My Cowgirl

A Nose Knows . . .

  .  .  .  much pain when it catches 90-ish pounds of human body falling from the top of a backyard slide.  Lips were not bloodied by the braces, nor eyes blackened in the impact.  The schnauz took all the brunt of Hunter's unplanned dive onto the dry, hard ground.  After five days of rest and appointments, the concussion seems to be gone, and the cartilage in the center of his face adjusted back into its proper position.

                                                                                Phew!

(We wouldn't dare want the start of the new school year only to be the 

typical chaos and exhaustion; a little trauma livens things up a bit.)

Yep,

it's Exhaustion Week for teachers and students, as we reenter the kennel as Pavlov's dogs -- eating and pottying only when the bell tone signals.  We, teacher types, well, we're training the new pups in our classes to set a productive, positive tone and pattern for the rest of the year, and this phase is THE week of leavin' it all on the field.  Rest is for the weak.  Okay, not really.  My brain and voice and legs are totally weak right now, and I am plenty hungry for rest.  My own pups, at home, are thrilled with the new start in their classes and with their teachers, but are plenty tired, also.  After a weekend of rest, we'll be ready to settle into the newly established routine and to have the spring back in our steps.  Maybe we'll even look a bit more like these four young ones did at the start of this four-day saga  .  .  .

Lord, bless her teacher.  This child has been about ready to come out of her skin 

due to excitement for the new year  .  .  .  since three weeks ago!

He'd rather spend all day with his brother, but school has become a

wonderful place for this young man who has overcome previous gaps 

in learning at an incredible pace!

So, he doesn't yet fight me about taking this annual photo, 

but he does find his silly brother (behind me) rather funny.

And who's this confident, young lady?  

How kids grow mentally, emotionally  .  .  .  

is remarkable!

A Freeport Author and Little Cubs Field

 FHS grad, Geoff Rodkey, was home from NYC for his HS reunion and teamed up with his former teacher and debate coach, my dad, to set up an author talk and book signing at Freeport Public Library.  His "Adventures of Egg" (short for Eggbert) trilogy has recently released book #2, and the kids were thrilled to get their hardback copies as an early Christmas gift from Pap and to have the author sign them in person.  (Their first copies were surprises last Christmas; signed by the author and mailed to Pap.)  Geoff has written for the films "Daddy Daycare" and "RV," for the television shows "Beavis and Butthead" and "Good Luck Charlie," and a large amount of other writings, including work for Al Franken.  This book series, however, is his favorite work to date.  While it's a humorous adventure of a young, teenage boy, this not-exactly-teenage blogger thoroughly enjoyed book 1 "Sunrise and Deadweather" right alongside her children.  (Pictured, in addition to Geoff and my four readers, are my sister's boys, Nathan (tall, gray shirt) and Ethan (navy ND Tshirt.).  In addition to the night at the library, a breakfast at "the coffee shop" (Higher Ground), and a snack at the old and awesome Union Dairy ice cream shop, we spent a bit of time at Freeport's "Little Cubs (wiffle ball) Field." (It's complete with ivy transplanted from the big Wrigley, some of the old stadium seats, and an occasional visit from former Cubs players.)

Going to Pap and Grandma's rocks!

Moving Forward to The Past

This June I traveled with my sister, Remy, and her family to Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania (north of Pittsburgh) to attend the memorial service for my first dad.  A bout of respiratory illness became too much for his ailing heart.  He was sixty-six.

A gay man living in a society generally hostile to homosexuality, he faced challenges in his first half of life that aged him exponentially.  Of course, who we are and the decisions we make are culminations of many factors, and both my dad's life and our relationship had been complicated. It was unfortunate that his twenty-nine year partnership with Walt, legalized in recent years in a California marriage, could not be recognized in the State of Florida where they resided at the time of my dad's passing.  This necessitated Walt being dependent on Remy and I to keep our father's wish for cremation.  On the Friday after our dad's death, Remy and I spent together a Friday afternoon -- walking and doing talk therapy up and down the streets of her small town of Gibson City, Illinois.  The call from the funeral home and the email with the documents came, and we completed the forms consenting for his body to be burned.  We inked our names in front of a notary.  Surreal doesn't begin to touch the oddity of that afternoon.  What did this mean that Dad Jones was dead?  How does one begin to understand such a thing?      

