Author: Kim Janine Ligon

This year I hope to make one of continuing gratitude, not just one season of it, as so often happens. There are so many things all around me every day that I am thankful for when I stop to think about it.

BEAUTY OF CREATION

The little gray squirrel wiggling with delight when he digs up something he’d hidden from himself sometime earlier.

The majestic bucks, a six point, a four point and two with two points, foraging together in the yard for acorns with some does. They know it is deer season!

The leaves changing colors and gently drifting to the ground. Although I must confess I wasn’t so thankful for them when I was raking and blowing them last week with my husband.

FRIENDS

The ones you’ve known since college who can bring a smile to your face when you pick up the phone to hear their voice. And the newer ones who always have a hug for you.

The ones who understand when ordering dessert at lunch is imperative and when you want to avoid the temptation.

The ones who always pray for you and with you.

SENSES

The feel of crisp clean sheets after a long day.

The smell of cookies just out of the oven.

The taste of eggnog as you settle into your recliner to enjoy the Macy’s Parade as if you were seven again .

FAMILY

The one you were born into with all its ups and downs, expansions and contractions, but most of all LOVE.

The one you married into where they treat you as if you have always been one  of theirs.

Friends who are close as siblings and who you love as if they really are.

Sisters who have become friends, too.

A husband who is always at my side no matter what and still holds my hand crossing the grocery store parking lot and in the doctor’s office.

I am truly blessed and thankful for this life and everyone in it. This year I’ll do a better job of showing it every day. I hope you enjoy the sights, sounds and smells of this holiday season and find something here to sustain you in the time ahead.

 

The Halloween that I remember was more fun than scary. It was a wonderful part of childhood before it was renamed as a Fall Festival. It was when you grabbed a big bag and all your sisters and hit as many houses as you could in our small town of less than 4,000. No one worried about where you wandered around in the dark. If the porch light was on, they were expecting you. It was an invitation to get candy, cupcakes, apples and sometimes pennies.

My first Halloween memory is in nursery school when I insisted that I wanted to be a ghost, not just your run of the mill  ghost made with holes in the sheets – which were always white then – but a cowboy ghost. So Mother fixed the sheet oulining the eye holes in black and I put on my red cowboy hat and strapped on my holster complete with the ivory handled six shooters and went forth as the perfect cowboy ghost.

In Junior high, I went to a Halloween party in what I thought was the perfect costume, no one would ever know who I was. My head was covered with a rubber mask, nothing showed but my eyes and mouth. I wore coveralls that were stuffed with pillows so I was almost twice my size. Even my hands had gloves on them. Mother dropped me off out of sight of the front door. I didn’t speak or laugh. I was sure no one would ever know me so well covered. But when we got to guessing who people were behind their masks, my friend, Donna knew it was me. How did she know? Only my eyes and mouth we’re showing! That was enough to give me away, especially when my eyes crinkled up and twinkled when I smiled!

But the best part of Halloween was carving the pumpkins. Daddy was always in charge of that and we each got to have our own. Daddy would bring out all kinds of tools including drill bits so we could create exactly the kind of expressions that we wanted.  No matter how busy he was, that was always his to share with his girls. A row of the completed Jack o’lanterns from sometime in the mid to late sixties adorns the top of this post. He always knew just the right angle to cut the top off so it wouldn’t fall in after the candle inside had burned all night. It was wonderful messy fun that I looked forward to almost as much as the trick or treating.

May your goblins all be the huggable kind and your ghosts be only  those of fond memories! Happy Halloween!

Many years ago, my sister-in-law gave me an address book that has a picture of a mailbox on the front and says “Friendships are kept by keeping in touch.” I believe that, I correspond still with high school classmates and people I worked with decades ago. Sometimes only once or twice a year, but still keeping in touch. I’ve added pages and now the book is stuffed with loose papers, envelopes and sticky notes.

Over the years, some friends and family have only had one address, others have overflowed to new pages. Sadly, some have a thin pencil line through their entry with a date written on it. They no longer have an address to receive mail at, they only live in my heart.

