It's like I told somebody else recently, Sandra, it's thanks to all those little diaries -- the ones with lock and key -- that I kept getting for Christmas. They are full of little reminders.
Like this:
"Today I went to gether milkweed with Aunt Bett. She tole me to leave them pods alone cause they make a mess.
I put them in my overall pockets when she wasn't looking. She tole me a story about the war. I don't want to be in a war.
Pepper went with us. I gave her my bacon for dinner and Aunt Bett tole me I would go hungry."
It's those little things that bring stories to mind. Mostly what this one brought to mind was that I forgot and left a pod or two in my pocket and Mom put those overalls in the washer with all the dark clothes. The pods of course came apart and you can imagine all those little fluffy seeds scattering through the dark clothes in the wash. I spent most of a day with my head and arm down in the washer cleaning it out, not to mention picking them off every one of those wet clothes.
Little things like the messages in the diaries help me remember. And when I do remember, I can hear her voice, or that of Granny Ninna, just as clear as a bell.
It's like the day when I saw the bloom of a chicory plant along the side of a dusty one lane road just a few years ago. I hadn't seen chicory in years but I could hear Aunt Bett saying, "This here's chikry , chile. We'll gether the roots an' dry 'em fer coffee."
(My spell check goes nuts when I write her words!)
