Welcome Happy Morning — this is not an Easter story, well, not really

This morning I woke to my dog sniffing out our bedroom window at the wind. He does this every morning, rising usually before the sun is up, and now that it's warm enough for us to sleep with the window open, he sniffs. If you watch him, his nose is the only thing on his body that moves...often he keeps his eyes shut tight against the rising sun, so he can get the pulse of the morning. What creatures may have traipsed through our yard in the night, who (meaning neighborhood dog) has already walked by before day was up? Has his friend Sookie walked by without him? Is there a new girl dog in town? And I like to think he is, after living all this time with me, listening to the birds. He sees things with that nose, that it takes a discerned human mind to detect.

It is Easter. I love Easter. The new chance for everyone. All church and new birth, hymns and lilies, all the welcoming of this happy morning and the trumpets and drums. The Good News. I used to take my kids' pictures every year in their Easter outfits, and today I have looked through the Facebook postings of my younger friends — of dying eggs and fitting heads with bonnets, plucking flowers from the yard for the Easter cross, and I just miss it. Just plain miss it all over the place. The whole making of the Easter Bunny cake and the jelly beans in the basket that somehow don't ever get eaten, even that. (Now I just keep a bowl of jelly beans on the counter, and they disappear.)

But Easter is not Easter without church for me, and in the past few years, our church has become so crowded on Easter morning that we have found ourselves at times so pinched in our seats that we wondered if we could find enough welcome in our morning to say "Happy Easter!" (Please, don't say: what a Scrooge!)

So in the past couple of years, we have chosen the Easter Vigil, an ancient service that starts with fire in the dark and ends with trumpets and light, and a welcome, for the day that is yet to rise. And room in the pew. So that's what we did last night.

Mind you that this has changed my entire Easter tradition. The whole dying of the egg thing, the baskets with straw, the lamb after the morning service. This year, like the past few,  our daughter and her husband were not here, so we had lamb chops on the grill before the Vigil, broke bread with our son in the back yard with the bluebirds flitting in and out of the box. Not at all a bad thing, but different.

And today, well, today, instead of church —and because we had already celebrated the Resurrection — we went sailing.

My husband is a sailor. On Saturdays, he heads due north (in the car), an hour away to the Fortune's Fool, which (six boats, different names ago) I accused of being his mistress. I've calmed down about that a bit now. He has his Saturday sails and I have my Saturday writing and reading and naps, (my laundry), and only on the prettiest, windiest days do I feel guilty that I am not with him.

But today... well, today, we planned it. Looked at the weather forecast five days ago and planned our whole weekend around our afternoon sail. Our son, who lives in our same town but you would never know it unless he is hungry, came "home for the weekend," for church, for sleep, to eat, to sail.

It is a rare day when the three of us are together, untethered to anything but each other. And on a sailboat, in the middle of a windy lake, well, that's what we were. Tethered. Or at least I imagine that's how he felt at times during our weekend.

Our son often thinks we are idiots, bumbling middle-aged folks who can't possibly have one interesting thing to say, not one inkling of a creative bone between the two of us. Honestly, what do we do with our lives when our children leave us to start theirs? I can't possibly imagine.

I took the new camera I am still trying to learn how to use,  and he said it's too dark to capture the Whooping Crane I saw. (He does know how to take pictures, and he was right.) When the boat veered too close to shore, his dad said: see any Indians? My 24-year-old threw back that he "was 24-years-old," and his dad needed to cultivate a few new jokes. He was, again, right.

It was not a day of crisp conversation, as it would have been if Big Sis had been aboard. I spent much of the time with my eyes closed, listening to the wind, or watching the clouds (I am working on a children's book with clouds as the main characters, but though I read renditions of this book to him as a child, did I share it with him? No... )

But none of this mattered, because we were together, the three of us, breaking bread in a boat with the wind whipping and the sails furled and the clouds spinning all around. (I did once or twice think about the story of Jesus visiting the disciples after the Resurrection, as they sailed and fished, but would have left with empty nets, had he not told them to fish from the other side.)

