the passing of Margie

 

We Circle In Love

tonight the creek flows, oblivious to our cares,

the trees are bare against a cloudy sky,

the rhododendron only partly bowed to the winter

that is just now coming back to beset us with cold & ice,

the world seems still and waiting,

tomorrow one of the greats in my world

will be mourned, celebrated, and buried,

a woman who lived love and joy with every breath

until the breaths could no longer come,

I can imagine the dark in which I sit

recognizes how diminished we all can feel

with her gone beyond what we can know in this life,

I sleep and get up before dawn,

as I watch the sun awaken the clouds over the mountain into a bright glow

I remember Margie’s laugh,

her laughing with Mother

and not even being able to say through the tears why they were laughing,

her sense of the humor within everything,

even within the pain and diminishment age brought to her,

I love the story of Margie and her family’s uniting at the cabin,

less than 3 months ago:

laughing, eating, singing, playing,

enjoying who they were together

and how much Aunt Margie made them who they are,

Margie and Bus reprising in picture at the top of the mountain

their dedicating to each other with a ring so many decades ago,

before that trip to the cabin we feared she couldn’t rally

but doctors & family & Margie herself

found how to climb back to be fully present

so that we all could push back our fear

of how soon would be the time for the curtain to fall,

Christmas, and the spirit still animated bright the flesh,

the body that still held but faded,

a fall before Christmas a foreshadowing

of the frailness of the vessel

within which the grandness of her spirit could no longer abide,

heart and lung fought the good fight

but could not hold any longer

and she slipped away from us,

visitation & the viewing, the funeral & the interment, supper together,

so many of us drawn like moths to the flame of her being,

none of us ready to move forward in our lives

without the lessons Margie taught with every moment of her being,

we hold her within us as a compass

but we miss the flesh-and-blood guide

who made everything better 

as, through her,

God called out to us to be our best,

I loved the pictures, the stories, the memorabilia,

also the pain in eyes washed by tears offered in her honor,

and just before the visitation one long moment I was privileged to share

as Bus, Elizabeth, Eddie, and Bob held tight to each other

in a circle striving to be unbroken

and intoned the Lord’s Prayer deep from their souls,

and in the time that they touched each other

they reached to feel Margie both beyond and with them,

and they reached to God who holds us all

and we are one and back together

in the greatness of that love.

by Henry Walker

January 17, ‘07

a tribute to Margaret Lois

 Margie

a smile that lights up a room,

eyes that twinkle with a nature so good

that you know that all of us can only be better

by being around her

for no snake can come into the garden while she’s there,

and we rise toward being as good as she know us to be

when we’re with her,

each of the sisters has had part of Grandmother shine from them,

Margie, to me, seems particularly pure

to that same gentle accepting love that just flows and flows--

best friend to my mother from childhood on,

Jean “Little Mother” and Margie her faithful sidekick,

partner to Bus in a relationship

with no telling where one stops and the other starts,

completing each other in a fullness all marriages should hope for,

mother to 3 children as fine and full as any could hope for

who live the joy in life and love for others that cascades from Margie,

grandmother to 7 grandchildren who know how much they can be

to rise to be who their grandmother knows them to be,

what a family from which she came!

many bright shining men with their cities upon a hill

and just as many extraordinary women who enabled the city to be built,

who supported the men with their love and wisdom

and who build the home as foundation for the marriage and the family,

they who kept the home fires burning, the children growing true,

staying true and steadfast to the man

so he could be sure and reach high:

Cora Goddard, Mary Jane Sherrod, Elizabeth Ellen Wayland,

and back to and through

Priscilla Thornton,

she whose father also came to the New World in 1635

and whose love sustained her husband David Beaman

in Lancaster, Massachusetts,

all those folks across the long years

who met challenge with hope,

doubt with belief,

darkness with light,

Margie so much the center that holds us

so that we can spin in the whirl of releasing the best of ourselves,

not even death could stop the grand upwell of love

that pours through and from Margaret Lois Beaman Jeffries,

she who God let us borrow for too short a time,

and can you blame God for wanting her back?

