All images created by Rebekah Marshall’s prompts using AI on Gencraft.com website.
My grandad passed away this morning peacefully in his sleep. He was 92 years old and loved by 5 generations. He got to spend time with his newest great-great-granddaughter about a week ago and still said the prayer for our breakfast 4 days ago. The last few days, he was lost in his thoughts and seemed to be remembering projects and work assignments from many years past, his mind constantly trying to be productive and wrap up loose ends. We kept reassuring him that he could rest. All his hard work was complete and there were no more deadlines to meet.
His belief to the end was that his next waking moment would be in a resurrected body free of pain, reunited with those who passed before him, like his wife (my Mema) who we lost 2 years ago.
I felt like being creative with my grief and made some AI art in honor of Grandad (and Mema.)
My grandson Julian (6 years old) found a giant fossilized megalodon tooth in the backyard today. He brought his prize to show me, and it was quite impressive. It is probably the biggest limestone shark tooth I have ever seen. I suggested he go show Grandad (91 years old) and get a second opinion. I don’t think Grandad played along as well as I did, so Julian took it back outside to do some more excavating and promptly misplaced it.
Speaking of teeth, Charlotte (my 10-year-old-in-8-days granddaughter) has a loose one—I believe it is #8, a canine. She likes to wiggle it in the mirror and point out that she only has 2 baby teeth left in her mouth. How time flies. I remember when she was first cutting her little tiny teeth on her bottom gums and we were super excited. Now she’s old enough that I spent over an hour on the phone with Apple tech support trying to get the parental controls set up on her phone so we could figure out which objectionable content to allow and which to block to help with internet safety. One issue was that I apparently set a password years ago and forgot it. We tried everything we could think of, but the Apple people were stumped. There was no fixing it. We finally gave up and decided it was unsolvable. A few hours later, on a whim, I typed in 1,2,3,4, and it worked. So embarrassing.
Julian brought me half a Mini Coke with a straw in it yesterday.
“Here you go, Ema. You can drink this because I joined the army and can’t drink sugar anymore.”
Woohoo! I like this game. Apparently, Charlotte was his drill sergeant and got him drinking water only. She had him working out and doing obstacle courses all day long. I bet his little muscles are sore today.
Charlotte convinced Julian to wear a bonnet to bed the other night like she does. Her curly coils have to be protected by a silky wrap at night to keep them from getting frizzy or damaged. Julian has the complete opposite texture hair. But with Charlotte’s application of who-knows-what-goo and some little twists here and there, Julian awoke with one or two curls on his head. He was very proud of them. I was impressed he made it all night in the bonnet.
This morning, Charlotte made Julian the Coraline breakfast special. I have never seen the movie Coraline, but Charlotte is obsessed with it. Julian lucked out. All by her little self, she made an egg and cheese omelet, 3 slices of bacon, and toast with jelly. It was a masterpiece. This is the same girl who melted onto the floor in a puddle the other day when I asked her to push the vacuum a few times. She literally did one strip of carpet before collapsing from the difficulty of the task. The next time she acts helpless, I’m going to remind her how capable she is when she wants to be.
Julian pulled a prank on us today. He was at the top of the stairs, and Charlotte and I were in the kitchen area.
Suddenly, we heard his pitiful little voice whimpering, “Help me, help me. I can’t see. Everything’s dark. I can’t see. I need help.” He was really laying it on thick.
Charlotte headed his way to see what kind of a bind he had gotten himself into this time. She returned just as quickly, marching with her hands on her hips, shaking her head and rolling her eyes. Julian appeared around the corner with his sweatshirt pulled up over his face like he was either trying to put it on or take it off; I’m not sure which. He was laughing so hard at his own joke that he ended up making us laugh, as well.
Grandad informed me that he was taking Charlotte to McDonald’s. She convinced him to take her to McDonald’s so she could spend her own allowance money on French fries. I tried not to be irritated. She already asked me and I said no. I told her to go make her own fries out of the perfectly good potatoes and oil we have here at home. They are easy to make in the air fryer. Grandad is a pushover when it comes to that girl. He was my grandfather first, and he never would have stopped what he was doing to take me to McDonald’s when I was a kid. He would have lectured me on saving my money and not begging all the adults all the time to take me places.
But honestly, I love that he has softened and spoils my grandchildren rotten (his great-great-grandchildren.) Every kid deserves at least one adult in their lives that is wrapped around their little finger. Mema was my person (Grandad’s wife of over 70 years and my grandmother.) She would do anything for me. Knowing that kind of love made me a strong woman who knows how to ooh and aah at shark teeth rocks and 10-year-old-in-8-days loose teeth for my own grandchildren. It all comes full circle if we put in the time and effort to be present in each other’s lives. And Charlotte is right that McDonald’s fries are way better than homemade. The girl knows her fries.
