Bodark Creek - 64. Chapter 64

Soon after Del died, Neal pretty much quit working. “It’s not that I believe in superstitions,” he said. “And I’m sure I’ve got another ten or fifteen good years ahead. But just in case, I better start relaxing.”

“When have you ever not relaxed?” his wife Marie teased. But Neal didn’t seem convinced. So Lisa and Daniel took over the insurance business. And surprisingly, Lilah and her husband Geoff took over the farms.

“It’s not a good idea to let them go out of the family,” Lilah decided.

“I’ll just have to work a little harder,” Geoff agreed. “But I’m good at managing things.” When Del died, June’s younger daughter drove her up from Dallas for the funeral. June and I talked almost every week, but we really hadn’t seen each other for years. “It’s not that far,” she admitted. “And I keep meaning to travel. But I don’t drive more than around the neighborhood any more. And even though it’s only a few hours by car, I never get here.”

It was good to see her, though the funeral was the wrong time to visit. She promised to come again, but I’m not sure either of us believed that. Then in the summer, she asked if I felt like having company.

“Any time,” I said. “You’re always welcome.”

“Could you stand me for a week?”

“You could move in, if we had the space. And you can stay as long as you like, if you don’t mind sleeping on the living room sofa.”

“I might not even open it,” she joked. “I’ve never been very big, and I haven’t grown any.”

It was wonderful being with June again, though I was reminded how much I missed Ruth and Leona. While June was visiting, we looked at all the old pictures and repeated stories I hadn’t heard for a long time. Joann knew most of them, but many were new to Lilah.

“Now you better remember these,” we all warned her. “ Because soon, there won’t be anyone else left.”

Lilah told me what everyone did, “You’re not going anywhere soon, Grandma. Besides,” she added, “now we have your diary when anyone asks questions.”

“I’m not sure how reliable that is,” I had to admit. “There are things I’d like to remember, that I know are already gone.”

“At least, there’s nothing you want to forget that always stays with you,” Joann consoled.

“No,” I agreed.

I started writing in my diary at Joann’s suggestion. I was reading less than I used to because of my eyes and watching more television than I liked. Joann would read to me when I asked, and we picked out books from the library that we’d both enjoy. She also brought me tape recordings, so I could sit in my chair with my eyes closed and just listen to books. But that wasn’t the same as reading.

So I started writing about my family. I’d do it a little every morning, mostly when I was still in bed. I started by leaning my paper on a dictionary, then Joann found an old clipboard which helped keep the pages together. After I wrote, Joann would type it up, then she’d print it out on her computer. After dinner, she’d read it back to me, and we’d fix my mistakes.

Or I’d add more stories. Sometimes I’d say one thing, and Joann would ask about something else. Or she’d remind me of things that happened when we both were there. Little by little, the diary got longer, though for a long time I wouldn’t let anyone see it.

“There’s nothing embarrassing in there,” Joann would remind me. “Whenever I ask about something you don’t want to talk about, you just say, ‘Well, that really isn’t any of your business now, is it?” And we’d laugh.

There were a number of things that weren’t anyone’s business, though, overall, I thought the diary was pretty fair. When I got most way through it, I let Marie and Susan peek. Then Lilah and Lisa wanted to see it. The boys were less interested.

Joann mailed some of it to June, too. “I should do something like that,” she told me on the phone. “My daughters would like that. I have all these photos around the house, and they’re not even organized like yours. I have an envelope here and a box there. And there’s the bottom drawer of my desk that has stacks and stacks. Soon, no one will know who these people are.”

“Even Mama has trouble with the old pictures,” Joann told June. Joann had been listening on the kitchen extension. “In the early ones, uncles Sonny and Dougie and Walter all look alike.”

“They were alike,” I insisted. “When I was little, they were all just big. And before they moved here, I only had their pictures.”

A few years after June visited, Charley’s wife Faye and her daughter and son came to see us. They couldn’t come to Del’s funeral, though Faye and I talked three or four times a year. But I hadn’t seen her since Charley died.

“Dan wants to see you,” she told me once when she called. “He mentioned it, and then he mentioned it again, and I said I really didn’t want to get on a plane, but if he was thinking of driving, I might go along.”

“That would be nice.”

“Then Emma heard about it,” Faye went on. “And she said she’d fly to Tucson and drive with us. So it’s going to be a family trip.”

“You’ll have to stay on the farm,” I quickly apologized. “We don’t have room for all of you here.”

“That’s not important,” Faye replied. “We can stay in a motel if it makes things easier. Dan wants to anyway, because we have a dog.”

“What kind?” I asked. I’ve always loved dogs.

“I think she’s a Spaniel / Lab mix. But she looks like a black-and-white Border Collie.”

“I can’t wait to meet her.”

They stayed for three days, and we saw Faye and her children every one of them. I wanted to see them more, but visiting takes a lot out of me. So they came soon after lunch and stayed till after dinner. Then they went back to the farm. That way they got to see other people in the family.

