Ah, my friend. You missed a party.
It was our first ever drop-in with snacks, games and a light supper. Whole wheat crackers and cheesy spinach dip, corn chips and cream cheese and salsa, Beautiful She's peerless chelsea buns, cupcakes decorated with candy canes, hot cider, chocolates, CL's excellent coffee. All that followed by chili and hot dogs at 5.
After the main course had been served, BJ went to the fridge and emerged with a great big glass pedestal bowl full of red and white and chocolate trifle. That was the closest we've ever had to a stampede. Funny.
Crokinole, dominoes, the ubiquitous euchre (one guy came expressly because he'd been told there would be euchre) and chess. This last courtesy of a like-minded group in the town to the North who gave us 20 or so folding chess sets.
We planned the drop-in in place of the Dinners we'd cancelled because they'd have fallen on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve which just wasn't an option.
The doors were supposed to be open at 3:00, but when we arrived, CL, the keeper of the keys, was nowhere to be found. Nobody knew where she was, but they didn't think she'd be gone long. Sure enough, she turned up a quarter of an hour later, saying she'd been unsure of when the drop-in was set for. We said we were sure we'd told her today, but maybe hadn't decided what time. She said maybe. A couple of hours later, grinning, she handed me a piece of paper she'd dug up in her room. A list of dates and times for the holidays. One line said "Drop-in with games and chili - one day between Christmas and New Year's". It may or may not have been my writing. I'm not sayin'.
Inside, CL started the coffee, we set up the table, and put the chili on the stove to keep hot.
For the next few hours people came and went, some sticking around to talk. Tidy G, before he took a tray of munchies to his friend waiting in their room, sat down with a cup of coffee and smiling listened to the conversation going on around him. Then went and came back in time for chili and hot dogs, then again for dessert.
One of the things available today was a table of paper and markers and such. There was a little group drawing for quite a while. When I was putting together the baskets of pencil crayons, I found in the bottom of one of them a 3 x 5 piece of paper with a name on it. K's name, written in pale green graceful cursive with curlicues and decoration, pink flowers and yellow.
Suddenly I remembered her voice and her smile, her spark and her shiny dark hair and I missed her. Hoped she's doing well, happy in her new school. I left the piece of paper on the table among the treats 'cause I couldn't bring myself to throw it out.
They've been gone since September, celebrating Christmas in their new house.
It's funny how you stop being aware of people who aren't there anymore.
And then...
The other day I was looking at old posts and came across this one. The first one ever.
I want to say her name was Sonya, but I don't think that's right. So I'll call her Sonya.
This was back in the 'worship band' days and Sonya's death was a real kick in the back of the head for me. The idea that she'd been sitting there in the room when we were performing and singing and telling our story and then died days later really really hurt.
Don't think I'd ever even talked to her. Met her, for that matter, but I knew who she was. Because I'd seen her.
That night, early April, it was dark, the concert was over, most of the people had left and we were carrying our instruments and music and lamps and boxes of candles and whatnot out to the cars. There are a few working lights outside the building. One is at the northeast corner of the Sherwood Room and it illuminates the driveway as it runs between two buildings, the other being a disused wooden two storey structure.
This was back when we were all too nervous to go further on the property than necessary, so we parked at the front and carried everything the length of the building between the northeast door and the southeast parking lot. I was walking back for another load when a young, slim, blonde woman who I'd seen drinking coffee and eating cookies inside walked down the steps alongside her man, dark haired and taller than she. Both in jeans and white T's. He wearing a dark cap. They didn't speak or hold hands, just walked north onto the muddy driveway, and under the light. It lit up her hair as she went, just for a moment, and then they passed into the darkness.
There was something, at the time, terribly sad about it that I didn't quite get. One of those, we think, unremarked, unconsidered and private snippets of life that, to an observer, says something lonely.
Short-term temporary companionship. Passing from light into dark. You and me against the world. Having nothing to say. Footprints in the mud. Something.
And I remembered it the next few days. Kept remembering that picture. She, a mother of three children, wards of the state. He, completely unknown to me.
And then we were told she'd died. CL had found her.
There was a story in the local paper. Many of the Motel's residents found it quite offensive. The reporter had opted for a easy lurid sensationalist slant, including details of the circumstances of Sonya's death that, quite a few said, intruded on her privacy, diminished her dignity. It just wasn't anybody's business and it shouldn't have been in the paper. She has family who loved her and became estranged and lost her entirely and they shouldn't have had to see that in the paper. It was wrong.
I still think of her often.
These days I park around the back, driving in and then back out through the space where I saw her caught by the light. Lovely and unknown and heartbreaking.
This dark time of year especially, when that light is always on when I leave after Dinner and today after the drop-in. Tonight I walked down those same steps and looked to my left and saw the light and saw her in it, walking away.
She haunts me. Challenges me. Pushes me. Doesn't let me get away with feeling sorry for myself.
Sometimes the best you can do is walk alongside someone into the shadows, trusting the Light to follow.
