Family

Charlie

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A name like Charlie carries with it a lot of weight.

Ten years ago in Paris, a different kind of Charlie made headlines. The blood ran from employees of the magazine Charlie Hebdo, attacked due to the intolerance of French-born Algerian brothers Saïd Kouachi and Chérif Kouachi. The satirical cartoons published by the magazine were considered offensive against Islam. People died because others were offended.

Countries like ours that not only believe in the importance and value of free speech, but have embedded that value into America’s laws and founding principles, must continue to protect it. There are those who seek to silence others through fear or intimidation. Like the Kouachi brothers. And like the assassin of another Charlie, here in our own country, an assassin who thought he could end the conversation.

That assassin, an American-born, self indulgent narcissist whose ego got the best of him, cut down Charlie Kirk on a university campus in Utah. Charlie was doing what he loved — interacting with young people who might have a different opinion than his — when the assassin’s bullet ripped through his throat. But that bullet didn’t silence Charlie, it only awakened his disciples.

The misguided assassin who took Charlie’s life, whose actions left a wife and children without a husband and father, was wrong. Neither vengeance nor violence ever wins. And fame is fleeting for a murderer. The assassin’s message gets lost in the grief of a nation, while Charlie’s voice lives on forever.

Failure to Thrive

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When I heard that my grandfather had died, the news did not surprise me. Granddaddy had slowed down for months. Whenever I visited my grandparents’ house, he was always sitting in the same, faded overstuffed chair near the front door, his spindly legs propped up on a gray ottoman. My grandmother, who everyone called Next Mama, would bring him a cup of coffee or a sandwich during the day. He got up with her help when he needed to visit the restroom, but mostly he read the Bible a lot in those last months.

Born into a Jewish family in Kentucky, Grandaddy was not very religious throughout most of his life. He must have started to worry that God would punish him if he didn’t come back around. He had married a Protestant woman, so some in his family were not happy about that. Yet his wife Mary Hayes hailed from a long line of famous Virginians, so how could his parents complain? Their three children were raised Christians and Next Mama took them to church regularly. Granddaddy stayed home on Sundays, escaping the noise of child’s play.

The day Granddaddy died, he was not at the little house on Beverly Avenue in Jacksonville, Florida, where the couple had lived since 1955, the house that their son Joe had purchased for them. Nor was Grandaddy seated in the faded, overstuffed chair. His Bible was not on the table next to him.

My younger sister Stephanie, 11, and I were playing a rousing game of bound-ball in the street in front of our house. It was nearly Christmas, but Florida was still hot and steamy. We finished several rounds and decided to go inside to quench our thirst. I was winning, so had no concerns about ending the game for the day. At 13, the real competition for me came in racing my sister to the front door. We both laughed at one another as we ran, our faces flushed with play. I arrived first and placed my right hand on the brass door handle, one of those fancy kind that you have to push your thumb down hard on the latch to open the door. My mother had special ordered it when my parents built their dream house on Whitman Street in 1960. As I was about to shove the door open, laughing and pushing my sister out of the way so that I could enter first, the dark red door appeared to open magically by itself. Standing on the opposite side of our gaiety was Next Mama.

“He’s gone,” our grandmother blurted out matter of factly, shaking her head. “Your granddaddy’s gone.” Her face motionless, void of passion, Next Mama stood there looking at us for a few seconds, then turned and walked back into the house.

The handle still resting in my hand as I half hid behind the door, I looked over at Stephanie who stood frozen just behind me. We stared at one another for what seemed an eternity before we tiptoed into the house without a word. Our cheeks still reddened from the impromptu race, we made our way down the main hallway past Mom and Dad’s bedroom and toward the kitchen. I turned my head to the left as I passed the open bedroom door and saw someone lying in my parents’ California king-sized bed. Too afraid to ask questions, we quickly moved past the bedroom doorway. My shoe slipped on the linoleum floor and I caught myself on the open shelves that separated the hallway from the kitchen. My mother’s collection of Hummel® figurines had populated those shelves for years. I could only imagine the punishment if I were to break one. Mom stood in the kitchen wiping her eyes with a tissue, then used it to blow her nose. I could tell she had been crying for a while.

