March | 2019 | Blue Apple Moments

The metaphors explored in Frost’s poem about the “gold” that cannot stay – the fleeting qualities of life – have been on my mind lately, as I stare down the half-century mark and ponder how the hues of life’s moments are practically impossible to pin down in any permanent way. Cycles and phases and ends and beginnings are what make up all of life! Today, my family is celebrating one of those beginnings, as my parents are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary, and soon will be celebrating an ending, as well, as my mom will permanently retire from teaching after almost 50 years as an educator of one type or another.

1969 was quite a year!

Man landed on the moon, and the microprocessor was invented.
“Suspicious Minds,” “Sweet Caroline, “A Boy Named Sue,” “Oh, Happy Day,” and the Beatles’ “Abbey Road” album are just a few musical gems from that year, and of course Woodstock happened.
Nixon was elected president, the first troops were withdrawn from Vietnam, and Gold Meir becomes prime minister of Israel.

And in north Mississippi, my parents crossed the state line on a Wednesday in March and got married by the justice of the peace in Hamilton, Alabama. My dad was finishing his studies at Mississippi State University and my mom at nearby Mississippi University for Women when they made that drive. And, as they say, the rest is history!

After I was born, my mom completed her degree at “The W” in Columbus, with a sitter coming each day to watch me at the mobile home they had bought. They then relocated to property owned by my dad’s family outside of Fulton, where his Harden ancestors first settled in the mid-19th century.

Map marking my parents’ homes – both at “the end of the road” in the Harden’s Chapel community of Itawamba County, Mississippi: 95 Wilson Road (1970-1980), and 5 Turner Road (1980-present). A creek bottom separates the two properties, resulting in a circuitous road route between the two. There is now a house past the Wilson Drive location, but I assure you there is NOT a house past theirs on Turner Road!

In 1971, my sister Samantha was born, and our family settled into life in that mobile home at “the end of the road” on what is now Wilson Drive. Mama was a teacher at the local elementary school and Daddy – who can build anything – added a porch and two rooms onto the back of the trailer. Samantha and I rode our bikes, explored the pasture and woods, played for hours in the playhouse Daddy built us in the backyard, cut out paper dolls from Sears catalogs, and learned how to keep house and cook in the trailer’s little kitchen. Throughout all of those early years, we attended Harden’s Chapel Methodist Church, then Southside Baptist Church, where we learned more about Jesus and attended Vacation Bible School and sang in Christmas and Easter programs. We didn’t have much, but we didn’t really know that!

In 1979, Daddy begin building Mama’s dream house on the other end of their property (which is now the “end of the road” on Turner Road). They tried to save as much as possible, and Daddy built every bit of the house with his own two hands! We spent many afternoons and summer days at “the new house,” Samantha and I helping out by watching our new sister, Mia, who arrived in May 1979 and entranced us all! Within a year or so, the house was finished enough for us to move in, but (similar to the Ingalls sisters we watched every Monday night) Samantha and I used a ladder to get to our second floor bedrooms for quite a while. Daddy wanted to get the stairs just right!

The 80s came to a close , then the 90s dawned with the birth of our precious youngest sister, Kaitlin, who was born when both Samantha and I were in college! Their first grandchild, Adrienne, was born four years later in Pullman, Washington, where Anthony and I met and where we were living at the time. Mama retired from teaching in Mississippi several years later, and began several new ventures, including homeschooling Kaitlin, teaching GED classes, and starting to accrue years of teaching experience in Alabama so she could qualify for a second retirement.

A threefold cord

During all of these years, Daddy never stopped moving, working, and learning. He mostly was self-employed as a builder, landscaper, and farmer. He sometimes jokes that he is a “jack of all trades, but master of none,” but I beg to differ. His mastery is apparent in many ways. However, Daddy’s smile is never wider than when he’s holding a grand baby or two! He has made two runs for the county board of supervisors, and although he didn’t win the election, he stood up for his beliefs, just as he always has. He is a voracious reader and I think I probably get my tendency to grab onto and express strong opinions from him.

Those who know my mom know that she also never stops! However, her activities were often a bit more people-oriented and public, ranging from teaching in both public and private schools (almost all K-12 grades and many adults in GED classes), as well as teaching Sunday school, directing Vacation Bible School for many years, running several “side gig” businesses, supporting Daddy in his businesses, and helping people in her community and church for decades, most of the time in practical, immediate ways. Whether she is exhausted or at the end of her rope (of time, energy, or money!), if she says she will do something, it will get done!

