Day 34 - February 22
In my most early years, as a toddler and pre-schooler, at the end of each day father walked through our front door, turned to the hooks on his right to hang his overcoat, and placed his dress hat on the shelf above. Then he was ours for the evening.
Mother prepared dinner in the narrow kitchen above a coal furnace. Outside the kitchen door a huge opening loomed for coal deliveries. Red and white metal cabinets surrounded her. Underneath the sink, a silver emblem identified the manufacturer--some kind of winged creature, similar to the Roman god Mercury. At the other end of the kitchen our fifties dinette set lined the left wall while the washer and dryer filled up the right.
After dinner I tossed the green silky throw pillow on the living room floor. This was the sign for our play to begin. Father joined me for all manner of giggling and wrestling. We laughed so hard we cried, every night.
While mother washed the dishes, he asked about my day and I played records for him. My 45’s and 78’s were quite an eclectic collection--Red River Valley, Love is a Many Splendored Thing, The Nutcracker Suite, You Are My Sunshine, The Yellow Rose of Texas and Chicken Little’s, The Sky is Falling, The Sky is Falling!
Mother, barely twenty years old at the time, made her way through day after day, finding young housewife things to do. She cooked and baked, laundered and ironed. She read McCall’s magazines and the Reader’s Digest in her stuffed yellow rocker. While she read I set up my record player in her bedroom.
One day she decided to teach me to iron father’s white handkerchiefs, each one embroidered with a fancy letter “G.” I insisted on ironing them from then on. My favorite part was opening his cavernous dresser drawer and depositing the carefully pressed and folded little piles in their place.
Here I am at the other end of the story. Now I’m opening drawers and closet doors, deciding what happens next. I plan to pass father’s clothing on to a good will shop. I choose a matching tie for every one of his many dress shirts, arrange each tie around the neck of each shirt and slip each arrangement into a plastic garment bag.
I save his suits for visiting ministers from Haiti and three sport coats for me to wear around the house when I’m chilled.
Careful piles fill the room. Slowing down, it’s no light task, to observe the trappings of father’s distinction in piles all around.
Elvis sings, It is no secret, what God can do. What he’s done for others, He’ll do for you…
Tine comes to the door.
“I’m ready to help. Do you want me to take all of this out to my car? I can drive it to our Community Support Shoppe in Bloomfield for you.”
Tine takes care of it all--several car loads over the next few days.
The shop is run by New Hope Fellowship Church. The name has changed, but New Hope is the church father founded along Route 5 & 20 on the edge of East Bloomfield. I remember as a grade school student, whenever we drove by the old church building which had been converted to a pottery shop, father was concerned that it wasn’t a house of worship. Eventually he found a way, with community support, to purchase the building and open it as the Berean Gospel Church.
The rest is history and now his belongings will be taken care of by the church’s members who will make sure they are used as a blessing to members of the community at large.
It’s all history now.
…except for the part that still lives in me
…and keeps me writing
…so my sky won’t fall.
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