A delayed service, planned for the summer, left for us an ambiguous time with a rather expected myriad of emotions.  Walt asked the two of us to read something for the service, and we commenced with the interesting task of preparing our contributions.  No one written work resonated as fitting, and so, she and I each constructed eulogies.

The weekend in June arrived, as did we to the setting for the service -- Walt's brother and sister-in-law's

home (Danny and Carol).  It was a hot, Pennsylvania day -- low in humidity, and saturated with plant-life and critters.  Dad's urn rested upon a temporary altar at the front of the island space prepared for our gathering.  The chairs eventually filled with a couple of Dad and Walt's friends, Walt's small family, and an overwhelming number of my Jones family, some of whom I'd not see for nearly twenty years.

As serendipity had it, however, Jackie was one of the exceptions.  I saw this cousin of my dad's (pictured left with  her husband, Remy, and I) just last summer when we took the kids by my Grandpa's old house in the Bloomfield neighborhood of Pitt.  (I blogged at length about that wonderful experience some months ago.)


Dad's cousin, Paul, Jackie's brother (pictured to the right with his wife, Carol), spoke at length in impromptu

eulogy, expressing, among many things, how he loved "Chuck" like a brother, and he was so thorough and honest that he even admitted that dad was an angry man at times.  It satisfied in a meaningful way the need we always have to recall deeply and fully the person being remembered.

He also gifted to Remy and I during his talk the declaration that our two births completed our dad as a person; Uncle Paul's gaze was intense and his tone protective.  I felt like I was eight years old, again, and surrounded by my immediate elders --those with the familial authority.  Uncle Paul handed back to me my own, younger self who had been split from the self that had attempted to journey forward after my parent's divorce and my dad's increasing distance.  It was as if Paul had grabbed ahold of the wee hand of a shy, hesitant "Sherry Ann Jones" and coaxed her from the past.

I sobbed, selfishly, in this healing, and was glad to have clutched in my hand as crutch a hardcopy of the words I'd prepared, because soon it would be my turn to speak.  This is what I said:

 In the eulogy she presented at the funeral of Coretta Scott King, poet and writer Maya Angelou waxed eloquently about their shared notion of “respect for all of the people all of the time,” and referenced the great work of their lives.  The poignancy, however, of Dr. Angelou’s speech for her friend, Coretta, wasn’t in their obvious fame or in their grand struggles, but in the real and gritty details she laid bare within her talk – the flesh and blood reality of the times they spent together.

I’m certainly no Maya Angelou, but I have learned from her many writings that meaningful stories contain truth and are specific. Also, I’ve learned from my years, and from my sister and the many great written works to which Remy has introduced me that meaningful moments often arise at times unexpected and in ways quiet and subtle.

Today we commune in memorial of the life of Charles Gerard Jones to consider what his life meant to our own.  Additionally, we pause to grieve what his passing means to us in the present.   In her song, “Say Hallelujah,” singer-songwriter Tracy Chapman intones pointedly, “The bucket is kicked, the body is gone.”  I’ve thought quite a lot about the adage “rest in peace.”  I like the imagery it conjures.  Whereas I used to take it as one, lump sum of a concept in which a person is buried into the ground and has no more troubles, it seems to me now that the part about “rest” is all about the body, and that “peace” is specifically for the soul. 

Dad’s body came to its final rest, and it has returned to the earthen state of dust and ash; “the body is gone.” 

As familiar to me as my own fair skin was the way a field of strawberry-blonde hairs stood upon my dad’s forearms.  I have my own set of the Jones’ eyes – not simply pale in color and bordered by understated lashes, but characteristically down- turned at the outer corners, as if they’re tired and needing to take a rest upon my cheek bones.  And, then, there’s my long, Jones nose.  I am undeniably a part of this large clan from Bloomfield, and clearly Chuck’s daughter.  In his presence I always sensed viscerally our cellular connection.

I believe Dad’s soul is not in a retired state or a mode of slumber, but rather, is invigorated by the blessed freedom of release from earthly concerns.   

