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​What Shape are You?
 
Over the years, my ninety-seven-year-old mother had gradually lost most of her hearing. Her speech deteriorated along with it. She ended up difficult to understand and sounding much like a croaking frog. Because of that, my granddaughters were afraid of her and often stood far off when they visited her. But three-year old Grandson Isaac would have none of it.
 
His mother, a hair stylist, often took him with her to nursing homes. If she perceived that an elderly person needed cheering up, she took Isaac to see them. It always made them happy to see a grinning little boy who reminded them of their own. One lady turned him into a chocoholic by giving him his first candy bar.
 
Wanting him to be able to express his affection, my daughter taught him to lean down and kiss the hand of elderly women. It kept him from giving or getting germs.
 
My mother became ill and went to the hospital. On Sunday, all of my children and their families went to visit her. With so many of us there at one time, my mother saddened us when she asked, "Am I dying?" We told her, “No" but that it wasn't often that one of my daughters was in town and everyone wanted to see her. With so many visitors, my mother soon tired and said she wanted to rest for a while; so we went to the waiting room.
 
Grandson Isaac got impatient in the waiting room and said, "Go see Great-Grammie". We told him that she was resting and that he would have to wait. He stomped his foot and repeated his demand. Then he marched out the door and around the corner to her room. His mother, afraid that he would get on the elevator, followed behind. She arrived at the door of my mother's room in time to see him kissing the blanket that covered her intubated hand.
 
My mother's condition didn't improve, and she died two weeks later. We wanted Isaac to go to the funeral home but were worried about it. He went with his mother to the viewing, looked at his Great-Grammie and summarily dismissed her with, "That's not Great-Grammie! That's a statue!" Then he turned and went to the back of the room.
 
Several months passed and we didn't mention her to him and did not look forward to him mentioning her to us.
 
One day, while sitting in his favorite Chinese restaurant, his mother told us that he had been comparing people to shapes. He said that she was a circle. She felt badly about it because she wondered if he thought she was a round blob. She said he compared their pastor to a star and his wife to a heart.
 
Much to our surprise, Isaac piped up with, "Great-Grammie is a diamond. She's in heaven and she's twenty-one years old!"
 
After we got over the initial shock, we believed what he had said then burst out laughing. Out of the mouths of babes....
 
What did he say I was? His mother was always giving me big hair so he said, "You are a hair monster!"

©Marilyn Francis Ferguson 2022
Photography/graphics by Michele Ferguson Schuck

​Fireworks in Ashville, Ohio
 
Probably everyone in Pickaway County knows about the fireworks in Ashville. I had never been there or to any fireworks until I was sixteen in the summer of 1954. My boyfriend invited me to go with him and his parents. They had a big Buick and planned to go and spend the day at the carnival-like shindig. It is hot in July in Ohio, so we spent the day eating carnival food then getting in and out of the car to rest and cool off.
 
In the evening we sat in the car in the shade under the trees talking. We had been together all day and we really did like one another. Waxing romantic, he said, “I’ll graduate in two years and then we can…..” I knew what he was going to say but I couldn’t let him say it. I interrupted him and said, “You can buy a car.” He was not happy! He said, “That is not what I was going to say.” I knew it wasn’t. I don’t know if I wasn’t ready to hear it or if it was prophetic.
 
We watched the fireworks while he held my hand as we stood under a tree. Every time a big firecracker was shot off, he unknowingly squeezed my hand. By the time the fireworks show was over, I realized that my hand had been held so tightly, it was almost numb.
 
And yes, that was as close to a proposal that we ever got. We broke up the next summer. 
 
And they call it puppy love….but it made for a memorable July 4th.
 
©Marilyn Francis Ferguson 2021
Photography/graphics by Michele Ferguson Schuck

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