Of all sad words of tongue or pen,

Ah, The Mystery of Life

 A week or so ago, I tried to print my literary masterpiece from 
CHAT GPT. I could read the brilliant words but the print feature did not work. This morning the floor by the printer is rife with pages---all those that did not print last week. An embarrassment of riches...

"The saints and poets, maybe ." Answer to Question from "Our Town"

 Does anyone understand the value of life while they live it?  Emily Webb chose to relive an ordinary day in her life after she had died. She chose her 12th birthday to revisit the past. 

  I can't exactly recall all the events from an earlier day in my past life, but this is an approximation:

  It's a warm summer day and I've driven the kids to my mother's house in the village. The back yard is like a plaza, life abounds. My mother is there and Helen and foster girls, and family next door. There is a well-used old porch swing beneath the cherry tree in the little flower garden. My mother might have been working in the garden before sitting down to rest for a while. Helen would have been watching what  the kids were doing, carefully but non-judgmentally supervising the play of the five young cousins. There was an abundance of animals, including not only dogs and cats, but chickens, rabbits, a sheep, and even ponies. The smell of homemade tomato sauce may have permeated the air. 

  After visiting for a while, I decide to take my youngest child for a walk upstreet. The stroller is kept there at the house, a newly purchased item in orange and yellow; the other strollers worn out now and discarded, after several years of being no longer needed. I pass the Valley Inn. The doors are ajar, windows open and unseen voices call out as we pass by. I smile and wave, and keep walking. Near the corner on the other side of the street, Gloria is standing and I'm sure gossiping with Bonnie and maybe Julie. We exchange greetings and keep on with our journey. When we get to the duplex house, formerly Griggs's, Emma is sitting on her front porch, joined by Sharon who lives in the other part of the house. We say hello, but Emma, as usual, wants to hold the baby. So we visit for a while. As we leave, Alma is sitting on her porch across the street and calls for me to come over, to talk for a while. She comments on the baby's hair, which I've combed in a curl on top of his head. She says she used to fix her son's hair that same way. As we cross back over to "our side" of the street, Sharon calls out, asking to join our walk. She has undergone a recent tragic accident with her husband and needs to get out of the house for  a while. So she joins us on our stroll, in pleasant and ordinary conversation.

   My memory of this resurrected day does not include the homeward path, but that does not detract from the atmosphere of the day. I'm not sure that even saints or poets could have foreseen the value of such an ordinary day.

While Still In Bloom

 

From the Archives: A Solution

     Our youngest child had somewhat of a speech delay, and then a stutter. He didn't want to have to struggle to speak and would seek out his sister, grab her hand and take her to wherever it was that he wanted, and point to it. She was always willing to help him. My mother felt for him; she said when he wanted to speak when he was at her house, he would use his fingers to try to move his mouth into a position so he could talk. We were ready to enroll him in Colleen's Pre-school , and I had informed her of his problem, and she was willing to accept him as he was. I had brought the matter to the attention of his pediatrician , and he suggested speech therapy. I was reluctant, aware of the recently released movie, Ordinary People, and guilt was in the offing. 

   Then a miracle happened in the persona of singer Mel Tillis, a gifted vocalist who stuttered. He was a guest on a late night talk show, and Tillis confided that the only time he did not stutter was when he sang. The host asked him why  that  was and Tillis said that when he sang he didn't hear his voice, as he did when he talked. Listening to that explanation, I had an epiphany. Why not have my stuttering child whisper?  Then he wouldn't hear his own voice either. Not a scientific conclusion perhaps, but worth a try.  AND IT WORKED.