I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

Tag: deep in the heart: a memoir of love and longing

  • thanksgiving is relative

    thanksgiving is relative


    “The oak trees were alive with color in the midst of the evergreens. Bright red and yellow leaves catching the sunlight as Daddy and I walked through the brush early on Thanksgiving morning. The smell of the pines was fresh and all around us. We didn’t speak, but this was when I felt most connected to my father. Nature was a bond that united us and the gift that he gave me. And not just in those East Texas woods. He envisioned the whole earth as my territory and set me on my path to discovery. In 1958, this was remarkable for a girl’s father…

    To this day, Thanksgiving remains my favorite holiday. It seems less commercial than the others and struggles to hold its own before the onslaught of merchandising that we call Christmas. The dinners in the fancy restaurants and hotels and cafeterias never measure up to the feasts my grandmothers served their families.

    Perhaps, though, it is the love and closeness of those family ties that leave the sights and sounds that last a lifetime.”

    This excerpt from the chapter Thanksgiving in the Piney Woods is from my first book Deep in the Heart: A Memoir of Love and Longing.

    my dad’s family on my grandparents’ front steps circa 1956

    (I am seated on the bottom row in my flannel shirt and corduroy pants,

    unsmiling, at my mother’s request for some strange reason)

    Today is a different Thanksgiving in a different home in a different state in a different century, but I still believe in the love and closeness of family ties that bring the sights and sounds that last a lifetime. I know they have in my lifetime.

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    Unbelievably Thanksgiving will be here again next week, and I am thankful for this different family in a different century in South Carolina, the family with two new members in 2022: our second granddaughter Molly and her first cousin Caleb. The family that goes to Boo at the Zoo together stays together. If in doubt, just ask our three year old granddaughter Ella who thinks Halloween should have its own calendar with Boo at the Zoo every month.

    Most of all, though, I am thankful for Pretty who joins me in wishing our friends and followers in cyberspace a Happy Holiday Season wherever you are – however you celebrate. We are thankful for you.

  • the essence of giving thanks


    “The oak trees were alive with color in the midst of the evergreens. Bright red and yellow leaves catching the sunlight as Daddy and I walked through the brush on this Thanksgiving morning. The smell of the pines was fresh and all around us. We didn’t speak, but this was when I felt most connected to my father. Nature was a bond that united us, the gift that he gave me, and not just in those East Texas woods. He envisioned the whole earth as my territory and set me on a path to discovery. In 1956, this was remarkable for a girl’s father…

    I loved our farm place that sat on the Grimes/Montgomery County line. It was 105 acres of rolling pasture and dense timber land three miles out from the small town where we lived. The land was at the edge of the Sam Houston National Forest which marked the beginning of the East Texas piney woods. We had a medium sized pond in those woods – we called it a tank – that was the main source of water for our few Hereford cattle we raised there…

    To this day, Thanksgiving remains my favorite holiday. It seems less commercial than the others and struggles to hold its own before the onslaught of merchandising that we call Christmas. The dinners in the fancy restaurants and hotels and cafeterias never measure up to the feasts my grandmothers served their families.

    Perhaps, though, it is the love and closeness of those family ties that leave the sights and sounds that last a lifetime.”

    This excerpt from the chapter Thanksgiving in the Piney Woods is from my first book Deep in the Heart: A Memoir of Love and Longing. Those of you who follow me will recognize this as the traditional introduction to my annual holiday piece.

     Morris family on my grandparents’ front steps 

    (I am seated on the bottom row in my flannel shirt and corduroy pants, unsmiling, at my mother’s request for some strange reason. My dad is the man with the suit and tie on the right. The date is circa 1956.)

    One by one my family dwindled, as all families do, so that only four of the five children in this picture remain. I won’t see any of my first cousins during the holiday season on either side of my family this year nor will I see my sisters Leora, Carmen and Lorna –  they are all scattered around Texas while my home is with Pretty in South Carolina.