“Go say goodbye to your granddaddy,” Mom commanded between sniffles. “He’s in our bedroom. He died just a little bit ago.”

I had never seen a dead person. One of our kittens was killed once when Mom accidentally backed the car over it. She didn’t know the kitten was under the wheel seeking shelter from the rain. Watching its once vibrant body turn lifeless was devastating. Then there was the time that Lady, our blond cocker spaniel, gave birth to ten beautiful puppies and they all died. We never knew what caused that tragedy, but my dad buried all the puppies in the backyard. Lady tried to dig them up.

Seeing my grandfather dead was totally different. I mean, he was a person, a living, breathing person who sat at the dinner table with us and walked us to the Five and Dime store and taught us lessons about life. Granddaddy was someone I loved.

Stephanie and I both folded our hands together and held them up close to our chests as though we were about to pray.

“You go first,” Stephanie whispered as she poked my arm. I looked at her, my eyebrows furrowed, and said, “Chicken.”

Mom’s eyes were still filled with tears. She sat down at the cluttered kitchen desk, an extension of the counter-top, a space built for sitting and planning menus. She took the yellow wall phone off its rocker, fingered the pages of her telephone directory and began dialing. The sound of each spin of the rotary dial, one number after another, told me that she was making a long distance call. The arduous process of informing others had begun.

I began my slow walk back down the hall toward my parents’ bedroom, my sister just behind me. As I got closer to the door, I could hear Next Mama’s soft whimpering and the sound of my older sister Anita, 16, speaking in low tones. I was glad Anita was there. She was level headed and would help Mom and Next Mama with all that lie ahead. Not only would they have to inform countless family and friends, but they had to notify authorities, call a funeral home to pick up Granddaddy’s body, make arrangements for a burial, order flowers, plan a reception. Then my parents would have to deal with the fact that Mom’s father had died in their bed.

But at this moment, they just had to grieve.

When I arrived at the bedroom doorway, I could see that the curtains were drawn. Next Mama was standing at the foot of the bed. Anita had gently positioned her arms around her grandmother’s shoulders. Granddaddy’s eyelids were shut. His cheeks already appeared ashen and he lay so very still. He looked like he was taking a nap. Yet nothing about him suggested the man I had known growing up — gone was the twinkle in his eye, the soft smile, the gentleman’s hat that he had always tipped to ladies who walked past him. His cane was propped in the corner of the room; it was the last day he would ever use it. I remembered fetching it for him once when he needed help. I searched around looking for his Bible.

“Did Granddaddy have his Bible when he died?” I asked in a low voice. Anita shook her head no. Next Mama’s head moved back and forth, as well, but more as a kind of disbelief than a response to my question.

“I know he was thinking about those words he read, though,” I said to offer some comfort to Next Mama. “He loved what the Bible said. He used to quote it to us all the time.”

Grandaddy’s family roots were in Germany. His father Levi and his two uncles Silas and Karl had immigrated to the United States as young men in the 1870s, leaving behind sisters Pauline, Bertha and Lena to continue the family’s German heritage. The brothers were adventurous and entrepreneurial, making their way from New York City to the South where they opened a general store in the small town of Olive Hill, Kentucky. Some of Levi’s children remained true to their Jewish faith. Others, like my grandfather, married Christian women. America was different from Germany and mixed faith marriages were more readily accepted. My mother had told me stories about her German cousins, the descendants of Levi’s sisters. Most of them had perished in the 1940s in concentration camps. Mother kept in touch with the only survivor she knew, Clara, who lived because of the kindness of a stranger in Amsterdam. I was reminded of those stories as I watched Grandaddy lie in my parents’ bed, his soul now drifted away from his body. I felt lucky that my great-grandfather had chosen to take a boat to America. Grandaddy’s death was so much more peaceful than the German side of his family had experienced during the Holocaust. His passing was still painful, nonetheless. Painful for those of us who loved him.

I could no longer bear to look at Grandaddy’s body. I knew I would never forget what it looked like. I knew that some day, I would look like that, too. Most teenagers think little about death since everything is ahead of them in life. That day, I was reminded that life is not forever, but that faith and love are everlasting.

Thanksgiving 2023

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The planned menu started out great. A simple Thanksgiving dinner to share with friends.

