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Murmurs...
A Place for Your Memoirs
A Dream, a Fragrance, a Photograph
By Kathryn Wilkens
 Joe’s
mother came out the front door, crying. She pleaded with him, calling across the
impossibly green lawn, her words drawn out and wailing, “Don’t leave without
saying goodbye.” Joe and I sat in his Chevy Impala convertible, looking at
pictures of our friends from high school. We smiled at each other as the
snapshots floated out of the car, twinkled in the sun and disappeared. His
mother’s keening woke me, and I realized I had been dreaming about a boy I
hadn’t seen in more than thirty years.
Joe was my boyfriend for about two
weeks in seventh grade, and a buddy all through high school. He got his license
a year ahead of me and when I was fifteen he gave me driving lessons in Franke
Park. I was amazed that he trusted me behind the wheel of his precious car on
the narrow, winding roads.
After graduation, Joe went to Purdue, where I joined him a year later. But he
never finished college; he was killed in a head-on crash the summer before his
junior year.
Isn’t it strange how childhood friends remain vivid in our memories? I’ve met
and forgotten hundreds of people in my adult years, but the ones I knew when I
was young still reside in my mind, even though they dwell on dark alleyways I
rarely venture down.
On another such alleyway lives Joan.
I was the new girl in the fourth grade, and she made me feel welcome by inviting
me to her parties. One was on Halloween. Blindfolded, we girls giggled and
groaned as we stuck our hands into a bowl of cold spaghetti and grapes while her
mother read a story about dead men’s brains and eyeballs. Joan gave another
party for the girls in our class on the last day of school. We ate a picnic
lunch on blankets spread out in the June sun then played games in her backyard
where twining red roses bloomed on a wooden fence.
Joan and I drifted apart in junior high and high school. She had a steady
boyfriend who was also in our class. I never saw her after graduation, but I
heard she married her boyfriend. Later, when she was in her thirties, she took
her own life.
Down another mental alleyway resides Steve. We went out a few times in my junior
year, but not as often as I wanted. It became clear I liked him more than he
liked me. But he accepted my invitation to a formal dance and bought me a purple
orchid to wear. I still have the snapshots my dad took of us before we left the
house. Steve asked me out twice after the dance, letting me down easy.
The last time we saw each other was a few years later, when I was home from
college and he had just enlisted in the Army. We ran into each other at
Alexander’s pizza place, then sat in his car talking until early morning. Even
as we made plans for him to visit me at college, I had a feeling it would never
happen.
It didn’t. Steve was sent to South Vietnam where he stepped on a land mine and
died of multiple fragmentation wounds a few months later.
When people die so young, it shocks us into realizing how tenuous life is. We
mourn their loss and if we’re honest, we mourn another kind of loss. If our
identity includes the memories others have of us, a small part of us dies as
well. Joe appears in my dream, but I don’t appear in his. The fragrance of wild
roses still reminds me of Joan, but she shares no such memory of me. I remember
slipping a purple orchid on my wrist to wear to a dance, the moment caught in a
black and white photograph, but no one is left to recall giving it to me.
Even after decades pass, these friends never change. They remain unaltered by
time, forever young, retaining a purity and innocence the rest of us lose. They
avoid gray hair and arthritis, wrinkles and cynicism. But that doesn’t make them
lucky. The rest of us are the fortunate ones. Most of us grow into decent
adults, perhaps in part because of what we learned from them.
Joan helped me be accepted by the other girls in our class. Joe taught me how to
drive and, more importantly, how to trust other people. Steve taught me in a
gentle way that you can’t force someone to like you. Partly because of my
association with people like them, I’ve been better equipped to show acceptance,
trust and kindness to others. Like raindrops on a lake, their influence radiates
outward long after the drop itself has been assimilated.
Every day I think about how lucky I am. My life is busy with activities; I stay
in touch with many family members, current friends and acquaintances. But, once
in a while, friends who died young come alive again suddenly, unexpectedly, in a
dream, in a fragrance of an early rose, in a memory jogged by a fading
photograph.
Kathryn Wilkens retired from teaching so that she
could travel and write. A member of the California Writer's Club, Kathryn has
kept a journal since 1975 and has written several articles about the value of
journaling. Kathryn is currently looking for ways to incorporate photography
into her writing. The photo illustrating this article is a collage Kathryn took
as a Mother's Day tribute.
Murmurs requests material from readers and offers a $25
gift certificate to Amazon.com for every memoir published. To submit a memoir for consideration in
Murmurs, please note the following guidelines:
Memoirs no longer than 1,000 words. No foul,
pornographic, derisive or gratuitously violent content accepted. All memoirs
must be first-person accounts of actual events in the life of the writer. Photos
accepted in JPG format.
