Avanelle

There's a lady, short and sturdy-built, limping out the back door of her house which sits perfectly situated on a big hilltop facing a stunning view of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  She's seen the view so many times by now that it is burned into her brain--she knows every curve, every dip and jutting edge of it as though it were a part of her.

Avanelle's eyes are the bluest blue, like the morning sky in early April when the winds of spring have blown back all the clouds and the sun shines bright from that Eastern corner of the heavens.  She smiles with them, showing you the sparkle of light and love that still burns inside her.  Her face is worn with time, her hair, soft and white.  Her hands are stiffened with arthritis, and she often says her fingertips are numb from years of Diabetic Neuropathy.  Sometimes the numbness keeps her from doing things she used to love, like crocheting a new pattern or tying tiny bows on Christmas presents. Mostly though, she stays busy despite her infirmities.

She walks about as best she can on a bad knee, with the help of her cane which she gleefully refers to as her "horse."  Occasionally, she leaves the horse stranded by a table or a chair, forgetting that it depends on her to get about.  "I think you forgot someone." I'll tease her.

"Oh, I better not abandon my horse!" She'll tease back.

On the day I met her I never once imagined how she would change my life for the better.  She was another person at the table, filling a seat at the Senior Center.  Another friend for the members there, another elder for me to look out for.  I was happy to have her, happy to see her become a part of the group and to see them all come to love her, to see her grow to love and depend on them.  I expected nothing more.

We were at the Bay Breeze, a seafood restaurant with gaudily painted walls and models of ships adorning the dividers between rows of tables, when I overheard her say that she was getting a house ready to rent out.  My ears perked up.  I was coming up on the renewal date for my lease at my apartment, facing a rise in my rent and had been commuting uncomfortably far every day.  I had been considering looking for a place closer to work, but hadn't seriously started the search just yet.  On the way home I asked her questions about it.  By the time we were back in Slater I had made an appointment to come look at this place. The next week, I paid the deposit and was getting ready to move.

I have lived here for one year now.  I've had plenty of ups and downs, especially in the last six months.  This year has proven complicated, difficult for me in various ways.

Late May, after our birthday cook out, and Memorial Day.  After fickle Spring had given way to balmy Summer-type days, I got an early morning call from a friend.  It was not a call I ever expected--not so soon anyway.  Our friend James was gone.  He died suddenly, unexpectedly and alone.  He was young, hopeful, sometimes misguided, but always passionate.  He was the friend who called me up at random times just to tease me about my age or tell me he loved me; sometimes he did both.  He made me laugh, made me angry, made my heart break for him often when I witnessed his struggle.  Saying a permanent goodbye to him was not easy.  It opened old wounds that I thought had healed over--calloused even, to the point of being impenetrable.  I was wrong.  Losses have a way of coming back around to haunt you, even years later when you think you've done a proper job of assimilating them.

In early June I was in Charleston at MUSC, waiting for the lab to draw my blood when I got a message from work.  One of my most beloved senior members had passed away.  Back at home, tired from the trip and overwhelmed with decision-making, I dragged myself to work and started the process of getting used to my days without Bea.  It was more difficult than I expected.  I missed her at all the concerts and parties, missed her when we were decorating for Christmas and even today, when I witnessed the blossoming love-affair between two newer members and wondered what she'd say about it, if she were here.

Loss became a theme for me this year as it has in other years gone by.  I suppose with time, with age, I mean, what we have lost starts to take up more space inside us than what we've gained.

Two years ago on October 11, I said the final goodbye to my mother.  That was also a year of loss for me, but those losses were mostly of the material kind.  The material kinds of losses that feel devastating at first, but fade with time and with the gaining of newer things, fulfilling experiences.  I've lost people before.  People with whom I was close, that I loved intensely.  None of those losses affected me in quite the same way as the loss of my mother.  In the last two years I have reflected more on who she was, how she lived and what she experienced than I ever did when she was alive.  I cried at her grave on her birthday--Easter, this year, and cried again at her grave in October, when my dad was laid to rest beside her.

