Long Time, No See (or write)

It has been over 8 years since my last post.  How that happened, I couldn't tell you.  I still have the cabin--fully mine now-no co-owners. I read back thru all of the prior posts, and my heart breaks. So many things have happened, and while a lot of it has been really difficult, there was much more joy than I could ever express. I am blessed, and I am grateful. 

To update: Curtis went away to college at Bethel University.  He played hockey there for 5 years.  He came home after that, and Jeff & I told him he could stay here to save money and pay off his student loans. He's been here since, but I would not have it any other way.

Lisa & Kim, dear friends, have both passed away.  Lisa from complications after Guillain Barre syndrome, Kim from the Covid pandemic our world experienced in the year 2020-present.  I'll never forget the laughter, and the love.  I miss them very much.  

In 2019, we lost my Dad's older brother, Joey, after he had knee surgery.  He and I (and my Granny, his mother) all had June birthday's, and the Brown side of the family for many years had what we called "The June Jam" (sorry Alabama, we took your concert name).  He called me "Jodie-Lynn" as if it were one word, and called me every year on my birthday. That same year, I was running (Couch to 5K Graduate) and tore my Achilles and Peroneus Longus tendons in my right foot.  After 6 months of a boot cast and PT, surgery was scheduled for March, 2020.  That March, our area here in Wilson County TN was hit by a tornado--we lost homes, schools and businesses.  Our damage was minimal, but we still have debris in the tops of our trees to this day.  That March, our world changed.  A pandemic occurred, starting from a lab accident in Wuhan China.  Covid-19.  We have lost over 3 million people since then--maybe more, I don't care to look, if truth be told.  We went on lockdown.  My Aunt Malinda (talked about in one of my previous posts) lost her sweet father, who my own father loved as a father as well.  I lost one of my dearest friends here in Wilson County to it as well--Bobby Don, you will always have a huge chunk of my heart and I miss you every single day.  My surgery was postponed indefinitely, but ended up being on Jeff's birthday, May 14.  I was in a cast for 3 weeks, and then into the boot again for 3 more months.  I continued PT until October, and then we realized that something was very wrong with my foot, and I had to endure multiple doctor appointments, MRIs, and more PT--and more of the boot. In February, my ortho doctor sent me to a foot and ankle specialist, who determined the first surgery on both tendons had been botched--done too quickly, and not enough of the bad tendons had been cut out.  I was scheduled for surgery again--almost a year to the day from the first one.  This would prove to be one of the most difficult surgeries I've endured.  Achilles Tendon repair, with turn down flap procedure and tendon transfer.  The doctor did not fix the ankle tendon, as this surgery was so very invasive and painful.  I was again in a cast and a boot--100% non-weight bearing for 8 weeks. I spent my 50th and 51st birthdays in a cast.  

2019 also proved to be a surprise year for my husband's family--we discovered, thru Ancestry DNA, that Jeff and Kathy and Kelli had an older half-brother--Larry. No one knew prior to that, except maybe Larry's mother, who had already passed on.  My father-in-law, Bud, never knew.  How do I know this? Bud was an excellent father and would have loved Larry to death.  Larry and his children, especially my new niece, Jamie, and her family, have proven to be a huge blessing in our lives.  My mother-in-law, Doris, loved them, too--not caring that Larry wasn't hers at all.  What a beautiful heart!!!

So, now we're up to 2021--I was in a boot again and PT until that October. In June, we took the camper and went to Florida, with my Daddy in tow, to camp with my brother and his family in Destin. Daddy had never been to the beach before, or swam in the Gulf.  We were told to evacuate a day early due to an incoming hurricane.  That was fun! Hahaha! In November, we lost Kim to Covid, while Jeff and I were preparing for a trip to Vegas for our 25th anniversary.  We started out going just to see a concert (Blackberry Smoke), but ended up at Graceland Wedding Chapel for a rock-a-billy vow renewal with Elvis as our officiant. We went to the hotel afterwards, ate pizza, napped, and then to the concert at the Virgin hotel that night.  It was amazing.  I took the small wooden box Kim had given me when Jeff and I got married, and it sat right up on the front pew during our renewal.  I loved her so much!

2022 snuck in easily enough, but it would turn out to be the absolute worst year of my entire life.  We lost our 13 year old coon hound house dog, Bristol, in May. The rest of the year would prove to be just as bad.

I realize I have forgotten a lot of things--8 years is hard to span in a blog--but maybe I'll go back and edit as I remember. At any rate, back to 2022--which seems like a million years ago and yesterday all at once.  In July, Jeff had to take a leave of absence from work because his hip was in such bad shape-he could barely walk. They scheduled his surgery for August 15th.  At the end of July, his mother, Doris, suffered a major stroke, and we had to go to West Virginia.  After several days in a local hospital, she was transferred to the stroke unit in a much larger hospital.  We lost her the morning of Jeff's surgery.  

