The Unbroken Circle

As we continue to travel the rocky roads of life on this earthly planet, we lose things. Some of the things we lose are pieces of unnecessary baggage we've hauled and hung on to. Items that have just become too heavy to carry any longer....items we are better off dropping in a ditch lightening us and freeing us to move ever forward. We cast them aside along with the uncomfortable shoes we’ve navigated in.

 Unfortunately, as we shed those unwanted "things" there are also losses of a different nature. We begin to lose people and the holes that are left in our hearts will not be filled again in quite the same way. The circle of our life becomes smaller - link by link. We continue to close the gap by reaching for the next broken link and knitting it back into the bracelet that makes us whole - a complete circle. Complete..........but certainly not unbroken.

We are left here with our broken pieces and our memories of a time when what was lost to us was once so brightly colored and fresh that we forgot to appreciate and understand it would not always be so. And, we find ourselves wondering...is there anyone who wants to know those stories, hear those memories, and see those mental pictures we still know how to paint.

Sometimes, we are aware of the loss of our loved ones........sometimes, we are not. And then, suddenly, we know and we are left with a million things unsaid and the hope that they truly knew they were loved. There is no loss that hurts less than another - not when we are speaking of family. Because, each passing life takes something from us as it goes. It takes the shared memories, the laughter, the tears, and the bond that a family shares no matter how strained it might have been at times.

 When you were once the child that everyone protected and looked after and you find yourself suddenly the oldest person left in your "circle" it is a sobering thought. You are now the big link in the chain and all the links that follow are small and fragile in your mind. Yours is now the only one that remains as a tie to the past, to the memories, and to the names on all those old black and white photographs. After you.....no one will know.

No one will know the importance of those "ugly" dark paper prints in antique frames that you hang on to. No one will understand that you spent a lot of time in a big iron framed bed gazing at that wheat field, that wolf in the snow, the dark ship in a troubled moonlit sea, or the beautiful church that evoked such feelings of peace. Sadly, all I have are the field and the ship prints. The church and the wolf are lost to me but the memory of them remains.

There is no one left who has the scent of Chamberlain's Hand Lotion burned into their nostrils and continues to wonder how something with the consistency of water could ever do a thing for chapped and dry hands. You are the only one who remembers watching work worn hands from doing other people’s laundry, pick carefully through a battered change purse at the variety store to come up with the exact amount to pay for that lotion.

No one remembers the game of Fox and Goose played with buttons (1 red for the fox and 15 white geese) from a big tin box played on a board drawn on a cardboard box. Or, sleeping next to a sweet large fluffy woman in a suffocating big old feather bed mattress and knowing there was no other place on earth you felt as safe. You are the only vessel that holds the story behind the ancient quilt you keep wrapped in a cover in your own closet. A quilt that is older than you are and like you working towards returning to the organic matter from which it sprang.

All of these memories I shared with my mother and my aunt and in secret listening events I knew they shared secrets between the two of them that would be forever unknown to me. They shared things as sisters. There were things they spoke of that I know as well, but I have no doubt there were a million threads in the fabric of their lives that were spoken of only between them or went unspoken because in their individual minds....they knew. Only the two of them truly knew the hardship of their young lives. I suspect I have a good idea but they lived it. They lived the poverty, the shame of being truly poor and having to wear clothes plucked out of missionary barrels at the local church, they lived the uncertainty of having a mother who was "frail" and therefore could not perform the duties mothers do for their kids. They endured the taunts and teasing of children who thought it funny to change the words of an old hymn to increase the shame of their family and another equally unfortunate tribe. Till the day they died I know "Rescue the Parishes - Pray for the Joneses" rang bitterly in their ears. You see....bullying was alive and well even in the 1920s and 1930s.

