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Renee Butcher

Words & Pictures - Freshly Inked

Planting Bulbs

March 26, 2020 Leave a Comment

Daddy died in the quiet of the early morning on the last day of September. I was the last person to see him before he passed away. Before I left his hospital room that last night, while my mom waited out in the hall for me, I took a few minutes to sit and hold his hand and talk to him. He was only semi-conscious, and I don’t know how much he heard, but it made me feel better to say what I needed to say.

I didn’t know he was going to die that night (or, maybe I did) but I took the time to tell him that I loved him, and recalled for him some of our favorite shared memories.

I told Daddy that it had been a blessing and an honor to be his daughter, and that I was grateful for everything he had taught me. He taught so much. I told him that if he needed to go it was OK. No one else would tell him. My mom said she couldn’t, and I knew he needed to hear it. Then I squeezed his hand and I walked out the door.

It wasn’t until I was halfway out of the hospital that I remembered my first wedding day so many years before. Daddy and I got in such a hurry to get down the aisle that I forgot to give him a kiss, and when I remembered a few minutes into the ceremony, it nagged at me throughout the rest of the service. It was a silly oversight – no one else knew or cared, but the memory of that tiny lapse has turned me around so many times since – to give a last hug, or say a proper goodbye.

So this time, when I realized that I had forgotten to give my Daddy a kiss goodbye, I asked Mom to wait a second, and I hurried back, past the empty wheelchairs lining the hallway, past the late-night custodian, past the nurses’ station. When I opened the door to his room, he was sleeping soundly, so I tiptoed in, kissed him on the cheek, and left. Most likely, he never even knew that I was there again. But I knew. And when the hospital called at 5:20 a.m. to tell me that he was gone, one of my first thoughts was, I’m so glad I went back.

You never know how much one little moment will mean.

A number of years ago, a dear friend of mine wrote a touching essay about planting bulbs. In it, she drew a beautiful analogy between planting bulbs and raising our families: in both cases, we don’t get to see the results of our work right away, but if we are patient and have faith, we will create something beautiful, and it will continue to grow and bring us joy year after year after year.

I used to return to my father’s grave every year on the anniversary of his death. But one of the most important things Daddy taught me was to trust my inner voice – the one that makes me turn around, or say a word, or do what needs doing, or take the time. I haven’t always been very good at listening, but year by year, I get a little better.

A few years ago, I decided that this day needed to be set aside to look not to the past, but to the future. So today, instead of visiting the cemetery, I am kneeling at the edge of the grass in our front yard, planting bulbs with my daughters and my husband in the warm autumn dusk.

[September 2014]

Tulips Fields

Filed Under: Essays, Words Tagged With: grief, parenting

Ten Minutes in the Mirror

March 19, 2020 Leave a Comment

There was a time in my life when I considered it a luxury to stand in front of a mirror for more than five minutes to get ready for my day. I had a handful of young children running around the house back then, and there was so much to do. And I didn’t feel pretty.

Back then, I felt that it would be a luxury – an unnecessary one at that – to take more than five minutes in front of a mirror because neither I nor my body nor my face were worth it.

No one would have known I felt that way from looking at me. (At least I don’t think so.) In many ways I didn’t really even realize it myself. That is to say, I never voiced it to myself. Never put it into words. But I knew. And you and I both know that there is almost as much a taboo against admitting that it matters – being pretty, that is – as there is the social and cultural pressure to be so. Nevertheless, when you get right down to it – to the bones of it – it was never about the outside anyway.

Ten-thousand words go here.

For the first time in my life, I can look in a mirror and love the person who's looking back at me. For the first time. I don't know about you, but I think that right there is a miracle. A certifiable miracle.

So anyway, today I spent nearly ten minutes in front of the mirror getting ready for the day. Twice as long as I ever did back then. I mean, on a regular day – not on a date night or holiday or the day your daughter gets married kind of day. Of course I spent more time then: it was expected. What I mean here is, just a day. Like today. A getting up in the morning sort of day. You know the ones, right? Where you do just enough to get yourself together so that you can pass at work, or if you run into somebody you know in the grocery store you don’t feel the urge to huddle behind a seasonal produce display. Just a day.

