granddaughters

Rosary beads

/ Fran Haley / 23 Comments

a backwards story

Let them be a memento of the first day I came to see you and of God’s divine grace.

I shall keep them for you until such time that you can understand the story.

I picked them up, brought them home, and washed them. Never mind that we’re not Catholic, your father and grandfather being Baptist preachers.

Considering the significance of my visit, their appearing seemed a rare and holy thing.

A set of rosary beads, right there in the parking lot, with no one else in sight. Perhaps meant for a child, as the beads are plastic, mostly bright blue, with six orange, three green, and a little white crucifix.

When I left the hospital to head home, the rain had ended. The sun sparkled on the wet pavement. My heart danced with the beauty of the day, of the whole world. I stepped gingerly around puddled water shimmering with rainbow swirls, and that’s when I saw it.

Grandparents and grandchildren are a special gift to each other, especially if many years together are granted. Time to love, to live all our own stories, to always be close ’til you’re all grown up and I must go… this is my prayer.

I sat in a chair and your dad placed you in my arms. Joy and awe flooded my very soul…my cup runneth over, and over. I could have held you forever and it wouldn’t have been enough.

And there you were…so little, so perfect…I’d cried when your dad texted the first photos on the previous day. Now, seeing you with my own eyes, I could hear my grandmother’s voice, her narrative: You looked just like a little angel. And that’s exactly how you looked to me, my beautiful Micah. A heavenly being sent straight from the hands of almighty God.

Down came a gentle rainfall, spattering the windshield as I flew to the hospital that morning…once I answered the COVID questions and passed the temperature check upon arriving, I was allowed to go the room.

The end of October is a lovely time of year here in North Carolina, when the sky takes on sapphire hues. I wore a light raincoat because the meterologists predicted sprinkling.

I had to wait until the day after you were born to come see you.

You came during the pandemic. The world struggled with masks and distancing. The hospital limited visitors to two a day…and your dad counted as one.

My grandmother loved to tell me the story of my birth. I shall love telling you yours.

Me holding Micah for the first time.

*******
Composed for Day 9 of the Slice of Life Story Challenge with Two Writing Teachers

Serene senryu

/ Fran Haley / 18 Comments

For peace at day’s end
speak little; hold your truths close.
Let sleeping dogs lie.

My granddaughter, Scout, with Dennis the dachshund during a sleepover.

Senryu is Japanese poetry of three lines and 17 morae (syllables), usually arranged 5-7-5, similar to haiku. Traditional haiku is focused on nature, whereas senryu reveals something about the nature of humans in a lively, funny (often “punny”), dark, or ironic way.

Seemed a symbolic way to capture this serene Slice of Life scene.

*******

Composed for Day 8 of the Slice of Life Story Writing Challenge with Two Writing Teachers

Koala life lessons

/ Fran Haley / 14 Comments

One of my earliest memories is sitting on my grandmother’s lap while she read to me. I recall several of those old books, a favorite being the story of a koala.

I don’t know what happened to the original book, but a few years ago I found a vintage copy online and ordered it.

First of all, check out the 1968 price: 49¢. And secondly…yeah, koalas aren’t bears. Many a year passed before I realized this.

I loved Kobo the koala who sings to himself in rhyme and the story of what happens when he grows tired of living in trees, eating only “leaves for breakfast and leaves for dinner. It’s a wonder to me I’m not getting thinner.”

Kobo decides he will find a new home. Off he saunters (the vocabulary is so rich) for quite an adventure.

He encounters a platypus, another animal I loved at first sight. Kobo meets a number of other creatures: a kangaroo, a kookaburra, and Dingo, the wild dog who chases him back to his tree. Kobo learns in the end that his tree is exactly what he needs; he would not be happy living like the other creatures or having to eat what they do.

This is where Kobo belongs.

So all my life I’ve known where koalas live and what they need to eat…here is what I’ve learned about them in recent years:

They have fingerprints like humans.

