My brother and I never ran past the house that loomed behind overgrown plants on our way home from school. That’s why we were sometimes nabbed by that fearful call from the old lady who lived there: “Yoohoo, children.”
Mrs. Bishop seemed to be at least 120 to us and she’d come to her gate with her white hair and big smile.
“Come in for a minute.”
We hadn’t been raised to be rude and so we filed into her faded parlor where we’d hear stories about her cats and her flowers while being served gritty rubber ice cream or petrified chocolate.
We never knew how to excuse ourselves so we sat, knowing we were late getting home.
Finally Mrs. Bishop set us free and we rushed home.
“Mrs. Bishop —“ I said to Mom.
And she waved her hand. “I figured as much.”
That was it. No lectures or anger.
I didn’t know it then but grace from my mother flowed through us to a lonely elderly woman who only wanted to share a little of her life with her neighbors.
They may seem to loom as ancient and irrelevant, but the elderly blossom with our grace and kindness.
My late husband and I went four-wheeling into a remote area in the Snowy Range of Wyoming and came across this abandoned cabin. Matt called it his peaceful place and I wondered what stories it held. Who had built it? What dreams were forged in this valley?
The day I met my namesake out in the pigpen was the day I decided I wasn’t using people names for our livestock anymore.
Our neighbor’s daughter liked to name their pigs after friends. Seeing a hog rooting in the mud and learning that her name was Kathy – well, that was the turning point.
No more Abraham or Elinore or Danielle.
But the animals needed names. If you can’t use the neighbors’ names and you can’t use the baby book names, what can you use for ideas?
A dictionary, of course.
Which explains why we’ve had livestock carrying such names as Tripod, Rugby and Torch. We’ve had Breeze, Warrior and Colossal.
Such names as Scimitar and Saber have been attached to some of our animals over the years. We’ve used Cola and Domino and Tinsel.
Not long ago, a friend send a rabbit our way. “She’s not named,” said our friend. “Although I think I should have called her Frying Pan, just to fit in with your barn.”
I don’t know why she laughed. That name would have worked for us.
For Lindsay, watching her mother tend to laundry stirred the same emotions as watching her children climb to the top of the swing set.
“Mom, be careful!”
Dorothy held the basket of dirty clothes in both hands and leaned against the handrail as she one-stepped her way to the basement.
“I’m fine,” Dorothy said. “I do this all the time.”
Lindsay grabbed the handrail, which shivered in her hand as many in older homes do. “This isn’t sturdy.”
“It’s fine. I know how to do this.” Dorothy set the basket on the floor to switch on the light. The basement darkness disappeared in orange brightness.
Dorothy took a cleansing breath and leaned over to pick up the basket.
“How do you get the clothes back upstairs?”
Dorothy set the basket down and leaned against the door jamb to the laundry room. “Sometimes your father takes it up for me. But I can always take up a few pieces at a time.” She smiled at Lindsay. “It’s fine.”
Lindsay’s father used a cane. Trips from room to room were slow. Like old molasses.
“It must take all day to do the laundry.”
“We have to do it,” Dorothy said. “We manage just fine.”
Lindsay called her brother later in the day. “OK, I get it now. It’s time, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Jim said. “We need changes before one of them falls.”
“I’m not ready to parent my parents.”
“Get ready,” Jim said. “If you love them, get ready.”
