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.”
Unstained reputations still matter to some folks in small towns and they don’t like shadows of shame when undeserved.
So that’s why Charlie got in such a huff.
I don’t think he minded that his name appeared on the police blotter.
But the problem came when a new reporter and a police officer with scrawling handwriting crossed Charlie’s path.
The new reporter was going over the police reports, searching for news leads or at least a report on the tickets issued last week.
He thought he’d found an interesting lead. This Charlie dude had been ticketed for weed.
So the reporter wrote a piece about Charlie’s ticket for marijuana possession. Coming from a college town, it made sense to him.
The problem was that the police officer hadn’t made a nice strong S at the end of weed.
Charlie had been ticketed for the weeds growing too tall in his alley. Charlie needed to mow, not hide his stash.
And that’s why Charlie got in such a huff.
Eileen’s voice rumbled down the long hallway at the nursing home, skidding past open doors and slamming into the nurse’s station desk.
“Where am I?” she asked. Loudly and often. “What am I doing?”
Two aides were helping a man re-settle in his wheelchair. They didn’t turn to Eileen.
A nurse wrote notes in a file folder. She didn’t look up.
“Where am I?” Eileen thundered. “What am I doing?”
This was Eileen’s life until one day her daughter came to visit.
“Shh, Mom,” the daughter said, leaning close to Eileen’s ear. “I’m taking you to lunch.”
“I just don’t know what to do,” Eileen said.
“You’re going to eat.” The daughter settled into a chair with a sign.
Eileen ate lunch.
After lunch, the daughter was joined by more family members who carried paper bags and a cake box.
Then they rolled Eileen and her wheelchair out the door to the patio.
Eileen looked around but she didn’t say a word.
“We’re going out here,” said a family member. “It’s your birthday today.”
Eileen nodded but she didn’t speak.
On that day, with family celebrating another milestone with Eileen, she didn’t need to ask any questions.
She didn’t ask who she was or what she was doing.
“I’ll have some cake,” she announced.
She was with family and that was enough for Eileen.
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