Losing my mate

Do you know what is hardest when losing your mate?  Everything!  Not only have I lost my mate of 53 years, I have lost my lifestyle and the ease of a long term relationship that fit like a pair of comfortable old house shoes that were broken in except for a rock that might find it's way into a shoe now and then and rub you the wrong way. 

Now turning down a new road without familiarity is extremely exhausting and difficult task which takes time and energy to navigate.  Many have gone down this same road before me and they reach out.  I don't have the strength to reach out.  Perhaps, in time, I will extend my hand and reach back, but for now, I rest, I ponder, I try to figure it out as I try to find my balance once again.  

Early Reflections

Upside Down in my World

I listen for you, but you are not here, you are not there, you are somewhere, but not here.  I miss you!

The comfort of my world has crashed!  Where are you?  I look at your chair, you are not there.  I look at your truck, you haven’t moved it.  I look out front, you are not there. Where are you? I miss you!

I know you are in a better place with no pain, no sorrow and probably with loved ones who have passed on and fields of color more vivid than any you have ever known on this earth, but you are not here!  I miss you.  I know God is where you are and you are there, but still, I miss you!

Prissy (1950-1958)

My sister, Jeri, always loved dogs and cats from the time she was a little girl.  I remember when she came home one day with a little black and white dog she picked up on the side of the road.  Someone dumped her I’m sure.  Anyway, it was homeless, so it joined the Templin household, we named her Prissy, and added another mouth to feed, but Prissy was easy.  She liked biscuits and gravy.  We all loved her and she loved us.

Her demise was a sad one.  I was excited about a trip to Red River, New Mexico. Don Close had a new red, Chevy Impala with a Corvette engine.  Boy could that thing run!   Anyway, it was the first trip out of state for this old country boy and I was excited.  I was getting out of Prosper!  You can imagine the excitement I was feeling as I hurried home from Graybar Electric-where I worked in Dallas, to pack my clothes in my little brown suitcase.  I was 20 years old, exhilarated with the prospect of an adventure.  I ran in the house grabbed my clothes and threw them in the suitcase, slammed the screen door, hurrying with a skip in each step to my 1955 Ford.  I threw the suitcase into the backseat, put the car in reverse and backed out.  I heard a howl and felt a bump.  Oh no!  Prissy had gotten older, didn’t hear the engine, and I backed over her, must have killed her instantly.  I had to take our little dog off, didn’t have time for a proper burial, because Donald was waiting in McKinney for me.   That trip took my mind off Prissy.

 By then, Jeri was married to Billy Bob Biggs.  She had moved to McKinney where Billy Bob was a Manor Bread man, delivering bread door to door.  Billy Bob was always a hard worker, but that’s another story for another day.  Twenty years later my sister Pat heard what happened to Prissy.   

A reflection of years gone by as told to Sandy by John Harvey Templin.

Ponderings of the day, March 1, 2013

This morning I was thinking about how many people I have known are gone, and all so sudden.  I realize this is the way life is.  As the Bible says, "A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted."  So there you have it. We were warned; it is a natural thing to do, to die.  It leaves a huge void in our personhood when we lose someone and it takes years to soften that sorrow, but eventually, we ourselves will follow that path of soaring away to heaven to be reunited with our Savior and our loved ones.  What a joyful picture!

What I find sorrowful is when some people can’t bring themselves to believe in a higher power, a life beyond skin and bones.  Why could this be so difficult to believe?  We believe the sun will come up tomorrow and the trees will grow new leaves in the spring;  fall will release those same leaves dropping them to the ground, and the air we inhale will always be here for us to breathe.  We believe seeds planted will produce food, flowers, and trees - - life will go on.

How did all these wonderful miracles of life happen?  Big Bang Theory, some people say?  Laughter!  I can’t fathom something somehow exploding and giving life that continues throughout the years without a creator - - a higher power, God!   

Friends of mine

April 12, 2013, Ponderings

I was sitting on my porch this morning when my old friend Zeke came by to see me.  He loved sitting in the tomato garden.  I was watching him as he sped around the yard, looking all around, checking out the new spring bugs.  I hope he eats them all.

Several years back he was sitting on the woodpile on the eastside of our home.  I was washing dishes and looking out the window.  He was just meandering around, looking for something.  I ran to get my camera, but could not capture the beauty of my road runner through the trees, so I headed outdoors.  I sneaked around the corner of the house.  Camera in position, he turned, he was cautious, I stepped forward, click.  The roadrunner left my view finder and had flown, yes flown, to the limb in the tree.  Click! Click! Gone! Found him!  I then became bold and hurried to catch him this time, but as we all know, road runners can run!  They can travel fast.  I was running on my bum foot trying to catch him and looking through the view finder of my camera.  He had flown into the neighbor’s tall grass and all I could see was his little head, and then gone!  I took his blurred pictures anyway, and remember what a thrill it was for me to learn Roadrunners could fly.

