THANKSGIVING TRAUMA

This time of year is ridiculously hectic. Every year I remind myself that I am going to breathe deeply, pace myself, and not behave like the control freak that I am.

Didnt work. . .

By Thanksgiving Day I planted 100 bulbs and 10 beds of petunias, themed the kitchen and dining room in Harvest decor, decorated the fourteen foot Christmas tree with the help of my grandchildren, put fresh pine garland and red sequined silk poinsettias on all the banisters, around the hearth, and on various other surfaces.

I tripped on the garland as I walked down the stairs but, luckily, I was able to break my fall by grabbing onto the railing.

I adorned the front door with a huge pine wreath with red berries and pine cones and swirled the front door lights in sprigs of blue spruce [which crackles in the fireplace a delight to my grandchildren). Placing ten ltall nutcrackers around my home was a challenge.

I decorated the back deck railing with white lights and garland, set the lighted reindeer up the hill in the back yard, planted winter herbs and vegetables in ten horizontal sphagnum moss baskets that hang on the deck railing, and accidentally fell off the ladder when I tried to hang my three Christmas clocks.

My three year old grandson told me that my decorated mailbox looks like reindeer antlers. I stuck huge fresh pine branches around the mailbox. He said the red ribbon looks like Rudolphs nose. I was shocked. I thought it looked like a Southern Living masterpiece!

I drove to five stores to get last minute Christmas and Thanksgiving adornments, created a Thanksgiving menu on Publisher, and slid down the slope in the leaf-strewn front yard as I attempted to stick fake roses around my statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary in my front yard.

Two days before Thanksgiving,I took out all my Harvest china and glassware. I prepared turkey, honey ham, pork loin, Cajun chicken pies, rice dressing, cornbread dressing, yam souffle, corn casserole, green bean almondine, spinach souffle, creamed cauliflower, pecan pie, pumpkin pie, ambrosia, cranberry relish and cranberry glace, and rolls.

Kelly brought strawberry salad and peppermint pie. Nichole made gingerbread martinis for dessert. Then I slipped on the kitchen floor when I spilled the Savignon Blanc I tested as I cooked the turkey.

My daughter is an amazing cook, but every Thanksgiving, I am reminded about the first time she baked. She made muffins; it was a disaster! I bit into a beautiful muffin and thought I tasted macadamia nuts, but it was smushed up COOKED egg whites. I loathe egg whites; I throw up a little in my mouth every time I see cooked egg whites, and she is well aware of that idiosyncrasy of mine.

Her explanation--- the recipe on the box calls for three egg whites. Raw egg whites are clear; cooked egg whites are WHITE. I boiled the eggs, threw away the yolk. I mushed up the cooked whites and added them to the batter. Voila! Muffins! She is ridiculously intelligent, and thats the problem.

But, the most hilarious and frightening episode occurred Thanksgiving Eve as I drove away from a furniture store that was holding exquisite Chinese lamps for me.

I drove out of the parking spot, started to move down the driving lane when I received a text from my son. I stopped the car, read the text, texted him back, then we texted back and forth for about ten minutes.

I looked up to see a police car facing me, actually about a hairs breath from my front bumper. The policeman looked like Robocop, and he stared daggers into me. I didnt know whether to s--- or go blind.

I realized that I still hadnt paid the speeding ticket I was awarded in Montgomery, Alabama, last month for driving 84 in a 60 MPH. Every time I call the number I listen to a ridiculously long recording, so i just hang up.

Looking through my windshield, I apologized profusely, and used very dramatic, emotional body language to indicate to Robocop that I was definitely at fault.

He waved me on, so I drove around him, and I winked at him. Never hurts to compliment a Robocop.

And then, theres Christmas .

REQUIEM FOR MY FRIEND JOHN

REQUIEM FOR MY DEAR FRIEND JOHN

John Sheffield was my best friend, next to my husband, Larry. I met John when I began my career as English Department Head at Harrison High School, the flagship new school for Cobb County in Kennesaw, GA in 1991. John was Science Department Head. His left-brained classroom and Science lab was next door to my eclectic, right-brained classroom.