    We will have a strange Thanksgiving due to the Covid pandemic that has returned to our nation with a second wave more vicious than the first devastating attack. More than 250,000 Americans have died in 2020 – unimaginable, and the numbers increase daily as empty chairs at the holiday dinner tables remind families of lives and love lost.

    Americans face another insidious attack from a president who refuses to allow the peaceful transition of power following an election he lost by nearly six million votes. Stoking flames of division and mistrust, this would-be king and his subjects flail away at the basic fabric of our democracy while the coronavirus destroys our fellow citizens. Nero fiddles while Rome burns.

    We are advised by our medical experts to avoid all travel, be wary of sharing the air with anyone other than immediate folks we live with, only very small gatherings. If we sacrifice now, we should be here for next year’s Thanksgiving, the medicine men tell us.  Wear masks, wash hands, keep safe distances, no hugging or other touching. Why is this difficult? Because those are not the norm for us.

    This Thanksgiving is an unusual one for sure. but I still believe in the love and closeness of family ties no geographical nor physical distance can sever, family bonds that usher in the sights and sounds which last a lifetime. I am thankful for those memories of my Texas family but oh, how grateful I am for the family Pretty and I have shared for the past twenty years.

    Pretty Too, Pretty Also and Baby Ella

    Number One Son, Pretty and Baby Ella

    Pretty and our granddaughter Ella James

    (birthday number one for our girl)

    Pretty and I wish all our friends in cyberspace that love and closeness on this special day for giving thanks – plus in this year we add our wishes for your  safety and sanity in these extraordinary times. We are thankful for you.

    Stay tuned.

  • thanksgiving is relative


    “The oak trees were alive with color in the midst of the evergreens. Bright red and yellow leaves catching the sunlight as Daddy and I walked through the brush. The smell of the pines was fresh and all around us. We didn’t speak, but this was when I felt most connected to my father. Nature was a bond that united us and the gift that he gave me. And not just in those East Texas woods. He envisioned the whole earth as my territory and set me on my path to discovery. In 1958, this was remarkable in a girl’s father…

    To this day, Thanksgiving remains my favorite holiday. It seems less commercial than the others and struggles to hold its own before the onslaught of merchandising that we call Christmas. The dinners in the fancy restaurants and hotels and cafeterias never measure up to the feasts my grandmothers served their families.

    Perhaps, though, it is the love and closeness of those family ties that leave the sights and sounds that last a lifetime.”

    This excerpt from the chapter Thanksgiving in the Piney Woods is from my first book Deep in the Heart: A Memoir of Love and Longing. I was so surprised when the book received a 2008 GCLS Literary Award – and thrilled, too.

    my family on my grandparents’ front steps circa 1956

    (I am seated on the bottom row in my flannel shirt and corduroy pants,

    unsmiling, at my mother’s request for some strange reason)

    Today is a different Thanksgiving in a different home in a different state in a different century, but I still believe in the love and closeness of family ties that bring the sights and sounds that last a lifetime. I know they have in my lifetime.

    And now for Thanksgiving in 2019 we are beyond Thunder Dome thankful for the new family member we love to hold and hope she looks our way with smiles. Pretty is beside herself with our granddaughter Ella Elisabeth James, and so am I.

    Ella loves her NanaT

    Pretty and I wish all of you in cyberspace that love and closeness on this special day for thanksgiving.

    Stay tuned.

     

  • my mother reads from Deep in the Heart


    “I love this book,” my eighty-three-year-old mother says, startling me awake from my nap with her words. I had drifted off while sitting in the dark blue recliner in her room in the memory care unit of the assisted living facility she’d called home for the past two years. She was asleep when I sat down in the recliner.

    I open my eyes to see her sitting across from me. She’s in the small wooden chair with the straight back. I can’t believe she’s holding the copy of my book, Deep in the Heart, which I gave her two years ago. I never saw the book since then on any of my visits, and I assumed she either threw it away or lost it. I was also stunned to see how worn it was. The only other book she had that I’d seen in the same condition was The Holy Bible.

