The Inheritor

It’s been awhile since I’ve whined.

If I don’t keep reminding myself of all my afflictions,

I may forget them;

leave one out;

or fail to hurt at some crucial place or time.

Hereby, I give credit to my predecessors,

those who paved the trail;

those who left me an everlasting inheritance.

Mama with grandson Brooke.  Grand Canyon 1972

1.    From Mama I inherited a brain tumor.  I knew I would be the chosen one because it fell on DeRay and me to take her for most of her cobalt treatments for over 10 years.  My tumor, outside my ear canal, robbed me of hearing and balance, and an infernal whishing and pounding.  Fortunately, I do not have the headaches Mama suffered.  Working with Bob Doman over the years, I do know that you need to be all right- or left-dominant or your brain gets mixed signals.  I can’t be right ear dominant when I can’t hear out of that ear so my brain has to be plenty messed up.  I’m right handed, my right eye and foot are dominant.  And that’s my excuse for unadulterated craziness.

 

Jonathan and Lucy Elizabeth Carroll Heaton

Carroll Family.  Grandma Lucy Elizabeth center back.  Grandma inserted since her funeral was the gathering.

2.    From my Grandma Heaton, I was bequeathed a sturdy frame.  All of her sisters were petite.  Mama said it didn’t pass her mother by that she had big bones and was hefty while her sisters were fragile and dainty.  Probably, I also inherited my propensity for sugar diabetes from Grandma Heaton.

Margaret Webster Esplin

 3.    My Great Grandmother Esplin, Margaret Esplin, was deaf.  She didn’t eat meals with her family maybe because she couldn’t hear the conversation.  I play on my iPad while eating.

Daddy and Shirley with the sheep.

Daddy on Nig

 4.    Daddy loved the hills and solitude.  In a letter from the shepherd to Mama before they were married, he wrote:  “All my experience so far (or most of it) has been out in the hills.  I wouldn't even want to go to town if it wasn't for you.  I think more of a horse than I do of all the automobiles made.  What do you think you will do with a man like that?  Most everybody that knows me knows I like horses and the hills, but nobody knows how much I like them (unless it's Son).  I told you once before I should have lived fifty or a hundred years ago.  I think it would have been the most fun in the world to have lived where there were no towns or wire fences, just open country.  That's not just a dream either.  I've tried it enough to know what it's like. But, of course, I know that girls do not like things like that.  There is nothing in it for them.  Most girls like cities (the further I can get away from them--the cities--the better).  So I "ax" you again, what are you going to do with such a man?!!?  Sheep Herd July 29, 1927 (Cedar Mountain).

My happiest times are wandering the hills or hiking through the hollow and skipping Salad Socials and such.  That is, back when I could walk . . .

Uncle Lawrence, Aunt Lucy holding Brooke.  Blessing day Orderville. 1972

5.    My Aunt Lucy suffered from arthritis too.  She didn’t complain like I do but we must have inherited the propensity from a common ancestor.  Her daughters endured knee problems.  Part of my inheritance?

6.    From someone undiagnosed, I know I inherited Hashimoto’s Disease, the first autoimmune disease discovered.  A thyroid disease.  Thyroid cancer.  Point taken. 

What an inheritance!  Thank you, dear ones.  If you endured to the end, I can too.

Sisters, sisters.

A sister is a little bit of childhood that can never be lost.

~Marion C. Garretty

Shirley, holding, Carol Lee, Jeanette, Lucy.  1942

Verla and Carol Lee in the sandpile.  1947.

Carol Lee and Verla.  About 1951

Shirley, Jerry, Lucy.  Back:  Jeanette, Verla, Carol.  Jerry loved to stop by and giggle with the girls.  SunRiver 2012

Jeanette, Shirley, Lucy, Verla, Carol.  2012 New Castle

I wish I lived close to my sisters

All of them.

I wish I could share our flawless tomatoes with Shirley.

She tries every year to raise them in New Castle

And every year the blithe gets them.

So sad.

Then together we could make her a batch

Of Chunky Ketchup.

She and Amy J. don’t eat much.

One triple batch will do.

Verla loves tomato sandwiches.

Why should she buy tomatoes

When we have ample?

Carol has a garden but I could share fresh peaches with her.

We always had a crowd when we bottled peaches

When we were growing up.

The room was full of family and friends peeling peaches.

Visiting.

How desolate it is to stand and peel peaches alone,

Even though I now scald them to skin them.

I wish I lived close to my sisters.

The Close Call

I found out this morning what it feels like to

Face death.

Riding my trike on a less-traveled dead-end road

A car came zooming up Bella Vista at an inordinate speed

Even though she had the stop sign, I stopped.

Surprisingly, she stopped.

So I resumed.

Suddenly she zoomed forward with the same abandonment

She had sped up the street.

As the bumper loomed and I was trapped,

I let out a blood curdling scream.

She slammed on her brakes and missed me by inches.

Why is she driving so recklessly and distracted?

I have a flag.

I am not invisible.
Eddy was way ahead of me
but if it had happened to him,

I know he wouldn’t have screamed

And that makes me tremble.

It was such an innocent ride
on a lovely cloudy summer day.

Our grandson, Isaak,

wasn't so lucky a few weeks ago.

Miles from home, he stopped at a corner;

she stopped so he started again;
 then she turned into him
knocking him off his bike.

She drove on, leaving him disoriented
to find his way home

on a broken bike.

Fortuitously, he only has a broken wrist.
He had just returned from High Adventure
in rugged Teton Country
and survived with nary a scratch.