John died at his home, March 28, 2008. He was only 61 years old. Larry and I arrived at his home at noon that day to pick him up to come to the lake with us. He didn’t answer the doorbell. His car was parked in his carport. I looked through the kitchen window and noticed his laptop and cell phone on the table. After an hour of checking with neighbors, noticing that his mail had not been picked up, and failing to get a response, we called 911. Police and fire department personnel discovered him in his bed. John had succumbed to heart failure the night before.

John was born in Ozark, Alabama on November 15, 1946 to the late Bert & Frances Carroll Sheffield. John’s parents were only children, and he was an only child, so we welcomed him as part of our family. He spent holidays with us and loved planning and participating in activities with our family.

John and I were cohorts in angst as we worked diligently to blend the two feeder high schools, including a staff of teachers hired from GA and other states. We had an amazing talented principal, a visionary, who was a master at team building. But, on Fridays, we flew out of the building at 3:30 p.m. to meet other teachers for a well-deserved Happy Hour. We became a powerful support group for each other.

John managed to keep me out of trouble when I challenged the principal who told me I was setting the bar too high for these students. Using some Cajun gris gris and a lot of dialogue, I managed to convince him to trust me. That first year, our test scores beat every other school in the county.

In another incident, I was furious that a plebe, very young assistant principal who looked like Doogie Howser, had twenty student aides who were given walkie talkies to communicate with each other while department heads had to walk long stretches of hallways to get anywhere in this 2,000 student building. And walk in stilettos!

So I purchased 10 Strawberry Shortcake walkie talkies at Big Lots for the teachers in the English Department to communicate with each other. I was thrilled how well they worked.

My favorite custodian, who stuttered, asked me to check out the writing lab as he had seen two students "r-r-r-r-r-iding thhhhaaaattt trrrrain." I did not understand the idiom until I unlocked the door. They were all tangled up, and the room smelled like burning rope, to which the custodian responded, "P-p-p-p-p-o-t."  My Strawberry Shortcake Walkie Talkie enabled me to summon another teacher who notified administrators.  After that incident, students scattered when they saw me on duty, which made my job tremendously easy.

John tried to talk me out of using those Walkie Talkies, but I was determined to prove a point. I was caught when the County channels picked up my professional dialogue with another English teacher. Every school cop in the county was on the hunt for me. Fortunately, I was allowed to argue my case, and Walkie Talkies were distributed to Department heads the next week. I suppose it didn’t hurt my case that I called favors in on the other four principals who were my bosses when I served as Department head at other high schools.

John was my guardian angel at school. He calmed me down when my fiery temper erupted and saved me in countless department head meetings when I introduced viable but controversial agenda items. We collaborated about curriculum and joked about school personnel who were absolutely daffy, like the young science teacher whose pet Gila monster rode on her neck when she taught classes, and the English teacher who  herded his 15 cats into his classroom for our first Open House for parents. I told him he'd better be discussing T.S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats upon which the musical CATS is based.

John attended Emory at Oxford and graduated from Emory University with a degree in Science and earned Masters and Specialist degrees from Georgia State University. A dedicated and beloved educator, John’s 36 year career in Cobb County Schools included 22 years at Campbell High School where he served as Science Department Head, sponsored National Honor Society and served on the state level of National Honor Society, and 14 years as Science Department Head at Harrison High School.

After retiring from Cobb County Schools, John was hired by Pearson Education to develop and present training workshops to Science and Language Arts teachers in the Southeastern region of the United States. He rose quickly in the ranks to become the most professional and knowledgeable consultant in the Southeast. He asked me to consult with him on his Language Arts presentations. I was amazed at his ability to develop amazing Language Arts presentations after spending his entire career teaching science.

John had incredible artistic abilities. A talented pianist, as a young man, John served as organist at First Baptist in his hometown of Ozark, AL. he loved to entertain friends at sing a longs. Attending Atlanta Symphony Orchestra events had a special significance for John.

As a teenager, John saved his allowance for a special Mother’s Day gift. He commissioned a local artist to paint his portrait and walked to town several times a week for months for sittings until the painting was completed. As an only child, the painting held special significance for his parents. John placed the portrait above the grand piano in this home.