I don’t know about you, but when I was a young mother, it seems like most days were “just a day” days. My kids are older now and things are a lot different, but I remember, and I totally get not taking that time when you have little kids. Everything and everyone is more important than you, right? When you have little ones, you don’t own your time. Sometimes you can’t even pee. I mean, people who’ve never had little kids at home don’t understand the luxury of peeing alone. I think I can remember every single time I ever peed alone when I was a young mother.

I wish someone had told me back then – Take care of yourself. Be kind to yourself. Make Happiness a priority. In short, Treat yourself like someone you love. It took me so long to learn it on my own. And the learning hurt so much.

Let’s get back to that mirror, and me in it. Because it’s a Big Deal. You see, now – for the first time in my life – I can look in a mirror and love the person who’s looking back at me. For the first time. I don’t know about you, but I think that right there is a miracle. A certifiable miracle. For the first time in my life I know the soul behind the face in the mirror is kind, and generous, and talented, and loving – and worthy of ten minutes in the mirror. And infinitely more.

So are you.

Filed Under: Essays Tagged With: gratitude, life, parenting, personal growth

Dad’s 10 Life Lessons

March 12, 2020 Leave a Comment

Dad died over a decade ago from complications related to Parkinson’s, and I still miss him every day. I miss his dumb jokes, and how he always started laughing halfway through the telling. I miss his “just one more crescent roll” at holiday dinners. I miss his face lighting up when I brought his granddaughters to visit him.

Mostly though, I miss our talks.

Dad was one of my best friends in life and we talked about everything. I trusted him with things I didn’t even tell my best girlfriends, and his advice was my guiding light when life got dark and hard to maneuver.

His absence was especially difficult a few years ago when I took a most unexpected road; one that lead to dramatic transformations in my marriage, my family and my faith. In every way, I experienced a metamorphosis – a renaissance, really – and am now happier than I have ever been. However, throughout the process, family members and friends who knew the close bond my Dad and I shared occasionally asked me, “What would your Dad have thought about all this?”

Sometimes the question was genuine; other times, it felt denunciatory. Either way, I have given it a lot of thought.

Daddy lived and raised me on a simple code. I have tried to faithfully live by those principles; even through the rockiest of times, I can see in reflection that he has been quietly standing by my shoulder every step of the way – through the lessons he taught me:

  1. Look for the good in all things.  (This was always number one.)
  2. Love unconditionally.
  3. Be a good and loyal friend.
  4. Be kind.
  5. Do the best you can.
  6. Take walks.
  7. Laugh at your own jokes.
  8. Listen to your head.
  9. Follow your heart.
  10. Never, ever give up.

So, what would Daddy have thought about the turns my journey has taken? Well, first he would have told me that he loved me. Then he would have asked me the hard questions. Then, after a very long discussion that involved a lot of laughing and crying and probably a walk to the park – and definitely a metaphorical story about something that happened to him in the Navy during The War – he would have put his arm around me and said, “Sis, follow your heart.”

Then he would have hugged me hard, and told me the one about the farmer and the three-legged chicken… again. He’d be laughing before he got through the first line.

Filed Under: Shower Thoughts, Words Tagged With: grief, parenting

Graduation Season

May 30, 2019 2 Comments

Graduations Season {Poem} | The Harmony Cat - reneebutcher.com

A few late night reflections on parenting

When I was a young mother, pony-tailed and skipping over stairs strewn with toppled towers and dress-up silks, I was sure that by the time my baby was in high school, my floors would be clean, my laundry folded, my walls painted, my garden abundant, and the first of my novels published.

It was a fantasy.

Because as my children got older, I realized that the hitches and glitches of the Duplo generation are nothing compared to those of adolescence. Hunger, fatigue, sogginess – I can fix those. Junior high drama and broken hearts are not so easy.

And then. Mile-markers. Preschool. Kindergarten. Paper caps and gowns. Sand castles and lemonade stands. Precious pictures etched into the corners of my mind.

First concerts. First dates. First loves.

More caps and gowns.

Breathe. Just keep breathing, Mama. Pray or send it out to the universe or align your chakras or whatever you do. It’s all the same.

Just Love them. Even when they think you don’t. Even when you are the only one who does.

“Wear your coat.”
“Call soon.”
“Be safe.”

“I love you.”
“I love you.”
“I love you.”

And then. Suitcases. Packed cars. Clean rooms.
Empty echoes that are not nearly as satisfying as you thought they would be.

And then. Across ten miles or a thousand, you hope that they can feel your prayers. Even when they don’t believe in them. Even when you are the only one who does.