Jeff went ahead with the surgery.  We had planned a memorial at a later date for Dee.  That morning was hard, though. His blood pressure was skyrocketing, and the numbing medication they used for the surgery went to the wrong leg, so we ended up having to stay all night in the hospital because he couldn't stand up due to the numb leg.  PT came in once.  We went home that morning, the doctor only giving him aspirin as a blood thinner, and not talking to us at all that day. We were told the doctor's office would call and let us know when his first PT was scheduled.  2 days later, they still hadn't called, so Jeff called them.  Due to them dropping the ball, Jeff's first PT wasn't able to be scheduled for another week.  We did all the stuff we could to make sure he was up and moving, and the next Thursday, after a doctor appointment for my own self where I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia, I took him.  He mentioned some swelling in his leg, which the therapist brushed off as "swelling from surgery".   

The next day, Friday, Curtis and I left for Albuquerque, NM, where I would witness the wedding of Kim's daughter Sydney.  I ended up being a stand in "mother-of-the-bride", and was so happy.  I could remember seeing Syd as a baby, toddling around trying to keep up with Curtis,  "Wait up, Turt!" I can still hear it, clear as day.  We were in the National Forest, so we didn't have a phone signal, and we got back so late I didn't call Jeff.  I texted him goodnight, and settled in. He was fine when we left--moving around, fixing his own food--he had been able to shower, and I wasn't very worried. Curtis and I went to bed, and got up the very next morning, August 28th, to be at the airport.  I texted Jeff before we left ABQ, and when we landed in Phoenix, I checked my phone and he still hadn't responded. I decided to check our security cameras, because I thought maybe I had the time mixed up.  In the middle of the Southwest Terminal in Phoenix, AZ, I found the love of my life lying in the floor via security camera.  I yelled into the camera--I called his phone--I had Curtis' life-long best friend, Joe, call 911.  I watched as the paramedics came into my house, lean over...and do nothing.  I screamed my phone number thru the camera.  They called me, and that day, my world imploded.  My love, my heart, my best friend--my partner of 30 years, was gone. I can't tell you what happened next--I know I called Jeff's sisters--Curtis called his own sister, and I called my family--all as we were trying to board a plane for Nashville.  Curtis said I was running in circles in the terminal--I don't remember that part--but I do remember my heart being ripped from my chest, and my lungs not wanting to work. Southwest boarded us early, and the next 5 hours were the longest of my life.  We got to Nashville and they had lost our luggage.  I put in a ticket and told them to bring it when they found it--I needed to go home. They found it as we were walking to the parking garage.  We got to the house, and when we pulled in, both of my brothers and their families were sitting outside on my patio. They didn't want us to be alone when we got home. The paramedics had transported Jeff's body for autopsy (unattended death), and a detective had taken his wallet and phone.  Joe had cleaned up my living room of the items that the paramedics had left. Sweet Joe was the only one who got to see him before they took him.  I love him so very much.

The next week was a whirlwind.  We scheduled Jeff's memorial for the Saturday before Labor Day.  Curtis, Lacosta, and I were the only ones allowed to see him before the service.  He would be cremated the day after.  People came and went all week long--and on Saturday, the line of people for the brief visitation and service stretched out into the parking lot. I was shocked when I came out of the viewing to see that Larry and his wife had flown in from Arizona.  The funeral home forgot to record the service, so I have only memories of that day, nothing to look back on.  My pastor preached the service, and only two songs were played, one at the beginning "All My Hope", by Crowder, and at the end "Country Roads".  You could hear everyone singing at the end.  That October, we would bury Jeff and his mother in Miller Cemetery, in Webster Springs, WV, side by side.  It was cold, but beautiful.  I don't remember everyone that came-bunches of friends and family.  My friends, Sarah & Patti, made the trip up as well.  Since then, my life has been so very different.  I never dreamed I'd be a widow at 52.  

Time went on--we lost my best friend Melissa's dad the day after Jeff's one year anniversary in Heaven.  The next month, we would lose my sweet Uncle David--my precious Aunt Malinda's husband, and my mother's only brother. My brothers and I would sing and play at the graveside, and my cousin, Thump, would preach. My father was diagnosed with Lymphoma shortly after,  and after starting chemo, would pass away in January 2024, from pulmonary edema caused by a doctor who prescribed iv fluids, even after knowing my Dad had congestive heart failure and was fluid restricted. 