Marie Jones Immel, Lona Bell Jones, Rosalee Jones Glenn

Losing my mom's link in my family circle hurt like hell. I miss her everyday, but until yesterday there was still a piece of her here on earth to connect us. We had issues...oh my gosh did we have issues! I was never sure exactly what to do with mom. Did I hold her close? Should I keep her at arm's length? Was she ever proud of me? Why on earth did she do, say, or think that? A million questions every single day. Some answers I never got and that's okay. I know at the end of the day, she loved me regardless of anything else - I was her only one. Her only biological child, and yet, she loved all kids. But, she was not a person to "play" with you - she more or less treated kids like real people with all the expectations and disappointments that might go along with that. She had a well developed idea of what should be and often a "my way or the highway" approach to things. She was often times reticent and retiring, sometimes funny and witty, efficient, organized, and neat. For all their similarities, her sister was a completely different individual. She was outgoing, friendly, happy, personable and sexy as hell. She had a way of making everyone notice her and if you ever knew her, you never forgot her. It was this person my mother entrusted her young child to when mom was newly divorced and working in 2 different cafes trying to support me.

It was this woman, I spent a very long time in my life suspecting might possibly be my mother. I could well picture a scenario where I was a "love child" from a way too young love affair, taken in by an older sister but allowed to be half raised by her actual mother. I even proposed this possibility to my mom on numerous occasions. She always laughed…..she wasn’t offended….she found it hilarious. But, in her hilarity, I often times remained unconvinced that I was incorrect. In fanciful dreams of alternate reality my Aunt and I were much alike. I was a lot like her in my outgoing personality, my love of people and their stories, and my ability to relate to almost anyone. The fact that I share her crooked grin and those freckles in my youth, gives me a great deal of pleasure. And, she loved me. Told me so and showed it.

My Aunt Rose packed me on her hip walking through the dusty streets of a little Texas panhandle town. She took me everywhere she went, even smuggling me into the switchboard office of the telephone company where she worked nights as a telephone operator. 

She let me write and color in my baby book - she let me write and color in my grandmother's Bible. No piece of printed matter escaped my artistic talents. She never, ever forgot my birthday and she always sent me money. She listened to my secrets, she had great insight into “boy” problems and she NEVER EVER judged me. She was my mom on steroids, the person my mom might have been if she hadn't had to grow up much too fast. She was the person who was never 100% sure how to spell her own name....throughout my lifetime it has been Rosa Lee, Rosalee, Rosilee, Rose Lee, and finally I think she determined it was supposed to be Rosie Lee. Please remember that when she and my mother were born birth certificates weren't always done. My mom was able to make up her own birthday, place of birth and date of birth so she could become "official" with the government. I can only assume it was the same with Aunt Rose.

And now....I am left remembering sitting on the lap of an effervescent redhead as she spoke over and over the words to a poem that is imprinted in my mind. A poem others have said is dark and disturbing but only speaks of love and tenderness to me....maybe because I knew how much she loved me and wanted me to have that poem as my own. The poem was The Children's House by Longfellow and I can recite it to this day. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173894 I remember watching her for hours doing her makeup, fixing her hair and ironing her clothes. She never stepped out of the door without looking like a million dollars....ever. And she took the time to make sure she looked good and bless her heart for that.

Because as good as she looked on the surface, she was just as beautiful underneath. She had a heart for people and she had time for people. She had time to sit and linger over coffee and visit, she took time to write letters and send cards, she made people feel important. She gave all of herself she had to give to those she loved. I'm pretty sure there was nothing held back. She was a force of nature - a bright blooming rose in earth's garden.

The link that was my aunt in my chain is now gone as well.

 

I am left with a rapidly shrinking circle. I have my children and grandchildren and a very few scattered relatives that share my gene pool, but the forged circle of biological family grows ever smaller. But, as sad as I am to think about how small my bracelet is becoming -  I rejoice in the knowledge that one day that circle will be complete once again. All the little brutally pulled apart links will be welded whole again and I will sit in the circle of my loved ones in Heaven, once again part of the chain of family......the circle WILL be unbroken, by and by Lord, by and by..... for surely I know that some glad morning, I too....shall fly away.