“I love you.”
“I love you.”
“I love you.”

And then. Sweethearts. Broken hearts. Celebrations. Maybe marriage. Maybe babies.

Maybe grandbabies, who come into the world with Hope clasp in tight fists and hand it to their mothers for safekeeping.

Safe Keeping.

“I love you.”
“I love you.”
“I love you.”

You swim in Abundance.

And then. Broken towers you cannot fix. Deep pains and raw, ragged wounds you cannot mend, even with Neosporin and Band-Aids.

So you pray that someone will hold out some small candle in the darkness for them. Even when they cannot see it. Even when you are the only one who does.

And then.

“I love you.”

It flies, dear young ones. It just flies. Go kiss your babies right now, even if they are sleeping.

Go.

A million times. I would kiss them all a million times again if I could.

And I would not trade a moment. Not one of those million midnight kisses.

Not one.

 


 

I wrote this piece in 2015 on the eve of our daughter Laura’s high school graduation, as a gift to her. It was inspired by a season of both rejoice and heartache for our little family: in that moment, we also celebrated our youngest daughter’s junior high completion, worried and prayed for a another daughter in the midst of a serious health complication, and mourned a loved one lost unexpectedly to a heart attack.

 

Filed Under: Poetry, Words Tagged With: daughters, featured, mothers, parenting

Strawberry Season

May 8, 2017 Leave a Comment

Daddy once told me that he never read The Grapes of Wrath. “I lived it, sis. Why the hell would I want to relive it?” Needless to say, Steinbeck has always been a favorite of mine because he showed me the world that made my father. 


“Daddy, can I go strawberry picking with Marilee? She goes every day and the bus comes at five in the morning and drives them out to the fields on the island and she’s back by lunchtime and sometimes she makes more than $10 in one day just for picking strawberries!” The child is breathless.

Robert runs the pad of his thumb across the calloused tips of his fingers, then turns them – palm up, down, up again. Memories flow like water over his shoulders and the weight of long forgotten harvests surge through his body in a torrent.

Excited shouts and laughter of towny children echo across the fields of his memory. Children who live in houses with indoor plumbing and light fixtures and mothers who tuck them in at night between clean, crisp sheets. Children who do not move lock, stock and barrel with the changing of the seasons. From the rows, he watches them fly through the tall grass at the edge of the fields, running toward the swimming hole, where cares are peeled away as easily as clothes.

Sweat stings his eyes. He inhales miles of beans reaching for heaven. Slips on windfall peaches under his bare feet. He shakes his head, baby-fine hair falling all around, and reaches for his cap too late to stop the burn. A river of heat pours down the small of his back. Dirt and pea-gravel work their way into thin, bent knees. The long gone prick and sting of the cane berry vines with their blood-red berries stain his memories. Cotton bolls cut through gloves, lancing his palms like a scythe. Now the jolt of the truck in the morning, waking him to the fields. Now the sway in the evening, carrying him to bed.

“Well, Daddy – can I go?’ Her voice startles him back.

He looks down into her open, eager face. She is hungry for cash. Anxious to board the early morning farm bus that will take her to the fields. To the heady scent of early summer strawberries. To the youthful backache. To the blistering sunburn. To the blood-soaked fingers. To the fields that steal a childhood in a single afternoon.

“No,” he says, like a mission. “I don’t want you to pick.”

Her brow furrows. He has taught her to work, and now he is denying her the chance. He bends slightly to meet her eye to eye. His voice softens. “I’ve picked enough for the both of us.”

She looks into him with old eyes. Then she nods and blinks quickly. He wonders if her tears are because he will not let her go, or because she understands why.

He reaches behind and pulls out his wallet. Rifles the few bills. Chooses one and lays it across his palm, extending it to her.

“Here’s five. You can earn more if you want. Stay home.”

It is a month’s allowance.  Still, the bus ride, the strawberries.  She shifts.  She takes the bill and holds it, one hand grasping each end. Her gaze falls to his hands and then rises once more to meet his.  In the space between, a covenant is sealed.

“Thank you, Daddy.”  She does not argue. “I’ll earn it. I promise.”

Robert watches her walk away, and then looks down – palm up, down, up again.

Filed Under: Essays, Words Tagged With: daughters, fathers, featured, parenting

writer. artist. music maker.

In my spare time, I write unfinished novels and songs about cowboys.

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