I sat, as two of the most important men in my life worked in tandem to manage that wind as it filled the sails, whipped them round and about and round again, my hands on the dog. (We were only scared once.)

On the way home, the dog sat in my lap, exhausted from hanging on. (There is of course another story as to why.) I watched my two men in the front seat, silent except on occasion, trying to find piece of my son in his dad. They don't look much alike, but if you know what to look for, it is there.

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we have hail

when the Princess Pea was young, her favorite movie was Twister. there is a scene in the movie, when the storm chasers say: we have hail! we have hail! seconds later, a category five tornado touches down in the field around them and lays havoc on the land. the princess so wanted to chase those storms, but i knew better.

when I was a child, a tornado blew through my town, felling a 200-year-old oak tree on my house. i remember watching branches blow by the window, how it sounded like a giant freight train screeching on brakes, the crashing glass, how we couldn't find my sister, who had just ridden through the back yard on her banana bike.

years later, a second old oak was felled in my parents' yard, not long after we drove into the driveway on our way to the beach. though nothing hit our house, we later walked down the streets of my childhood, marveling at the holes the fallen trees had left in the sky. Add in another tornado on a may night in 1989 the felled trees in our yard in winston-salem, a hurricane 1996 when we lost more than a dozen, and let's just say i have great respect for wind, and the randomness of its ways.

yesterday, when my husband brought to me in his palm a chunk of ice the size of a golf ball and said: we have hail, i paid attention. crystallized, an iced jewel, cold and melting against the heat of his hand, it was a harbinger, to be sure.

we were attending a wedding reception — the bride having just dance with her father, the groom just about to take over the floor with his mom — when the lights went out, silencing the dj. minutes before, the lights had been flickering off and on as kids checked their smart phones for news... it was coming our way.  and then, all was dark, silent — all except the wind and rain, that hail... my friend grace, who survived a twister in 1988 that blew her dining room table into her neighbor's yard and her daughter's crib into the living room, hid in the hallway.

And then my husband brought the hail.

We watched, as whitecaps filled the club swimming pool, as sheets of wind blew through and through and through, and then, as always happens, the sun just came on out. the reception went on, though in the dark, still. we wondered what was out there, what had happened from all that wind.

our dog was alone, and so we left earlier than planned. on our way home, i checked my phone and had texts from friends who had seen the news. were we ok? we checked with our son, living near the reception site, and he was fine, had called about the dog. i wondered what we would find at home. he was safe, our yard scattered with scraps of insulation, from we knew not where.

once home, we checked the weather — bad news — a home improvement warehouse in a town some 40 miles south, destroyed, customers safely huddled in the back. houses all around destroyed, people missing. power poles down, but lines nowhere to be found. we watched the radar, called my parents, told them to get to the hall, the closet, because it was headed their way.

an hour later, they had been spared, their dog annoyed at the interruption of her day. 30 miles away, 11 people were killed. many in the same family. three little children died a few miles from here when a tree fell on their trailer. one friend told me this morning that her neighborhood streets were scattered with mail from Sanford, where the lowe's warehouse was destroyed.

today people all around us are sorting through, picking up, grieving. the rest of us are praying, trying to figure out how to help. i've been watching news accounts and youtube videos made by storm chasers and others, marveling at the beauty and violence swirled together in the clouds.

the wind has its ways, and no one knows the strength of them. pay attention. help wherever you can.

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Beety Jean

I don't remember who first called my mother Beety Jean. I don't think it was me. But sometimes, in our most endearing moments, I call her that. Beety Jean.

Her name is Betty Jean. When she goes to the doctor, which is frequent these days, they call her Betty, and I don't know who they are calling when they come to the waiting room door. Most people who know and love her now, just call her BehJean. That's what my father calls her.  Don't cross the ts, don't take on the y...just BehJean... 

