Rolling along the highway with Journey’s “Faithfully” cranked up, Shandy reminisced about her life with her beloved husband, now gone to the other side and Shandy on her way to a new life.
“Wheels go round and round, you’re on my mind…” The player kept her company and her memories rolled with each bit of rubber pressing the pavement.
Pulled over to a truck stop, Shandy pumped her tank full of gas, then went inside to get a hot meal and find out the best motel around, for her budget.
With the drawl of a true southerner, Belle, the waitress, looked Shandy over with a glance, and responded to Shandy’s inquiry about a motel, “honey you best mosey on down ‘bout an hour from here, there’s a nice town and you can safely stay there at the Motel Merrion and tell Merry that Belle said hello.”
“Thanks Belle, I’m grateful for people like you, looking out for my safety, and, well, I sure appreciate your concern, it’s a journey I need to take and it’s nice to know I am safe to go it alone, with people like you who care.”
This is my response to the Six Sentence Story and the Prompt Word “Journey.” Go Check it Out!
Shandy sat on the couch, pondering what she was to do with her life after her husband passed away. She had always been focused on him and their son and the idea of doing anything different for herself was foreign. In a way, she was puzzled over what was even missing in her life. She had been a loving, supportive wife and mother, by all the ways she cared for her family. By any means, she decided one thing for certain, she had to find out if she really liked who she was and then decide if this also meant she felt self-love. She got up off the couch, ventured out for a hike, and decided to do what made her smile, knowing this would lead to one thing, in theory, that all components of a happy life for her needed to be explored, then she would know what truly fed her soul.
And this is my Six Sentence Story for the week. Come and share yours HERE
Excited to be getting tickets, Shandy gave Clarabelle a call, “hi Clair, I’m ordering rodeo tickets and wonder if you’d like to go with me?”
“Oh, Shandy, I haven’t been to the rodeo in years, Herbie and I used to go, but after he passed, I guess I just lost interest, but, hmm, maybe it’s time for me to think about going again; Okay, let’s go.”
“Yea, I am so happy to hear that. When Gerald was younger, we used to take a vacation every so often during rodeo time, and there are such sweet memories of my son and husband in their rodeo duds, oh they were so cute.”
“Well, I won’t be wearing a hat or spurs, but I will be there with a good spirit, ready to make new memories, thank you for asking me, I wouldn’t have thought about going if it weren’t for you.”
“Hey, ladybug, we are a team and they have not been so blessed as to have these two fine women to grace the stands, so yee-haw, here we go to the rodeo,” and Shandy could hear Clarabelle chuckling on the other end of the line.
…..
The rodeo is an annual tradition in Fort Madison, Iowa, just about 30 miles from Shandy and Clarabelle’s story location. You can read about it at Tri-State-Rodeo We attended many years ago and it was a lot of fun.
Clarabelle and Shandy got in the habit of going to thrift shops on Shandy’s day off from work, looking forward to the many bargains, often spending time just looking and reminiscing about this and that. “Oh my goodness, Clair, look at his kaleidoscope, it is just like the one I bought Gerald when he was a child, and he loved it so much, he even researched about how they are made and spent a lot of his quiet time looking through the scope, eventually it became a thing, where for gifts we would buy him a new one, until he had quite the collection.”
“Oh, that is so nice, I love that he had such enthusiasm, no doubt your support helped, by getting him new ones to explore and encouraging his doing research, you are such a dedicated mother.”
“He made it easy for me to be his mother, as he always has had that sense of adventure, always looking for the workings behind things, and I think he will do well in whatever he finally decides to do with his education, but there’s this one thing that really sticks in my mind about the kaleidoscopes, something he said, and it really stayed with me.”
“What is that dear?”
“He said, mom, have you ever noticed that a kaleidoscope has such a variety of colors, shapes, and sizes and that makes me think of the world, and how we are all different, but working together, it makes a beautiful thing, this life, it is just amazing.”
And there you have it! This is my Six Sentence Story and you can do one too. Just go to Girlie on the Edge and check it out!
