The cover of my third book features a family snapshot of my favorite Aunt Lucille who was my daddy’s sister, her daughter Melissa, my mother and daddy, and me.
I am the child fiddling with my gloves and not looking at the picture-taker, whoever that might be. Probably my Uncle Jay who was my Aunt Lucille’s husband and my first cousin Melissa’s father. He liked to take pictures and had the most impressive camera of anyone in our family so naturally he was the photographer for important occasions like Easter Sunday.
I was ten years old at the time of the photo, and I’m assuming it was a picture taken right before we went to church for an Easter service at the Richards Baptist Church in Richards, Texas the little town in Grimes County at the edge of the piney woods. Population 500 counting dogs and chickens.
My mother looked happy – no doubt because she managed to dress me in a ruffled dress, Easter bonnet and, reluctantly, white gloves. My daddy is the one with the crew cut, which I’m sure I secretly envied.
My Aunt Lucille is the beautiful woman wearing an appropriate corsage with her Easter outfit that included gloves, handbag and hat. Melissa was probably two years old and apparently not too thrilled with either her Easter outfit, the photographer’s efforts, or a combination of irritations as we prepared to go to church that day. She’s the pretty little girl with the frown.
I love this picture – and I love the people in it.
Time, distance and the vicissitudes of life, as my daddy used to say, make it difficult to keep in touch with my cousin Melissa who is the only one remaining in this picture besides me. She lives in San Leon, Texas with her husband Tim and their three dogs. San Leon is a small town on Galveston Bay past Houston if you’re driving south toward the Gulf of Mexico and the Galveston beaches. Regardless of where you’re driving, Melissa and Tim live a thousand miles from Pretty and me in South Carolina.
But today she was in Charleston with Tim who was there on a work assignment and we had made plans to get together. Pretty wanted to take me, but she was still in the business of the final push to clear out Casa de Canterbury since the new owners brought a big ol’ moving van up to the porch today and started unloading. That’s a convoluted story for another day but needless to say, Pretty was overwhelmed with no opportunity to drive me to Charleston at this point in our lives.
In (and up) stepped my good friend Dick Hubbard who happily agreed to drive me to see my cousin Melissa for an early lunch at her hotel today. Bless his heart. Dick and I have been friends for 30 years but usually meet for lunch in Columbia so we enjoyed the extra time to visit on the two-hour ride down to Charleston and back. Gossip, the meaning of life, his husband Curtis, my wife Pretty, pickup trucks were a few of our topics as we drove in a slight drizzle…just enough to require his new windshield wipers every once in a while.
The visit with Melissa was perfect. We caught up on two years’ worth of current events in our lives since we last saw each other in Texas in the summer of 2015. We talked politics, books, retirement, what Tim was doing, how Pretty was doing – but mostly we talked about the other three people in the book cover picture who are no longer here and how much we both miss them.
Melissa and I share the solitude of being “only children” and what that means when we have lost our parents and grandparents. Neither of us has children of our own – Melissa’s daughter died many years ago of cystic fibrosis.
But today was a joyful day because we could talk together about the people we both knew and loved when we were growing up: we are each other’s people after all. Sixty-five years of family history are ties that will always bind us, regardless of the years between visits or the distance of a thousand miles that separate us today. Thank goodness for facebook.
Both of us actually knew the people we were talking about; and that’s a happy thing, as Melissa likes to say.
This was an extra special Tuesday for me, a day I won’t forget anytime soon…until we meet again.
Melissa and her playhouse in Beaumont, Texas
I'll Call It Like I See It 
How did I miss that the title of your blog is the title of a – your – book? Adding that to my list of must reads. The family portrait is so evocative of a time and a place. What fun and joy to have someone to remember it with.
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It really was a fun time being with her…yes, I started this blog originally because I was looking for a publisher for my third book…and then the blog title became the title for the book!
My fourth book The Short Side of Time is a collection of my favorite blogs over several years…I like both of the books…I hope you will read!
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I loved this post. I feel so very fortunate that you allow me to get to know your family a little bit more with each post you put up. And what a wonderful family I imagine it was.
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Thanks so much, Jenn…my family was as special to me as yours is to you. We both love our families!
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I love that you got to reminisce! And I love Melissa’s playhouse (I had one, too, but not until I was ten or so)! So funny about you fussing with the gloves. I can imagine that they were a huge annoyance. What a great photo. I am sorry, though, about Melissa’s daughter. What a tragedy for her to go through.
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Thanks, Luanne….yes, I cannot begin to imagine the tragedy for Melissa. Her daughter was wonderful, despite the struggles she faced for breathing every day of her too-brief life. She was beautiful, too.
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Oh, so so sad.
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How lovely you managed to make the meeting — well done Dick for making it possible and giving you a double catch up.
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It really was a special visit, Annie, and Dick is always there when we call – he has countless stars in his crown!
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SHEILA you’ve done it again, what a wonderful story. Next time you come to Texas, I’d like to drive you to Galveston Bay to see Melissa, I could probably get a little fishing done, and smell the good ole’ salt water air, bringing back many memories of my childhood. (oh, and by the way, you’re not really missing anything by not having………oh, never mind, they might be reading this…Lol ) Always
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Thank you so much, cuz from the other side of the family! Yes, that would be fun for us all to visit Melissa and Tim at the Bay…we must do next time. Love to you, Sweet…
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Such a lovely post. I’m so happy you and Melissa had the opportunity to visit (and that you have good friends like Dick who are there when you need them). The photos are wonderful. But even better are the memories they hold for you.
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Thank you so very much, Miss Harper Lee. It’s so really cool to be able to share my feelings with you, Tallulah, and, well, the humans, too. You are too kind.
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Sheila, I so enjoyed visiting with you, Dick, and Melissa. You have such a way of bringing us into your life. Thank you for sharing these snippets of life.
As for that outfit…I’m all sympathy. My mom had to practically wrestle me to the ground to get me into asimilar Easter finery.
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We must be two peas in a pod, Ann! That’s too funny that your mom had to wrestle you to get you into frills, too!!
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Oh we are! Mom always said she wanted a little girl to dress up. My sister was more willing, but only just. Apparently Mom fought to get me out of blue jeans and scrubbed clean of mud. I lived in the big City but was a wild thing at heart.
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That doesn’t surprise me in the least!
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