The one constant about staying in touch is people keep moving and leaving and there is always something to update in my address book. This month is no exception. Our niece and her family moved to their third new page as they left the great Midwest for the heart of Dixie. A high school friend never came home after heart surgery, but left my name and number with her sister just in case. And a dear friend and her husband decided on the spur of the moment to return home to Louisiana where they would be in the midst of family. They are people of action and I barely had time to have their going away party and they were gone. I am happy for them, especially for their little grandson who is over the moon excited that they will be near by. I am a little sad for me that I can’t run by to pick her up for lunch anymore.

Several years ago when the local Hallmark shop went out of business, I bought a new address book intending to transfer all the current information to it, but I never have. I think it is because the historian in me loves to look back through my cluttered book and relive the history I have had with the friends and family I love. If I ever get around to transferring information to the new book, I will be keeping the old book, too. I just can’t walk away from all that history.

 

 

There are events that rip huge gaping holes in the fabric of our lives, like losing our parents, those we will never fully repair. Then there are events that leave little pin prick holes, like a favorite restaurant converted to a political headquarters so it will never serve you a delectable meal again or the fire that destroys the grill where the best cheese steaks south of Philly were made. Those little holes remind us of our loss when we hold our fabric up to the light.

Then there are the events that pull a thread out of your fabric the whole length of it leaving a long, thin gap you never expected. That missing thread is on my mind today.

For almost twenty years, I have looked for his truck under the University Blvd bridge on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. I never knew his name, only that “my produce guy” would be in his truck in his usual spot. (Except for the one year when the bridge was being replaced and he had to park under a tree down the street.) I’d intentionally take the route that went past his spot when I ran errands those days. My slight detour would be rewarded with young, tender pale yellow summer squash or luscious juicy peaches or the perfect box of red ripe tomatoes. He always had a smile and kind words for me, even in the sweltering Alabama summer where he worked all day without air conditioning!

One day when I stopped with my sister Ann, who was visiting from Wisconsin, she asked about the unusal grapes he had. He asked if she wanted a taste, she did. She quickly spit out the tart Scuppernong. Then he confessed, with a wink, that they weren’t really an eating grape. It was the only mischievious thing I ever saw him do.

It was a sure sign of Spring when the truck first appeared and a sign the harvest was over when it was gone once we were past the crisp apples and gnarled yams. I learned to make fried green tomatoes after buying a box of green ones in addition to my usual box of red.

Then several weeks ago, I learned his name. It was on the front page of the paper. It was Woodie. He was 86. He’d had been killed in an accident with a semi. He had seven children and a wife who was glad he didn’t die hooked up to machines and tubes in the hospital. The news brought tears to my eyes. My husband said if he had just died in his sleep we might have never known who he was, his truck would have just been gone. I guess that’s true.

Yesterday, I bought tomatoes in the Alabama summer from somewhere air conditioned. It made me realize, again, that I am missing the thread in my life’s fabric woven by “my produce guy”. I still take the same route to run errands and think of him as I go under the bridge without pulling off to look at his wares. I know I will never be able to replace his missing thread with any other that will come close to matching it.

RIP Woodie and thanks for all the tomatoes!

 

 

I believe that God loves us and that he send angels to help us make our way in this world. Not necessarily the loveable, wing-seeking Clarence of It’s A Wonderful Life or the dashing Cary Grant as Dudley in The Bishop’s Wife, but in other forms. Sometimes our angels are people known to us who step in to  help or encourage or guide or simply to love us through our current difficulties. And sometimes God sends perfect strangers to minister to our needs or even save our lives. I am thankful I got to meet one of those angels on Earth on Thursday.

My friend and her mother were out to lunch with me on Thursday  just catching up on last weekend’s activities and enjoying one another’s company.  The restaurant wasn’t too busy, but the room we were in was full. We got a table with a view and we’re enjoying it and the good food before us.