I had purchased a piece of land in 2023 in West Virginia, and I had a 12x40 shed put on it in early 2024, which I had plumbed, had electrical put in, and had propane hooked up.  I made multiple trips up to work on it--turning it into a "tiny house", and am still working on it to this day.  On the 2 year anniversary of Jeff's passing, I rented a van, loaded it up, stuck my two Bassett hound pups in it, and went up to winterize it.  When I went to put on my work boots the day before I left, I couldn't get my right foot into my boot due to swelling.  I hung insulation and underpinning in flip flops.  (Zero stars, do not recommend.)  When I got back to Tennessee, I went back to my ortho specialist, and you guessed it--it was time to fix the ankle tendon, which had completely torn in two by that point.  I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis that same month.  In October, I had surgery again. I was in a cast for two weeks, then a brace for many weeks. PT again, of course. 

To say, at this point, that I trust doctors would be a lie.  But I now have a good rheumatologist, a good PC, and good ortho--Dr. Willers actually knew what he was doing-I am walking only with a slight limp now.  I will never publicly publish my first doctor, or Jeff's, or my Dad's, but when I hear people talking about them, I do not recommend them.  I feel mine cost me 5 years of pain,  and  Jeff's and Dad's cost them their lives.  Not even kidding.  I pursued legal action for Jeff's after his death, but due to "Home Grown" lawyers in Wilson County, no one would touch him. So I tell people. Hopefully it saves someone else from going thru everything our family had to go thru.

I have recently started preparations for retirement-I plan to sell this house and move to the Holler.  With the profits of the sale, I will restore the cabin, and finish my WV house.
I taught myself to haul the camper, and will stay in it while the restoration is in progress. I'll be okay.  I made smart choices with my money, although for the most part I am broke, but it will pay off in the end.  I have started working on my book, but that's much harder to do than you would think.  I sing at church, I go sing with a local bluegrass group, and I wake up each day with praise.  I can't wait to go back home, though--to be with my mother, my brothers, and my grandmother, who recently turned 93. Curtis will probably stay here-he has a wonderful woman in his life, and I expect they will end up making a home together, and if I'm super lucky, maybe a grandbaby some day.  For now, it's me and Boone and Frankie and Peaches and Flash--2 cats, 2 dogs, and I am going to be okay.  I have faith, and hope. And no matter what I feel here on the earthly plane, I cannot come close to imagining the joy and beauty of Heaven, that my own husband and loved ones are experiencing.  I wouldn't bring them back from that for love, nor money.

Funny thing--in one of the prior posts on this blog, I quoted Romans 8:28 :

"And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose."  

Jeff died on August 28.  8/28. This verse pops up in my life randomly all the time.  God has a purpose, a plan, and He loves us.  He has held me in His hands, and has carried me thru my entire life.  

It feels good to write this all down.  Maybe, it helps someone who is going thru the same kind of things.  Maybe, it helps someone find God when they are lost.  Maybe, it gives you hope.  Don't give up-we're only here for a minute, so make the best of it while you can,

Much love, much peace, and many blessings,

Jodie

  

