We were only a couple of kids who knew each other from piano lessons and being in the same grade in elementary school. In junior high, we could talk easily and be completely open. We thought similarly and had the ability to follow each other in bizarre conversations, instinctively knowing what the other's point was. We didn't appreciate a connection such as that at the age of 13 or 14, didn't know how rare it was, didn't realize it signified anything of importance.
Then when the class moved to the new high school in the fall of 1967, he was gone. I never knew exactly where he was, but discovered he had graduated at Lee High in Huntsville.
I saw him last when we shared an English class at UAH in the spring of 1974, not long before we graduated with B.A.s in English in 1974. I didn't see his face or hear his voice again for almost 38 years. By then we were both different people, until we met face to face.
He found me after 45 years from when he was my first love. He came to my house to visit and we haven't stopped talking since.
Our lives have run in parallels since we were children. While I was busy marrying unsuccessfully, he was also living in unspoken misery. Who would have thought we'd still be finding things we shared?
When he appeared in my doorway all I could think was "My Lord, the hurt deep in his eyes is a look I see in my mirror every day".
He was blessed with children. I was not. If only I'd had the opportunity to have his child, it would have been the only one I can truthfully say I would ever have wanted to have.
Then, just because I'm 58 years old, I received a miracle. An honest-to-God miracle. He loves me still and I love him above any person, place or thing in my life. I love him in ways too many to count but in addition, there is also admiration and respect. I needed that and he has given me all I ever wanted.
I dream of waking each morning to those bottomless brown eyes that stir me so. And it was hard to admit for awhile, (considering the caution with which I now treat any man in my life), but the truth is that I've never loved anyone more. Sometimes the fairy tale does come true.
He is my fairy tale. The white knight on the horse. The perfect companion and sweetheart. The miracle I still had in the back of my mind, locked away safely so I never again was hurt taking a chance.
It wasn't a chance. It was a finally fulfilled promise. And this time it's my turn.
I love you, Gene, for making my life complete in every way. It's only taken us 45 years...all the rest belong to you.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Sunday, June 17, 2012
"I Remember the Day You Were Born"
A Tribute to Pearl Miller Berry
This is a story that belongs to someone else.
I come from a family who used any holiday as a chance to congregate and eat. Because I was born on Father's Day, my daddy and I frequently combined our days into one big family dinner. And always, my beloved Aunt Pearl would tell the story of the day I was born. With no children of her own, she believed she held a half-interest in me, which she did, and I always felt she was my other mother. The story is so familiar I can repeat it by heart, so this is my gift to her memory.
" I remember the day you were born! What a long night it was before you appeared at 10:30 on June 21, the longest day of the year, as well as falling on Father's Day.
It began with a Saturday night fish fry at mine and your Uncle Glenn's house. Aunt Rena and Uncle Raymond, Ruth and Owen, Gran and Uncle Reuben and your mama and daddy were all there. About 10:00 the party broke up and everyone went home except Ruth and Owen. Owen loved to talk! When your Mama got home she began having bad backaches, so they turned around with Gran in tow, and came back to our house to use our phone, as Sally and Homer did not yet have one. They called Dr. Caldwell who delivered you and he suggested that they return with Gran to her home in Huntsville for the rest of the night, to be nearer Huntsville Hospital. I, of course, went along too.
After a sleepless night at Gran's old house on Holmes Street, we checked in at 6:30 at Huntsville Hospital. The temperature that day topped out at 104 degrees, and only surgery and delivery rooms were air-conditioned at the hospital in those days. You arrived at 10:30 with the help of forceps since your mama had a spinal block.
The doctor immediately allowed your dad, me and your Gran Miller in to see you. Oh! I had never seen such a beautiful baby! I thought babies were red and wrinkled, but not you. You were a pink and white doll and even on that day we could see you favored your daddy. You came into this world with eyes wide open, scanning everything around you.
