summer sentence 2015
i sit, staring into the eyes of
my five-week-old great niece Lucy,
the two of us bound together
by blood
but not yet by story;
the only missive
we share is
our
week together
saying 'good morning'
and touching noses,
me bouncing her soft body
when she cries,
me trying to soothe,
her trying to discover
her new world;
and on this morning,
our last together,
she turns the corner
of her mouth, just so
into a soft,
baby smile
and i know
she is thinking
about the times
her mother fed her, or
my mother rocked her
or when her sister
(2, plus some)
held her and
kissed her face,
of the times her uncles
took her into their arms
and
showed her
their world
at that moment,
bound by
beach and sound and sky;
or of when her grandfather
danced with her
in afternoon
delight for both;
and as i look into her
family-blue eyes and
marvel at our same chins,
i wish she could remember
what i have seen of this week —
my sister holding and bouncing
her new granddaughter,
my brother walking into the
surf with his grandson,
now 8, who
asked my nephew
about girls and French kisses,
and
Monopolized our evenings;
our beach party dance-off
with no misunderstanding
from our
part-time partytime
brother-in-law;
how her mother ate fresh peaches
and slept when she could
(and cried a little),
not able to stick her toes
in the sand often enough
like her namesake,
my grandmother
always liked to do;
how we ate shrimp
and how we watched
the sun set
over the blue waters
of the inter-coastal
waterway,
my husband wishing
he was out there, skimming
the smooth surface,
under sail,
or my son
casting chicken necks
tied to string
in search of
crabs for his
Maryland love;
or how my daughter
lifting the paddleball
into the air
or tossing it
into the ocean
with her husband,
who sweated
into soccer heaven
with the 8-year-old,
all of them
no longer afraid
of the sharks
they had read about
in the news;
how i sat with my
nephews for the
first time in a year,
learning about jobs
and life
as they see it,
shared an early-morning coffee
with the newest girlfriend,
her eyes crisp as
the ocean water
we were about to leave;
and how after supper,
on our last night,
my mother sat
at the
kitchen table
with her grands,
holding stories
in her lap as
softly as she did her
great-grandbabies,
hoping to
pass
her own history on.
writemuch.blogspot is the original work of author susan byrum rountree. all written work and photography is copyright protected and can only be used with written permission of the author.
a toast to a happier time
a year ago today, my entire family gathered in the great room of a rented beach cottage to make a toast. to the day, 60 years before, when what would become our family took root. on this, my parents' 61st wedding anniversary, i say thanks to God that we had that time together, however fleeting. it's been a bittersweet week, remembering where i was when i took the pictures posted here. thinking of the quiet chats my father and i had each day, when he climbed the two flights of stairs to see what we were up to. strolling together down the rickety pier behind the cottages to see if any fish might be biting. sharing a meal and talking about his life. just watching him watch his grands and great-grands. marvels to me.
my parents' dance is over, sadly, but today i just want to be happy that they took that first dance together long ago.
Save the last dance
They met in the hallways of Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem in the fall of 1951. Not long after, the skinny young man in the white coat asked the wavy-haired Florida girl if she would like to go to a med school dance with him.
Two weeks later, he asked her a bigger question: Will you marry me? And on June 14 the next year, she did.
And the day after that? He graduated from Bowman Gray School of Medicine. All the family was coming anyway, so what better time to get married than the day before you become a doctor?
My mother often said Daddy didn't want to go to Louisville (the location of his internship) alone. So she went with him, and two weeks shy of their first wedding anniversary, my brother joined them in their little apartment with the Murphy bed in the wall.
In those early years, the young Byrums would not often be together. Mama moved with my brother to live with my grandparents, whom she had really only met a couple of times. Daddy joined the Navy, spending his days in the cramped infirmary of a destroyer, tending to the medical needs of other young men his age. He has a certificate from that time that says he crossed the Arctic Circle.
When he came home, they moved to Newport, Rhode Island, then back with my grandparents. Daddy left again, and while they were living apart, my sister was born, the story of her birth a favorite of my grandfather, who drove my in-labor by the hospital entrance because the February fog was so dense.
When my father left the Navy, they looked around for a place to settle down and found a spot just an hour from my grandparents. Within a year, they had a house and another baby — me — Daddy tending to the needs of patients who would come to him for the rest of his career —more than 50 years.
I wrote about them last year
Little has changed except they are moving a little slower, but I marvel at the fact that my parents continue to grow closer today as each day passes.