Back to Basics

I love technology.  Internet, cell phones, my computer--even my calculator and adding machines.  I love swallowing a pill and knowing that within the hour, the pain in my head will subside for a while. But as much as I love it all, I do know how to live without it.  My own child has never known life with a television that you have to get up to turn the channels on, or what a busy signal on a telephone sounds like (unless there is a malfunction).  In some ways, for many years, I felt as though I had failed him--that if he were dropped in the middle of the forest, he'd die from cell phone withdrawal the first night.  Exposure be damned, you know?  But as he grew, he became a little more intrigued with being more in line with his father's and my own roots--the kind of roots that teach you to survive in the forest, or be able to feed your family when there is no money, no transportation, no way to get to the nearest convenience store.  He embraced the way of life which has enabled us to survive; generation after generation.  I pray that he keeps that close to him, and teaches his own children the ways of his family before him.
I haven't been able to get to the cabin in a long time--between work and the Boy's collegiate hockey schedule (I was team mom--go me!), there just hasn't been time.  And, once again, my health took a plunge.  A year ago at this time, I was down 40 pounds, off my cholesterol meds, and feeling better than I ever had in my life.  And then my new prescription company refused to cover a medication that my doctor had prescribed for me a few years earlier for preventative measures--it brought my A1C down and also enabled me to lose pounds.  I was headed down a great path--then the rug was pulled out from under me.  So, needless to say, I've been in a downward spiral ever since.  I have hypothyroidism.  When you mess with the one thing that works to help keep me healthy and losing weight, it all goes right back on. But I'm back on track now, and this isn't about that--it's about the cabin/country life.  Since the last post (years ago!), we've done quite a bit of work.  The old rotten room between the living quarters and the kitchen was torn out.  We replaced the front porch (for now).  And the best part?  We paid it off.  We own it.  So now, we work at our leisure--and at the mercy of our dollars.  And it's going to take a lot.  The next big job will be leveling the floors--and that is going to take some professionals.  We're collecting materials a little at a time to move forward when the time comes to start repairing pieces, but for now, we're still in a "maintain, and then move forward, one step at a time" mode.  I have a week long trip planned for October, when hopefully it won't be so hot.  The last time I was in, I spent the day just cleaning up the yard and putting plastic back on the windows.  Someone broke in and pried my Coke bottle opener off the wall and stole it.  Gotta love a thief.  They've stolen a lot from us...may not have amounted to much monetarily, but the bottom line is that if it doesn't belong to you, leave it alone.
While many memories have been made there, and I love that there are claims of love for many generations there, for the past 5 years, this has been my place for memories and love to be created.  While being referred to as "the  David Henderson cabin" and "the Locker cabin", the reality is that it is now "the White's".  I share blood with the Hendersons, and thru marriage, kinship with the Lockers. When you walk in the cabin now, you won't find technology, other than rudimentary electrical wiring.  We plan to take the cabin back to it's origins, although we will have modern convenience--but it won't be via normal means.  We plan to go back to basics--and use the survival skills that were instilled in us for many generations.  We will be attempting solar & wind power (although wind isn't a huge commodity in the Holler--it's kind of sheltered there).  We plan to dig a well--which we will hand pump or use solar power to operate.  We want to be off the grid as much as possible.  We plan to have a large garden, and fruit trees. I have learned how to can food.  I have already begun steps to learn about keeping bees, and chickens.  I have also begun to study spinning yarn from wool.  We are hunters, and fisherman.  We are learning to provide for ourselves again, because the world we live in now is not the same world we were born into.  I do love technology, but there comes a point in our lives where we have to stop belittling a way of life that has enabled the majority of us to thrive in modern times.  It's pretty simple: Do unto others. I want to live, and I want to let you live, in peace.  If you need food, I want to feed you.  If you need a place to sleep, I will give you a blanket and a pillow.  You get as good as you give, every time, and when you  don't allow mercy into your heart, how does that define your character?
I know people who, on a regular basis, say "I know" in response to statements made--because they believe they are so smart that they know the answer to everything.  I know people who, on a regular basis, pull articles off of the internet to make their points, but they only use one article they found that backs up their own opinions.  I know people who, on a regular basis, share stories or articles on Facebook that they read and believe to be truth that they never, ever do one iota of research on before they share it...which leads to more people sharing it, which leads to 8 million people thinking there was a bull shark found in Tims Ford Lake.  Technology. As much as I love it, it's time for us to take a step back, I think.  I'm not saying it's evil--I'm not even saying we need to do away with it (I like Tylenol, people!).  But what I am saying is that we need to remember that we are part of the circle of life--not above it, not below it.  We are biological.  We are part of this earth.  And until we get back to those roots--to remembering who we are and where we are from, we are destined to death in the jaws of a Tims Ford bull shark.

