Sharran
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Just folks we loveI love people. It doesn't matter how old, how young, how big or small, I just simply love people. Now I don't go about this in a way you might imagine. I don't say "I love you" nearly enough, but that doesn't mean that love isn't there.
I particularly have a soft spot for those who are older than I am, and I am very old. I like looking at them, and wonder what made them the people they are. There was an old man named Doyle who lived in a stone house up the holler a ways from my house when I was growing up. He had the most glorious magnolia tree in his yard, and I loved to go sit in the grass near it when it was in bloom. Old Doyle would be on his porch having his morning coffee.
"I've come to sit by your tree, Mr. Doyle." "Now why would you want to do that," he'd say, never expecting an answer. He told me stories about that tree and in doing so, he told me about himself. He had brought the tree over the mountain with him from Virginia, the same day he had brought his wife home. She was from Virginia, and he wanted her to have a little part of her old homeplace in her own yard. Now Virginia was only a skip and a hop across he mountain from our holler, but in the early days of his young marriage, he had no car, and had to either ride his old mule, or he had to walk. When he brought his wife and his magnolia tree home with him, she rode the mule and he walked, carrying the magnolia tree, his gift to her.
She had died at an early age, leaving him with a young son whom he raised alone. Young Jim had grown up to be a good man, just like his father, but he had gone off to work at an automobile plant in Michigan, and Mr. Doyle didn't see him very often. He told me that young Jim had learned to climb trees on the magnolia, and that he had broken his arm when he fell from one of its branches.
I didn't have to ask Mr. Doyle to tell me his stories, but I knew he would tell them every time I sat beneath his magnolia tree. I loved Mr. Doyle, and I loved his stories. I don't remember that I ever told him.
And then there was Aunt Betty Jane. She was my great aunt and she could make me laugh out loud just being around her. One snowy Christmas night when I was about five or six, I was sitting around in the living room probably doing not much of anything but looking at the bubble lights on the Christmas tree. Suddenly out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement on the front porch. I jumped when I heard the sound of a cow bell, too. If you have never heard the clang of a cow bell, then you might have missed something pretty terrible. The bell does not tinkle as most bells do. It clangs. Two or three clangs coming from my dark front porch on a cold snowy night just nearly scared me to death. I ran to another side of the room, and just as I did, I saw something in the window across from me. It was not a window on the porch, but one on the side that looked out on the yard. It was someone with a red hat and a white beard, waving a cow bell at me. I was scared to death. I ran for my parents, and when they came to the living room, I was hiding behind them.
"It's only Santa", they said, but I hid my eyes so I couldn't see, and wanted to cover my ears, too, so I couldn't hear that cow bell. Suddenly with the loudest clang that seemed to go on forever, there was a yell coming from the steps just off the porch. Dad went rather quickly outside, and soon came back in to get my mom. By this time my grandmother, who was staying with us, came down stairs from her room to see what the commotion was all about. They came in laughing and half carrying poor Aunt Betty Jane dressed in a Santa suit, with a white beard hanging half on and half off her face. She was the funniest thing, but at the same time I was still scared of this wondrous sight. She had a huge bag of gifts with her, they were not in very good shape either, being quite flattened and covered in ice and snow.
Aunt Betty Jane had dressed up for me, there was not another child in my house, only me, but in running from window to window pretending to be Santa checking on me, she slipped on the ice coming up the front steps. Luckily she landed on her big bag of gifts but the cowbell kept bouncing down the steps clanging all the way. There must have been about 15 front steps.
I don't remember the gifts, I only remember that she went to so much trouble to entertain a little girl. She had walked a mile down the road, in the cold and snow, just for a little girl. I loved that she did it for me, but I don't think I ever told her.
When I was older, and had young children of my own, I had a dear friend named Mrs. Busz. She was a widow and lived alone, but for some reason she always saved me a seat on the bench beside her at church. Sunday after Sunday we always sat in the same spot. She had no family to speak of, so she was usually alone, and there didn't seem to be many people that she was very close to. There were times when I took her places just for fun, to the park to watch the children play, to the library so she could get a book or two when the children were in story hour. And one time I took her to an Amish community a few miles away. Neither of us had ever been, and she had heard they had fresh corn for sale. We took a winding road back in a rural area here in western Kentucky and found the Amish community.
She bartered and bargained for fruit and vegetables while I looked at the lovely quilts. I remember seeing a little girl named Becca who had a pet bird that sat on her shoulder the whole day long. It was a baby wren, and it must have thought that Becca's hair was its nest.
It was a long day, and on the way back home, we talked of many thing. Ms. Busz mentioned how much she missed having children around her and she asked me if I liked plants. When I told her that I loved plants then she invited me to come to her home the next day, and to bring boxes with me. The next day, Ms. Busz loaded me up with one of every plant she had. I came home with a redbud tree, hostas, daylilies, iris, tulips, an unbelievable amount of plants.
She had never expressed affection in any way, but I knew that she didn't have many friends, because rarely did she ever have people around her even at church. But when I hugged her, just before I left with her gift of plants, she said rather gruffly, "Now don't be thanking me, or those plants won't grow."
She passed away not long after that, and I was out of town. I never told her I loved her, but I hope she knew. I think of her every time her flowers bloom in my yard, and they still bloom every year.
We have friends who come and go in our lives. If we take the time, we can learn from them. Sometimes they are the ones who leave footprints on our hearts that never fade away. But sometimes we forget to tell them that we love them.
©Sharon Brown 2/09
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