At his funeral, John’s former college roommate received the portrait in John’s will. It was displayed near the coffin during the service. When I inquired about the portrait, I was told it was to be cremated with John’s body. I was livid! I offered to purchase it, to rescue it, to donate it to the church where John played organ, or to display it in my home, to no avail. That man has a bad, bad gris gris on himself. And the voodoo doll of him regularly gets stabbed with needles.

John’s appreciation of art and nature was evident in his collection of art, antiques, and in his beautifully landscaped back yard nature sanctuary. He filled his home with special artifacts and mementos of his world travels and had a great affinity for creating memorable dining experiences for friends and was developing a plan to participate in an antiques market in Marietta. Just before he died, he had his kitchen transformed to a chef’s kitchen so he could indulge in entertaining his friends at unique formal dinners.

John’s birthday is November 16^th. I will be very sad. I plan to dig in the ground and plant a very special shrub in his honor so my children and grandchildren can stand around it and remember John at Thanksgiving in a few weeks.

Thanksgiving was very, very, sad last year as we stared at John’s empty chair. So I invited Theron, our server at IHop after mass every Friday morning, to join our family. He’s a single 25 year old whose family lives in North Carolina and IHop will not give him the morning off. He will join us at 1:00 for our family feast as I remind him what big shoes he has to fill.

CONFESSION

     Mention the word confession and people think you're referring to a crime. Catholics, however, instinctively picture a dark booth shrouded in mystery, the place to reveal your deepest, darkest deeds.
    
     I attended a church mission this week led by Ron Hoye CM, Parish Mission Presenter and Adjunct Faculty, DePaul University, a gifted speaker whose FRIENDSHIP IN JESUS series kept the attendees riveted to their seats in our huge cathedral-like church. Unlike the typical Sunday homily, he skillfully related  Biblical parables to everyday life, weaving hilarious true stories from his priesthood into a tapestry of lessons we could actually perceive doing to improve our lives.
    
     His first lesson related stories about how Catholics, particularly those who were instructed by nuns, learned the ritual steps of the confession model. 
     
       Since I  knew the topic beforehand, I was whisked back to the 1950's when I first trained to participate in the sacrament of Penance. My stomach churned as I recalled the name of the nun who tortured, I mean, taught our penance class composed of seven year olds, mostly second graders. Sister Mary Anastasia --who looked like a man.
    
     Very tall, sporting dark facial hair above her lip, and coal black eyes, she intimidated us just walking into the classroom How could we know she was really a woman? Her entire body was covered head to toe with a black habit which draped to the floor, a white coif, a black veil and a belt around her thick waist. A scapula hung around her neck, and a rosary hung from her belt. Her thick black shoes looked military issue. 
     
    She scared the heck out of me. I witnessed her rapping a student on the fingertips because he chewed jawbreakers in CCD [catechism] class. Dumb kid. How can you hide a jawbreaker in your mouth?
    
     She almost beat a kid to death with her huge black rosary. I want to think that was a frequent nightmare of mine, but I remember it like it was yesterday.She said he was having impure thoughts. She was a mindreader?? That thought kept every kid in the class reciting the Act of Contrition over and over and over again. The boy sitting next to me wet his pants every time Sister walked close to his desk. I told Mom, and her reply was, "He probably deserved it." No sympathy there.
    
     Anyway, Sister Mary Anastasia, determined to give all the chance to wipe clean our  sinful souls, marched us into our huge Catholic church next door. Leaving the comfort of the church pews, we formed two lines, one boys and one girls. Our palms pressed together and heads bowed, we practiced marching toward the altar and kneeling at the railing to receive a future blessing from the Bishop before he placed the sanctified host on our tongues. One boy kept getting out of step. Sister Mary Anastasia yanked him out of line and practiced a German kick step with him until he got it.
    
     Satisfied that we could master the Eucharist part, she lined us up, again separated by gender, to practice penance/confession. We marched to the back of the church and lined up near the confessional. She insisted we practice the formulaic entrance prayer in unison.


     "Bless me, Father, this is my first confession, and these are my sins."


     We were then to enter the dark confessional that smelled like moth balls, pull back the crushed red velvet drapes to ensure privacy, and listen for the priest to slide open the long, squeaky door. A heavy screen separated us from the priest, who appeared as a shadowy, scary figure hunched in prayer.
    