Children

Another long stretch between posts...now that I have a car, maybe I'll be able to work on the cabin and post a little more since I have a way to get there.  I went down yesterday to the cabin. Not much more damage than the last time I was there.  Screen door was torn off the hinges, so I just set it inside.  Side door completely torn off, but Kim & Lisa told me that when they came in the Fall and worked on it.  I don't understand why people want to tear stuff up, but I guess that's what happens when you don't raise them with respect for themselves.  Or at least the fear of a severe butt-whipping if they destroy something that belongs to someone else.  I never had to worry about my son doing anything like that---I only spanked him possibly 5 times in his whole life. And one of those was because I had to follow thru on my threat to do so.  That one probably hurt me a whole lot more than it did him.  The others were just "momma" stuff.  He was a great kid, though--very easy to raise.  Once he was born, I realized that I couldn't live my life like a heathen anymore. I had to be a grownup.  Jeff and I taught him respect, and we raised him without biases...to accept all people because in the Bible I read, it says "Love your neighbor as yourself".  That doesn't specify who your neighbor is, the way I read it.  Skin color, financial status, sexual orientation-none of those things are listed by that quote in red.  For years, Curtis called his friend Victoria "that little brown girl".  At first, I thought it was her last name.  Then when I met her, I realized it was because she was African-American. It made me happy. I refused to raise him with hate in his heart.  I didn't want to add to the troubles of an already troubled world, especially when the reasoning behind so many of our problems is so warped.
Children....what a blessing! When I found out I was expecting the first time, June of `92, I was sick.  I had just met my future husband, I worked in a bar, I had a roommate and an apartment...I wasn't ready to be a mother.  I realized, though, that my life had to change, immediately.  I quit the bar, my grandparents gave Jeff and me a place to live for pretty much nothing, and we set up housekeeping.  I went in for my checkup at 14 weeks on a Tuesday and the doctor couldn't find a heartbeat.  She set me up to come in to the hospital that Friday for monitoring.  I didn't make it that long.  Late Wednesday night I was overcome with pain....all night long,  and on Thursday morning, our tiny little baby was born...I had miscarried.  I told Jeff  "You can leave now...there's nothing to hold you here now."  He stayed.  I was pretty much out of my mind for a while. I was heartbroken.  I still carry that heartbreak....tears run down my face as I type this from just the memories.  I was changed forever.  Time went on...I lost my grandfather two months later.  In March, my cousin's baby was born stillborn.  In May, I miscarried again.  This time I was only about 6 weeks pregnant.  All I had done was taken a home pregnancy test---which was positive.  I hadn't even been to the doctor yet.  And then, one year from our baby's death, I found out I was pregnant for the 3rd time.  I was petrified.  I went immediately to the doctor and she confirmed it.  I will never forget hearing his heartbeat that day.  I sobbed.  The time came and went for my ultrasound...we had decided not to find out his sex....and in April, our son was born.  I cannot tell you the song of joy that overflows in your heart when a child is born if you aren't a parent.  There are no words.  I am glad I cherished that moment.  It would be my last. I was not destined to have more children, and now, after 19 years, I still remember that moment.  My son is a good son.  He's a good person.  So I will graciously accept my one-time chance.  I tried,and am still trying, to make the most of it.
Yesterday at the cabin, I reflected on what it must have been to build it.  It's huge, by old fashioned cabin standards.  David was a young man, with a young bride, Elizabeth.  As I was sifting thru the garbage and the junk and the treasures left by the last people to live there (found some things from the 1940's!), I said "Papa Henderson....I don't know if this was what you intended when you built this thing, but I aim to set it straight."  There was no response.  It was quiet there, in the Hollow.  Turkeys gobbling, birds singing, and the wind fluttered thru the broken plastic on the windows, but there was a deeper quiet there.  I picked up a rock off the floor.  Someone had busted every window in the place at some point.  Probably a teenager.  Someone with a vehicle, anyway-it's too remote to just be walking along and find.  The wind moved thru the room and jingled the clothes hangers in the closet.  They sounded like a wind chime.  To replace the one someone stole off the front porch.  I thought about what it must have been like to have children back then, in the 1800's.  No pain relief, no modern medicine...at home, in the bed.  What an ordeal!  I thought of the children who had been born, the ones born under that very roof.  I wondered if any had died there.  I wondered where they were buried.  I worked and worked, and thought and thought. I worked until my body was shaking.  I didn't eat.  I was consumed.  I had peace there, though.  My phone battery kept dying so I had to keep it plugged into the car.  I checked it every so often-I had a few texts, but for the most part, it was just me and my thoughts. I sat on the porch and rocked...thinking about the generations of people who had lived there.  I thought alot about Elizabeth Lee, who had given birth to all those children, who raised them to do well, and who was buried just up the road a ways...I said "Elizabeth?" very loudly....I don't know what prompted me to do it...and was scared out of my wits to be answered with a huge crash like a rock being thrown on the tin roof right above me.  I didn't say her name again.
I finished for the day...33 bags of garbage, an old rug, and a lot of big stuff I couldn't fit in bags...all from one room.  A solid day's work, done all by myself. A good day, finally, after being unable to work there for a year. And then I realized that while my surgery last summer removed any chance ever again for me to have children, and while it had kept me away from the cabin for so long, it was okay.  I was there now...working to secure my son a place for his own peace...a place he would be able to bring his own children to and tell them the stories of our family.  Of what it meant to bring the cabin back to it's glory...my one shot at leaving him something he couldn't get anywhere else, but Bugger Hollow.

Rambling today...

Wow...months since I have been here...so much has happened.  Curt and I went for the inaugural clean up at the cabin...then Easter weekend we camped there and finished cleaning the main living area...the next week I had my second sinus surgery.  I hadn't finished with my follow-up visits from that when graduation came...then the next week I ended up having a hysterectomy.  So my visits to the cabin have been non-existent.  I hope to camp there Labor Day weekend.  Kim and Lisa came in for Gingle's wedding and they spent a week here.  They got the kitchen cleaned out.  I don't even know what I am going to do next, but it will probably be to tear out the dog trot and separate the two buildings. Then, when it cools off a little, we'll work upstairs.  