    “I know all of the people in this book,” she continues. “And so many of the stories, too.”

    “Yes, you do,” I agree. “The book is about our family.”

    And then with wonder, I hear another reader say my words. My mother reads to me as she rarely did when I was a child. She was always too busy with the tasks of studying when she went to college, preparing for classes when she taught school, cooking, cleaning, ironing, practicing her music for Sunday and choir practice – she couldn’t sit still unless my dad insisted she stop to catch her breath.

    But, today, she reads to me. She laughs at the right moments and makes sure to read “with expression” as the teacher in her remembers. Occasionally, she turns a page and already knows what the next words are. I’m amazed and moved. I have to fight the tears that could spoil the moment for us. I think of the costs of dishonesty on my part, and denial on hers. The sense of loss is overwhelming.

    The words connect us as she reads. For the first time in a very long while, we’re at ease with each other. Just the two of us in the little room with words that renew a connection severed by a distance not measured by miles. She chooses stories that are not about her and her daughter’s differences. That’s her prerogative, because she’s the reader.

    She reads from a place deep within her that has refused to surrender these memories. When she tires, she closes the book and sits back in the chair.

    “We’ll read some more another time,” she says.

    I lean closer to her.

    “Yes, we will. It makes me so happy to know you like the book. It took me two years to write these stories, and I’m glad you enjoy them so much.”

    “Two years,” she repeats. “You have a wonderful vocabulary.”

    Note this is an excerpt from a chapter called The Dementia Dialogues – Stage 1 from my book:

    The mysterious mother – daughter relationship complicated by a thief we call dementia is one of the themes of one of my favorite books. The cover shows a ten-year-old me struggling with gloves I’m sure I didn’t want to wear standing between my hip crew-cut dad and my correctly posed mom, my favorite aunt Lucille standing next to her brother, and my aunt’s daughter Melissa looking somewhat perplexed in an adorable bonnet sure to be the hit of the Easter service at the Richards Baptist Church.

    Stay tuned.

     

     

  • thanksgiving is relative


    “The oak trees were alive with color in the midst of the evergreens. Bright red and yellow leaves catching the sunlight as Daddy and I walked through the brush. The smell of the pines was fresh and all around us. We didn’t speak, but this was when I felt most connected to my father. Nature was a bond that united us and the gift that he gave me. And not just in those East Texas woods. He envisioned the whole earth as my territory and set me on my path to discovery. In 1958, this was remarkable in a girl’s father…

    To this day, Thanksgiving remains my favorite holiday. It seems less commercial than the others and struggles to hold its own before the onslaught of merchandising that we call Christmas. The dinners in the fancy restaurants and hotels and cafeterias never measure up to the feasts my grandmothers served their families.

    Perhaps, though, it is the love and closeness of those family ties that leave the sights and sounds that last a lifetime.”

    This excerpt from the chapter Thanksgiving in the Piney Woods is from my first book Deep in the Heart: A Memoir of Love and Longing. I was so surprised when the book received a 2008 GCLS Literary Award – and thrilled, too.

    my family on my grandparents’ front steps circa 1956

    (I am seated on the bottom row in my flannel shirt and corduroy pants,

    unsmiling, at my mother’s request for some strange reason)

    Today is a different Thanksgiving in a different home in a different state in a different century, but I still believe in the love and closeness of family ties that bring the sights and sounds that last a lifetime. I know they have in my lifetime.

    And now for Thanksgiving in 2019 we are beyond Thunder Dome thankful for the new family member we love to hold and hope she looks our way with smiles. Pretty is beside herself with our granddaughter Ella Elisabeth James, and so am I.

    Ella loves her NanaT

    Pretty and I wish all of you in cyberspace that love and closeness on this special day for thanksgiving.

    Stay tuned.