We decided to serve:

◦ Mimosas & cheese platter with crackers

◦ Oyster Stuffing

◦ Steamed green beans

◦ Mashed potatoes with skins

◦ Cranberry sauce

◦ Turkey – 13.26 lbs.

◦ Gravy

◦ Tossed salad

◦ Baguette + butter

◦ Pinot Noir

◦ Pecan pie with vanilla ice cream

The real Thanksgiving dinner was harder to create than we expected…

Wednesday…

The day before Thanksgiving, my husband Khalid agreed to help me with the menu preparations. I needed help chopping vegetables and retrieving heavy items from the cabinet. I dislocated my shoulder a month ago and am still not operating at 100 percent.

I asked Khalid to get the sugar canister down as I needed it for the cranberry sauce. I keep it on the second shelf of an upper cabinet. He reached for it and I could tell something was going awry. I begged him to move other things out of the way first, or perhaps use a step stool, but he was stubborn and proceeded as usual. As he pulled the canister filled with five pounds of sugar toward him, the lid popped off and showered him, the shelves, countertop, floor, even the tiny crevices on the cabinet doors with sugar. For the next 20 minutes, as our feet crunched around on sugar, we cleaned up sticky crystals from the cabinet shelf to the floor to the counters to below the trash compactor to even the small ledges on the cabinet doors and the folding door for the bread storage hideaway. The sugary mess just added to our prep work. Sigh.

Cleaning up sugar distracted me, thus, I allowed my cranberries to boil over leaving a sugary cranberry juice mess hardening to a smooth candy-like skating rink glistening on the stove top. One more difficult cleanup job.

Wednesday night, we unwrapped our fresh turkey and prepped it for brining overnight, plucking out any stray remaining feathers and washing, salting and thanking it for gracing our table. We carried it downstairs to our second refrigerator which had more space and poured the brine water over it there. Not one drop spilled as Khalid lifted the heavy pan onto the upper shelf of the refrigerator. Finally, after a quick kitchen cleanup, we could get some sleep.

Thursday…

On Thanksgiving day, I awakened with a severe foot cramp, no doubt from standing on our wooden floors in the kitchen all day. Not a great way to begin the holiday. Thankfully, I had dill pickles at the ready since they work well to diminish a cramp.

I awakened Khalid to help me with making the various dishes we had planned to serve. Our guests were due to arrive at 5 pm and there was still a lot to accomplish. We lay in bed another 15 minutes just talking about the day to come and then I finally got up to face the day.

Out of bed yet still in my nightgown, I started moving Christmas wrapping paper out of the kitchen. The last week or so, ribbons and tissue paper and smiling Santas had taken over our kitchen and dining room as I feverishly wrapped gifts to send family and friends.

I noticed my phone and had a missed call from Kate. She left a Thanksgiving greeting. There were also Thanksgiving texts from Stephanie, David and Dalila. As I read and responded to texts, my phone rang— Anita was calling to wish us a Happy Thanksgiving. We spoke briefly of pies and Aunt Sara. Then I was once again focused on my cooking and cleaning.

Khalid eventually got up to start on his assigned tasks, but not before sipping his usual cup of coffee and munching a peanut butter smeared croissant. He cleaned a pile of Russet potatoes for mashing, leaving skins on as he prefers them. He snapped green beans and chopped onion and celery for the stuffing.

The big menu item was the turkey! My dislocated shoulder still limits my range of motion. I can’t carry anything as large as a 13.25 lb. turkey, especially when it’s in a large pan sloshing around in a bag filled with 12 cups of brining liquid. Khalid managed to carry the heavy pan laden with sloshing brine and turkey from the downstairs refrigerator to the bottom of the stairs, but then the stairs proved daunting. So I took one side of the pan with my good arm and he took the other side, and we sloshed up the stairs to the kitchen without disaster. Whew!

But wait … we still had to dump the brining liquid into the sink and get the turkey prepped for roasting. Fortunately that occurred without incident.

I turned on the oven to heat to the required temperature.

We had done the math and knew how long our turkey needed to bake. I melted butter and mixed it with the seasonings, then gently brushed the hot liquid all over the turkey, making sure to cover every nook and cranny on the big bird’s body. Khalid assisted me in trussing the turkey, leaving both of us with buttery hands.