Today she turned 83. 83. What I remember about her birthday growing up, is that we gave her azaleas for the yard, and that she told us that Roosevelt died that day, in Warm Springs, Ga., when she was 17.
I hope to live as long as she has, to see my children settled,  grandchildren just about, have a great-grandchild  — as she does — one just starting out, and another on the way.  Her life has not been easy, but most folks who know her now think it has been. And she will never say.

She is funny, but she does not often show it. She is fond of her granddaughters and grandsons, especially, and loves when they make something over her. (hint hint)

I can recall only once when she ever raised her voice at us as children, though I know there were many times when she must have wanted to. She had practice, at being patient.

Some years ago, I wrote  a story of what I remembered about her as my mother, and how that connected to the mother that was me. Here it is. One day, if she will let me, I will write her story, as she remembers it herself.

Hat Check copyright 1995

By Susan Byrum Rountree

My mother had a hat to match every Sunday outfit: a wide-rimmed black hat with a crisp grosgrain bow, a red straw hat with netting for her face, and her favorite, a bright blue cloche style covered with pink flowers and tiny green feathers that waved in the breeze. Each Sunday be it winter or spring, she would delve deep into her closet through her neat hatbox stack, emerging, matched and stunning, ready for church in her best hat. She was beautiful, poised, reserved and in control, her silver hair curling softly from beneath her chosen covering.  Watching her from my place on the pew, she was all I ever dreamed of being — thin and beautiful and stunning in a hat.

I should have known I could never emulate my mother. I wore a few hats myself as a child, always with elastic bands uncomfortably hugging my chin. But I was silly, not sophisticated like my mother. Her hats were an extension of her personality, each one chosen carefully as a way for her, the mother of three young children, to show the world that despite our prickly heat, bandaged elbows and broken bones, she still had control. Just look at her hats.

I’ve always looked awful in hats. My hair is just short enough to be crushed beneath a brim, and my ears poke out just a little too far. That’s not to say I don’t have hats of my own. I actually have many more than my mother could ever dream of fitting into her small bedroom closet, but each one is invisible to the naked eye.

My self-portrait mirrors the  drawing of the old man in a favorite children’s story of mine, Hats for Sale.  There I am with poked out ears and oogling eyes trying to balance a wobbly row of hats on my unkempt head.

On top is my mother hat, a hardhat, its shell stuffed with tissue, Band-Aids, and shrill sounding whistles, should I need to be a nurse, a referee, tutor, guidance counselor, fireman, handyman, construction worker and a host of other people, depending upon my momentary needs. (This of course is not to be confused with the parent hat, a beanie which is worn specifically during moments when your preteen daughter’s boyfriend calls and you want to embarrass her by actually saying hello.) Below the mother hat is a chauffeur’s cap, under which I can be baseball coach, piano player, ambulance or sportsfan, depending, again, on moments and needs.  Squeezed in the middle is the wife hat, which comes complete with it’s own “I told you so” ribbon tied around it’s brim, a honeydo list waving like Minnie Pearl’s price tag and a night light, should I fall asleep before my husband’s flight gets in. This hat, which doubles as a video prompt screen to remind me how to conduct adult conversation, is a must for nights out at the movies, and dinner with friends.

Scattered in the pile are a dozen other styles for when I need to be a daughter, sister, neighbor or friend, and a “don’t mess with me” Stetson I keep on the kitchen counter at supper in case one of those annoying telephone salesmen should call. Somewhere far below them all is my writer’s hat, a tiny pillbox, which I never really ever take off, but which is only seen in rare moments when all the other hats are not otherwise occupied.

Not being a one-hat-at-a-time kind of person, I usually have several hats fighting for head space at once. My chef’s hat creates at the stove while I talk on the phone with the help of my business hat and prepare a snack for the kids in my short-order cook hat, my writer’s hat constantly feeding me with first lines of stories it wishes I’d write. (Perhaps I’ll get a secretary hat to write them all down.)  But you won’t find my unworn hats tucked neatly away in boxes. They are likely strewn across the kitchen counter, waiting for someone responsible, like my mother, to put them away.

