as she lay down to sleep to wake up as she wrote me in a parting letter, “I am not afraid to die”, “I have lived a good life”, “God has guided me in his counsel and now he is receiving me in His glory.” She had been preparing every day for the day she would wake up in Glory.

She was ready for July 18, 2012. 

I am so proud that she was my Mother. We will miss her loving presence from our lives. She was our greatest cheerleader and advocate before God’s throne. We love you Mom, Your daughter.

June 18, 2012

#warroom #justwrite #missingmom

I am Every Age

Madeline L’Engle said, “I am still every age that I have been.” I became many ages of my past this weekend as our SUV made its way through the streets down Gallatin Road in East Nashville.

As I directed my husband to turn onto Greenwood, I wondered with the same eyes of my youth, at the changes leading to new sights on the once familiar streets leading to my Grandmother‘s tiny, beloved home. I was so caught in the new scenes that I caused my driver to miss the old street, and we had to go back and make a left onto Mathews Place which was not the usual way. The difference in the direction momentarily caught my memory off guard. But as we turned onto the well-worn street, all of my senses began streaming images and feelings to my brain, and at once my heart was full of my childhood.

There was the chain link fence we used to crawl beneath to gain passage to the off-duty school playground. I can see the playground unchanged from my car window! There were the old neighboring homes where dear friends of my grandmother lived. She was “Nanny “ to all who knew her because to know her was to fall beneath her care regardless of your age. In just a few seconds, we were passing Nanny’s little house almost untouched by the progress of the surrounding area. It was just the same! It was as though my Dad was pulling the family Ford to the front of the house just off the street under the massive oak tree where my brother and I piled out of the back collecting Mom's potato salad, some sweet layered goodness, and drinks for the much-anticipated 4th of July family picnic. My Aunts and my Nanny would be busy inside with lunch preparations while my Uncle Jim or Uncle Buddy were likely minding the grill and burning the hot dogs to celebratory perfection.  We would gather in the endless backyard and balance plates atop our knees as we ate from the smorgasbord of family potluck. Later, after the homemade ice cream was devoured, we would gather for the annual fireworks spectacular in an age where even children were allowed to hold exploding Roman Candles in our hands (and we all still have hands, thankfully).

Yes, Ms. L’Engle I am still every age that I have been as I strain my neck, hoping beyond reason to see someone familiar through my unexpected tears. It has been at least 15 years since Nanny was here and many more since we gathered in such a happy family fashion.  There is no one left for my heart to see. There is only me as a representative of the family once gathered in this harbor of my recollection. But for a moment,” I am still every age.”