But I ramble...which is more often than not these days. I've had three surgeries in one calendar year...my child gradated high school and will be leaving for college in less than 10 days...I've lost my ability to ever have another child...the economy's bad, and we just buried someone we loved...things have been hard this year.  But I have my cabin...my happy place.  Been thinking alot about our baby that died when we were just young and in love...the twentieth year...and every year my heart aches just as bad as it did the day he was born into this world.  I still see the doctor cupping him in her hands and leaving the room with him.  Some things you never can block out of your mind, no matter how bad it hurts.  I never got to bury him.  So, I'm thinking that someday, I'd like to take a box and put all his stuff in it...the little baby shoes, the bibs, the pregnancy test I took...and I'd like to take it to the cabin and dig a hole and bury it.  I'd have a small stone made...something to say that he existed, if only for a few short months.  I want him to have mattered...even if it was only to me. And I want to put him to rest, finally...after all these years.  I can't think of a better place...it's quiet in the Holler...and generations of people with an appreciation for family and the love of children have inhabited that small piece of land for hundreds of years... his memory would be special there.

Maybe it's silly...maybe I should have gotten over it.  After all, I never held him, I never named him, never knew him...I don't even know that it was a "him"...but in my heart, it doesn't matter.  He was mine, he changed my life, and the hole in my heart where he was has never been filled.  And now, all this time has passed, and I don't know if I ever want to fill it.  The pain is a reminder, especially this time of year, that my life was forever changed.  My heart was broken, and save for that piece, it has been patched pretty well.  I found God.  I found the love of my life.  I had a son who is the very heart of my soul...and none of it would have happened had that child lived. 

God always knows what's best...and someday, maybe, I'll lay my first baby to rest. But I'll wait, til He says so. So I'll keep on going...and maybe I'll be around a little more...I can write a little more...study a little more...work a little more...but who knows...just look for me to pop in when you least suspect it...that' s how my life rolls...

That's all I have for now...

Just so you know...

Just in time for my cabin adventure, my cousin Carl published his Henderson genealogy book...good stuff--there are over 77 thousand names in it.  Told you the Henderson's were a huge group of people!
I saw names in there of kids I went to school with and rode the bus with my whole life...kids who bullied me, too! I saw the name of my maternal uncle's wife...oh what a wonderful world...oddly enough she's also kin to me on my father's paternal grandmother's side as well as on his maternal grandfather's side! When she and my uncle married, I was 7.  In my eyes, she was the most beautiful woman in the world.  Only one other woman in my "fairy tale" world would ever come close to being as beautiful as my Auntie Malinda was and is...and that was Lady Diana Spencer.  So, in my head, Malinda was a princess and my uncle was the luckiest man in the world.  I didn't even know her prior to my mother's brother dating and marrying her.  I remember when she was in the Fairest of the Fair one of the first years he dated her...I subsequently wore the same dress  to my first prom, in the ninth grade. She's also the aunt (along with my uncle)who took me to see "Psycho II", "Clash of the Titans", "Star Wars", and also "ET", after whose viewing I questioned loudly of my very pregnant aunt, in front of everyone, "Are you CRYING??"  Aunt Malinda was (and is) the very essence of a smart, southern woman, and she has the most kind and caring parents.  They're just good people. Auntie Malinda-I never called her "Aunt" growing up for some reason.  It was always just "Malinda".  After I became a mother, I really got to thinking that it might hurt her feelings for me not to call her "Aunt" so I started saying "Auntie Malinda"...pronouncing "aunt" differently from the word "ant" in this case...and I cannot for the life of me figure out why I say it that way.  But I do it because the longer I know her, the more I love her.  Just can't help it.  And now, years later, discovering that we were more than just relatives via marriage means more to me than I can describe.  The woman who came and picked me up and took me to church.  Who let me wear her clothes when I didn't have anything appropriate to wear...who gave an unmarried, very pregnant niece the loveliest baby shower...who loaned same new mother every piece of baby furniture she had...who didn't get mad when a 14 year old girl backed her car into a wall...and let me work weekly cleaning her house so I could afford a pair of red stripe Nikes...back when they were all the rage..
I can never tell you all the things she and my uncle have done for me, for my family.  She is one of a kind, and I am proud that she is in my life.
So, this isn't really a posting about the cabin...but it is just something that was in my heart and I needed the world to know...
I love my Auntie Malinda!

A rose by any other name...

Before I get started, please let me make a disclaimer: This is my blog, my thoughts, the things that are important to me.  I know that not everyone will agree with what I write, nor do I really care about my use of proper grammar, spelling or punctuation.  I am not writing a book-I'm just telling a few stories...so criticism, while taken and duly noted, really doesn't matter in this forum.  I'm not out to win any awards, nor am I out to make people feel all "warm and fuzzy"...you may be bored out of your skull.  I'd apologize, but it wouldn't really be genuine since everyone is free to navigate away and no one is obligated to be here. So, now that I have that out of the way, on to the blog...



