Last night I was talking to an old woman that goes to the church that I used to attend. She said, " sugar, Essie Davis died this mornin. She weren't never the same since she fell and broke her hip. She finally just laid down and quit tryin. They gonna burie her down at the old home place day afta tommerrey." I will go to Essie's funeral and celebrate her life. She was a teacher many years ago. There will be many former students there that will tell ESSIE stories. Essie refused to make her black students sit at the back of the class and went to jail for that and a few other things. She was a protestor before anyone else knew what that was. I asked her about that time a few years back and she said " I just looked at the faces of all those precious chirren ( children, in old South speak) and knew that the good Lord made us all. Sides, jail wasn't so terrible. I got to teach some boys their letters". Essie's husband stepped on a land mine somewhere in France in WW11 and left her with two children to raise. Her son died of Polio and her daughter died in a car crash in 1971. I would have been driven crazy with grief. Not Essie though. She took in foster children throughout the years. So many that we have lost count. She loved those children and treated them as if they were her own. Some of those boys will be pall bearers. Southern funerals are a thing of thier own. EVERYONE brings food. There will be fried chicken, pulled pork, potato salad, greens, peas, macaroni and cheese, cornbread, pies, cakes and so much more. It will be a celebration of a life well lived. Sometimes, someone will pass around the moonshine. The stories and the laughter will get louder and louder. It is a chance to see people that you haven't seen for years and the old folks will marvel because some people will come all the way from "Gawga" and points beyond. I will raise a glass and tell Essie thank you for touching my life and I will realize that heroes aren't always on Oprah and don't always win awards. Sometimes they live and die and are laid to rest in the Alabama red clay, not very far from thier home place. I gotta go make deviled eggs.

I have French Doors going out to my patio and each door has little panes of glass. For the last few days I have noticed four tiny spiders on the corner of four panes of glass. They are little garden spiders and I have grown quite fond of them. One of them has a little egg sack that she watches over protectively. I have named the spiders Charlotte. All of them. Today it was raining and as I walked past the door, I noticed that one of them was busy spinning a web. I pulled up a chair and watched her for about an hour.She worked so intently, never stopping except to go check on her babies. After she made sure that they were ok, she went back to weaving. I watched with wonder, thinking about what a miracle that was. A little creature the size of a pencil eraser building something beautiful. Something that will withstand the pull of an insect much bigger than she is. Something that will catch the food that will feed her children. Something so amazing that man is unable to duplicate it. I was filled with a sense of awe and I realized that man ISN'T the smartest animal. Spiders only kill to eat. They build a house for thier children until they are ready to leave. They don't hate. They don't have greed or envy. Perhaps we could all learn from Charlotte. I did.

REAL LOVE STORIES
NEVER HAVE ENDINGS. Richard Bach

I saw that quotation on someones blog and it really stayed with me. I suppose that all of us have felt that way at one time or another. That once, we had REAL love. Maybe when we were younger. Maybe just a year or two ago.Maybe if you are lucky, you still have real love. I have a mental memory of my great grandparents. She was Sioux Indian and he was Irish through and through. I remember them walking holding hands. They were in their 80's then. She had on her house dress, ripped in places, covered in flour. She had a white braid to her waist and limped when she walked. He had on his overalls and his little green bow tie. Thier hands had wrinkles and were stiff with age. But they held tight. Tight against the years. The years of poverty, of discrimination and of burying two children. The years of KNOWING that they had stood the test of time, and sickness. Of arguments and love. They walked to the creek every day. One day I followed them. I was a Child and I was curious. They waded in the water, they splashed each other, they laughed and hugged. Really tight. Almost as if they knew that their time was running out. My Poppy had a stroke one Novermber day and died. Granny buried him in his little green bow tie. Then Granny summoned us to her bed. She told us that she wasn't getting up. She was going to be with Poppy. Three days later she was. We buried her beside him. I still imagine them holding hands. Giggling and hugging. Sixty five years just wasn't long enough to be together. They wanted more. I think about REAl love and I think about them. I am so very grateful that ONCE I saw real love. I know what it is.

I watched a very touching movie this evening. It was called AWAY FROM HER with Julie Christie and Gordon Pinsent. There hasn't been a lot said about this movie but Julie Christie is already getting Oscar buzz for her role. The two main actors play a married couple of 44 years. She develops Alzheimers and they must decide whether or not to put her in a home. It is heartbreaking, funny and very real all at the same time. Alzheimers took the mind and finally the life of my step father. He was a brilliant, fascinating man. He was an orthopedic surgeon and an anthropologist. In his last years he didn't know us at all. In his last months he was curled up like a baby in the bed. Drooling and soiling himself. Early in his illness, I think that he knew what he had. There really isn't a definitive test for Alzheimers until after death on Autopsy. He lost words and couldn't think of what he wanted to say. He would go out for a drive and get lost. He asked me once if I would overdose him when it became time. I sort of himmm haweeed around and changed the subject. I think that he felt that I betrayed him. He KNEW what was going to happen to him eventually. And it did. I can think of no greater pain then to look into the eyes of a man that you loved dearly and realize that he didn't know who you were. My mother had to go through that all the time. Fate plays cruel tricks sometimes. I remember looking at this man that saved countless lives and seeing him staring at the wall vacantly. It's a sad disease but a wonderful movie. Watch it if you get a chance. But not if you're depressed.

Hi all, I saw this news article and wanted to cry. I'm not sure if evil is more wide spread or if we just hear about it more now because of the media. The article said.... A construction crew in West Palm Beach, Florida found a two gallon pickle jar while working on State Road 80. It contained a 7 month baby girl fetus. She had light skin and curly black hair. She still had more than 6 cm. of her umbilical cord attached. Salicyltes, a compound found in painkillers( Mostly aspirin) was discovered in her chest and abdominal fluid. The cause of death has been listed as "undetermined". Undetermined... Give me a break. Why don't they call it murder? A 7 month fetus stands a good chance of living. Even if she were stillborn, the mother ( or father) could have had her buried. But to throw her away in a jar, is beyond human decency. There are SO many childless couples that want children. That would have given her a home, given her love. I suppose that I could be charitable and say that the mother may have been a frightened teenager ? I could but I won't. She could have been left on a hospital step. Anywhere but thrown away on the side of a road. I hope that she is now sitting on the lap of a angel. Being rocked. Being loved. I hope that she is being taught to forgive her mother. I can't.