Then my friend began coughing and holding the napkin to her mouth. She kept coughing. I asked if something went down the wrong pipe. She shook her head, took a sip of her soda which bubbled back out, stood up and motioned to her throat. (We later learned carbonation and choking aren’t a good combination.) I stood up and looked around a room that had almost emptied by now. I started to do the Heimlich Maneuver, which I had seen done but never done myself.  It wasn’t working. She was still choking.

Then a young woman from the one other table in the room was at my side. She said she was a military trained EMT and she could help. She worked on my friend, even lifting her off the floor at one point,  until finally the piece of chicken that was lodged in her throat came out. Then this angel took my friend into the restroom to clean her up and make sure all was okay while her mother and I tried to absorb what had just happened. My friend kept talking afterwards about how kind and gentle the young woman had been.

I firmly believe God put that angel at the table next to us to save my friend’s life on Thursday. Her quick and calm action was exactly what we needed. Her gentle kindness after it was over simply confirms who sent her. I am remembering her in my prayers and thanking God for sending her. Her actions saved my friend’s life.  I know my friend and her mother are including her in their prayers, too.

I have been in a rut…a big deep rut where I simply couldn’t write. For over six weeks the only writing I did was the two posts here. I didn’t touch any of my stories and didn’t hear any objections from my characters.

I have found spinning has helped get my creative juices flowing in the past so I sat down and began spinning. I didn’t even pretend I was going to write each day. I took my third cup of coffee into my spinning wheel and opened the shutters each morning to see the world outside while I pulled fiber out of my stash and spun.

I saw a plump gray white-chested squirrel hop from spot to spot in the yard to dig up morsels that he looked happily surprised to find right where he’d left them earlier. He  munched until his cheeks couldn’t hold another bite and then he scampered off to his next adventure.

I watched the steam rise up from the pavement like a blanket of fog after a quick shower in the heat of the afternoon raced through. A fat bumble bee found the Holly bush fascinating as it went from leaf to leaf spreading pollen. One early morning when the dew was still glistening on the grass, a scrawny yellow fox with a tail bigger than his body sauntered out of the woods to sit down in the middle of the circle and scratch his ears like a dog. Then after stretching out a few minutes on the pavement he strolled down the driveway and into the woods. The little buck came to feast on the special grass in the front yard until his friends showed up, then, not wanting them to know how sweet it was, he chased them into the woods. Lots of days the only activity was from the mailman or the new automated garbage trucks.

I watched all kinds of activity with only the whir of the ceiling fan echoed by my spinning wheel as yard after yard of beautiful colorful yarn filled my bobbins. By the time I was ready to write again, after the loving encouragement of friends, I could only do so briefly because I was now on a quest. I decided to fill every empty bobbin I had, saving one empty for plying, before I changed my focus. So I did, I spun enough yarn to fill all fourteen of them! Hundreds of yards of single ply yarn plus hundreds more of two ply yarn ready to be used and putting only a small dent in my fiber stash.

I’m ready to write again…..I managed to spin my way out of my rut…if you look at the new picture on my home page of the final results you might think I’ve been spinning out of control…but try not to judge me 😁

We don’t live near any of our family on either side. So getting together, even briefly, is a time of shared laughter and feeling loved. I know all families don’t work that way and I feel truly blessed that we like to see one another and enjoy each other’s company.

A family is the fruit born of the love of our parents and grandparents and beyond. On our recent trip to visit family I was reminded of Jesus saying  “from their fruits you shall know them”. I could see my grandmother in one uncle’s face when he smiled and hear my grandfather in another uncle’s voice as he shared things about his life that I didn’t know. And at a dinner for thirty-four, all families born from my mother and father in law, I was overwhelmed with the fruits of their love amid lots of laughter and discussion.

A family is a fruit salad made up of a wonderful mixture of sweet melons, tart pineapple, juicy grapes, crisp apples and luscious peaches sprinkled with a few pecans and  marinaded in generations of love and abiding affection. A good one is hard to resist and restores your soul. Enjoy yours whenever you can!