My Dad sent me a couple pictures of the cabin this week...he hauled off about 15 or more bags of junk we sacked up last week when we went for the inaugural clean up visit.  He took a picture of the clean porch and then today sent me a picture of the land where he had gone down and mowed it all...it looks wonderful! Family...what would we do without them?
I come from a very eclectic family on both sides of my tree...my Mom's family tends to be more artistic and has more entrepreneurs...my Pop's family has more farmers and musicians...all some of the hardest workers I have ever seen in my life, although all worked in different arenas.  I talked about the love without surrender that I inherited from David Henderson...I guess technically I got it from him first...but I sure do know that my Dad has it, too, and his mother, my Granny, before him.  Dad's a little different, though, because he has sense to sever ties when they hurt him.  I don't.  I love every single member of my family, no matter what their faults or issues or drama. They could stab me in the eye and I would still want them over for lunch on Sunday.  My heart overflows with love that I can't explain--even knowing when I am going to be burned or regret it, I dive in anyway.  To me, it's worth it.  I believe that we are called to extend grace, over and over and over, regardless of the outcome.  To love without expectation...and if we get hurt in the process, that's okay, because we did what we were supposed to do.
David and Elizabeth married and had 10 children.  Five lived.  I walked around in the cabin and I thought, some of those babies were born here-in this very room.  The five children who lived appeared to be successful people...I don't know many of the other branches of the first five...most all of the ones I know are from Sandy's line, which is my line, but here's something that intrigued me...Sandy's sister, Eady, married the brother of Sandy's wife, Nancy.  According to family tale, Eady was a few fries short of a happy meal, and William, her husband, kept her locked up.  Now, this may or may not be true...I know of plenty of families with a "touched" relative who probably needed locking up but wasn't...or those creepy houses where they kept "Uncle Bob" in the back room...but whatever the reason, Eady was locked up.  David Henderson did not like that idea at all, and went to tell William to stop mistreating his daughter.  William beat the dog tar out of David.  I guess maybe he wasn't the kind of fellow who liked being told what to do...but seriously, if you were going to lock your wife up and you had someone there who was telling you not to do it, wouldn't you just have said "Well fine, then. You take her crazy butt to your house?"  I don't know what could have happened that was so bad that William felt the need to kick a handicapped senior citizen's rear, but he did it.  And it must have been a pretty rough beating, because two of David's sons decided that Mr. Land needed to pick on someone his own size.  They went and found him and beat him so bad that he died two days later.  Eady snapped out of her "spell" after his death and went on to remarry...the brothers had to flee the state and settled down in Mississippi...and David got his daughter back.  Now how's that for family loyalty?  And think about Sandy, being married to William Land's sister---can you imagine how much strain that would have put on Sunday dinner conversation? But despite it all, I keep asking the question "Why not just let her go? Why fight with a man over his own child?" We'll never know, but we see what happens when you spit in the wind, now don't we?

So I walk thru the cabin--it's in such disrepair and full of garbage right now that it's hard to tell how much we'll have to do before it is ready for restoration-and I think on this family and all the generations that came from here.  And I wonder why some families feel they are better than others---it really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things how hard you worked, how many books you read, how many countries you traveled to...how much money you have...the real question is "How much did you love?"  When you die, whether beat to death or in your sleep, what will people say about you?  Will they pity you?  Will they praise you?  Will your story be told?  When I die, all I want is for people to know that I loved them---and to me that is all that matters.  I'm not the best wife, mother, or daughter.  I'm not even a very nice person, for all intents and purposes...I'm grouchy and unreasonable at times...especially since I have been sick. I do have faith and won't apologize for my beliefs, nor do I feel it is necessary to justify them to anyone else.  I am honest, to a fault, usually, and above all else, I open my heart to love all those that I know. And for those whose blood runs the same as in my veins, it's quadrupled.  I feel my heart exploding out of my chest when a new baby is born to our family--even when I will never get to see it.  I have cousins I have never met, but still, there's love there for them. My chest is full of song when someone gets a raise or a new job...and I physically hurt when there are tears.  So family is everything to me--and whether you agree or not is irrelevant.  You are only given one shot on this sphere...and if you show up to your grave with only your accomplishments to show for it, I hope you enjoyed them.  Because where you store your treasure, that's where you get to enjoy it-be it here or Heaven.  Love, and you'll have the best of both worlds.

It is what it is...