      "Bless me Father, this is my first confession, and these are my sins." [How many sins, both venial [minor] and mortal [deadly and go straight to hell] does a seven year old have etched on his soul? Missing morning prayers? Hitting a sibling?]
    
     My good friend, whose name I shall not reveal in the case that sister Mary Anastasia is now the Inquisitor, and I decided to look through the Bible to come up with some sins to confess since we faced a weekly stint in that confessional. It took me forever to copy that list. Looking at my prepared list of random sins from the Commandments, I confessed: lying, adultery, murder, coveting my neighbor's wife, and a few minor sins.
    
     The priest answered, "Say your Act of Contrition," which I did, and he absolved me of my sins, and my penance was two Our Fathers and three Hail Marys. I thought that he must have had horrible sinners confess before I showed up.
    
     How to get the list from my hand to my friend without Sister Mary Anastasia seeing me? I wadded the list up and slipped it to my friend as she stood in line.She grabbed it, went in, and confessed.
    
     The next week, we held on to our lists, but decided that one of us should read it from the bottom up so the priest wouldn't catch on. He kept absolving us from those deadly sins. Wasn't he listening??Anyway, thank God, Sister Mary Anastasia couldn't go into the confessional with us, or we would have been done.
    
     My mother marched my six siblings and me to confession every Saturday the entire time I was living at home. As I grew older, I no longer needed a written list. I had managed to live life fully and became a dutiful confessor with little need to fabricate sins.


     St. Augustine describes sin as a "caving in," similar to being in a dark cave, alone, hungry, cold.
    
     Father Ron used the Biblical parable that Jesus tells of the Prodigal Son to make a point about the wonder of God's forgiveness.The following is paraphrased from his talk.
    
     The Prodigal Son's father misses him terribly and prays for the safe return of his son who has abandoned the family. When his son does return, the thankful father throws his arms around his son, smothers him with love, so grateful that he has returned home. The son tries to explain his actions, but his father does not want to hear; he wants to celebrate, to kill the fatted calf.
     
    It's difficult to imagine a parent today reacting that way when a son who has abandoned and embarrassed the family returns home. Likely a father would say,"Were were you? Do you have any idea how worried we were? Do you know how much you hurt your mother?!! You are so grounded, and no texting for a month!!!"


   But the father of the Prodigal Son demonstrates radical forgiveness.


   Sin is not about what you did wrong. It's a turning from love. Simply asking God for help gets you out of the darkness--out of the cave. It doesn't matter what you did. It's the desire to be back.
    
     The very beginning and the very end of Jesus' ministry were about reconciliation.  In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus came out of the River Jordan to begin his ministry. He said, "Repent and hear the good news. Your sins are forgiven. Live a new life."  Hanging on the cross, tortured, Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
      
    Forgiveness is a key part of what it means to be a child of God. It's not what you did wrong; it's what you want to do better, how you want to change your life. The sacrament of penance is not about judgment or finger pointing; it's about changing and moving on.
      
     So, I did enjoy listening to Father Ron. He seemed to drive home a valid point about accepting our weaknesses, being penitent, forgiving ourselves, and becoming better persons. No more sackcloth and ashes.







    






   

"Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass. It's about learning to dance in the rain."

AMD

"Well has it been said that there is no grief like the grief which does not speak."

--------------Henry Wadsworth Longfellow    

     My eighty-five year old mother, AMD, no longer speaks. Her physical health is good, but a deep, lingering sadness shows deep in her eyes. No longer excited by dressing elegantly or applying makeup, she wears comfortable lounging clothes during the day.

     Two years have passed since my dad's death, and one year since her second child's death. This once vibrant, energetic, feisty matriarch of our family lacks even the will to speak. She sits or naps all day. No elixir exists that can bring her back to us, except, perhaps, time.

     Last week I spent seven days trying to cheer her up. We spent time sitting on the swing in her back yard, snacking on confections I created, and gazing at the beautiful sky on a perfect fall day. She listened as I recounted my most recent adventures back home in Atlanta and seemed to anticipate the arrival of my grandchildren and daughter-in-law later in the week. She observed as I prepared meals she likes but missing were the usual comments we shared at the kitchen table.

     Saturday she spent most of the afternoon outdoors observing her extended family- children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren and their cousins and friends enjoying a Halloween party in her back yard. She seemed to enjoy tasting the many appetizers offered, but sat quietly as the young children laughed, played, and cried.