The oven was ready. We washed the butter from our hands. All looked well to put the turkey in the oven where it would roast until it was ready for its next basting. I couldn’t lift the pan due to the turkey’s weight, so Khalid carried it from the counter adjacent to the sink over to the counter in front of the oven in preparation. I opened the oven door and felt the heat flow out. The temperature was perfect for the big bird. Khalid again picked up the heavy pan, but this time our beautiful, buttered and brined turkey suddenly slid out of the pan and onto our wooden kitchen floor. With one hand, he swooped up the buttery turkey and plopped it back into the pan and into the waiting oven. The look on his face was one of pure terror. He started cleaning up butter and assuring me that all was well.

What had just happened? I stood there in disbelief.

It appeared that Khalid had grabbed one side of the pan with its normal handle and then accidentally grabbed the wrong handle on the other side — the one attached to the rack upon which the turkey sat. So when he picked up what he thought were the pan’s handles, one side fell free releasing our buttery turkey to fly through the air and land itself and all that buttery sauce on the floor, cabinets, oven door, drawers and anything else within a certain radius of the flying bird.

The good news is that our guests never knew.

Khalid and I cleaned up butter for the next half hour. Khalid was worried that he would face my wrath. I could see it on his face as he mopped the floor. I suppose I was still in shock, but suddenly I burst into laughter and I couldn’t stop giggling. Our Thanksgiving turkey had just ended up on the floor.

When Khalid saw me doubled over in laughter, he was at first perplexed, but then relieved. It truly was one of those unforgettable moments that will remain forever a part of our Thanksgiving lore. It reminded me of the scene in the movie “A Christmas Story” when dogs come in and eat the freshly roasted turkey and the family ends up eating at a Chinese restaurant.

The year when my mother had surgery, my father roasted his first turkey with the bag of giblets left inside. I have told that true Thanksgiving story many times. This year’s flying buttered turkey story will be retold, as well.

In between all the cooking and cleaning up sugar and butter messes, I kept checking up on my senior cat Gypsy who has now lost control of her bowels. She often misses the litter box in favor of the floor, or if I am lucky, she used the pee pads I put down in the mudroom where I keep her. I can’t trust her to wander the house freely anymore. Poor thing is skin and bones, but still hungry and begging for food. Her thyroid condition requires medicine in her ears twice daily. Despite my focus on cooking on Thanksgiving day, I still had to care for Gypsy.

As if that wasn’t enough, the dining room was still filled with Christmas wrapping paper that got moved just prior to our guests’ arrival and, with Khalid’s help, a fresh tablecloth added to the table with plates and silverware set just in the nick of time.

Khalid had told me that our two young guests would arrive at 5 pm; yet he told them to come at 4 pm. So when the doorbell rang earlier than expected, I was still in my nightgown just about ready to shower and dress. Khalid was downstairs about to step into the shower himself.

Sparky started barking, her usual alert to me when someone is at the door. I ran to my room to don a robe and opened the door to welcome our guests, apologizing for my inappropriate attire. We all laughed at the miscommunication. Khalid heard their voices and wandered up the stairs … himself not yet showered or shaved … and entertained our guests while I showered and dressed. Then we switched places and I continued cooking while he got ready.

Despite the arrival time mixup, our evening progressed well serving Mimosas and cheese as appetizers. Our young guests helped chop things as I continued to cook.

The oyster stuffing still had to be made. My recipe called for cornbread which I didn’t have, so I substituted regular stuffing cubes.

I asked Khalid to carve the turkey, another interesting experience. I assumed he would be skilled in that task, but he cut huge hunks of meat, a whole leg on the platter, a huge hunk of breast … instead of neat slices. As he carved, he’d stop to gobble down some of the meat, caveman style. The turkey tasted great anyway, nice and moist despite all its trauma.

We finally sat down at the table an hour past the planned 6 pm dinner time.

Khalid’s mashed potatoes were great, skin and all. The turkey was juicy. Cranberry sauce was perfect. Green beans were amazingly simple and delicious with no seasoning whatsoever. The oyster dressing was yummy even without cornbread. My pecan pie was a frozen one I had purchased, but it tasted great topped with Breyer’s vanilla ice cream. No one wanted coffee, so we chatted over dessert until our guests departed.