They are the only living (extant) member the family Phascolarctidae.

Koala comes from indigenous language meaning “no-drink” or “no-water,” for these animals don’t drink much due to their exclusive eucalyptus-leaf diet. To see one drinking water isn’t a good sign.

In the times of drought and fires destroying their habitat, koalas have approached humans, begging for water.

Koala numbers are in decline due to deforestation, brushfires, vehicles, and yes…dogs.

In some parts of their eastern Australia home koalas are considered endangered.

I can’t help thinking how Kobo’s story would be so different, written today…he couldn’t return home if home is gone.

Of course koalas aren’t alone in this. I see it here on the other side of the world, with more and more land being cleared for neighborhoods. Not so long ago a white-spotted fawn came running through the yard to crash into my house, hard enough to dent the siding and leave a little patch of blood, before pivoting on its gangly legs and streaking back across the lawn to the woods. I never knew what became of it or its mother.

Then there are trees themselves, living things that actually communicate and work together to survive, until they are gone.

And then there are people. Refugees. Borders. Wars. One cannot go home when home is gone…

And children, so needing that sense of belonging…for our childhoods follow us all of our lives.

I suppose that was what was in my mind when I saw the stuffed koala at the store the other day and bought it to keep at my house for my granddaughters to play with when they come. Memories of my own grandmother. The books. The love. The sense of being wanted, valued, sheltered.

Micah, sixteen months old, immediately noticed it sitting atop the toybox in the living room on her next visit. Her face lit up. She toddled over to the koala, picked it up, and hugged it close. “Baby,” she said. “Baby.”

She is a baby herself.

But she already knows something about caring.

Kobo himself might say it’s the beginning of finding the way home, before too much is lost.

Mother and Child. jimbowen0306. CC BY 2.0.

********

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the monthlong Slice of Life Story Challenge

and to Kobo the Koala Bear, written by Marjory Schwaljé, illustrated by Katherine Sampson

and to Grandma, for all the reading
and belonging

Herself

/ Fran Haley / 10 Comments

an acrostic

Her style is uniquely her own:
Everyday, all day, wear a coat.
Refuse to let it be removed.
Shoe, one of her favorite words.
Eyes full of determination—
Let’s go, people! I’ve got places to be.
Franna’s favorite fashionista.

My precious Micah, 16 months, being herself.

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the monthlong Slice of Life Story Challenge

Eleven months

/ Fran Haley / 2 Comments

At eleven months
you have two bottom teeth
and one coming in at the top
—you sometimes like
(shiver)
scraping them together

you blow kisses
usually to
the dogs
(you do love
a dog)

you wave hi and bye
after thinking about it
for a minute

you hide your eyes to play
Where’s Micah?
There she is!

you look so like
your dad
when he was this age

and like your Franna
you’re a girl
who loves a hat

My beautiful Micah at eleven months

Hummingbird observations

/ Fran Haley / 14 Comments

It all started last month when I saw one hummingbird in the backyard, out by the pines.

She appeared from nowhere, hovering stock-still in the air across the yard, directly facing my son and me as if to consider what manner of beings we are before she darted away—poof. Perhaps it’s just my overactive imagination, but I felt like some sort of message was in this magical appearing. Something the bird wanted…

I bought a feeder.

In a day or so, I had a bird. Or two.

Then there seemed to be three. All females.

Eventually a male showed up with his gorgeous fiery throat. From a distance he looked like a flying ember. He preferred coming early in the morning or around suppertime. It’s almost like His Tiny Royal Highness was letting his Royal Nectar-Tasters go before him to be sure the stuff wasn’t tainted. I cannot say, however, that he was any match for the females in regard to which was most vicious in the dive-bomber approach of driving all others away from the sugar water.

Hummingbirds are contentious creatures. Terribly territorial.

I’ve learned there’s a scientific reason for this: Their metabolism requires them to feed almost constantly. Hummingbird hearts have been recorded, I read, at 1200 beats per minute.

