There Goes the Neighborhood

Imagine being a good farm wife and having a perfect little tidy farmhouse in the middle of nowhere and enjoying quiet evenings with cattle bawling and occasionally the hum of a tractor working ground in the distance.  

Then imagine a couple, her grandson and new wife, building a house just down the road and upending everything.  Great grandchild after great grandchild after great grandchild after great grandchild being born and learning to adjust over the years to a steady stream of curious, filthy and often hungry neighbors landing on your porch any time between sunrise and sunset.  

I will miss the way morning chores that should have taken 30 minutes turned into hours as 'Can we just stop by Grandma Curry's?' each day.  I will miss the phone calls each evening 'Well, what do you know, dear?' .

I will miss some of those ridiculous things that once made me want to tear my hair out, like when she taught Kathryn that bonks and scrapes on her body would feel better if you rubbed Suave's wild cherry blossom scented lotion on them.  Kathryn would come inside from playing and absolutely REEK of the wild cherry blossom scent.  'Momma, I got a little bonk.  But it's okay because Grandma Curry put some medicine on it.' 

I will miss how each time I made cookies, or cheesy biscuits, or a host of other things the kids would fight over who got to carry the container over and who got to knock on the door and who got to actually hand the container to her.  Like mobsters, we felt obligated to give a cut of our sweets as tribute to our elders.  

I will miss her quizzing the kids about their livestock and listening to them answer her like the little 70 year old men that they are.  

I will miss dragging her out of the house and taking drives on backroads, listening to the stories of who used to live at each old homestead and who that person married and just how good of a basketball player their son was. 

I will miss hearing the same old stories that I've heard hundreds of times.  Thankfully I can almost recite most of them from memory at this point.  Ask me about the time Stanley had a procedure done and the doctor told him to take it easy so he went out on the dozer to do some dirt work and didn't come home until after dark.  Do it, I dare ya'.  I'll tell it to you just like I was there, because I've lived similar stories right alongside her, just 60 years apart.  I couldn't hardly tell her a story about my husband without watching her throw her hands up in the air and roll her eyes stating 'oh, yes, I know all about that.  Stanley used to be just like that, dear'. 

I now tear up each time I open the refrigerator and a cascade of these damn juice boxes she had delivered from the senior center come tumbling out.  I don't know what she really ate from those senior center meals because she was always calling to warn me 'I just sent home a little something with the kids, dear'.

I won't try to flatter myself and say we were best friends; she had a lady or two in town and they truly were joined at the hip most of their lives.  But I will miss my battle buddy, my comrade-in-arms, my confidant for over a decade that knew the sheer hell it can be at times to love a stubborn ass Curry man.  

I'm thankful our children had a home away from home and someone to dote on them when their mother didn't take their injuries or injustices seriously enough.  

And I'm most thankful we never said goodbye.  Every conversation ended with 'Well, talk to you tomorrow' or 'see you later'.  So when things were going downhill and she was leaving our house I made sure to tell her one last time we'll see you later.