After they left, Khalid found his way to the couch and stretched out. I released the cats and dog from their laundry room prison and then plopped down in the chair next to him. In minutes, he was snoring. Our cat Buddy wanted to jump in my lap, so I got up to change clothes back into my nightgown given that I didn’t want cat fur on my nice dress. I sat down again in my nightgown, finished my glass of Pinot Noir, and released a sigh of relief. Thanksgiving was over for another year. But not quite. A messy kitchen awaited me. Pans needed to go in the dishwasher. My good china and silver required handwashing. Leftovers needed to be repackaged and refrigerated for tomorrow’s soup.

The day was a reminder of how thankful I am to have a loving husband, friends and family who care, and a good sense of humor.

Mask

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Another year, pages

Of smiling faces, family members

Arms wrapped around shoulders

Hugs so tight you can’t breathe

Of better times when we laughed, ate cake

Together

When Uncle Jim would play Santa

And Aunt Wilma forgot tags on gifts

Slippery ice made walking paths dangerous

Between cabins warmed by gathered crowds 

sipping cocktails or beer

Together

Popcorn strings a merry substitute

For the finer tree décor back home

No lights except those we imagined

But no one cared because

We were happy to be there

Together

In an alpine setting far from town

Smoke billowed from our chimneys

Leaving just enough room for a sleigh

The sound of carols filled the kitchen

Joyous and merry on the outside

Together

A name drawn from a red cap

Decided who would go next 

To choose a gift to open

From the annual exchange

Of unknown donors

Together

Merrymaking clarified life then

Created a mask of perfection

Family, love and joyous times

Reason to live, reason to sing

Because we were

Together

What became of the laughter

Can only be surmised by time

Hardships of life

People disappear from the photos

Year after year, no more

Together

Busy lives lost in a tv screen

Talking to no one and everyone

With hopes of notoriety 

Influential words that no one 

Reads or wants to

Together

Impossible flights to nowhere

Century storms keep us alone

Destined to never repeat

What is obvious in those pages

Of smiling faces, family members

Together


—Victoria Emmons, ©2022

A Prayer for Cold Feet

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Do not set foot
into a black limousine.
A ride through empty streets
makes the dream real.

No pretend toe tag,
coroner’s signature required.
Son rescues a wedding ring
from a burial far too deep.

Well-placed calls to
sisters, brothers and daughters.
Search for an American flag
to drape across a wooden coffin.

Images of sixty-some years
pasted to a display board
filled with silly grins
at milestone occasions.

Give me a handkerchief,
please. Be there for me,
you, a witness to
love, family, legacy.

Write your name in a book
to remember celebrants
for a friend, father, grandpa,
brother, husband, lover.

Shoe pinches my toe
with each step toward
sympathetic arms outstretched,
pinches my heart.

If the shoe hurts
I don’t have to wear it.
Allow me, dear Lord,
to live with cold feet.

—Victoria Emmons, © 2017
For Karen

Mostly Me

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Frankly it was summer
and hot.
Air wouldn’t move
and fences were blocked
so no one could enter
even if you didn’t
want to go inside.

I did. I wanted to see
what his world had been like,
all hundred or more years of it.
There he was, a stone general
frozen in thought
astride a white mount
blackened by time.

The pressure
weighed upon him,
I am sure of it.
Please the family,
children need bread,
a new nation cannot breathe
without a leader.

Easy enough to live
on a peaceful farm,
ignore the critics
and haters,
ones who shame
into leadership
those who might win.

Oh, cousin, why did
we fight to defend
a way of life
gone for the ages,
too radical
for our time,
but not yours.

Conflict need come
to an end, they say,
no war between us
or remains of vast
valleys full of blood,
soldiers no more,
only crosses on a hill.

You watch from atop
your loyal stead
new soldiers who
never learned history,
nor learned from it,
mistakes made and
lives lost, teach anew.

They do not listen,
nor will they know
that you remain a leader
teaching lessons from your day,
remind them of wrongs
gone by, not wiped away,
remembered for a reason.

