Friday Fictioneers…Missing

Recipe for a Friday Fictioneers story:

Take one photo.
Add some thought. (Amount is optional.)
Shake (or stir, James) to make 100 words.
Enjoy immoderately.

Serves one or more. No calories.

This week’s photo is from a Friday Fictioneers stalwart, Jennifer (ElmoWrites) Pendergast.  I’m sure it has a much happier memory than the story I derived from it.

Missing

I miss my dad.

He took us on hikes where we found green frogs and slithering snakes, taught us to swim and always splashed us, gave us piggyback rides, told us stories.

That was before he and Mom started fighting.
Before her bruises.
Before she fell down the steps and broke her arm.
Before he was gone.

Mom made a pile of stones, one for every year he’s been gone. That’s where I go over the good times so I don’t forget them. Or him.

Mom said it’s a place I can remember Dad.

They remind me of a headstone.

December 7th

My mom was born on this day 84 years ago.  I’m sure her birthday in 1941 wasn’t the best birthday she ever had.  That day was the beginning of suffering for many Americans, including those Japanese-Americans who were interned unjustly and for so long.

Although war isn’t pleasant to think about, we need to remember and to teach our children what happened and why, as best we can.  This short video serves both to honor those who fell at Pearl Harbor and as a simple reminder.

Friday Fictioneers–Lavender Blue

How many years does it take for children’s songs to fade from your brain?  The answer seems to be an infinite number, so choose those songs carefully!  Our girls loved Sharon, Lois, and Bram and one of the songs they sang comes from Burl Ives and before him from folk song history.  It’s called “Lavender Blue” and the lyrics and lovely melody SL&B sang have been in my head all these years.  It inspired the title of this week’s story.

If you’re new to Friday Fictioneers, each week on Wednesday, a number of addicted writers wait with great anticipation for the photo prompt selected by our hostess-with-the-most-ess, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields.  We then cudgel our brains a/o wait for the muse to strike us (hard), then craft our stories for the week with the best hundred words we can choose.  If you’d like read more stories, click on the little blue guy at the end of my story, sit back, and enjoy. Feel free to “like” and comment too. We writers love interaction with our readers. And if you’d like to join, the door’s always open.

 

copyright Sandra Cook

Lavender Blue

Lavender perfumes the patio where we linger over déjeuner with local wine, basking in the sun, relishing food chosen at the village market.

Once children are gone, it’s time to move on.  We took “move” literally, leaving the town where we’d lived and had a child.  Choosing Provence had been easy, finding the house more difficult. This house attracted us with its quirky sculpture. It remains a now-bearable reminder of the tricycle David was riding when the drunk driver’s car jumped the curb, hitting him as he joyously wheeled along the sidewalk.

Lavender perfumes the urn tucked in the garden.

.

*********************

Lavender Blue
(Sharon, Lois and Bram)

 Lavender’s blue
Dilly dilly
Lavender’s green
If I were king
Dilly dilly
You’d be my queen

Who told you so
Dilly dilly
Who told you so
I told myself
Dilly dilly
I told me so

Funeral haka

On my husband’s birthday, I posted a video of the haka the New Zealand All-Blacks perform prior to a rugby game to psych up, as well as intimidate their opponents, (https://sustainabilitea.wordpress.com/2012/03/01/thank-goodness-for-rugby).  It’s impressive and, yes, intimidating.

Autumn’s rose

God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December.
James M. Barrie