Pappa

A wise person once said that when you lose a child you lose your future.  When you lose your parents you lose your past.  That fact was brought home to me vividly when my mother suffered a stroke that left her with the mind of a six year old.  She could always make the most wonderful meals out of practically nothing, and when all supplies ran low, she used to make us a dessert she called butter roll.  It was simply biscuit dough, butter, sugar, and nutmeg.  She made the biscuit dough then rolled it out with her rolling pen, swattered it totally and completely with homemade butter, added sugar to the top of that, and then finished it all off with a sprinkling of nutmeg.  She rolled the dough up and cut it in little pinwheels and then layered it in an oven proof dish, to which she added enough water with just a touch of vanilla to cover the tops of the little rolls.  Most people who made butter roll used cinnamon, but I remembered Mama's was different because she used nutmeg, and the warm rich smell coming from her oven was not to be duplicated any where.
I have tried and tried to make it like she did and yet I can't ever get it quite right.  I asked her once after she came home from the hospital how she did it and what I was doing wrong and she looked at me with a vacant look in her eyes and said she didn't know.  My heart hurt and I realized a window had closed on me.  A window into the past.  One I did not even fully appreciate had been open until it slammed shut in my face.
So here we are today, my husband and I.  So far we have lost three of our four parents.  We only have one left and he is almost eighty two years old.  And to be eighty two, I must say he is remarkable.  He totters sometimes when he walks and if he is walking very far, his left foot goes to the left and his right foot to the right.  He has trouble stooping down or looking straight up, and his gait is much slower than in days past. His energy is a fraction of what it was yesteryear when he spent the long hot days of summer lifting and hauling soft drinks onto and off of a huge drink truck, but he still grows a garden and shares it's bounty with all his family and friends.  His mind is sharp and his memory bright, something to be extremely thankful for, for even if the body is slowing and suffering the effects of age, as long as the mind is working that person is still with us. 
I've heard it said that old age is not for sissies and I totally believe this.  King Solomon admonished the young  to do all they were able to do in their youth because the days would arrive when they would say they had no delight in them.  And you have to admire the courage and fortitude of those who can survive the death of a beloved child or the devastating effects of Alzheimer's when it cruelly takes away the memory of a beloved spouse.  It reminds me of the story of the old man who showed up for breakfast every morning at one particular restaurant for ten years.  One morning the waitress who usually waited on him asked him what he did every day for the last decade and he replied he went to see his wife of fifty years.  She was in a nursing home and had been for several years, suffering from Alzheimer's.  She no longer recognized him but he still went to visit her.  "Why do you go when she doesn't know you", the young waitress asked?  "I go because I still know her," he replied.  Pappa goes every day, usually twice a day, at lunch and dinner, to make sure she eats.  She can no longer feed herself, so he sees to it that she doesn't go hungry.
Such is the man who bears responsibility for the life of my husband.  And how can I not have deep affection for him, for so many of the qualities I love and admire in my husband were qualities he inherited from his father.  Such as a deep ingrained determination to always be honest and truthful.  A total inability to ever lie or be deliberately deceitful.  Even if they knew the consequences of telling the truth would result in pain or loss to them, they would both still tell you the truth.   They might not answer you but they would not tell you a lie.
Sometimes when you marry into a family you feel at a loss as to what to call your in laws.  Dad or daddy just didn't sound right, pop was to short, and Pa Pa was reserved for the grand kids.  So I settled on Pappa.  It was a combination of pop and Pa Pa and it just seemed right.  On a recent visit to Pinson Mounds the lady at the reception desk asked where we were from.  I told her my husband and I were from Memphis and Pappa was from Jackson.  She asked me how long my daddy had lived in Jackson and I didn't correct her.  After all, he did belong to me too.  I inherited him when I married his son.
So now we spend some of our precious time together digging up the past, visiting graveyards to see where grandparents and great grandparents are buried, revisiting the old home place where Pappa spend his youth.  The old house has long ago gone back to the elements, but the red oak barn his father built is still standing.  Part of it has been damaged by a tree that fell on it, but the most of the structure is still there.  Afternoons spent 'digging up bones'.  While that window is still open, taking advantage of the time left to take a long hard look into the past.