They both died on early October 11th mornings, exactly two years apart.  Their bodies rest side by side on the hillside behind the church where I used to run and play with my friends after Sunday services when I was a girl.  The same hillside where my dad walked beside me, holding my hand when I was 12, as we marched behind the casket of my aunt who lost the war with cancer.  I walked away from that hillside, changed.  I was like a ship without an anchor, a watch with no chain, a traveler who could never go home again.  My parents were home, without them the home I once knew became a mere memory.

Life sets us all adrift from time to time.  A year ago I felt like I was finally coming into shore, the sight of home in the distance, a peaceful haven in the countryside awaiting my presence, waiting for me and my boy to fill it up and make it all that home should be.  I was tired, worn out from a year of healing from deep hurts and big setbacks.  I was ready to leave something of that roughness behind in favor of the soft comfort of home I would create out of this little empty house.

Late on a Summer evening Avanelle and I sat by the flowerbed waiting for the Moonflower to bloom.  She told me about the day her husband died, just a few feet away from where we sat.  I had heard the story before, but I listened again.  We sat on common ground, for even though I never watched Moonflower bloom before I met her and she never was left on her own to look for home again, we shared a deep connection.  The sting of loss crosses generations, it crosses even the widest divides between people--casts its shadow over all of us, like those clouds that block out sunlight over the Blue Ridge, leaving it shaded here and there, every part of it being touched by darkness before the day is done, as the wind blows over the ridges and carries the clouds with it.

On Christmas Eve Charlie and I stopped by to see our friend, our Landlord, I suppose.  She was standing outside, picking greens off turnips, already thinking about the New Year's Day feast.  It was unseasonably warm and the sun burned my back as I stood watching her open the gift we brought, anxious for her response.  It was perfect, she said.

We talked for a while about nothing important, then hugged her tight before we took off to finish our shopping.  There were no words to tell her all she means to me.  I cannot articulate  how powerfully her spirit, her determination, her kindness has influenced me; so all I said was, "I love you."

Life can be cruel.  It can be hard and unfair.  It gives and takes, often in unequal measure--thus the ever growing importance I find in cherishing every morsel of kindness and humanity that comes my way.  They may be few and far between, but they do inhabit my world; they are the light and warmth that keep me going, day after day.  The Good People.


Late at night, if I look out my back window, I can see her kitchen light on.  I know she's probably still up, lost in a book of some kind.  The glow from her window comforts me.  It reminds me that good people are everywhere, but that they often aren't easy to see.  They come to us so often in disguise.  An elderly lady, walking with a cane changed the paths I wear every day.  I would never have expected so much of one so small and unimposing, but here I sit safe and warm on a winter evening because of Avanelle.

The Ghosts of Decembers Past

Back when my dad still drove a lot, my folks would randomly pop up at my door on Sunday afternoons to visit.  They never ever called first.  A few times when I was married, they'd come by and we wouldn't be home from church yet.  We'd pull in our driveway and the kids would get all excited to see Granny and Papa's car sitting in the driveway, waiting for us to get home.  We'd spend the afternoon sitting around the living room.  My mom would fill me in on all the latest church gossip and my dad and Billy would talk football.  The girls would sit on papa's lap and show Granny all their new barbie stuff.  After a while, I developed a sort of sixth-sense about when they were going to show up.  I'd wake up on Sunday morning and think to myself, "Mamma and Daddy are coming over today."  Sure enough, they'd be there about an hour after church.

After the divorce, we moved to our little house in Greer.  The Greer Christmas parade was always on a Sunday afternoon, right around Hannah's birthday, which of course, meant a Sunday visit from Granny and Papa.  The parade route followed Poinsett St. and then cut through Pine street at the end, so most of the floats came zooming by our house right after the parade.  Traffic leading onto Wade Hampton would back up nearly all the way to the end of our street.  Whether or not we walked to the end of the block to watch the parade, it was an exciting day.