We’re going through Mema’s old cookbooks to see which to keep and which to let go, and the slices of 20th Century home life represented through food are an interesting study. If I had more time, I would categorize them and photograph them all by decade before selecting several recipes from each and do themed nights from the 50s, 60s, 70s and so on. But, alas, I do not have that kind of young people energy anymore, so thinking such thoughts and then writing about them is about as far as I can get, and that is ok.
Take for instance, a Home Economics textbook from 1944 called Everyday Foods that teaches girls to wear an “inexpensive house dress, or smock, or apron” and it “should be washable, attractive, and of course spick-and-span.” Also, don’t forget your “handkerchief…placed safely in a pocket.” Wouldn’t want to forget that—super important. Girls are also encouraged to be very careful what they eat. They are given a list of “What Carelessly Chosen Food May Do To You: It may give you a ruined waistline and a poor figure, a pallid complexion, bowlegs, premature old age, and deficiency diseases.” They were seriously warned against “pellagra, beriberi, rickets, anemia, and scurvy.” I hope the boys were warned somehow, as well.
Other favorites are the 70s style cookbooks that favored varying degrees of red, yellow, and brown thematic layouts featuring many Jello desserts and shrimp cocktails. I notice a lot of celery and things shaped into balls—ham balls, coconut ice cream balls, Swedish sausage balls, cocktail meatballs, chilled melon balls; I could go on. And what is baked Alaska? I am so confused, even though I was alive during that decade. And bisques, who was eating so much bisque? Do people still eat bisque?
The 70s also saw the invention of the crock pot. People weren’t exactly sure what to call this new cooking art form, but my favorite is the Crockery Cooking, though “crockery” as a term never really caught on. It sounds fancy. There is an introduction that explains how to use a crock pot and why it’s a good idea. I love it.
The 80s was the decade of microwave cooking and Mema had several books that not only teach what a microwave is, how to use it, how not to use it, and how to cook every imaginable food in one—bake a cake, bread, pie, check; oysters casino, escargot, clams-in-the-shell, coquilles, check; whole casserole, check; coffee, check; steak, small turkey, whole roast, check; the microwave is a miracle invention capable of revolutionizing the American kitchen, but rule #1: “Do not attempt to operate this oven with the door open.” I guess people had to be told you can’t sit and watch it cook with the door cracked a bit the way you would with your stove or the lid of a pot. The Amana Touchmatic II Radarange Microwave Oven Cookbook does due diligence with teaching the importance of not using metal implements (it even explains arcing), and assures the reader that every recipe has been tested in a real microwave by a “trained home economist.”
We also found a binder of recipes from Grandad’s mother, Frances Capitola Bearden, including such delicacies as giblet sandwich spread, chicken a la king, potato candy, mince meat (for which you need an average size hog head), loquat jelly, prickly pear jelly, spudnuts, potato donuts, salt dough for kids to play with, homemade soap, and the best carp bait for fishing with (which include Wheaties, cottonseed mill, and black strap molasses, among other interesting spices.)
I did not inherit even one ounce of interest in cooking, but my daughter is very excited about trying some of these recipes, and it is going to be an adventure to taste some long lost delicacies of the last 80 years. Mema was like me, a functional cook, capable of feeding whatever size crowd needed a full belly with satisfying results. Nothing fancy, nothing gourmet, but tasty and filling. The fact that she saved so many recipes with the good intentions of trying them out someday makes me chuckle because she, like me, didn’t even like to cook. She just enjoyed reading the recipes, looking at the pictures, and imagining the fun conversation at the dinner parties when everyone would be gathered around the table having a good time. It wasn’t even about the food. It was about the entertaining, the laughter, the storytelling, the getting together. It was about all of us that she loved and wanted to nurture with food.
@Home Studio – 364th poem of the year
Runner ups for the Cook Books photos to accompany my poem:
Photo taken 12/25/24 by my sister-in-law Brittany Hefner.
Christmas morning was all the fun and family it should be this year, with 3 little ones to enjoy the excitement of gifts and games.
The grown-ups sat around drinking coffee and feasted on homemade cinnamon rolls, egg tater tot casserole, mountains of bacon, biscuits and gravy, eggnog bread pudding with eggnog whipped cream.
There was just the right amount of silliness and chaos and squeals, and plenty of laughter, as we all reconnected.
We continued the tradition Mema liked to share from her childhood— orange, apple, pecans, walnuts, and peppermints in everyone’s stockings.
Mema would be pleased that Grandad was right in the middle of it all, and was as thrilled as a kid to open the biggest, brightest flashlight known to man as a gift from one of his grandsons.