Sometimes all you can do is stand in the Light and remember.
r
It was our first ever drop-in with snacks, games and a light supper. Whole wheat crackers and cheesy spinach dip, corn chips and cream cheese and salsa, Beautiful She's peerless chelsea buns, cupcakes decorated with candy canes, hot cider, chocolates, CL's excellent coffee. All that followed by chili and hot dogs at 5.
After the main course had been served, BJ went to the fridge and emerged with a great big glass pedestal bowl full of red and white and chocolate trifle. That was the closest we've ever had to a stampede. Funny.
Crokinole, dominoes, the ubiquitous euchre (one guy came expressly because he'd been told there would be euchre) and chess. This last courtesy of a like-minded group in the town to the North who gave us 20 or so folding chess sets.
We planned the drop-in in place of the Dinners we'd cancelled because they'd have fallen on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve which just wasn't an option.
The doors were supposed to be open at 3:00, but when we arrived, CL, the keeper of the keys, was nowhere to be found. Nobody knew where she was, but they didn't think she'd be gone long. Sure enough, she turned up a quarter of an hour later, saying she'd been unsure of when the drop-in was set for. We said we were sure we'd told her today, but maybe hadn't decided what time. She said maybe. A couple of hours later, grinning, she handed me a piece of paper she'd dug up in her room. A list of dates and times for the holidays. One line said "Drop-in with games and chili - one day between Christmas and New Year's". It may or may not have been my writing. I'm not sayin'.
The steps to the 'church' were treacherous. There was no salt, so an ice clearing operation began, using a broken chair leg and careful kicks.
Inside, CL started the coffee, we set up the table, and put the chili on the stove to keep hot.
For the next few hours people came and went, some sticking around to talk. Tidy G, before he took a tray of munchies to his friend waiting in their room, sat down with a cup of coffee and smiling listened to the conversation going on around him. Then went and came back in time for chili and hot dogs, then again for dessert.
One of the things available today was a table of paper and markers and such. There was a little group drawing for quite a while. When I was putting together the baskets of pencil crayons, I found in the bottom of one of them a 3 x 5 piece of paper with a name on it. K's name, written in pale green graceful cursive with curlicues and decoration, pink flowers and yellow.
Suddenly I remembered her voice and her smile, her spark and her shiny dark hair and I missed her. Hoped she's doing well, happy in her new school. I left the piece of paper on the table among the treats 'cause I couldn't bring myself to throw it out.
They've been gone since September, celebrating Christmas in their new house.
It's funny how you stop being aware of people who aren't there anymore.
And then...
The other day I was looking at old posts and came across this one. The first one ever.
I want to say her name was Sonya, but I don't think that's right. So I'll call her Sonya.
This was back in the 'worship band' days and Sonya's death was a real kick in the back of the head for me. The idea that she'd been sitting there in the room when we were performing and singing and telling our story and then died days later really really hurt.
Don't think I'd ever even talked to her. Met her, for that matter, but I knew who she was. Because I'd seen her.
That night, early April, it was dark, the concert was over, most of the people had left and we were carrying our instruments and music and lamps and boxes of candles and whatnot out to the cars. There are a few working lights outside the building. One is at the northeast corner of the Sherwood Room and it illuminates the driveway as it runs between two buildings, the other being a disused wooden two storey structure.
This was back when we were all too nervous to go further on the property than necessary, so we parked at the front and carried everything the length of the building between the northeast door and the southeast parking lot. I was walking back for another load when a young, slim, blonde woman who I'd seen drinking coffee and eating cookies inside walked down the steps alongside her man, dark haired and taller than she. Both in jeans and white T's. He wearing a dark cap. They didn't speak or hold hands, just walked north onto the muddy driveway, and under the light. It lit up her hair as she went, just for a moment, and then they passed into the darkness.
There was something, at the time, terribly sad about it that I didn't quite get. One of those, we think, unremarked, unconsidered and private snippets of life that, to an observer, says something lonely.
Short-term temporary companionship. Passing from light into dark. You and me against the world. Having nothing to say. Footprints in the mud. Something.
And I remembered it the next few days. Kept remembering that picture. She, a mother of three children, wards of the state. He, completely unknown to me.
And then we were told she'd died. CL had found her.
There was a story in the local paper. Many of the Motel's residents found it quite offensive. The reporter had opted for a easy lurid sensationalist slant, including details of the circumstances of Sonya's death that, quite a few said, intruded on her privacy, diminished her dignity. It just wasn't anybody's business and it shouldn't have been in the paper. She has family who loved her and became estranged and lost her entirely and they shouldn't have had to see that in the paper. It was wrong.
I still think of her often.
These days I park around the back, driving in and then back out through the space where I saw her caught by the light. Lovely and unknown and heartbreaking.
This dark time of year especially, when that light is always on when I leave after Dinner and today after the drop-in. Tonight I walked down those same steps and looked to my left and saw the light and saw her in it, walking away.
She haunts me. Challenges me. Pushes me. Doesn't let me get away with feeling sorry for myself.
Sometimes the best you can do is walk alongside someone into the shadows, trusting the Light to follow.
Sometimes all you can do is stand in the Light and remember.
r
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