The difference between my mother and me is that she chose each and every one of her hats for a purpose; if anyone had asked, I would choose to keep only a few of mine. Most, as a friend reminded me the other day, are thrown at me as if I were a hat rack, standing empty and inviting.

I daydream of being a magician, top hat in hand, trying to pull one hat out of the pile to wear alone without all the others spilling onto the floor. Every now and then, I can do it, though on most days, my hat stack tips and sways like the deck of a ship in stormy weather. A few stay put, but many fall, and I scramble to put them back in place before anyone notices I’m not managing.

Despite my varied collection, I still lack that one hat to give me the poise provided by my mother’s feathered cloche. Perhaps its because I’ve never been in control of my life as my mother was of hers. Or maybe, as I’d rather think, she  really wore all the same hats I do, but she just used her favorite feathered one to hide them all. 

Happy Birthday, Beety Jean. Once again. sbr

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i could write this so many ways

my day began at 6:15 a.m., with a black dog on the deck next door, covered with a blanket. and she was dead. though i have not quite ended this day literally, it ended for me with a phone call from an 82-year-old woman whom i didn't know until this morning, telling me she is all right.

my neighbor lost is beloved 13-year-old black lab last night. and because he is grieving, he could not bare to do anything but leave her, her head resting on her dog bed, a blanket covering her as if she had only gone to sleep.

i knew she was there, having said my peace to her as she lay, still warm. I rose this morning to walk my own dog, checking as i went out, and she was there. (she has since gone to her final resting place.)

i was late to work, which is fairly usual for me — (since i work for my church they are forgiving:) — having stopped for a minute to visit a friend... and so i was in a hurry, and as i rushed along the road, something struck me as odd.

 a lincoln town car, just like my parents used to own, crammed into a utility pole.

weird place to leave your car, i thought as i passed, crammed into an utility pole like that  (i am not entirely sure why i thought this)..  then i saw them. an elderly couple inside the car. and no one else but me around. the car steaming, just a little.

i did a u-turn on what is usually a very busy street, thinking only: this could be my parents. as i approached, the man — the driver — dressed in a suit, opened the door to the car. i saw a woman in the passenger seat trying to dial her cell phone. 

have you called 911? no, tried, to, but no. so i did. it took six rings. the utility pole was severed, held precariously by lines above our heads. the man and the woman sat, all of us unsure of what to do... they were not visibly injured.  

at this point i have to remind everybody that i am the only person in my immediately family with NO medical training. i am grateful no one was bleeding.

more people came, helped them get out of the car as i talked to 911 dispatchers.  moved them to safety.

this is a road i take every single day to work, and again on Sundays, to church. 

a man stopped in the turn lane. rolled down his window: is anybody hurt? not that we could see. he got out of his car, wearing a neon vest: police chaplain. just happened to be passing by. God puts us where we need to be, he said.

i sat with the woman. her name was Gaynelle. she was from out of town, a small town i had heard of but have never visited, and she was headed with her brother to a funeral, just one street over from where they were. her brother was fine, then veered right, ran over a mail box, slammed into the pole. seemed to remember he had a coughing fit.

as we talked, i told her my name. she told me hers. where she was from.. which if you are from Eastern NC, which I am, is really the second thing you say to anyone you meet. the third thing is: what does your daddy do... we never got to that.

"it is so nice to meet you," she said.. and so as i said: so nice to meet you, too, but i wish the circumstances were different,  i thought this lady has some salt. i was about to cry, and she was making introductions. she is 80, at least. trying to find a number on her cell. i thought of my own mother, my dad, who won't even turn on the cell phone when they are in the car. 

help arrived. they were in safe hands, so i left after what seemed a very long time, but was probably only about 20 minutes from their hitting the pole. 

i was unable, honestly, to concentrate on my work. with the glory of google and the nature of small towns in n.c., i plugged her first name into a box, and found where she lives, her phone number.

all day i wondered about her. i drove home, and six hours later, the nice people who work those utility poles were still trying to replace the one that broke in the crash. in late afternoon, i called, left a message.