Last night, neither Grandad nor I could sleep. His legs were hurting and restless, my cough was keeping me up, so we were wandering the house like ghosts at 2am. Come look, he said, after swinging open the back door, standing in the doorway in his pajamas. Feel how heavy it is, he said as he handed his new toy flashlight to me. Well, turn it on, he said. I pushed the button and nearly gasped as the entire yard all the way to the barn was bathed in daylight. It felt magical, such power in the palm of my hand.
Mema would have swatted both our behinds, and loved that we are all taking care of each other.
@Home Studio – 360th poem of the year
Runner ups for the Christmas Breakfast photos to accompany my poem:
Photos taken 12/25/24 by my sister-in-law Brittany Hefner.
Mema and Baby (One of her neice Sarah’s grandbabies.)
Washing my hands in your sink Sitting in your chair Writing on your notepad Answering your phone Cooking breakfast for Grandad exactly the way you showed me how Peeling a tangerine Putting away your dinner plates that stack so easily from the dishwasher Making a cup of tea Reminding Grandad to use his cane Hearing certain doors open in the house Something cute happens with the kids I’m sad I have a big decision to make I have a success I want to celebrate I get stressful news
I took this photograph on Mema’s front porch 5/4/24.
My sister bought a box of butterflies to release in honor of Mema’s birthday. We gathered, all five generations of us, and watched in awe as they emerged from their sleepy coldness to warm to the overcast heat of a May day. Each butterfly took its own time exploring this new brightness of air and space, flitting from tiny human to big human to ground to metal rooftop and beyond. The last Painted Lady dilly-dallied and decided to rest a while on a potted plant on Mema’s porch. None of us really knew what to expect and were pleasantly surprised at the loveliness of the little creatures Mema loved so.
@The Writing Barn: Buddha Hall (in honor of Mema’s birthday that was on May 2nd and the butterfly release that was on May 4th. She would have been 89.) – 123rd poem of the year
There’s nothing more refreshing than a cold glass of sweet iced tea when a body’s hot as blazes. My Mema insisted on unsweet, so we had to agree to disagree. Once, when I was up in Detroit, someone offered to make me a glass and poured powder into liquid; it was instant, they said. I had never heard of such an innovation and was baffled by the dehydrated concoction. Well, how do you make it? they asked, and were equally perplexed by my method of brewing a pot of tea, only to pour it over ice. The strange culture clash was more unsettling than yous guys instead of y’all, playing football in the snow, drinking milk out of bags, and eating ketchup chips. At least Mema and I agreed on the starting point for our tea with a fresh tea bag, a boiling pot of water, and a few minutes of conversation while you wait for it to steep. No need to rush. Take your time. Sit a spell.
I do work that I feel confident doing. It stretches me and can be a complicated puzzle that feels unsolvable at times, but I am fully cognizant of my abilities, able to slow my pulse, take a deep breath, and start at the very beginning because Julie Andrews says that’s a very good place to start, and she knows things.
Old dogs can learn new tricks, though they might need some accommodations to help them master the same skills. Honestly, whomever thought to suggest phrases like neutral face and thinking-face when hovering above emojis not only blessed those of us who struggle to read faces, but those of us unaccustomed to reading little circular yellow faces as part of our regular workday because we grew up with rotary phones, and being able to metaphorically clutch my pearls by clicking on a gasp emoji might come in quite handy someday.
My grandmother worked in the tech sector via telecommunications back when switchboard operators used call signs like Capital 5 instead of area codes and you could call an actual human to ask for the time of day.
She never imagined she would add butterfly emojis as her call sign in messages she would send to her great-great- granddaughter someday, and I never imagined I would be helping AI improve her reasoning skills, but I come from a long line of women who know how to adapt, are not afraid of exploring the unknown, and will learn what we need to learn to take care of this next generation of forward thinkers.
My Mema passed away this morning. I had the privilege of spending 50 years in her presence. I will miss her something fierce. She has a husband she was married to for over 70 years, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great grandchildren, not to mention every other possible connection to people far and wide.
Mema and Grandad
I lotioned your feet, then hands with white jasmine-scented Bath & Body Works Miriam gave me and tucked you in the way you like, brushed your hair and read you your texts, then some Bible verses of comfort— Isaiah 40, the first one that surfaced.
The steady sounds of the ICU create a strangely soothing white noise as a backdrop to your labored breaths. Lydia is here again to hold your hand just one more time; one of many one more times over the last few days because each time could be the last.
The you I know is no longer here, but the shell remains and deserves gentle petting and reassurance. Goodness knows how many times you had to ‘there, there’ me in the last 50 years, buoying my spirits and righting my sails with your steady faith and calm.
Boaz sat vigil until I arrived, and your children and husband will take over after I leave — we are all branches of a grand candelabra you have lit with exuberance, spreading across states and time, thankful to have been influenced by the life you lived and the love which from your cup overflowed.
@ICU Room 1 St. David’s Round Rock Hospital & Home Studio – 48th poem of the year
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