The Road Home
 How many times I must have driven up this country road, yearning for the peace and tranquility of my Prairie style home?  If I could get behind the doors of this home I knew I would be safe and secure as a lamb feels with the shepherd.  I’ll be held tight by the walls of this old house.  Winter days were bright and cheerful, sitting with a cup of coffee with my husband huddled in his soft recliner, sawing logs with his green checked throw around his legs and arms. The wood burning stove all stoked up and the light burning bright and warm.  To say we were at peace here is an understatement.  You see, this house has seen love; it has seen hardships unknown to other people; it has seen two little boys who wrapped themselves around their Pawpaw and Memaw giving them butterfly kisses when they only knew us as their protectors in the storms of this life.  It has seen sorrow whenever they left us for a new home.  Changes!  Many changes that go on and on like the seasons we always count on to come and go and then come back again.  The future was held at bay, but then the dam broke an the future broke through the doors like a comet.  Changes again!  Always Changes! 

Summer comes with the boiling hot sun; burning the leaves on the pecan trees and the wisps of grass that grow sporadically due to the shade of the towering pecan trees and the winter ice that froze the grass back in 1999 until it could no longer reproduce.  Still, it Is a beautiful place to be.  Summer mornings on the front porch are awesomeness! The coffee savored on the porch is extra, extra special while listening to the birds of summer and watching the little hummers in flight, drinking nectar from the hanging feeders.  They pay little attention to me as I watch this wonder of nature, so small and yet so powerful hanging in the air like helium filled balloons rising and falling with the flutter of wind and wings.  Grace me again Lord and fill my eyes with your wonders of nature and song.  Home!  A place like no other; filling my soul with Zen; filling my eyes with beauty; and filling my heart until it could burst from the sheer Godlike environment a summer porch in the country can supply.  I have this whole outdoor theatre and it is mine to behold.

Thank you God for the messages of love from my family; from my friends and complete strangers I have encountered in my Prairie home for 30 years.  I have enjoyed the gatherings here with my family and friends.  I believe if I quiet down I can hear the leftover laughter of my mother; the smell of  Christmas Eves spent here with family; my husband’s whistling whenever he was happy or busy with a project; the teenagers upstairs playing their loud music; the smell of frying fish all summer and Sunday morning coffee brewing while the bacon was frying - - all prepared by my husband.  I can see Ashley sitting on the stairs or playing outside as a child and now her children when they arrive.   I will always remember Faith, our youngest grandchild, born and brought here to live along with her mommy and daddy.  I can remember the best friends down the road.  Yes, as time passes, I can capture the beauty of each moment that happened here. 

Goodbye Prairie house!  It is time for me to turn the page of my life, but I will never forget the forever moments with you, ever…
 Sandy Templin, May 2, 2014
 

Ponderings of February 28, 2014-Resignation from Club 360

Today, I resigned from Club 360.  I have worked most of my married life and prior to that I babysat the neighborhood children in Indiana, up until we moved to Texas.  After that I really didn’t do much other than care for my sister, who was only 6 years old when we moved to Texas.  Mom and dad had to work, so my little sister, once again became my responsibility.  She watched me cry and walk the street in front of our house hoping my boyfriend, Tubby DeTalente, from Evansville, Indiana would come and rescue me from this small hick town of McKinney, Texas.   I hated moving here, but now I have come to love it since it has grown. 

Looking back and looking forward.  New plans on the horizon for Sandy Gale Templin!  What will they be?  The possibilities are endless.  I am looking at lying in the sun in Clearwater, Florida or living in the quaint stinky town of Mount Pleasant; moving to McKinney in a better house with a small yard to care for; or who knows?  I must start investigating and now I will have the time.  I will miss getting ready for work every day and seeing different people in my life.  Perhaps I’ll see more and have more time to get reacquainted with some of my old friends.  Anyway, my hubby, Chick,  wanted me to quit work and here I am doing it.  I am so proud I finally hit the send button and the words of resignation, as of Feb. 28^th,  are sailing through the airwaves now.  I wonder if anyone will care that I leave.  Does it really matter; I made a decision on my own at long last about me! 

Christmas in Oakland City, Indiana, after WWII was over.