I look into the mirror every day and I'm really not liking much of what I am seeing.  Wrinkles, a double chin coming along quite well...I weigh entirely too much.  In my old age I am turning into a toad. Yeah. Except I'm a toad who'll never jump because I get winded too easily.  So who did I inherit that from?   Who knows-I really didn't know we had a toad gene.
I've been into genealogy for several years.  I love being immersed in census records, old Bibles...and I will hike anywhere I need to go to get to a cemetery-they're my favorite places.  When I found out that David Henderson's cabin was still standing down in that holler, I couldn't wait to go.  But first, I had to go to the cemetery next to it.  What I found there was Henderson after Henderson after Henderson...but no David.  He's not even buried in that cemetery, although he gave the land for it to be created from.  His wife is there--Elizabeth--but her grave isn't actually marked.  Her grave is approximated.  It's a beautiful cemetery, really, as cemeteries go.  The best-kept cemeteries, though, of all the ones I have been in, are in West Virginia.  My husband says when I go I am "digging up bones".  I prefer to call it "visiting relatives".
 I'll never forget going to Stewart Cemetery with my mother.  I was going from grave to grave, snapping pictures and looking at the family connections--the Lincoln County Henderson's were a HUGE group of people--and my Mom says "let me know when you find Cootie Brown".  "Brown" is a family name I was researching, and I had seen a couple of "Brown" stones, so I start looking at every single headstone, searching for the one she needed.  I finally just said "Momma I have been all over this cemetery and I have not seen Cootie Brown anywhere." And then she started laughing so hard at me that she cried--in my "genealogical stupor" I had never even realized that she had me looking for a mythical person--that the phrase "drunker than Cootie Brown" had been used since as long as I could remember, and that wherever Cootie was, he was ripped.
But that's how it goes...sometimes you find what you are looking for, sometimes you don't.  I have often wondered in my life the reasons people do the things they do.  I do believe in God, so I know that whatever the reasons, they are according to His will and not ours.  Some things on this earth we'll never know, and I am good with that--that means they just don't matter that much, really.  I'd like to know if David and Elizabeth Henderson fell in love, or if they married because it was expected of them, but in the grand scheme of things, it probably doesn't matter one way or the other in my life now.  It was what it was.
Now understand, I think David was probably a living paradox.  He farmed, made whiskey (which was actually a cash crop back then), he owned slaves...and some of the things written by family members say that he was as hard on his children and white workers as he was the slaves.  He didn't allow anyone to loaf.  Everyone worked, not just the slaves. I am not, for the record, condoning slavery.  I never have, never will, and certainly would never in a million years pretend that it is okay for one man to own another.  And I don't for two minutes believe he was "just as hard" on the whites...history is always written by the "winners", remember? But, slavery was a fact of life--all the way back to Genesis, and it's something we have had to deal with and try to understand for that long, as well. So, now that we have that ugliness out in the open, let's keep thinking about what I said about David being a paradox...In the same cemetery that David Henderson's wife is buried, along with hundreds of his relatives, there is a small marker up near the edge of the property line.  It reads "Will--beloved slave of David Henderson".  A beloved slave buried in a white cemetery before the Civil War ...yet he owned slaves to begin with...paradox.  Did he love Will? I believe he did.  I read a post by a lady on a popular cemetery website (yes, we have those), and she saw this headstone and posted "If he had been beloved, he wouldn't have been a slave."  That's true, in a perfect world.  God allows things to happen for the good of those who love Him...and we don't live in a perfect world, and never will.  (That's what Heaven is, hello?).   David Henderson, in the early 1800's, publicly buried a slave in a white cemetery, and didn't care what the world, or his family, thought.  He loved Will.  And that speaks volumes to me about the kind of person David was.  He may have been ornery, and he may have been cocky and mean...I'm sure he probably was after hearing other stories about him...but he cared enough about Will to make sure that he had the best of what he could give him...in David's world.  Not ours.
Now please, don't misunderstand what I am saying.  Slavery in any shape, form, or fashion is morally wrong in my opinion. I am not saying David Henderson was a saint or that slave owners should all be painted in pastels with butterflies and bubbles.  But I am saying that I believe he did love Will, and there's nothing wrong with that.  Some parents push their children to have only straight A's in school...even when the child may not get to do the things other kids get to do on a regular basis (watch TV, for example).  Those parents will tell you they do it because they love their children. I don't doubt that they do.  They are giving their kids the best they have--in their world.  See?  The perspective changes according to the circumstance.  What's okay in one person's mind becomes completely wrong in another's--and no one can ever win those arguments.
I have gone over and over this in my head...and in my heart.  I don't want to argue with anyone about the rights and wrongs of it.  The bottom line is that it was for God to judge then, and it's for God to judge now.  But when one person gives to another the best of what they have in their world, then that's love.  And I cannot find fault with love.  So that being said, I think David did love Elizabeth.  He wasn't a man who would waste time on things that didn't matter to him...and all those things I talk about inheriting? That love without surrender thing? That's what I got from him.
The toad thing I think came from my relative Cootie Brown.