She authors a blog called The Accidental Cootchie Mama so of course I love her. The more I read the more I understand that Andra’s talent goes far beyond catchy titles. She will make you think or laugh or dance or cry or (on particularly powerful days) do all four at once. In this Tiny Spark entry, the talented Andra Watkins uses her fresh way with words to tell a story of forgiveness, empathy, and two sea shells.
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It was an oyster shell, bleached white. I found it in a box on my aunt’s dresser, the day I showed up to retrieve a few pieces of furniture and cleaned out her whole house to earn them.
I wasn’t emotionally prepared to finger through a whole lifetime in an afternoon. Which clothes might she wear at the nursing home? Did she need her underwear? Why did she have a tiny snuff can in the back of her medicine cabinet? Where did she wear a delicate pair of cream colored gloves, a green pill box hat? Why did she fail to tell me she met Ronald Reagan?
With every revelation of every layer of her life, I stood between the gap of precious memory and piece of trash. Too often, I made the wrong choice. I threw away stories as I sifted through her collected record, stories I wish she’d told me.
Instead, she told me other things. When she could still think, her affection for me swung like a pendulum. One day, I was too loud. The next, I was her DAR heir apparent. We shopped together for hats, a mutual obsession. We fell out over the very furniture I took from her house that day.
Petty, perhaps.
Behind the petty argument that ended our relationship, something deeper festered. She never had children, and she regretted it.
As I may someday regret it.
I wish she could tell me the story of the oyster shell. I know it had one. Even as I pitched it into the garbage, I knew. It whispered remonstrances from wherever it landed. I always hear them when I cry.
For I have a shell, too.
I was on my honeymoon, driving white-knuckled on the wrong side of the road along the southern coast of Australia. As we skirted a peninsula, the Indian Ocean crashed into the shore.
It was my first time with that body of water.
We pulled into a lay-by and got out of the car. The gale tore at my hair when I walked to the edge and bent over to touch a new ocean. Another notch in my belt of experience.
When I stood, my husband handed me a bleached white shell. “I took your picture. The shell was next to you in the sand. I thought you’d like to keep it.”
Was the story of my aunt’s oyster shell similar to mine? I’ll never know. But, in the twilight of her life, I will paint her shell with the story of my own. I will forget the unforgivable things. I will choose to remember her as a person who made and appreciated beautiful things. I will imagine her, at the edge of some unknown sea, wearing a delicate pair of cream colored gloves and a green pill box hat, laughing as the wind whips through her hair.
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How do you choose to see those around you?
Can you empathize with someone who’s hurt you?
Upcoming Tiny Spark:
Friday, December 21st
Andra, your words always take m y breath away.
Tori, thank you again. These sparks are making a difficult month much better.
It feels like we need a GIANT HUGE spark right now, doesn’t it? The best we can do is share these tiny ones and hope they add up to a lot of light!
Thanks, Lisa. It was hard to write.
Beautiful, Andra. You make such pictures with words.
Thank you, Vicki.
simply lovely
Melissa, thank you for reading.
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As always you touch me with your words. Humbled.
Tori, I’m enjoying your “tiny sparks” which are lighting my soul in many different ways.
Lori, these have all been so different, but each woman has given me a gift with her words.
Thanks so much, Lori. It’s been a pretty enlightening experience getting to read about how differently we all struggle and some of the common threads of hope and light that seem to find us despite the differences.
Your heart is present in each word. A lovely gift today–thank you for this.
Thank you for the weekend, Cheryl.
I am loving this series! Andra is an amazing writer, her prose is lovely and this felt like it could have been the beginning of something bigger. So very lovely.
I have been hurt by folks I have loved in my life. I’ve always tried to leave the door open to forgiveness and understanding. It’s harder after they are gone.
I admire you for forgiving, Renee. If you have any tips on how to let go, please come back and share them.
Gorgeous! What a beautiful way to express the bittersweet. Your aunt certainly had some beautiful things…it is a shame you will never know their stories.
I can make them up, but it isn’t the same as knowing.
Nicely woven tale, Andra. Excellent pictures – both of them.
Thank you, Roger. Any time you compliment a picture, I walk a little taller the rest of the day.
I love dipping my toes in oceans around the world. Guess I am just shellfish….
Ha. Ha.
Oh, Andra. Such a gift to be able to see, acknowledge, and absorb the facets of those who’ve hurt us and loved us. As always, you draw out some thread of common experience from your own stories, and this case, your aunt’s. I’m new to Tori’s series, and I’ll have to bookmark it now, for further exploration.
You should do one of these, Cam. I have gotten so much out of reading them.
I have some old tools I’ve bought over the years. They aren’t very fancy, most lack any kind of rubber or plastic grips. They are old, and many were rust-covered when I pulled them from a heap at a garage sale. But each one is more precious to me than their weight in gold, for each one bears two small, simple words:
“Illinois Bell”.
My father and I are currently estranged – a LOT has gone on between us. But I value every moment I spent at his side growing up, helping him install wires, screw things together, and fix a hundred little things around our house. And every time I see those two little words, it shrinks the wall between us. Not permanently, and not enough for me to try to re-open the lines of communication – yet. But that cold steel in my hands brings warmth beyond measure.
The most important things are what you’ve done, Andra. Remember – and share. Shells disintegrate, steel rusts, but memories passed are immortal.
Beautifully written, my lady. Well done.
John, the thought that two words can shrink distances brought a tear. If it’s what you want, I hope you can find a way to have a relationship with your father again someday. Thank you for reading.
I hope so too, Andra. Stranger things have happened to me – like finding myself in a little no-horse town in Ohio.
Thanks!
Simply beautiful.. I read it twice
Dear Miss Rambling… Writing like this, is why I love her too.
Miss Rambling? I kind of dig it, Ted. I might just have to start going by that. Andra is a special writer. That’s for sure.
Such a beautiful post. For any relationship, it’s good to remember the good and forgive the unforgivable. I’m glad you were able to do this for your aunt.
Janna, it is a day-by-day thing, but that’s what life is, right?
After my great aunt died, I thought of hundreds of questions I should have asked . . . and didn’t.
Lovely write, Andra.
It’s hard to think of those questions when we’re doing the day-today shuffle, isn’t it?
Such a beautiful story. I very much felt this way as I went through my mother-in-law’s things after she passed. She was such a wonderful woman with so many stories, and all too often I was too busy to hear them. This really was very meaningful to read, Andra.
What a powerful entry. I blogged recently about old letter my mother found in my grandmother’s things… a gift to see pieces of her and my great aunt that we never knew.
I can empathisize with people who have hurt me, but it takes time and distance… I cannot do it when the hurt is raw.
It definitely takes time. I think we can’t really empathize when we’re in the angry stage of classifying villain and victim.
She probably wore the delicate gloves and pill box hat when she met Ronald Reagan. The ol’ guy would have appreciated her classic style, I’m sure.
Enjoyed reading. I refrained from having kids for various reasons. Nice picture. Sending holiday happiness your way.
Loved this, Andra. Common threads are what make life tolerable. Everyone has their dark side and their light side. We know they’re both there. We choose to focus on the light, is all.
Enjoyed the read. Thanks loads.
Beautiful. Although I do not have any seashells of my own, that sweet parting image is one I can apply to all those I have lost . . . and, indeed, already have.
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