One afternoon, Dan and Emma went exploring the old mill. By then, there was almost nothing left, and the city had finally turned the land into a park. But Dan found pieces of the cement pool wall, and Emma took pictures for me to see.

“I love these new cameras,” I told them. “It used to be that it took a week-and-a-half to get our pictures back. And you never knew if they’d come out till you saw them.”

“Do you know what these initials are?” Dan asked. He showed me a picture of some writing in the cement. I could read the words, but everyone had to help me figure them out. Though I still didn’t know the names.

“The pool was built before I moved here,” I explained. “And I think the mill was built before I was born.”

“It went up in 1900,” Joann said. “We saw that in the paper when they tore the buildings down.”

“When did that happen?” Dan asked.

“Ten or fifteen years ago. I lost track because they promised to do one thing, then they’d say something else, then they did something entirely different. And it’s taken the longest time to finish the park.”

“It’s very pretty,” Faye said. “I didn’t expect that.”

It was pretty. There were picnic benches and grass, and they’d thinned out the trees. We could see it all from our back porch.

While they were showing me initials in the cement, I remembered a name they hadn’t expected. So I showed them that – and paw prints, too. Their dog sniffed them, though the dog that made them had been gone for many years. His name was Tippy, though I don’t remember why, but I think Charley said he named him. We had Tip from the time I was maybe ten, and I think he was brown and always wagging his tail.

Dan also brought me a present from Hollywood. He gave me pictures from some of the actors on the soap opera where he worked as a designer. Faye must have told him I watched it every now and then, and he got the actors to sign the pictures and say a little something to me.

“But they don’t know me at all,” I said, laughing. “And I don’t even like some of them.” When Dan heard that, he laughed right along.

“That doesn’t matter,” he assured me. “They’re happy just knowing you’re here. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have jobs.”

Joann got frames for the pictures, and we put them all up on the bookcase. “People will think they’re family,” I joked. “They’ll think we’re related to someone famous.”

“Let them think what they like,” Joann said. “It’s something new to look at.”

While they were visiting, we also all went to the cemetery, and Dan was concerned about some of the headstones. The base on my father’s – his grandfather’s – was crumbling, and the one on Albie’s wasn’t much better.

“We know we need to fix them,” Joann explained, “but the cemetery people are asking so much.”

“Please do it and send me the bill,” Dan told us. “Really.”

“But it’s over a thousand dollars,” I protested.

“It’s all right, Aunt Addy. “I haven’t done anything for the family – maybe ever. It’s my turn.”

After they left, we had the work done, and the bill was almost eighteen hundred dollars. Joann almost held her breath after she put it in the mail, but Dan’s check came right back – overnight. H even included a little extra. “Take yourselves all out to dinner,” he wrote. “I’m sorry we didn’t get to do that while we were there.”

The truth was that I wasn’t feeling up to it, and – even more – that I didn’t get out very much. Sometimes, I didn’t even go to church on Sundays, and we’d have our Thursday night prayer group come to us. Other times, I missed family dinners. I’d tell Joann to go, but she didn’t like to leave me in the house alone.

“I have the phone,” I insisted. “And there are neighbors next door and right across the street.”

“I know, Mama,” she’d say. “But if something happened, and no one was here, I couldn’t live with that.”

So now I had babysitters again, though I did like their company. I always got to hear what everyone was doing.

When Faye and her children left, I had to ask Joann one question. I’d thought about it before, but it didn’t seem polite to ask while they were here. “Who was that man they always had with them? He was nice, and friendly enough. And they treated him like family.”

“I don’t know,” Joann admitted. “Maybe he was their driver. You know those Hollywood people.”

Whoever he was, I missed them all when they left. Dan promised to visit again, but we had to settle for occasional phone calls. “I guess he’s pretty busy,” I told Joann.

The biggest thing I had near me, and that I always liked hearing about, was my great-grandson, Samuel. He’s Lilah’s boy, and he graduates from high school the same year I’ll be one-hundred. Sam’s looking forward to graduation the same way I’m looking forward to my party.

“What will you do after that?” I’ve asked him. I know he’s not thinking about college.

“I’m going to travel as far as I can,” he’s said. “I’ll work when I have to and take any job I need to. And I’ve already got a little money saved. But I’ve got to see more than north Texas.”

“That’s part of why my brother Charley joined the Navy.”

“I don’t want to do that,” he’s said, smiling. “You know how I feel about rules.”

I’ve had to laugh. “Well, I hope you go to college when you’re ready.” I’ve told him that lots of times, but he only shakes his head.

“We’ll see.”

“What’ll you do if you don’t?” I’ve asked.

“What’ll you do after you’re a hundred?” he’s answered. “What are your plans?”

“I don’t really have any,” I’ve admitted.. “So I guess I shouldn’t ask yours. And I guess I’ll just go on to a-hundred-and-one. I’m happy to be living, but I’m not afraid to die. But that doesn’t mean I need to rush things, either.”

Addy Bronner Braden

March 1908 – June 2009

101 years old