Today, I received this picture from a relative and memories came flooding back. I felt like I could almost “see” the soul of my Grandmother, as well as my own soul, as I gazed at the picture.
Sykesville, Maryland.
December 2020, 📷: R. H.
In the picture, there was the front lawn. What I saw were mounds of autumn leaves 🍁 that I would rake up and then jump into. In the picture, the window at the very end of the house was visible. What I saw was my childhood bedroom with two twin beds, where my Grandma would rub Vick’s VapoRub on my chest before I went to sleep, at times when I had a cold. Through those bedroom walls I could see my Grandparents’ bedroom with their king size bed and the drawers where my Grandma kept her Elvis Presley memorabilia. The books — all that I would devour in the summers when I stayed there. I was definitely the most knowledgeable 8 year old on the subject of Elvis. Gladys, Vernon, Priscilla, Lisa Marie, Colonel Tom Parker, Graceland…I had read it all.
Then, through those walls to the backyard, past my Granddaddy’s manmade TeePee ⛺️ made out of chicken feed bags, to the chicken 🐓 coops. Ah, the chicken coops — the hens, the rooster, the fresh eggs 🥚, the pre-dawn walks my Grandma would make to those chicken coops to reach under those hens to retrieve the warmest of eggs. I’d eat some variation of eggs almost every morning when I stayed with her.
Feeling nostalgic this morning, I made a plate of my Grandma’s eggs. A reminder that our bodies may leave this world, but our spirits and our essences never depart from the hearts of the people who have loved us. People remain alive to us. Physical is just one form. Remember that. Good souls never die.