Maybe it is because tomorrow is the fifth anniversary of losing Daddy or maybe it is because I have been combing through a box of family pictures that took a circuitous route to me, but I’m nostalgic today.

I love looking through the pictures and flipping them over to see Mother’s perfect handwriting with the funny looking r’s neatly noting who is in the picture or my Aunt Peg’s funny notes about someone looking good in this picture compared to how they look now since they’re getting fat! If they hadn’t made notes, I would have no one to ask now.

My mother-in-law never made notes on her pictures, but at 90 could pick up the picture of her eighth grade class and not only tell me everyone’s name but who they married, where they moved away to and what they became. It was a small class but impressive nonetheless. I grabbed a label maker and carefully recorded what she said for that and the other pictures in the box. Several albums full!

If you’re lucky enough to have living grandparents and parents, pull out their unlabelled pictures and start getting them in albums before there is no one to ask. If they’re gone, talk to aunts and uncles or cousins or even your siblings. We all remember things differently.

Don’t just ask about pictures. Listen to the stories you’ve heard a thousand times and instead of eye rolling, ask questions to find out more, to find out why. Talk to your kids and look at your treasure trove of memories. Are they ready to be explored by someone else?

I am thankful for listening to Daddy talking about his Army days or going to U of I as a sixteen year old farm boy. Thankfully, he took a lot of pictures that he marked too.

I’m thankful for Grandma’s watermelon rind pickles recipe, even though I’ve only done the work to make them once.

Make today the day you seek someone out to learn something about who you are or to share something about who they are. Don’t wait!!

Today would have been my father-in-law’s 108th birthday. My husband was born when he was almost 45. Dad always said having a little son kept him young. He had a quiet way of living and sharing what he knew about life.

My mother-in-law liked to buy things for me and when I objected once, Dad told me, “When someone does something nice for you, don’t argue, smile and say thank you.” Then he added, “Besides, it makes her happy.”

Dad was a great bargain Hunter, always finding things on sale, which meant he had to buy them, whether he needed them or not. When I found a real steal on something, he said I inherited that gene from him!

On our first cross country trip with my in-laws, I learned the journey is as important as the destination and you have to take the opportunity to see everything along the way. On our first day we’d been on the road less than two hours and we passed a billboard for an A and W root beer stand. I said out loud that I hadn’t had an A&W in forever and next thing I knew the car hop was taking our order! I came from a family where making time to get where you’re going sooner was more important than stopping. The root beer was wonderful. My husband  whispered to me “Don’t say anything out loud unless you really want it!”

Dad believed no family gathering was complete without homemade ice cream and he was always willing to make it, usually with his son-in-law sitting next to him helping with the ice and salt. Store bought ice cream just isn’t the same!

Dad said you should keep doing things as long as you can, then you’ll be able to keep doing it.  He traveled all over Southern Illinois watching my husband play basketball in high school and thought nothing of jumping in the car after church to drive to Champaign to take us to dinner and then go back home that night. He roofed one of our houses with my husband and brother-in-law and even painted his own house  when he was well over 70. He liked going and doing. Sometimes we’d just get in the car without a specific destination, just getting out to “blow the stink off.”

Dad always encouraged me to feed my inner child. He orchestrated a weiner roast over a bonfire for my 25th birthday… With homemade ice cream, of course. And one year, he worked making a special gift, the same gift, for each one of his young grandchildren. When all the packages were under the tree, there was an extra one of the same size as for the grandchildren and great grandchildren. It was for me! When we opened gifts, he had made us all little padded wooden stools shaped like turtles. I was as delighted as the little kids were!

The most important thing Dad taught me was don’t worry, it doesn’t change anything. I confess that I have never mastered it as well as he did. But I want to and I keep trying.  He was a man of great faith who simply put his trust in the Lord. He knew everything would work out like it was supposed to. I know he was right.

Happy Birthday Dad. Thank you for loving me like one of your own from the very beginning!