 

Earl Rowe, red faced and smiling, brought the large green Christmas tree into the house.  All of us kids were so excited.  The whole family decorated the branches with colored balls and silver tinsel after Earl had strung all the lights on the tree. Christmas was nearly here! Charlotte and I would be lying on our tummies with our chins held in our hands, waiting and watching to see which bubble light would bubble first.  There were red, green, yellow and blue bubble lights.  Charlotte and I would pick our favorite to win. First one and then another would start up.  Giggles could be heard from us whenever our bubble light would start bubbling.   Entertainment was easy then.   For lack of store bought toys, our imaginations were deeper than the ocean and wider than the sky. Little things pleased us and made us happy.   The fireplace had a roaring fire in it to keep us toasty warm.   It was beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

 Dorothy, Earl’s wife, made a large, hot supper for all of us after our tree decorating.  We ate her wonderful home cooked meals often.  Dorothy and Earl had 4 children, Charlotte, Tommy, Earlene, and a baby named Becky. Dorothy had her hands full but never seemed tired.  She had a heart of gold.   The oldest child, Charlotte, was my age- 4 years old; Tommy was 3; and I’m not sure how old Earlene was.  She was a child with special needs.  She could only lie around and wait for someone to care for her.  I was too young to know what was wrong with her but accepted her because her whole family, including the children, doted on her.  She was not left out of the festivities as she lay there looking around; we hoped she could see the tree too. 

We lived in the house with Dorothy and Earl and their children.  It was our first place to live in Indiana that I can remember.  Mom said we lived in a place prior to that, perhaps with my Aunt and Uncle at the old farm house where my dad grew up.  Again, I don’t remember, and mom is not here to ask.  You think your parents will be here forever when you are little so as life goes on you fail to write things down.  Dorothy and Earl were like family to us.  They took mom, dad and me under their wings.  They were terrific people, now in heaven I presume.  Their house was a big old fashioned red brick house with a big front porch and an apartment on the back of the house where we lived, but mostly we were in the big part of the house because Dorothy always invited us over.  She knew my mom missed her family back in Texas.  One memory I have of my mom and her longing for Texas was when she was ironing our clothes.  She was bent over the ironing board, ironing away in our apartment and crying for Texas-for home.  I felt her sadness, it was palpable.  The wonderful Rowe’s did their best to keep us all content.  It was a wonderful place to be at Christmas, my first Christmas in Indiana. 

 

Written Christmas season 2013 by SGT

Pondering of the day, March 1, 2013

Ponderings of the day, March 1, 2013

This morning I was thinking about how many people are gone, and all so sudden. I realize that 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, and it is a natural thing to do, to die. It leaves a huge void in our personal being 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 joy that will be!

What is sorrowful is when people can’t bring themselves to believe in a higher power, a life beyond skin and bones. Why could that be so difficult to believe? We believe the sun will come up tomorrow and the trees will get new leaves and in the fall they will drop to the ground, and the air is here for us to breathe, the cycle goes on. We believe seeds planted will produce, that life will go on. How did that happen? Big Bang Theory! Laughter! Ha, Ha, Hee, Hee, I can’t see something somehow exploding and giving life and it keeps on going without a creator, a higher power. People who believe this life is the only life we have will be surprised. There is life hereafter. I believe it. I have had the experience of the Mighty God, and I sought him in sorrow. I sought him in healing. I sought him in joy! I know Him and He knows me.

When someone we love dies, we want to wrap our bodies around them and hold on to them, but they have gone away in an instant; they leave the body. They are already experiencing another life while we wail away for them. We want to reach out and hold them with the heart beating in their bodies, just one more time or 10 more years, or the rest of our lives. It doesn’t happen that way. They are well, experiencing overflowing measures of love and health. The ones who pass don’t want us seeking them, they want us to remember them, feel joy for them for they have graduated into the Forever Eternal home. Let go, and live on until your graduation comes… It will happen and passing on means so much more than leaving behind this world we have enjoyed for a short time. It is the greatest gift and the beginning of real happiness and joy without the misery of this, sometimes hard earth we have been planted on for a time....

 

Written before Chick's departure to heaven.  How was I to know?