20 minutes later she called. she was home. safe. she and her brother had been declared just fine, and the nice police chaplain had followed them to the church, where they made most of the funeral, went to the burial, came back and had lunch, and then made their way two hours south, with their nephew, driving them home. what? they crashed into a utility pole, totaled their car. yet made it to their appointed destination. and then some.

again: she will be 82 next month. she lives alone. i'll be fine, she said to me on the phone.  it is amazing to find so many wonderful people in one place at the same time. everybody was just so nice.

well shouldn't everybody be?

i am not alone. and this day rattled me. all day i wanted to come home, take a rest. and she kept on with her day. i am sure you were scared, i said to her. well, yes, i was, she said. no inflection, no emotion just fact. yes it scared me. but we are fine.

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up and away

a month ago, i was asked a question, and i answered just this way. when i look back at that list, i can see that i didn't do such a bad job on the little things, but on the big, not so much.

one of the little things, actually the first thing that came to my mind was "fly a kite." not rocket science, since it was the third day of the windiest month, and for some reason my first thought was of mrs. norfleet's 3rd grade classroom bulletin board, filled with kites, soaring in the wind.

as i moved through the month, more than once, i thought about the question, what if? what if, as i climb into my car to run to the grocery store or work or church, what if this is the day. what if, as i nod off to sleep, i would not wake up? and then, turns out it wasn't the last day, so i moved into another one, thankful that i had another chance to eat tomato sandwiches. to wear blue. to look for shooting stars.

and then, my friend kay, emailed. she was flying down to see her mother, and on her way back to va., she would be more than happy to pick me up, if i wanted to come for a visit.

well. i did want to visit, but when kay says flying, she means flying. in a plane. with four seats. and she's the pilot.

here's the thing. i don't mind flying, when i am up in the air and looking down at all those beautiful clouds and when i get close to home i can recognize the water tower near my house, the marina where my husband keeps his boat, love when all the world becomes a map. from up there, there is not one damn thing i can do about anything, so i read my book. and i am not sitting right next to the pilot. but during those take-offs and landings, well, that's when i know full well i could meet my end. so i pray a lot.

but that's in a big plane... a BIG plane... kay's is a jet, and she travels in it like i travel in my car. and she is good at it, zipping up and down the east coast, transporting dogs for rescue to their new forever homes.

still. as i accepted her kind invitation — because i really wanted to meet her husband and her dogs and see her in her office with the birds fluttering around outside — i thought: could this be the way? could that question about what would i do if i knew march would be my last month.. was it prophetic? would i go out doing something so not like me? something not on my list?

the morning of the flight, i tried to straighten up my closet. i paid some bills. sat a little longer with the dog. paced. and paced some more. on the way to the airport, i called my children. (i would wait to call my parents when i was safe in va.)  i didn't want to be scared. she wasn't scared to ride in the car with me when she came to visit. i wanted to be a new me. a brave one, the one on the charm my friend lee gave me for Christmas.

and so, i walked out on the tarmac with kay, and i climbed in. my husband took pictures. kay and i gave the thumbs up. i need to show you how to open the door, she said, in case something happens, and we need to get out, then added: on the ground.

yes. i would need to know that.

it'll be a little bumpy, she said as we taxied. i could not find a strap to hold onto. 

i prayed... no, don't let this be the day, the way...i really hadn't had a chance to clean out the fridge or my dresser drawers, and i didn't want my friend grace to have to come in and do all that for me...it would just be too embarrassing... and then, we were off, up (and down a few times... yes, it was bumpy.) and as i looked around, i could see the water tower, and in another 15 minutes there was the marina, the tiny speck of a boat down there that we sail from time to time.

