Stories

On the Wind

/ Pam Goode / 6 Comments

A mother is passing me on the wind,
with the shaping, re-shaping 
of life, of this life, of my life,
of our life, 
in this most fragile fabric of life.

And her whispers hold fast as my worlds careen,
shifting wildly at 20, now 30, now 40 and 
more there than here, and then there, and then here — 
as I age and I wait and I watch for your song, 
as I wait and I watch for you there,
as I age and I wait and I age and I watch, as I age, and still you do not.

And the time that I opened my soul to the waiting,
with winds washing through me,
around me, into me,
with voices and songs of full ten thousand souls 
all rushing to soothe and to shape and to soothe
for this fast-coming onslaught
of loss, always loss,

as I’m filling my mind with the stories and songs 
of love and of life and of change, 
— too much change —
and I knew, of course,

it was here.

A mother is passing me on the wind as she reaches once more for my hand, 
and I know ….
and I know, and I know, and I don’t want to know,
not so soon, not this soon, not this soon,
but I know.

And the ashes fly slowly through peace and through tears 
as she takes to the sea that she loves — 
on the wind, with the wind, kiss the wind as she swirls, 
as she flies her way out to the sea, to the sea,
as she clings to the sea, to the sand, to the the sky, 
and all of heaven between — 
as she sings her hello and goodbye and hello, 

and then one day, hello and hello.

The Lives We Live

/ Pam Goode / 11 Comments

My Dad wrote: “I’ve spent the afternoon sanding Uncle Alvin Howard’s workbench. My great aunt, Laura Hayward Howard, bought the bench in 1936 from Hammacher Schlemmer in New York, and then gave it to Uncle Alvin for Christmas.

Uncle Alvin quickly let on as how he wasn’t about to take up woodworking, and planned to give the workbench promptly to the local boys’ home.

Then Nana caught wind and talked him out of giving it away, saying that she had three rambunctious boys at home who could make good use of it. Both the three boys and their mother did, indeed, use it like crazy. Fifteen years ago, Dad wrote “whatever I know about woodworking tools, I learned at that workbench, sixty and more years ago. Mother is gone now, and I’ve always wanted to repair and restore it. Jeanne and Adam will be coming with a pickup truck in the morning. I’m flying out of Pass Christian on Tuesday afternoon to Atlanta, and then driving to Charlotte Wednesday morning.”

And so he did.

I can’t quite tell whether or not he ever got around to restoring it (the Pardue family wasn’t the hoity toity type), but I can definitely say that he used the workbench handily in his architecture office for quite a few years until he died in 2013. It’s now mine, and though I’m nothing close to a woodworker, I love it like crazy. Many thanks to Alvin, Laura, Nana, and Dad for always sharing their stories, and Jeanne and Adam, who I don’t think I knew, for making it happen.

We need more family stories, don’t we?