Worldly troubles are varied and many.  As for the connection between Dad and I, we each had our own needs, and we didn’t realize the other was awaiting for me or for him to make clear our acceptance and approval of the other.    Despite my enthusiasm for his homemade deep dish pizza and interest in learning his interior design techniques, I expect that he may have still felt he wasn’t “enough.”  I was trying also to prove my own worth – hoping to be “enough.”  With age, there sometimes comes the wisdom to be still, and in that peace the ability to give grace to others.  I am thankful Dad and I eventually met on this mutual ground upon which we would share a love for quiet, and beautiful gifts, and rich foods, and stories of family.

In the wake of the Haitian earthquake our children were evacuated to Pittsburgh, and at a moment’s notice Dad and Walt wiped clean their calendar to support Chad and I during our emergency stay.  We felt enveloped by complete warmth, care, and physical comfort – Dad and Walt were balm to our raw nerves and worried hearts. 

Most recently, Chad and I and our now complete family of four children spent time together in Clearwater – at the beach for a sunset dinner, at the aquarium to see the famous “Winter” of the movie “Dolphin Tale,” and for Easter brunch in Dad and Walt’s new home.  What most stands out in my memory was that Dad lent to me a suitcase.  We’d bought too many souvenirs.  He wrestled down from a top shelf in their cedar closet the brown, nylon piece of luggage as I stood nearby on the plush carpet.  It was a sunny, breezy morning; cool whispers of fresh air came in through the many balconies.  He had rummaged for it as I waited, both of us comfortable in the quiet of his work.  Unselfconscious, I was not a guest awaiting a favor from a host, but just a girl borrowing something from her Dad.

Fewer than two weeks later, Dad was in the hospital.  Unbeknownst to me, he had been ill, but resisted going to the doctor sooner because he didn’t want to have cancelled our visit.  For the couple of days we sat on the sand and herded my children through gift shops and McDonalds, he never let on that he was having discomfort; he simply gave to us his attention.

I will miss the way he and Walt paired together for incredible hospitality – preparing comfortable beds for us and for the children and unique and comforting foods for everyone. 

I will miss his interested, focused observation of my children, and the subtle humor he used with them.  There’s one story, in particular, that Hunter, Anna, Jameson, and Baylor will always remember.  Dad and Walt joined us at Epcot for a day during our March Florida trip, and as we were all sitting outdoors taking an ice cream break, Hunter’s souvenir cap styled after the lovable dog, Pluto, was targeted as a bathroom by a bird on fly-by.  A few days later, when we arrived in Clearwater, Dad presented to Hunter a plastic baggie filled with tiny napkin pieces shaped and taped together into bird-sized diapers.

I will miss his familiar, deep, sort of nasalized Pittsburghese.

I will miss his sharing of new and different pieces of our family narrative.  It was only within the past few years that I heard from him about the first time he met my mother – she was showing to him, a new teacher, his classroom while rifling through the left-over stuff, sorting things, and pitching the junk she said he’d find useless.  Yes, I can definitely imagine my mom doing exactly that.  And it was also somewhat recently that he told me that he could still remember the comforting smell of his own mother’s slippers. 

I will miss dining together on crispy, coconut shrimp and afterwards sipping a cup of coffee.

For us, gathered here in these woods for this service, there is yet concern over our own mortality and also the continued daily challenges of our earthly lives.  Tracy Chapman’s unflinching, soulful song continues, “The sun will rise; the stars will shine, turning day to dusk and night to dawn.  We’ll pass on, but until that time.  .  .  Say Hallelujah.  .  .”  In another of her songs, my personal favorite, she simultaneously admonishes and reassures humanity, “Don’t be tempted by the shiny apple.  Don’t you eat of the bitter fruit.  Hunger only for a taste of justice; hunger only for a world of truth, ‘cause,” and the last line and the song’s title proclaims, “All that you have is your soul.” 

May each of us here know that we are already enough. 

May we trust and rejoice also in knowing that Remy and my Dad, Walt’s husband, and your brother, your cousin, your uncle, your in-law, your friend – Charles, Chuck, Charlie -- is at peace.

