#MarchWritingChallenge – Day 2 – Do you have any irrational fears?

golden gate bridge

This March Writing Challenge of thirty-one questions is hosted by Marquessa, with questions from Alexandra Franzen‘s “100 questions to spark conversation and connect.

All are welcome to join in and a list of the questions can be found here.

~~~

Where do I start? 😀

Suspension bridges.

I can barely ride over them without throwing up. Driving over them is out of the question!

As a passenger, my anxiety kicks in the second I see the bridge. All sound dissolves into white noise and I’m frozen in place. My sister swears I passed out crossing the Mississippi River on the way to a family reunion, but I’m not sure if that’s true. I have no memory of it. 😀

Fun fact – I may have nearly killed my family during a trip to my older brother’s in Delaware.

Okay, it’s not a fun fact, it’s true.

It was my turn to drive, giving my parents a break. Mom and I were laughing at the crazy songs my five younger siblings were singing, and Daddy was just irritated. LOL!

I saw the bridge spires in the distance to my right, but no big deal, right. The bridge was next to me, not in front of me. I didn’t have to drive over it, right? Because roads never curve, right?

Fifteen minutes later. I realized the highway was curving toward the bridge.

I was seventeen, but had been driving a couple years, and was a good driver. (I had the Drivers’ Ed trophy to prove it!)

I quickly assessed the situation. Clicking my turn indicator, I glanced over my right shoulder… and yelled, “MOVE!” as I veered across four lanes of traffic.

It was only Grace that saved me from causing a major accident. My next memory though is still Mom prying my fingers from the steering wheel, and my sibs doing what sibs do… laughing at me!

And Daddy? Oh man! I think he created new swear words that day! 😀 😀 😀

~~~

san francisco

I also fear hilly streets. A fear I didn’t know I had until my late husband and I road-tripped from Pasadena to San Francisco while still newlyweds. He was born in Frisco and raised in Berkeley and was excited to show me his city.

Though I had limited knowledge of the area, I’d read enough books based in Frisco and seen enough TV shows and movies to know the area was hilly. Not to mention Steve McQueen’s Bullitt was a huge favorite of the mister’s.

Experiencing it was a different story.

The streets felt like one long roller-coaster ride… which I also fear!

I thought I’d braved the worst after crossing the Golden Gate Bridge—no, I wasn’t driving—but after turning onto dozens of streets that declined in near ninety-degree angles, I’d had enough and refused to leave the hotel. My poor husband took pity on me and found shows and sites within walking distance of the hotel (no hills).

Don’t give him too much credit, though. Over the years, when we’d fuss and squabble, he’d always through out a, “Watch yourself. Don’t make me take you back to Frisco!” 😀 😀 😀

I really miss that man! ❤ 🙂

~~~

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

Image by Erik Larson from Pixabay

~~~

#MarchWritingChallenge – Day 1 – What’s the best compliment you’ve ever received?

orchid in vase

This March Writing Challenge of thirty-one questions is hosted by Marquessa, with questions from Alexandra Franzen‘s “100 questions to spark conversation and connect.

All are welcome to join in and a list of the questions can be found here.

~~~

Days before her death, my fellow church member and neighbor, Sister Prather, squeezed my hand and said, “God doesn’t make mistakes, and I’m grateful for my sons, but Felicia, I dearly wish I’d had a daughter like you.”

Her words can still bring tears to my eyes. Sister Prather was one of the two people I’d known in my life I’d considered perfect.

Of course, no one is, but Thelma Prather (and my maternal grandmother) were as close as one can get in my mind.

I’d never heard her gossip or say a mean word about anyone. I’d never seen her in a bad mood or even cranky. She not only always had a shy smile on her face, but she also appeared to always be filled with joy.

And I couldn’t understand it.

Married to a man of considerable means, Sister Prather lived as a pauper. Her husband could afford to buy her almost any house in the city and furnish it well. However, entering their home, it was like time stopped in the 1940s. Always neat and tidy, the dated threadbare rugs and furniture were impossible to miss.

A hard, verbally abusive man who was wheelchair-bound, the veteran and former local businessman refused to do anything to make his wife’s life easier. Not even buy her a washer and dryer. It wasn’t until a few weeks before her last hospitalization and the pain from bone cancer became too great, that she’d even allow my children to sneak to her back door for her laundry and return it after I’d completed it.

Two days after our last conversation, Sister Prather’s conditioned worsened. She could no longer sit up or respond verbally, but she was quite aware. When staff would try to spoon-feed her, she’d press her lips together and no amount of pleading or cajoling could get her to eat. My mom was present and witnessed the single shake of her head when her doctor said they’d have to tube-feed her.

She died quietly in her sleep two days later, on her own terms.

Weeks later, still prone to tears over the loss of my dear friend, it was Mom who gave me clarity.

“Thelma Prather was one of those rare people who didn’t judge others by their words or actions because she could see through to their heart. She knew her husband loved her, but losing the use of his legs made him bitter and he took it out on the world. He wanted everyone to suffer as he felt he was. She also didn’t fault her family for losing touch because they all feared him. But she didn’t.”

That made me grin, thinking of the woman who didn’t reach five feet in height and weighed one hundred pounds on a good day not fearing her six-foot-five husband, wheelchair or not.

“She knew you didn’t fear him either and she loved it. She told me you were always respectful, but you were going to do what you wanted for her, whether he liked it or not. That tickled her to no end.”

In the twenty years since her passing, I’ve learned the wisdom in Sister Prather’s example of living. A woman of faith, she refused to allow hate to take up any space in her heart… to steal her joy. She “did unto to others as she would have them do unto her” and was unbothered if they didn’t reciprocate.

I’m no Thelma Prather and will always fall short of her example, but I’m forever humbled by this amazing woman who saw something in me I don’t see in myself.