     AMD has excellent caretakers who cater to her and make certain she's comfortable twenty four hours every day. Doctors appointments and a weekly visit to the hair stylist are the only ventures outside of her home that she allows. Nothing seems to interest her. Listlessness and frailty are consuming her because she does not have the energy to move. Moving would certainly keep her muscles from atrophying.

     AMD's favorite hobbies were writing and photography. Her formidable picture albums provide years of historical images of Loreauville. Stashed in drawers and closets are hundreds of journals she wrote during her lifetime. My favorite reminders of her artistic ability are free hand pencil illustrations of a womans profile. In her twenties she wrote a society column for The Daily Iberian.

     Like a candle slowly flickering, my mother waits. I pray every day that her strong will breaks through the depression and brings her back to us so my grandchildren who see her a few times a year can remember her as the amazing person she used to be.

LOREAUVILLE CEMETERY ALL SAINTS DAY 2010

      Family ties in south Louisiana are celebrated by paying homage to deceased family members interred in above ground tombs in local church parish cemeteries on All Saints Day, November 1.

     In Louisiana culture, family bonds are strong, and All Saints' Day reinforces that element by stressing the ties to deceased members of the family group and the community.

     The wonderful custom of sprucing up and festooning tombs and graves with flowers, usually chrysanthemums, the November birth flower, creates a beautiful visual representation of honoring the dead and speaks to posterity about the importance of praying for the deceased. In some Catholic parishes, tombs and grave markers are decorated with lighted candles.

     The week before All Saints is a time of intense preparation. Undergrowth, weeds, and any cemetery trash are cleaned up, and tombs and graves, most of which have copings or slabs or in some other way conform to the South Louisiana style of raised grave structures, are painted or washed.

     Sometimes the congregation, led by the priest, walks in procession to the cemetery. There they pray for all the holy souls in front of the cemetery, the priest recites the liturgical prayers for the dead and blesses the graves with holy water. Afterward the families separate to offer private prayers at the graves of their loved ones.

     Rows and rows of decorated tombs and graves surrounding the huge crucifix centrally located in the Loreauville cemetery speak to the devotion of this community to maintain strong ties to deceased family and friends.

      On the afternoon of All Saints Day or in the morning of All Souls, the faithful visit each individual grave of relatives and friends. Sometimes the congregation, led by the priest, walks in procession to the cemetery. There they pray for all the holy souls in front of the cemetery, the priest recites the liturgical prayers for the dead and blesses the graves with holy water. Afterward the families separate to offer private prayers at the graves of their loved ones.

      Lower Louisiana is famous for its "Cities of the Dead," the cemeteries of above-ground tombs and wall crypts, or "ovens." Because so much of the area is below sea level, coffins did not readily stay in the ground but rather floated to the top. It only took a heavy rain to raise the dead. To address the problem authorities at times prohibited interment in the ground. Thus, most south Louisianians were, and still are, buried above the earth's surface.
    
     My sister Willette and I spent an afternoon bleaching family tombs and cleaning debris surrounding family plots.

     I took a nostalgic tour, walking down every row of the cemetery, noting familar names of friends and acquaintances. The bird is on the wing, as poets say, as the past seems to have flown by.

     Standing and praying at a cement memorial housing the remains of a loved one seems to ease the separation of physical and enhance the spiritual sense that our loved ones are still connected to us.

DENNIS ROMERO 1946-2010

During my very special visit to Loreauville last week, our family friend and a Loreauville icon, DENNIS ROMERO, died suddenly and unexpectedly from complications of surgery. My four sisters and I attended the wake at a New Iberia funeral home. I did not recognize many people in the packed viewing room, but the grief was palpable. My last image of Mr. Romero was at the last minutes of my dad’s life. Dennis and his beautiful wife, Linda, visibly shaken by the realization of this last visit, grieved and prayed with our family.

Tiger Inn faces Main Street and is located on Nadine Drive, just one block from my parents home. Eight of my family members live in that same block.