During the time I was preparing my words and riding across four states, I did not realize that the extended family would be present at this event.  I hadn't any premonition, therefore, that my themes and attempts at giving grace would be met with the overwhelming power of their validation and nurturing.  I had decided not to read ahead of time what Remy had prepared, and so, her eloquence and the soul of her message struck me right in the vulnerable spot.  She certainly did not disappoint.  I would love to post her words, but feel it best I leave such a task to her.  Trust me, it was good, and I later admonished her (yet, again) for not writing more often than she does.  

After the formal service, Paul's wife, Aunt Carol, and his brother Ray's wife, Aunt Irish, hugged and walked with Remy and I and not only recalled stories as if they'd happened just last year, but as if we'd visited together only last week. Where there had been rupture in my narrative, the aunts and uncles refashioned my story for me.

These photos are much more to me than pictures of people in my family with whom I have many childhood memories.  These images hold within them the day I met myself because of my family.

Please allow me to back up and explain that of my Grandpa Jones' large crew of siblings, it was with his sister, my Great Aunt Cathy (who lived in his same Bloomfield neighborhood) with whom he was the closest.  And so, my dad and his two siblings (Ann and Tom to be pictured in a moment) were very close with Aunt Cathy's four children (Jacki and Paul already pictured, Elaine who was unable to attend due to surgery, and Ray, soon to be pictured.)  This shot (immediately above) is my generation of cousins -- Aunt Ann's daughters, Bonnie (black top) and Beth (turquoise top), Elaine's daugher, Jess, and Ray and Irish's sons Ray (black top) and Ron (stripes).  We are missing only Jess' brother and Toms' daughter, Sharon, both of whom were sadly unable to attend.

After a good deal of eating, visiting, and some really great belly laughing, the small crowd began to thin, but not before I pestered the aunts and uncles to pause for the camera.  This is my favorite.  My only regret is that the impromptu photo shoot doesn't have all of them in a singular image.  It happened, however, to capture the gestalt of my childhood of Jones family holidays and cookouts -- the "grown ups" busy with their chatter and jokes, having relationships with one another that predate us, "children."  It gave to us, still gives to me, that sense of security that comes from sensing that the adults who've got our backs (and have eyes in the backs of their heads) are connected.  On the far left is my dad's brother, my Uncle Tom, and his wife, my Aunt MaryEllen is in the black-and-white top.  My dad's sister, my Aunt Ann, is in the blue top, and her husband, my Uncle Rich, is in the white shirt, standing slightly behind her.  The fellow on the far right is my Great Aunt Cathy's son, Uncle Ray, and his wife, Aunt Irish, is the Italian woman in the floral top toward the left of the scene.  (Yes, she goes by "Irish," but that, I'm told was much to the chagrin of her mother.  The Jones family gave her deliberately a misnomer as nickname, and it stuck.)

Everybody knows that no matter how many children a person has, it doesn't change the parent's love for each child.  Well, it's like that for children, regardless of how many parents they have.  The dad who raised me -- who was "Ed," but became step-dad, then "Dad" -- is phenomenal.  This isn't about not having enough of a dad, but the journey of having enough of each dad.  I miss my Dad Jones for the reasons mentioned in the eulogy above.  Also, I can no longer show or tell to him things I think he'd find interesting about my work and creative projects.  In other words, there will also be no more proving myself, and so, I am left with only myself to whom to answer.  It is I that I must convince that I am, indeed, enough.  Today.  Each day.  From here on forward.

A snapshot I have forever etched in my mind, but that was uninterrupted by any grab for a camera is that moment after our Aunt Ann and Uncle Rich and our Uncle Tom and Aunt MaryEllen hugged us goodbye from the event and were walking in the dappled, late afternoon sunshine toward their cars to leave.  My dad's older sister and brother had taken on better than average, better than exceptional, roles in our lives.  Watching their backs as they left on this particular day was a moment in which time seemed to slow, and I was as still and present as I've ever been.  I wanted to show it to Remy, and nudged her and said, "Their job is done."  

They had seen us through to the end of this long stretch of our journey at which point the extended aunts and uncles joined with them to hand us completely to ourselves.  

Before the day of the memorial, I had come to peace with my first dad and felt peace for him.  

Now, with my newly whole self, tomorrow begins.