The 2012 Andy Blog

This day comes around every year.  And every year I feel gut-shot or beat over the head as the memories of that day in 1996 come rolling back into focus.  But something is different about this year.  It struck me that he has been gone almost as long as he was here – 16 years.  No, it does not seem possible when so many of the memories are still fresh . . . but others are starting to dim no matter how hard I try to hold on to them desiring the clarity and comfort of that smiling face, that wonderful laugh, that aroma of his after shave (though most times it was applied without shaving).

A lot of my feelings this morning can be expressed in Fr. Abram Ryan’s poem about his brother who was killed in battle.  The title of the poem is Gone

Gone! And there’s not a gleam of you.

Faces that float into far away,
Gone! And we can only dream of you
Each as you fade like a star away,

Fade as a star in the sky from us,
Vainly we look for you light again;
Hear ye the sound of a sigh from us?
“Come” and our hearts will be bright again.

Come! and gaze on our face once more,

Bring us the smiles of the olden days –
Come! and shine in your place once more;
And, change the dark into golden days –

Gone! Gone! Gone! Joy has fled for us,
Gone into the night of the nevermore,
And darkness rests where you blessed us
A light we will miss for ever more.

Have I Learned the Family Secret, Nellie?

My maternal grandmother was Nellie K. Hussey . . . well, that’s partially correct.  Her tombstone reads: “Nellie K. Hussey; July 25, 1878 – April 2, 1959.”  As far as I knew while she was alive and while my mother’s generation was alive, her name was Nellie.  One time I asked my mother if Nellie was short for some other name.  Her answer was that Nellie was Nellie.  But after further grilling from me, she finally admitted that Nellie was not her given name but it’s the name on the death certificate and every legal document she ever signed, including her marriage license.  I always planned to explore this matter further but, by the time I got around to any serious study of family history, there was no one to ask. 

Several years ago, a friend’s wife, who does genealogical research professionally, volunteered to look into my family’s history.  She did far more work than I ever expected and I learned some very interesting things about my family.  One of the revelations was that Nellie’s given name was Margaret Ellen Kearney.  I love this name.  I think it is beautiful.  So, while one mystery was solved, another raised its head: why would she insist from the time she was a young girl that she be called Nellie?  There is just not a single clue in all the remaining family documents.  So while this is an interesting subject to me, there did not seem to be any answer this side of heaven.

Over the past few months I have been becoming acquainted with Father Abram J. Ryan, the Poet Priest of the South and the person for who my high school was named.  I am working my way through his collected poems while reading David O’Connell’s well researched biography.  The poems are incredible but not modern.  They are much more like Kipling’s in that most them rhythm in the classical sense and they tell a story.  I’m only a third of the way through the poems and my heart has been deeply touched – I’ve shed many a tear.  While reading the biography I came to the section when he first agreed to publishing a book containing his poems (he claims they are not good enough to merit the term poems and refers to them as “my simple verses.”)  While the majority of his poems have religious themes, the ones for which he is the most famous are the ones that lament the “Lost Cause.”  Ryan was born in Illinois and raised in St. Louis but his sympathies were with the South, not in defense of slavery but in defense of state’s rights. His poems were so popular in the south that many poems were required memorization for school children up until the late 1920’s.  When Ryan published his first edition of his collected poems in 1879, he felt that something was needed to “soften” the collected works so that the readers would not think that he was antagonistic against the North because many of his poems defended the Lost Cause.  A friend of his had won a poetry contest conducted by a Mobile newspaper and he asked her if he could include her poem “Reunited” in his collection.  She agreed and it has been part of his collection in every edition since.

My grandmother, Nellie, was surely exposed to Ryan’s poems as she progressed through school.  She finished high school and very soon began to teach in a one-room school house (grades 1 through 8) in Palmyra, Tennessee.  The friend of Ryan’s who wrote “Reunited” was named Margaret Ellen Henry Ruffin, but he knew her by her preferred name: Nellie Henry. 

I was only 9 years old when my grandmother had to be put in a nursing home because of the dementia she was suffering.  But I do remember how much she liked to read and how much she loved poetry.  Did she choose to be called Nellie because of her knowledge of Nellie Henry?  The final answer will have to wait but I certainly think it is possible and interesting.   

A Reflection on Being 65

When I was a kid I never thought I would be here.  In the late 1950’s my Dad was about 40.  During a stretch of a few years or so, he had three friends that died, all in their 40’s.  I remember how distressed he was and, at times, it seemed that he was wrapped up in thoughts about whether this was going to happen to him.  I got this notion in my mind that the way things worked were anytime after 40 the rules of life said that you could just drop dead.  So what I began to focus on was living to the ripe old age of 53!  If I could only live to see the new millennium I would be satisfied.  Well that milestone is past and so is the big “six-o” and here I am at the culturally created “retirement” age.  It was not that many years ago that people did not go to work the day after their 65^th birthday – they were finished with their work career and were ready to go fishing and play with grandchildren.  While I am certainly ready for those two activities, tomorrow morning, Lord willing, I will be sitting at my desk and I have plans to do so for several more years.

 My thoughts this morning, on the 65^th anniversary of my birth, run as follows:

I find myself more inclined to thank God for his blessings every day.  I don’t think this is directly associated with this birthday but with a more consistent prayer life.  Many of my blessings are directly associated with my wonderful family – I praise God for them every day.

I find that I still have many more things I want to do but I am finally starting to “grow up” and realize that, unless I live to be 130, there is not enough time to finish them all.  So, with a more mature attitude, I am sorting through dreams and deciding which ones can really go on my “bucket list” and which ones need to fade away.

I find myself more sure of God’s love for me than ever before – which leads to being able to trust him more completely.   Lately, I have been able to turn more and more of my problems (and my angst with life) over to him and say with those brothers and sisters I met in Africa “whatever the Lord does is right!”

I reflect more and more on the minefield of my life (most of it self-created) and see the hand of Providence carrying me over the most difficult areas.  While there are many, many things I would like to go back and fix, many words I wish had never escaped my lips, many hurtful deeds I mourn over, I know that God’s grace has been at work in all those situations and that he has provided healing.

I have a continuing regret that I have not been good at nurturing relationships.  Scotty Smith refers to this as being a “frozen man” and I think that is an excellent description.  This does not mean that I don’t like people – I do, I love people – but I find it hard to build intimate, lasting relationships.  It is my hope and prayer, that God continues to work on me in this area, to make me transparent to those who are close to me and, that by the time I leave this planet, I will have enough close friends to carry my bones.

I do have a goal for the rest of my life: I hope that I will be able to say before I die that Jesus is everything to me!