i listened as kay talked to the air traffic controllers, a tag team of folks from the small airports between here and there connected by the radio. she turned a lot of nobs, calculated a lot of what might have been algorithms. i was thankful she was the smartest 10th grader i knew all those years ago.

when we were cleared for landing, the controller said: thank you for flying with us today. i hope you've enjoyed flight. "they know me, i fly so much," she said. 

landing was easy. by then i was a pro. we had a great visit. good food. friends. long walks. dogs. even a special visit with my friend mel's 94-year-old grandmother, who just so happens is a client of kay's. (that's a whole nother story.) we even met some cute little lambs. i talked kay into buying meal worms for her bluebirds, and moving their house. (they have since built a nest.)

while i was there, kay's friend left her a message saying there was a rumor on facebook that she had been flying on sunday and had disappeared. she laughed. i wasn't about to.

on monday morning, i woke to thunder at 5:30 a.m. thunder? couldn't be, i thought, then flashes and more thunder. in the dark i calculated where my husband might meet us on the ground, so we would not have to fly. by 7 i was up and dressed, ready to call him. surely we would not fly in this weather.

"oh, it's gonna blow through here by the time we take off," kay said. and thought as she pulled the plane from its hanger it was pouring, she was right. by liftoff, it was clear enough to see the mountains around us. the flight above the clouds was smooth, blissful. but coming back to rdu was more challenging on that monday morning. cloud cover, lots of traffic. we were rerouted a couple of times. i could not see the water tower. kay talked to the controllers, at one point saying: where the hell are we? i found a strap to hold onto. prayed. and then... land-ho! she landed, and it felt like we were skimming. she is that good.

"you were a great passenger," she said as we taxied to the terminal. "the first time i flew with lee (her husband), i was screaming."

what was i to say?

when i met my husband in the terminal, i saw him with new eyes. at home hugged the dog, called my parents (whom i knew had been worrying about me the whole weekend.) let my kids know i was back.

the next week i read about the air traffic controller in dc who fell asleep, causing two jumbo jets to have to land on their own... on their own...how in the world? the whole thing is computerized, but still.

a friend of mine said the other day that she thought i was growing, and she didn't mean growing sideways, but that when she met me over 10 years ago, no way that me would have flown on a tiny plane to visit a friend.

"i never thought you'd do it," my husband said, when i told him about her comment. "do what?"

"fly on that tiny plane." well, when i wrote fly a kite at the first of march i meant a kite. i never once thought: plane. that part was total improv. and i think kay for helping me be a little braver than i was.

today i called my parents, to check in. my dad said: you saw there were two plane crashes this week. (translation: please don't fly again like that, or wait til i won't know about it.) i had seen the news, said prayers for those lost souls, thinking that could have been me. and kay. 

since april has come, i have taken a new look at my march list. like i said, i've done a few things: fed my birds, said yes and, listened, sung too loudly, studied my orchids, filled a vase with hydrangeas, thanked God, worn blue, napped in the sun, added charms to my bracelet, made rolls, driven down a country road (it was too cold to put the windows down), helped a stranger, smelled puppy breath, stared at the sky, believed it's possible, opened the windows, captured the light, forgiven, taught someone, made much ado... i still have a lot on that list yet to do, but i have done so many other things that i never even thought of. I dusted off a children's goodnight book manuscript i wrote 30 years ago and wrote new verses. planted lettuce. hugged my sister (and my brother), played with with my four-year-old great nephew, took my son to lunch. celebrated birthdays and babies- and brides-to-be. not one day did i fly a kite.

mrs. norfleet's april bulletin board, way back in third grade, was covered with umbrellas. and raindrops. today, though the sun pours into my kitchen, i think of girls in yellow rain boots, umbrellas in hand, stomping at puddles. that's what i'm going to do this month. stomp at the puddles, to see how big a ripple i can make.

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