One such parade-day afternoon, the girls and I were getting bundled up to walk up the hill and find a spot on Poinsett to watch the parade when I heard a knock on the front door.  My mom was standing on the front stoop, my dad slowly making his way up the steps, his rigid body fighting him all the way.  They came inside and too their places, Dad in the rocking chair as always, and mom on the loveseat.  We had our usual chat while we listened to bands tromping the street outside the house, having already walked the entire parade route, they just stomped and made lots of noise.  We listened to cars full of kids laughing and singing, parade floats zooming by too fast to really be able to appreciate.  I remember feeling as though I were a kid being kept inside for recess because I was missing out on all the fun to sit and talk with my parents about such mundane things as fishing trips or hunting victories, or who was behaving badly in the family that week.

They ended up staying longer than usual because their route home was blocked by parade traffic.  We had a good visit overall, and the kids as usual, collected their dollar bills and distributed plenty of hugs to Granny and Papa before they left.  I remember that day, in particular, because I had been feeling so down, and I remember that moment when I put my arms around my daddy's big middle and squeezed him tight.  He hugged me close and reminded me that he loved me, and I felt like he loved me in spite of all the ways I had let him down.  It was a bittersweet hug that left me teary-eyed as I watched them descend the steps back to their car, watched them drive away, feeling like I should have turned out to be a better person for them.

As time went on and age caught up with them, the Sunday visits ceased.  I began to never wake up with that sense that my folks would be knocking at the door come 1:30 on Sunday afternoons.  The only time they made it to my house in those last few years was when my sister brought them over on Thanksgiving day.  Those are precious memories to me now, the way my dad always got the best seat at the table, how my mom would be almost giddy because I made her favorite side dishes.  I still feel proud that they always bragged on my turkey roasting skills.  I piled them up with leftovers to take home after I sat on the couch and dozed off with my dad watching football for a while.  Then they were off, out the door for another year.  I never treasured that enough when I had it.  Never imagined that the last time they made their way down the steep front steps from my front door to their van, it would be their last time to visit me.

Parades come and go every year, and really, what are we missing out on by not seeing a bunch of strangers in tacky floats throwing candy and singing worn out Christmas tunes?

My parents are both gone now.  I can't go put up Granny's tree for her, can't bring her a poinsettia.  I can't buy my dad his umpteenth flannel shirt for Christmas, or watch the joy on my kids' faces as they crawl up in his lap to show of their new toys.  I won't get to hear his voice crack as he tears up while saying the blessing before we eat.  I won't get to see my mom all happy and joyful over the little trinkets we found to give her for Christmas--her angel collection has all been donated here and there, parts of her scattered over the Earth like so much dust in the wind.

They were the ever-present comforts in my life, the faces and voices that I have known since the dawn of my existence.  I never quite understood how surreal it would be when they were gone and I, a forty-something child, left feeling rather displaced in the world without my anchors.  It really is like being set adrift now, with no "home" to return to for Christmas.  Sure, the house is still there, but they are not in it, and they were what made going home for Christmas feel like going home.

They've each gone to their final home.  They believed so firmly in the power of eternal life--that they'd be reunited with their own parents, their siblings, the people who left them anchorless and adrift here on Earth.  I hope with all my might that they are truly home for Christmas now, in the presence of one another and all their loved ones who have been waiting there for them.  I hope their faith bore true, and I hope that someday, I might find that same kind of strength to believe the improbable--to embrace the seemingly impossible.  I hope that when my time comes, I can find them again somewhere and sit and chat for a while, just like we used to do on Sunday afternoons.

Merry Christmas y'all.  Hold your loved ones close, even when you'd maybe rather be doing more exciting things than listening to their stories you've already heard a million times before.  The day will come when you'll wish you could hear them speak those tales just once more.  Love them, cherish them while you can.