Dear cousin, show them
from your Traveler’s perch
so no one will forget,
that our battles
from home to home,
brother to brother
must surely end.

–Victoria Emmons, 2017

Resurrection 

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I feel the warmth of your arms surround me
as years wash away, a long moment of grief
expressed in a hug too tight for a child,
a man without a father.

History powerful enough to tear down
walls of time belies reason.
A sepia photograph reminds of
bygone youth, shared play,
picnics at the zoo.

Sadness and joy clash on this day,
memories well up in your eyes and mine.
Tales to tell, remembrances, laughter and love.
Shrimp, crayfish and oysters
on the table before us.

Thundering rain upon heavy limbs
laden with green resurrection ferns.
A damp night of conversation and thoughtful
stories, but no campfire.

Spring awaits summer, hot and sticky,
sweat follows the length of your temples,
beads on your forehead.
Love beats in your heart.
Family swells in your mind.

A homecoming of sorts, we gather to mourn,
remark the change in lines on our faces,
spill our absent lives into one another’s.
Four score years should not pass
before shared warmth.

Believing the other will always exist,
somewhere in the annals of our history,
part of the natural order of our universe,
a comfort zone to our souls,
does not make it so.

Create a pact, dear ones.
Share more of life in
years to come.
Let’s not wait for
the next family funeral.

—Victoria Emmons, May 2017

For cousins

Passing

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The invisible line is cast across the river,
across the canyon, or the ages, obstacles
that find us as we travel dusty roads, always
searching, forever unsure. Pleasure in
windblown branches hobbled against the slant
of a craggy mountain, predicted to lose,
yet they blossom, somehow gaining strength
from light and the occasional storm.

Rain is approaching current location
and is expected within thirty minutes.

The line reaches out, centuries compelled
to forge a lineage unbroken. The invisible line.
Our heritage. We cannot see them, nor they us.
Mere black and white images painted by the
hand of a craftsman or a Brownie Instamatic.
They smile or laugh, more often
furrow brows within the frames of their lives.
History recorded in a frown, perhaps too serious
the thought of the invisible line.

Rain is falling now.

The burden remains. Casting the line is all
too frightening, creates a link in a chain that
cannot be undone. Populate. Procreate. Pass.
The cycle begs for renewal. And so we perform.
In our innocence and duty, the people perform,
create the invisible line that stretches from
one generation to another. The line sends all
our oneness to the next and the next,
on down the line.

The wind blows harder.

Never an end of the line, just a passing
of the wonderment of life, love, creation,
knowledge, laughter, responsibility, inspiration,
thoughtfulness, caring, tolerance, joy, simplicity.
Never an end. Always a new beginning.
The invisible line is not broken, merely
reflected in the crystal blue eyes of a child,
the exploration of a scientific discovery,
the digital painting of a sorrowful face.

Black clouds ahead.

Cast your line. An ocean awaits. Sandy shores
reside amongst the clouds, no matter their color
or shape. The line must be cast. Too late for
indecision. Stretch out your heart to the next
in line. Leave your trace of glory to be retold
in story after story. The blessed line.
Follow it and find the softest space in Heaven,
find those who climbed in before you.

Rain clearing by tomorrow morning.

–Victoria Emmons, May 2017

for Uncle Jim

The First Time

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The first time
I saw my own eyes
staring out from
behind your sweet face,
a mirror of self-love
unencumbered by years
of doubt, sweat, tears.

That first time,
the only time
I saw you
before she took
you away
to a better life.

–Victoria Emmons, 2017

Dedicated to all the mothers 
who had to give up their children.

Benched

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Resting on a makeshift
bench, stair steps to a porch
where imagination thrives.

In bounds. Our court, a driveway
whose lines dictate where
we can dribble, run and play.

Out of bounds. I teach you
the difference so you’ll know.

Too small to reach the hoop now,
some day you’ll make it look easy.

Tall and strong, smart and strategic
you are, my lad.

Bounce the ball to your teammate.
Keep defenders at bay. Run.
Breathe. Rest. Do it again.

Our basketball rolls into the snow,
wet, muddy and needing new air.
We play anyway in our
imaginary March Madness.

–Victoria Emmons, 2017

Dedication: This one is for you, Alex.