~~~

Image by Maja Cvetojević from Pixabay

~~~

Thank you, Daddy! #ReadwithMe

I feel as though I’ve been reading all my life. While I come close to the mark, I’m still a few years short.

I was reading on my own before my fifth birthday. My father taught me. The memories of this are even more special to me because my father was a functional illiterate.

Born in June of 1914, daddy had to quit school three years after he began to help work the fields of his sharecropping grandparents. Having a natural curiosity about the world, daddy always wanted to return to the classroom, but it wasn’t meant to be. Formal education simply wasn’t a priority for most people in rural Mississippi in those times, and definitely not for African-Americans.

My father taught himself many things over the years, but reading wasn’t one of them. By the time World War II began he was already a married man with a family. Being a good provider meant everything to men like my father, and work was always the priority. Again, in those times, learning was discouraged for African-Americans and ‘making their mark’ on legal documents sufficed.

His first marriage ended in divorce, and by this time, my father’s lack of reading skills embarrassed him. He wanted to better himself and have more in life. While searching for someone to help him, a friend introduced him to her sister – my mother.

Despite the differences in their ages (he in his 40s, she in her 20s), my parents’ friendly dating soon led to marriage. Daddy readily admitted to hiding the extent of his inability to read from my mother, and she admits to taking it for granted that he could. Doesn’t everyone know how to read?

Needless to say, by the time mom did find out – class was in session! Working fourteen to sixteen hours a day left little time for reading practice, but by the time I was born three years later, daddy had more than mastered the basics. I can first remember sounding out words with him…from the sports page! Daddy was a baseball fanatic and loved being able to read the team stories and standings for himself, so that was my first learning material.

As each of my younger siblings came along, daddy was a man on a mission. He demanded our best effort in everything we did, but reading and spelling were the priorities, and the first subjects he looked at on our report cards. Daddy wore the biggest grin when my fourth-grade teacher suggested he take me to the public library because I was already reading the sixth-grade books from the school’s small library.

My lifelong love affair with reading continued through school and into marriage and parenthood. My husband reads, but he’s one of those leisurely readers. I can devour six books by the time he finishes one. We read to our three children (and made up stories and songs) and they all entered school reading.

During their school years, I was involved in parent leadership and PTA and never passed up an opportunity to emphasize to parents how important reading to children AND having them read aloud was. I shared my love of reading also by volunteering with literacy programs for children and adults and reading to residents in nursing homes.

That’s how important reading is to me.

Perhaps it’s because I started reading so young, or maybe it’s the materials I choose to read…but probably not. I know it’s important to me because it’s the single greatest gift my father ever gave me. It was something he spent half his life striving for and once he got it – he gave it to me.

Even now, more than fifty years later, when I come to the end of an especially good book, I close my eyes, smile, and say, “Thank you, daddy.”

GIVEAWAY!
During the month of March, four random commenters – one each week – will win ebooks copies of some of my favorite books from authors like Toni Morrison, Terry Dean, and Walter Mosley!

March is National Reading Month and I invite you to #ReadwithMe by sharing a story about your love of reading.

Click on the Linky Tools link below to share a post from your blog/website about reading! (New browser opens) The join links are open until March 31st. Beginning April 1st, no more links can be added, but the Linky Tool and the links posted to it will remain active indefinitely!

Powered by Linky Tools

Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list…