We were in the cemetery at Ratliff when I heard my first 13-year locust this year.
And yes, I know they are really cicadas. We had just had the funeral for my oldest sister, Linda, earlier that day. Jo and I wanted to stop by the cemetery on the way home to see the grave and check on mama and daddy’s graves, as well as look over all our other relatives. I was sort of surprised at how long some of them have been gone. Uncle Lloyd since the late 1980s. Daddy, 40 years ago, this year. Doesn’t seem possible.
Life is long and short all at once. But it’s the moments we remember later that are important — the events that become stories. There are things you laugh at or things that help you remember why some people are special to you.
Life is punctuated with moments. You wouldn’t want a skunk encounter every day. But once makes it a life.
I remember granddaughter Emily-Ann learning her left from right by holding out one hand and asking me if this was her right hand. I said it was. Then she said, “So this is my left?” I started to say, “right” but thought that might confuse her. So, I said she was correct. She paused a few seconds and asked, “What happens when I turn around?” I’m still pondering an answer.
The other night, Jo and I were going through our nightly ritual of me working the remote control trying to find a TV show, and Jo saying, “No. Not that.” Like a fool, I continued to click. I had tried giving Jo the remote one time and telling her to find something. It’s just a lot easier to do it the way nature intended — man with the remote, woman with the final say.
Anyway, in the middle of it all, granddaughter Taylor called. Taylor was nearly in tears, and Jo was trying to stifle a laugh. Taylor said she had just finished reading her devotion when husband, Michael, burst into the bedroom and said, “We got a problem!” Michael had let the dogs out before bedtime, and they ran up on a skunk. The skunk anointed them.
I was Googling what to do for skunk spray because I knew that tomato juice doesn’t work. Taylor was saying the smell isn’t anything like it smells when you just hit a skunk with your car. It is MUCH worse! (Jo can’t breathe now from laughing.) The dogs were in the garage. So, Jo asks Taylor, “Can’t you just go somewhere in the house where it doesn’t smell?”
“It smells EVERYWHERE,” was Taylor’s reply.
The conversation ended with Taylor mocking Michael’s sales pitch for their new house, “Let’s move to the country. It’s nice and quiet out there.” Jo was down for the count after that.
Life is punctuated with moments. You wouldn’t want a skunk encounter every day. But once makes it a life.
I wouldn’t want 13-year locust every year. But now and again makes them special.