This week we have gathered — 23 of us (with two pending) — to celebrate the fact of them and their 60 years together, and that what seems to us to have been a hasty decision back in 1951 has turned into a pretty remarkable life.
Each day someone new has arrived to join our celebration. Grandchildren. Spouses. Great-grands. Earlier in the week, we even gathered in a nearby gazebo to toast the newest union-to-be, all of us weeping after my nephew proposed to his girlfriend. What a joyful moment for us all.
Mama has enjoyed sharing the story of how she met my dad with each new face. Daddy checks his watch and asks who is coming next. By this afternoon, we will all be in place, and we have a few special things planned for them to mark this day in our family history.
Last night, Daddy stood before supper and thanked us all for coming, and for being who we are. He said he was proud how we are living our lives, and though he and my mother could not take credit, they would like to.
Well.
"There was more I wanted to say but I have forgotten!" he said then, tempering the tears that had formed at the corners of all of our eyes with the subtle humor he is known for. I watched Mama sitting in the chair behind him, looking up at him, her blue eyes sparkling.
"Would you like to go to the dance?" he asked those years ago. My mother has never felt she was very good at dancing, but when my father took her in his arms that fateful night, somehow she stayed in step. For 60 years. Imagine.
Happy Anniversary B&Pop B. May the dance continue.
©susan byrum rountree, june 14, 2012.
writemuch.blogspot is the original work of author susan byrum rountree. all written work and photography is copyright protected and can only be used with written permission of the author.
Save the last dance
Two weeks later, he asked her a bigger question: Will you marry me? And on June 14 the next year, she did. My mother often said Daddy didn't want to go to Louisville (the location of his internship) alone. So she went with him, and two weeks shy of their first wedding anniversary, my brother joined them in their little apartment with the Murphy bed in the wall.This week we have gathered — 23 of us —to celebrate the fact of them and their 60 years together, and that what seems to us to have been a hasty decision back in 1951 has turned into a pretty remarkable life.
Happy Anniversary B&Pop B. May the dance continue.
writemuch.blogspot is the original work of author susan byrum rountree. all written work and photography is copyright protected and can only be used with written permission of the author.
guest blog — runs in the family
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| john mccormick jenkins with betty jean mcormick byrum |
This year, we are back together again, for the first family beach trip in a long time and though much has changed, a lot is still the same. There are a lot of similarities between the 8-year-old me and current-day me. Eight-year-old John could make the most of a rainy day by dressing like a robot, pirate, or whatever he felt that day. Yesterday, I must have felt like a rock and roll star. My cousin Sam and I jammed out on our guitars and gave a G-rated performance for our whole family. I think it went well.
A major difference is all of that envy is now transformed into admiration and pride. I am proud of my cousin Kip for still being well put together, this time with an MD behind his name. I am proud of my cousins Kendall and Sam for being amazing parents to their beautiful children. My sister makes just spending time with her in conversation fun. My brother still knows everything, but I am thankful now he shares his knowledge with me, and we can have pretty funny conversations instead of pretty brutal arguments. My cousin Meredith still bring fun to any day. She arrived today, but I wished she had been here to liven up our rainy day blues yesterday. And again last, my brother-in-age Graham. He does not always express it, but the guy can find humor in anything. Things that rile me up, he just shrugs off. I guess I am still a little jealous of some things.
I could have saved you all a lot of time. Instead of listing all of my cousin’s best attributes, I think I could have just described the reason we are all here. My grandparent’s, B and Pop B will be married 60 years tomorrow. They have a lot more than the characteristics I just listed that not only make them the best grandparents I could ever ask for, but they make all eight of us who we are. I look at Kendall, with her hands on her hips just watching
her daughter LG crawl around and imagine B watching any of her children that very same way. I see Pop B’s thoughtfulness in the proposal my cousin Kip made to his (now fiance) Mad Dog. I also see Pop B’s knowledge mixed with B’s ability of persuasion in Jay. B’s ability to just get stuff done is evident in my sister, who just now interrupted this blogging session to wrangle me to carry the groceries upstairs because they needed to be put away RIGHT NOW. Graham has Pop B’s subtle sense of humor that can infect the whole room with a glance or just a word. When I saw B giggling on the couch during our performance last night, I imagined Meredith wiping the tears from her eyes from a laugh attack. Sam demands the attention of the room without even trying, much like B can do, whether to tell a joke or hold a conversation —when either of them open their mouths, everyone wants to listen.
Thanks B and Pop B for always being a great example for your children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. Any of us will be lucky to live a life even a little similar to y'alls.