There's No Place Like Home

The first reference to the title of this post comes from a song called “Home! Sweet Home!”  The lyrics were written by John Howard Payne and the tune was by Sir Henry Bishop in 1823.  Another more recent and popular reference would be from L. Frank Baum’s 1900 fantasy “The wonderful Wizard of Oz” and Judy Garland clicking those ruby red slippers repeating the phrase over and over

Enough of this…it’s true that there is no place like home but it includes the good, the bad, the ugly, and the wonderful. This is about the wonderful.

Gracie enters the city via serpentine roads just above the speed limit, though not too much. A hair-raising to the airport with her passenger repeatedly screaming “SLOW DOWN TO EIGHTY!!!” cured her of speeding.

Gracie so enjoys seeing the trees and flowers.  She calls this “smelling the green” and absorbs the sights and smells into her heart and mind.  When those two witnesses agree she feels at peace. Every year in May, she makes a pilgrimage here just to get a double whiff of lilac bushes in bloom. 

But this visit is to launch her road trip because it is always good to touch base with your roots before you branch out. What a pun! And true too!

She pulls up in the early evening, in time to go to the Quemahoning Dam and join her grade school friend to kayak and watch the rise of the super moon technically called the perigee-syzygy. Her friend’s husband is happy she is there because this gets him off the hook.  He went on the same expedition the month before. 

Gracie and her friend scurry about loading her car with one kayak rather than the usual two, so that they can communicate in whispers. Once on the water, they reminisce and then are dazzled as the moon rises, so bright and splendid that even the stars disappear.  Gracie softly sings “Fly Me to the Moon” as she has a song for every occasion. 

Gracie has been warned by a very experienced traveler that it's really hard to keep in shape when you're on the road.  So she jumps at the chance to work out and then get a picture of the local university's mascot.  What a great way to start the day! 

Jigsaw Puzzzling

And the day goes on as they will visit her girlfriend’s Mom. Gracie watches, delighted as her friend makes her energetic entrance into the meeting room at the nursing home. Loretta Young never did it so well.  True that Loretta never wore sandals and capris, nor carried a large bag containing the tools for daily workouts: foreign language vocabulary, word find puzzles, jigsaw puzzles and the exercise band and ball, but still.... Often the entire room is involved with her friend, who gives everyone a chance to hit the ball back to her a few times. Once, she brought in Styrofoam balls and they had a snowball fight with her friend dodging as many as possible and she throws them back as well.
Her Mom is required to do 100 ball returns and continues to do more exercises, including arm and leg stretches with the band.  Her friend's Mom’s native language is Croatian, and so the daughter takes Croatian lessons to make communicating with her easier. Her Mom is so very animated when saying her prayers or bursting into song. 

When Gracie and her friend were children, she made cinnamon buns the size of quarters which the children popped into their mouths like candy. It is one of Gracie’s cherished recipes. They were sent to the woods and hills to picking berries to add to other tasty delights for baking made in the little kitchen.  Not all forms of food gathering were that fun. Sometimes the hunters of the family brought in rabbits which would need cleaning. They hung them on nails in the basement and then taught us children how to cut them open, carefully avoiding the bladder.

Breathing Exercises

Her friend and the Mom are amazing women; the b because she keeps on keepin’ on.  Some think older people should be left without medical care or be extinguished after their usefulness has passed. But older people provide invaluable opportunities for others to be compassionate, magnify their talents, and serve in many capacities.  Gracie thinks:  “She fed us, why shouldn’t we feed her?”As Gracie and her friend leave the nursing home, they realize that if they are fortunate enough to live as long as her friend's mom, they have another 35 years to go.

Their conversation takes a more serious turn as her friend asks, “We will die someday and I wonder if God is pleased with me or if I will go to heaven.” Gracie laughs out loud with tears of joy in her eyes and assures her “How could He not be? Not only is God pleased with you, He is proud to have you as His daughter. So is your Heavenly Mother.  Just look at how you uplifted those around you!”

P.S.  Today is her mom's 98th birthday!

Copyright © 2014 Martina Sabo