I bought another feeder.

As of mid-August, there’s a squadron of hummers at my feeders, so much so that the original feeder hanging on the kitchen window has to be refilled daily; I had to buy more sugar. I know that ruby-throats (the only kind of hummingbird that breeds in the eastern U.S.) are supposed to start migrating to central Mexico. The males go first, in early August, which explains their current scarcity, I think. Females wait a while longer. I’ve also read that some hummingbirds stay in residence all year. We shall see… I have learned to recognize some individual females by their different markings: one with black speckles all down her pale breast and belly, one with a pure ivory belly and a brighter, iridescent green back, one with a darker head, one with a lighter head and pale stripe on top, and one with a precious, tiny dot of red at her throat, like a lady bedecked in a ruby pendant. When I opened the blinds one morning last week, there was Little Ruby, hovering in the gray dawn; we were so startled by each other that we both froze for a split second in mutual awe (wonder on my part, likely fear on hers) before she zipped away.

At this point I must mention my grandmother. Hummingbirds and cardinals were her favorite birds, perfect symbolism for a woman named Ruby. I saw my first hummingbird by the spirea bushes in her yard one summer. The loud buzz of the beating wings alarmed me—was this a big bug coming after me?—but Grandma Ruby’s childlike delight quickly allayed my fear. And then there was nothing but enchantment for this tiny, dazzling fairy of a creature, glittering like an emerald, my own birthstone, in the sun.

Perhaps that is why I took my six-year-old granddaughter out with refilled feeders yesterday:

The hummingbirds hide in the crape myrtle and cheep at me whenever I take their feeders down.

They do? Why, Franna?

They just want their nectar. They are saying ‘What are you doing with my food!‘

I haven’t ever heard them cheeping.

Today you will.

And so, for just a moment, I held the favored window feeder out at arm’s length as my granddaughter stood by, very still. Two hummers appeared instantaneously, cheeping competitively before hovering, suspended in the air, eyeing me, uncertain, their whirring wings as loud as electric propeller fans. Each took a tentative drink before whizzing off to the pines out back.

I hung the feeder and my granddaughter said, Quick, let’s go in before all those wings come back!

I chuckled, remembering my first experience with the intimidating sound when I was about her age. We darted for the door. As we entered the house, she said: I heard them cheeping!

And then, before I could reply: Franna, look!

She pointed to the window, where a hummer was perched on the very top of the feeder.

Well, that is something new, I said. I haven’t seen any of them sitting up there before.

My husband, sitting at the kitchen table preparing a sermon, said: That bird was perched on the feeder hanger the whole time you were fixing the sugar water.

I am sure she was one of the two who dared to take a drink when I was holding the feeder.

For the rest of the day, this little bird perched, fed, flew off in skirmishes with other tiny feathered Amazons, and returned. Whenever I looked at the window, she was there, looking in, occasionally fluffing her feathers. I am not sure if she’s nominated herself Queen of This Feeder or if she’s simply curious—hummingbirds are known to be extremely so—and is watching me as I play with my granddaughters and cook supper.

I suppose the ultimate question is who’s observing whom.

And what we are learning about each other in the process.

Didn’t realize, until I reviewed the day’s photos, that I happened to catch her with her tongue extruded. Every minute with hummingbirds filled with absolute wonder. I have christened her Lilibet, the nickname of Queen Elizabeth (since she seems to be reigning over the feeder) and also in honor of my great-aunt Elizabeth, Grandma Ruby’s sister. I wrote about Aunt Elizabeth’s hummingbirds a couple of weeks ago: Solitary existence.

Next goals: 1) Get a good photo of Little Ruby and 2) Invest in hummingbird feeder rings for my granddaughter and me to wear…can we stand still enough for them to come drink from our hands? Will they actually do it?

*******

with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the weekly Slice of Life Story Challenge