by Henry Walker

January 9, 2007

a tribute to Mildred Holman Dickinson

Mildred

born on a working farm

at the top of one of many of Kentucky’s rich rolling hills,

good soil + hard work = a hard-won living,

and she learned the skills to make a home simply elegant

and how to hold together the family that could so easily fly apart,

the farm girl and homemaker

couldn’t stay down in the country,

she followed her sister and rode her horse to the city for school

and her mind opened as wide

as Kentucky’s sky can be blue,

and she traveled the world in her mind

and she opened herself beyond what is custom

to what is right by the light of her own judgement,

and sometimes her husband’s vote and hers cancelled out,

and she loved to dance her heart away

and to use the dance of cards as a social center,

and to teach her grandchildren probability,

a job at the bank

and no door opened to college--

neither was money available

nor did the culture encourage her,

not even one so very very bright,

and she fell into love and marriage with a dashing young doctor

who she grounded with her common sense

and built the house for him, for her,

and for three extraordinary daughters

who were blessed with her intellect and his

and who mirror his love and hers,

and there in the city she taught herself to sew and to cook,

and her flower and vegetable gardens were a sight to behold,

and she knew to start the water before the corn was even picked,

a populist streak to her politics

and an unwillingness to suffer any fool gladly,

that well-read openness of mind

paralleled by an openness to new foods,

she was “curry” when “curry” wasn’t cool,

tradition equally important to newness: 

1 cup of coffee, then it warmed, to start the day,

plus a small glass of orange juice,

half a Coke to keep the morning going,

Sunday dinner must be fried chicken,

steaks and french fries Saturday night,

an elegant supper club and bridge club for decades,

a jar of fresh chocolate chip cookies by the door,

baked two year-old country ham at Christmas,

hopefully  with white flecks,

her spaghetti and sauce a comfort food for her kids,

bread and butter pickles, strawberry preserves,

the quality and bounty of her table a constant,

a love of Jeopardy, crossword puzzles, and double crostics,

of thinking hard and clean,

a stubbornness to hold fast and true, to persevere,

a measured life, with rules and routine to keep one steady,

while inside her head and heart soared beyond measure,

fairness deep in her soul and moderation in all things,

except for love,

the only thing that could match her love for children and grandchildren

was their love for her,

Ah, Mildred, you soared with your life,

and all of us can only hope to do so well.

by Henry Walker

December 28, 2003

 3

a strong Kentucky woman!

 Mildred Holman Dickinson

Mildred, my wife's mother,

was a strong Kentucky woman:

born to the rooted values

of generations of the farm,

fully committed to family,

to living life fully committed also

to thinking clearly,

to loving without condition,

I asked her once: 

"Do you ever quit worrying about your children?"

no equivocation in her answer: "No!"

she held the family together

with two daughters born

and then her physician husband

off to the Pacific theater of World War II,

serving to put back together the sons of fellow Americans,

while his wife kept the home fires burning

and helped her kids to persevere

when fear stormed down upon them,

she reminded us to realize

that who would win the war

was unknown to them at the time,

the war over, her husband devoted himself

to the health of the greater Glasgow community,

and a third daughter born,

one more chance to help the next generation get it right,

I fell in love with and married the third daughter,

and I have worked to see Mildred through her eyes,

I have worked to get onboard with the full commitment to family,

with the love of maintaining traditions

such as the baked country ham for the holidays,

such as time with family whenever possible,

treasuring her Holman past by regular pilgrimages

to Beckton and the family farm,

to finding her own way,

in town, with a job at the bank,

in town, as a homemaker,

making clothes for her girls,

supporting her daughters in whatever paths called to them,

supporting her husband in all the efforts that called to him,

and she still found time to open herself

to possibilities in the kitchen:

spaghetti and sauce, curry,

the joy of friends and cards and food and drink,

I often think of my wife as Little Mildred,

for her love of family, children, food, clarity of thought,

echoes and mirrors her mother,

Happy birthday, Mildred!

even though you're gone,

we honor you whenever we give ourselves fully

to the moment, to the other,

to how food can express some 

of the depth and breadth of who we are.

by Henry H. Walker

September 19, ‘26