This is my Six Sentence Story, a continuation about Clarabelle and Shandy, which has been a running story for a few weeks. I have not decided if this is the end, but I will see what happens as the week goes by. Perhaps the other story members will call out to me and ask me to tell more about them. Thanks to Denise for putting up with my attempt at serializing this story and for being less than concise. Yes, I push those six sentences to the limit, guilty as charged. So, are you thinking you want to join Denise’s Six Sentence Story blog hop? Well, hop to it by going to this LINK
*****
The Strength of Hope and Faith
Shandy continued with her story about he husband, away, serving in Vietnam, “Clair, I was so religious about writing to Marcus and it would be spurts where I didn’t hear from him, before I would be several letters in one day, so it was just the way it was where he was serving, he was on the front lines and I couldn’t really expect instant letters every day,” Shandy paused, starting to tear up, Clarabelle reached over and patted her hand, and poured another cup of tea for Shandy, “and then the letters slowed down, real slow, sometimes for weeks, and I got really worried that there was something wrong, and then I got a letter from him that there was a bad storm and it was more than difficult to get letters out, so he was okay and, well, I was surely relieved, a lot of the letters he had ready to mail, ended up in a mess of mud and they pretty much had to plow through all the muck to get to a clear path, so those were long gone.”
“Oh, my dear girl, that must have been quite the ordeal for you, as I remember how it was for my family, it sure could be hard to get those letters back and forth, I suppose wars have a way about making it hard, too bad there was no easy way to make a phone call.”
“That’s just the thing, Clair, I did get a phone call from Marcus, he sounded so distraught, and said that he had to take some time to sort things out, and in the meantime, he was put on medic assistance duty, so he could clear his head, although, I will tell you that in a war zone, it’s hard to clear your head in a medical camp, so it was hard for him, but he took to the work, and he did so well with it that they kept him there for the duration, so, you see, that worked out; and when he came back home he decided to pursue medicine and went to school for emergency medical technician training, not really wanting to be a doctor, but an emergency worker, since he found out that was where he did his best work,” pausing to catch her breath, Shandy sipped her tea before continuing, “while Marcus studied, I worked as a waitress, because I was good at it and was not ready to consider going to school or start a family, not until he was solid with his job, so I was able to bring in a lot of tips, because that’s where waitresses make their real money, and we managed well, even if it was tight, but we had our love and it all worked out.”
“That’s an adventure you have had with learning to be patient and survive what must have been one of the most difficult times of your life and look how you came through with helping your husband do well and pursue his goals, for the best of both of you.”
“Thank you, Clair, it was nice, like a real-life honeymoon in a way as we just worked well together, like a team, so after he graduated and was working full-time, I was able to think about my own goals, and that was when I got pregnant, not really planned, but not unwanted either, so there I was pregnant and that’s when things changed, and not for the better, mind you, and I finally got it out of him about his experiences in Vietnam and things he saw, and how he was afraid he would not be a good father; of which I assured him that such a kind soul could be nothing less than a great dad; but he started pulling back, became less affectionate and the nightmares he had were more frequent, they were always about something to do with the war, and I was so afraid for him, knowing it must have been painful to see things and not forget, but I was always there for him, no matter what, and we gradually worked on things with a counselor, I mean, he was invested, for sure, and the counselor helped us get past these things, and when we had our little boy, he was the best father to him, always careful with handling him, and affectionate, like all his worries went away,” pausing for a tissue, the wells of pain flooded and Shandy shook, trembling and collapsed in Clair’s arms, eventually, with the comfort of Clair, Shandy was able to go on, “Marcus was the best father to our son, Gerald, and loved him until his last days, as, Marcus had a heart attack while he was working on a run and he did not make it, and it turned out he may have had a heart condition, but at that point, we just knew that he was gone and Gerald and I carried on, as best as we could, Gerald was 19 when his father passed away and he is doing well with college, but when he decided to go away to school, I decided I needed to get away from all the memories and moved to Iowa, so while the war did not ruin us, life had another plan, and I rely on the presence of his spirit to keep Marcus alive, but, to tell you the honest truth, I just could not longer live in a town where we made many happy memories, so just like my dad live after he lost mom, I moved.”
“Sweetheart, life surely does turn things around unexpectedly, but it looks like you are a get on up and get to it kind of person, look at how you have done with your life, you serve others, you are compassionate, you have a strength which is calm, yet mighty, and I certainly do understand the desire to move to new memories, as I had to do similar when I lost Herbie, I could no longer live in the house we made into a home, so I made a move to an apartment, and now, my dear Shandy, I have a beautiful, inside and out, friend, and we are not that much different, just in age, but not much different in clarity, we will plow through life and find that at the end of the road, is a heap of heap of muck, but that muck is what we have to go through to find the treasures.”
As a teacher, I will always remain a student. In the classroom of life, l wish to work with and educate others. Whether you’re a teacher, student, or just your average person, here are a few of my "TEACHERble" moments.
Hi! my name is Sebastian (You can call me Seb!) ...welcome to my Blog. I'm a photographer from Worcester, Worcestershire, England. Thanks for dropping by! I hope you enjoy my work.
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