I met Dennis Romero at Tiger Inn, a local fast food establishment and favorite Loreauville teen hangout in the late 70’s when he worked there as an employee of Wilbur Leblanc, of this name I am uncertain. Wilbur’s wife now either works or runs the Seafood connection Restaurant in New Iberia that my parents, Homer and Anna Mae were so fond of.  Since I left Loreauville in 1968, on visits home, my second stop was to visit Tiger Inn to order chili hot dogs, scrumptious onion rings and fries for my family.

When Wilbur began to manage Tiger Inn, his wife was expecting twin boys, both of whom are now grown and married with their own families.  My brother Tommy’s earliest memories of Tiger Inn are babysitting the twin boys and being compensated with a hot dog and coke at 8PM, the closing time for Tiger Inn in those days.

      Wilbur ran into financial troubles in the mid 1980's and as part of the settlement, deeded Tiger Inn to my dad, Homer, in lieu of lease payments.  I lost track of the legalities after that.  I recall being shocked in the 1980's that Dad had given Wilbur a 15 year lease on the property for something like $150 month. I assume that Dennis became the owner at some point.

      Dennis and Tommy used to chat briefly when Tommy visited Loreauville.  At first, whenever Tommy visited, Dennis refused to let him pay for anything.  After a few visits, Tommy felt intimidated, because part of the Tiger Inn experience was being able to order anything he wanted and pay for food with his own money. Dennis understood. And promptly refused to let Tommy pay for any future orders.  God love him.

      So, Tommy gave up and just ordered a Hot Dog, fries, and a Coke each time he visited, because all he really wanted was the Hot Dog and the conversation. 

     Tommy says, “Thinking about Tiger Inn reminds me of those crisp cool Fall Football days when I would walk back from a LSH football game and stop for a hot dog at Tiger Inn.  If there is a memory in my head that defines fall, it is those days in Loreauville in fall when everyone walked to the High School for the football game.  I also thought about mentioning to Dennis that the Tiger Inn sign at the street was missing but decided against saying anything, since by that time, it was a moot issue.  You either knew about Tiger Inn or you didn’t. The last visit I made to Tiger Inn was for dad's funeral.  Dennis and I both started to cry at the same time when we saw each other, and it was pointless to try and say anything to assuage the grief.  He told me 'I am so sorry' and I said 'I am too' and that was pretty much all we were capable of saying.  I shook his hand, thanked him for the food and left.”

     My sister Laurene remembers residing with Mom and Dad in Loreauville as she recuperated from her bout with Guillain–Barré syndrome  during her pregnancy with her Natalie. For two months, nurses wheeled her down the sidewalk to the Tiger Inn and back as she tried to regain use of her legs. Dennis would stick his head out of the window at Tiger Inn and yell, “GET OUTTA THAT THING AND WALK!”  She also recalls that he reported dangers noted on children, grandchildren, and siblings for over thirty years.  

    Wanda, my third sister, recalls that Dennis Laviolette managed leased Tiger Inn and sold alcohol there until neighbors’ complaints halted the alcohol sales. Wanda lives behind Tiger Inn which was a stopping point and hang out for her two boys, Beau and Taylor as they rode bikes all over Loreauville. Beau, career Army, lives in Okinawa with his family, and Taylor is an employee at Cox Enterprises in New Iberia.

    Jacquie Dastugue, my niece, was heartbroken at Dennis death. She and her mother live next door to my parents. Jacquie practically lived at Tiger Inn. Dennis and Linda babysat her when she was ten to twelve years old whenever Mom and Dad traveled on Senior citizen trips. She and Taylor played in the game room for hours each day and got free snack food from the Romeros. AMD set up a charge account for Jacquie’s meals, the only charge account in Loreauville at Tiger Inn. Jacquie insisted on eating shrimp po-boys every day for dinner and supper. AMD paid the food fees every week until Jacquie reached 18. Jacquie closed her charge account in 2003 when her daughter Kandis was born.

 Jacquie insisted on eating shrimp po-boys every day for dinner and supper. AMD paid the food fees every week until Jacquie reached 18. Jacquie closed her charge account in 2003 when her daughter Kandis was born.

I am certain that Dennis death brought back the tremendous grief Jacquie felt at the death of her grandfather, my dad.

Word is that Tiger Inn will remain open for the time being. I hope it does not go the way of Aunt Tees, Massos, and T Lees.