We have rabbits by the hundreds, and they look like play bunnies sitting so still in the morning sun.  I leave them, as they are peaceful.  No one bothers them, not even my dog Marlee.  We love the Easter bunny look year around at our house.   Then there was the visit from the Paragon Falcon.  I was typing away when I looked through the window of our living room, because out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw something BIG sitting on a limb in the pecan tree.  I crept to the window, sure enough, it was the biggest bird I’ve seen outside of an Eagle, but it was still, very still.  You guessed it-I ran for the camera, I opened the door, and fluttering away with the largest wing span I had seen in eons, off it went with me chasing it snapping away and when I looked at my photo’s - - nothing!  I did see it land on a utility pole but it was out of my range to take a wonderful picture.  I took it anyway, and the picture looks like a sparrow on top of a utility pole.  Drats!

Snakes!  I’m not too fond of snakes except they eat mice.  I do like that about them.  Nearly everything has a purpose and a reason to be here, but then there are the fire ants and the mosquitoes.  What purpose do they serve other than bite, and make you itch?

Chick and I have had cats, dogs, birds, a bobcat, possums, skunks, raccoons, snakes, coyotes,  bunnies, butterflies, fire ants, fireflies, moths, bees, wasps, flies, spiders, rolly bugs, lady bugs, cicadas, you name it we’ve experienced it and enjoyed most everything on God’s little acre including children, especially two little boys who loved living there and pretending they were in the Wild, Wild, West, and playing “shoot ‘em up”. 

Now we must make a decision as to leave this place where the surroundings are changing, forcing all the animals to leave.  It is sad to leave them behind if we do decide to move.  The new people are scared of wildlife, dogs, and cats, anything that isn’t a pet.  Our cat was pregnant when someone dumped her.  She is now our faithful Sophie.  Her kitten, Tommy Boy, lives next door with the Kight family.  Her kitten Sadie disappeared; We think the coyotes got her.  This December a beautiful stray Malamute showed up at our door.  She now has a home with a family who has 2 other Malamutes.    I wanted her but she needed a fenced in yard.  She was a beautiful specimen of a dog.  She would shake hands with you and warmed up to us pretty quickly.

Our neighbors for a while were horses, sheep and goats.  They are gone too!   In life, we all learn there are changes to make, subtle ones and necessary ones.  Change is difficult and not comfortable but sometimes for the best I suppose. 

I have pictures of all of these friends except for the coyotes and the bobtail cat.  Most of the pictures are blurred but very clear in my memory. 

Fall is in the air and here comes Melancholy

A walk around our front acre of land was just what I needed today.  September is here and summer will soon be a memory.  Summer without mom was a difficult season for me as I spent so much time in the past seasons at my mom’s house, enjoying her easy company.  Now here is my first fall without her.  Being outdoors reminds me of how much mom loved to feel the grass and dirt beneath her bare feet; the dirt on her hands as she planted new rose bushes or fall mums; the wind in her hair blowing softly on her face. 

Life in Texas was good for mom.  Her roots were planted here; she was born here in 1925 and left Texas when she was 18.  She wasn’t happy anywhere but Texas where she was close to her parents and her brothers and sisters and all that was familiar to her.    She was the child that when grown, spent the most time with her parents and devoted herself to them.  I believe she loved them more than all the other siblings because she wanted to spend time with them, she wanted to do things for them and she did spend as much time as she could with them when she moved back to Texas from Indiana.  It was not a chore or duty for her to be with her parents. 

When her daddy died, mom cried, that was the only time mom allowed herself to cry openly in front of people that I can remember. I never saw her cry again.  I’m sure she did it privately.  It was as though that was a weakness for her and she didn’t want to show that emotion openly though the things she went through during her lifetime I’m sure tweaked some tears from those beautiful eyes of hers.  She had a deep love for people. 

I continued to walk around our land and speaking to mom, telling her the trees were abundant this year with pecans and how much fun we would have together picking them up if she were here.  Dad also enjoyed picking up pecans and cracking them too while watching ballgames on television.  He and mom would dig in the bowl before they saved enough for cooking.  I can see them now-mom getting a handful  of the pecans dad had just finished;  dad good naturedly scolding her to “Keep your mitts off my pecans”.

I looked up at the azure blue sky and smiled, knowing I had the gift of a lifetime, a good mother, a mother who was loving, understanding, kind, loved life and had a wonderful sense of humor –the whole package in one mom. 

In October, Chick and I will pick pecans off the limbs and ground, just as we did for so many years with my parents.  We would all go scouting in early years around Erwin Park and Cross F Ranch, down the roads where pecan trees drop their treasures in the fall.  We picked them up near their house on Lee Street in McKinney before the neighborhood spread the boundaries into apartments, businesses, and more concrete, and cemeteries - - anywhere we could find those tasty morsels.

I miss my parents, and I can’t reach them now other than with memories of days gone by.  These are good memories and they bring me pleasure and love across the years.