*Lily modeling one of many costumes/outfits Mama has made over the years*

Mama’s last class of students helps her celebrate her 70th birthday!

A threefold cord is not easily broken.
Ecclesiastes 4:12

Throughout all these years – the changes, the struggles, the moves, job changes, four daughters, thirteen grandchildren – there are some things that have remained constant. Above, below, and throughout all of my parents’ lives is not only their love for each other (which, though important, is still limited by our human foibles), but more crucially, their love for God and trust in the good news of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Their faith has perhaps even faltered a bit at times, when life seemed to throw more at them than they could handle themselves. But in the end, those moments simply proved to grow their faith even more.

The Gold That Stays

As this day grew closer, I began to think about the gifts my parents have given me. No, most of those are not material things or items that will be passed on via legal documents one day, but they are the gold that will stay after all the dross of life is faded and gone. The gold that stays beyond all the endings and beginnings because it’s the kind that enriches your soul, not your wallet.

I asked my sisters to help me, and we’ve come up with some pieces of gold that we are thankful for on this monumental day of celebrating fifty years and that we hope to pass on as best as we can to the generations to come:

Being spontaneous sometimes and passing that on to your children and grandchildren.
Easter dresses and memory verse stickers.
Freedom to play and climb trees and wade creeks (and snake-bite kits).
How to be confident (even when some might call it being stubborn or headstrong…).
Shoulder rides and singing songs like “Blueberry Hill,” and “Daddy, Don’t You Walk So Fast.”
Don’t use fabric scissors on paper or eat on the carpet.
The chance to spend time with all grandparents and great-grandparents for as long as we could.
“Hee Haw” and chicken from “Mr. Sandlin’s” on Saturdays, “Little House on the Prairie” on Mondays, and the importance of turning off the television as much as possible.
Teaching us to drive a stick shift, change a tire, sew, can vegetables, make tomato gravy and biscuits, crochet, fold laundry while watching television, play the piano, mix mortar, start seedlings, change diapers, respect our elders, and keep our word.
Modeling being conscious about food sourcing and sustainability.
Salad dressing mixed with ketchup and mayo and relish mixed in green melamine bowls.
Humbly and faithfully following Jesus and pointing others toward Him.
Making up silly songs and singing them to us.
The dangerous results of saying you are bored.
Being thankful for what we have, even if it’s not what others have.
The importance of making birthdays special.
Helping us learn to be comfortable talking in front of people and getting out of our comfort zones.
To not shrink back from hard physical work (especially in the winter when the firewood box is empty – even if it’s dark outside, or when the greenhouse has to be covered due to a late frost).
To appreciate the simple beauty of a camellia, a newborn calf, a baby’s smile, pine trees swaying in the wind, green grass underfoot, a toddler’s drawing, and family gathered all in one room.
Being about as opposite as two people can be yet sticking together through thick and thin.

Planted near Reed’s Creek in the 1940s by my great-grandmother Vista Harden Grissom

These golden daffodils, planted over the course of eighty years, are symbols of both the brevity of life and the tangible reminders of the stories and struggles and milestones and mourning that make up life and that carry on, long past our lives on earth are over.

Last spring, I spent a beautiful weekend at the cabin that my dad built by doubling the size of those two rooms he built onto our trailer in the early 1970s. I took a long Sunday walk “down to the creek” and down memory lane, exploring the vastly changed landscape. The cabin by the creek which was built my my great-grandfather B.E. Grissom is still mostly standing, but the barn nearby has fallen down. I made pictures of the house, the trees crowding the fragile walls, the moss-covered cornerstone, wondering so many things that I’ll likely never know the answers to. (What was the man who laid the cornerstone like? Did he build the house by himself like Daddy did? Were there curtains in the windows? Did their kids wade in the creek? Did they read or sing in the evenings? What dreams did they have?)

I did wade in the creek and then dug up some of the daffodils that I assume were planted by my great-grandmother sometime during the years she lived in “the old house” (when I knew her before her death in 1977, she lived next door to us, “up the hill”). This took me quite a while because of course I didn’t have a spade handy, and the roots were extremely deep and strong. Just like mine.