By mid-afternoon, your Granny Morris arrived, driven by Uncle Dave and Aunt Margaret who had come down from Rossville to take her. I left, exhausted, when they arrived and took the Trailways home to Scottsboro. The bus was cool and I slept all the way to Five Points, where I got off at Larkin Street and walked the three blocks home. Your uncles, Reuben and Glenn, were asleep in the front yard in lawn chairs when I walked up.
Your daddy went down before and after work for the next couple of days until they brought you home, with Gran holding you on a pillow in the back seat. She stayed for a week to help your mama out. When you got home, the entire family was assembled at your house waiting for them to arrive. It was one of the best times in our family's lives."
In 1997 on the first of July, Aunt Pearl had a massive cerebral hemorrhage, which left her in the nursing home for more than seven years. The next year on my birthday, I went to her room at Cloverdale and told her it was my birthday. She smiled and nodded that she remembered. I said to her, "It wouldn't be my birthday without your story. Since you can't tell it to me, I will tell it to you." And so I began.
"I remember the day you were born....."
God bless women who are mothers at heart. They make the world a better place.
This is a story that belongs to someone else.
I come from a family who used any holiday as a chance to congregate and eat. Because I was born on Father's Day, my daddy and I frequently combined our days into one big family dinner. And always, my beloved Aunt Pearl would tell the story of the day I was born. With no children of her own, she believed she held a half-interest in me, which she did, and I always felt she was my other mother. The story is so familiar I can repeat it by heart, so this is my gift to her memory.
" I remember the day you were born! What a long night it was before you appeared at 10:30 on June 21, the longest day of the year, as well as falling on Father's Day.
It began with a Saturday night fish fry at mine and your Uncle Glenn's house. Aunt Rena and Uncle Raymond, Ruth and Owen, Gran and Uncle Reuben and your mama and daddy were all there. About 10:00 the party broke up and everyone went home except Ruth and Owen. Owen loved to talk! When your Mama got home she began having bad backaches, so they turned around with Gran in tow, and came back to our house to use our phone, as Sally and Homer did not yet have one. They called Dr. Caldwell who delivered you and he suggested that they return with Gran to her home in Huntsville for the rest of the night, to be nearer Huntsville Hospital. I, of course, went along too.
After a sleepless night at Gran's old house on Holmes Street, we checked in at 6:30 at Huntsville Hospital. The temperature that day topped out at 104 degrees, and only surgery and delivery rooms were air-conditioned at the hospital in those days. You arrived at 10:30 with the help of forceps since your mama had a spinal block.
The doctor immediately allowed your dad, me and your Gran Miller in to see you. Oh! I had never seen such a beautiful baby! I thought babies were red and wrinkled, but not you. You were a pink and white doll and even on that day we could see you favored your daddy. You came into this world with eyes wide open, scanning everything around you.
By mid-afternoon, your Granny Morris arrived, driven by Uncle Dave and Aunt Margaret who had come down from Rossville to take her. I left, exhausted, when they arrived and took the Trailways home to Scottsboro. The bus was cool and I slept all the way to Five Points, where I got off at Larkin Street and walked the three blocks home. Your uncles, Reuben and Glenn, were asleep in the front yard in lawn chairs when I walked up.
Your daddy went down before and after work for the next couple of days until they brought you home, with Gran holding you on a pillow in the back seat. She stayed for a week to help your mama out. When you got home, the entire family was assembled at your house waiting for them to arrive. It was one of the best times in our family's lives."
In 1997 on the first of July, Aunt Pearl had a massive cerebral hemorrhage, which left her in the nursing home for more than seven years. The next year on my birthday, I went to her room at Cloverdale and told her it was my birthday. She smiled and nodded that she remembered. I said to her, "It wouldn't be my birthday without your story. Since you can't tell it to me, I will tell it to you." And so I began.
"I remember the day you were born....."
God bless women who are mothers at heart. They make the world a better place.
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