"Echoes of Eden" Dayle King Searle

When my mother’s father, Chet, was a young man courting my grandmother, Thora, he became very ill, and it was discovered he had contracted polio. This was in the 1920s, decades before the development of the polio vaccine, and a diagnosis of this disease was terrifying. Among its victims who survived, a high percentage were left crippled for life.                 Chet wrote a letter to Thora from his hospital bed, telling her to forget about him and find someone else. According to grandpa, as soon as Thora got the letter, she rushed to the hospital, threw her arms around him, and told him there was no other man for her. They were later married and had three children. Chet supported his family by farming. But his bout with polio did not leave him unscathed. From the time he left the hospital to the end of his life he wore metal braces on his legs and was only able to walk with the help of canes.    ...

Whenever my son Colby visits from college, he walks over to my father-in-law’s house to have breakfast and watch The Price Is Right with grandpa. A few months ago he said to me, “I want to go to The Price Is Right so that Grandpa can see me on TV if I get called down.”                 As a mother it is my natural instinct to want my children to be happy and successful and get pretty much everything they want. Grandpa is getting quite frail, so I knew if what Colby wanted to happen was going to happen, it needed to happen soon. And so I went online to check out the taping schedule for the game show and when my son’s college had spring break. Then last week, when those two things converged, I made my husband get in the car, pick up our son and his cute wife, and drive thirteen hours to Los Angeles for a taping of the show.

They say there are no atheists in foxholes. I have never been in a foxhole, but I have stood on the edge of a grave where the body of someone dear is about to be buried. And I have to wonder, are there any atheists at funerals?

     In going through old papers, I came across this essay I wrote years ago. Preston, who in the essay is said to be four-years-old, is now twenty-one. But the phlox plant still grows in my garden. Being the middle of winter, when flower gardens are only memories, it seemed appropriate to share other fond memories as well.

Each year as people speak of their favorite Christmas memories, my mind goes back to a Christmas in the late 1980s when our children were young and our budget tight. About two miles from our home and down a gravel country road, sitting beside our potato cellar were two trailers which housed our workers during the summer. That fall my husband, Ron, was approached by two families who wanted to rent those trailers to live in for the winter. Ron hesitated. The trailers were not normally occupied during the winter, and he wasn’t sure how well the furnaces worked or if they were insulated well enough to provide adequate shelter during our difficult winters. But the two families, who both had just recently come to the area, were so desperate that Ron finally agreed.

There are moments in life that can best be described as “golden.” Times when life feels perfect and all seems as it should be.

           I sprayed my lawn today, so it seemed like the perfect time to repost this article, which first appeared on my blog two years ago.            First let me make it perfectly clear that I love making dandelion chains as much as the next girl, and I've done my share of making a wish before blowing the fluff off a dandelion that has gone to seed. I find dandelions absolutely delightful in the right place. The right place just doesn't happen to be in my lawn.