Once Upon A Time

Sitting in my chair musing because there is nothing on TV, my thoughts turn to childhood.

My brother and I have been emailing about nine months now and we share random memories of growing up in a little red brick house in a subdivision called Sherwood Forest in Memphis, Tennessee. My future husband lived right around the corner, but I did not know that yet.

Now my brother and I are in our seventies and we are talking about medical issues today. He has some very serious ones and I have small ones that only seem big to me.

But now I remember us in that little brick house. Our mother was a good cook and she had tricks in her pocket to get us to eat. Simple food like cinnamon toast, “coffee milk,” orange juice that she put a maraschino cherry in and turned it pink so we would drink it to get to the cherry.

When “supper,” as we called it down south, was ready, she would say “Supper time on the farm. The animals are hungry!” And because our father liked milk, we drank it at every meal.

She would ride the bus downtown and return with trinkets for us. I remember little tubes of goop that you could blow into bubbles and seal off with your fingertips. It had a strong chemical smell that was more than likely toxic.

Our father was somewhat of a tyrant, his own mother having abandoned the family when he was only two. The scars of that abandonment left him with a bad temper and we cowered when it was on display.

But it was our family; we knew no other. And I will stop here, sending love across the universe to the ghosts of what used to be and can be no more. We are all playing hurt. Our father was a loving one despite his temper and at some point I forgave him and realized that indeed the sins of the father are passed on. I have replicated his behavior, I must admit and can only hope I will be forgiven too.

But now it is growing late and if I could sit at our supper table again, I would take it all in, whatever was put before me, I would eat. In gratitude.

Vicki Woodyard