Send memoirs to:
murmurs@wordartsolutions.com
The
Chambers... Echoes of Murmurs Past
The
Present is One Day at a Time
By
Clarissa Thomas
In a quick inventory of tools for toil this morning I
am reassured to see every provision has been made that our efforts will bear
fruit to those for whom we labor: the people. My desk is reorganized
as I begin this first work day of 2004, with the stapler, tape
dispenser, date stamper, pencil caddy, document holder,
calculator, telephone index, the computer, the drawers, the files, all of them
standing ready to serve. But my eyes widen as I consider the calendar with its
blank pages waiting to be filled with notes and news as days unfold. Yes,
our greatest tool, our priceless gift is the time we have, and we see it in the
calendar, for it holds the space for 365 days of life! I love the thought
of living life one day at a time. Recently I read the little verse, and
you've surely seen it, too, that tells us that “yesterday is history, tomorrow
is a mystery, but today is a gift. That's why we call it the present.”
God gives us life one day at a time. He provides our
daily bread as when He gave manna to the Children of Israel and how they were to
gather only what they needed for one day. It thrills me to consider how His
provision comes in portions that supply all our need for this one day we have: today.
This morning's low was 19, yet it seems warm enough with the sunshine and the
clear blue sky. We have the span of these hours for this the 5th day
of January, and may we use these hours, minutes, and seconds for the good.
As I consider the events of 2003 I thank God who
helped us through it. Who could have known what was ahead? As the days of
2003's calendar came and went, so were we given what was needed to face incredible
events. Every provision was made to walk us through days and
nights, and He gave us strength to face each new morning. As
for you, dear daughter of Elnora my sister, your courage and faith were renewed
as morning by morning you entered her room presenting yourself to serve
your mother again, and again, and, yes, again, arriving with hope in your
heart that this would be the day of your mother's improvement, but
accepting the heaviness of knowing she was suffering even more. As step by
step you worked your way around and through and within her room, you
ministered to her, you were her advocate seeking honest information from
the medical "establishment." You diligently and wisely logged in
each procedure, each dose of medication, each happening, and you were
pouring yourself into her in the hope that your strength could help her rise
again and go home for a few days, at least. It all happened one day at a
time, for in no other way could you have managed it, lived it, survived it.
And now we have come out the other side of that 2003
calendar and have turned the pages to 2004. We see God's work in each of us. We
turn ourselves to Him as the pages of our calendars turn. May we be
turned to Him so completely that we can see the vision of Jesus'
loveliness. May we receive the spirit of Christ's love as it courses through us,
and others may see Jesus through us. Isn't it a beautiful thing to consider
the possibilities, for the God we love and serve can do all things. Nothing
is impossible with God. I enjoyed what you shared about your Christmas in
Japan and how it made your heart grow with love to encompass a whole other
continent! Thinking of those years between that time and now, just
consider all of the calendars you have opened and closed. Yes, our lives
are lived one day at a time, yet in retrospect each page of our past has formed
a piece of our present. I have always loved working picture puzzles, and
the beauty of Elnora's completed picture is awesome.
Clarissa Thomas writes from
Amarillo, Texas, where she embraces life in the Texas Panhandle with the same
optimism that keeps her calendar pages turning.
A
Holiday Memory from My Heart to Yours
By
Carolyn Burns Bass
Voices continually speak through our minds, whispering
memories and arousing feelings for people, places and practices we can’t
forget. No other season invokes the voices like the winter holidays. The
ornaments of family traditions and spiritual hopes adorn hearts, while voices
join in merry-making around a tree that stretches around the globe.
I had always lived within a fifty-mile radius of my
southern
California
birthplace. My parents and sisters lived within an hour or two from me and our
holidays were filled with family traditions and gatherings of relatives. Love
was not bestowed with extravagant gifts in our family, but through warm hugs,
shared memories, and feasts aplenty.
 And
then I married David, an active duty Marine officer, who moved me across the sea
where he would serve as a Search and Rescue pilot for the Marine Corps Air
Station in Iwakuni,
Japan. We arrived in Japan in April of 1987, only seven weeks before the birth of our first child,
Elisabeth. Leaving a successful career as an editor back in the U.S., I embraced motherhood with great joy, yet I craved a place for myself outside
the role of Marine wife and new mother. After a few months, I found my niche
teaching English and American culture to several Japanese ladies.
The
first Thanksgiving away from home rolled in and out with a huge telephone bill.
My Thanksgiving phone call had me laughing and crying while my family passed the
phone from person-to-person around my parent’s dining room table. The day
after Thanksgiving traditionally saw my two sisters and me among the hordes of
shoppers at the mall—not so much for the great deals but for the opportunity
to be together. That year I found new meaning in singing, “Christmas Eve will
find me, where the love-light gleams, I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in
my dreams.”
 Despite our homesickness, Dave and I forged our own family
traditions. Dave strung up lights along the outside of our little uchii—house—just
outside the gates of the base. I decorated the inside of our home with Christmas
ornaments and memorabilia. That year the base exchange imported real Christmas
trees and we turned a scraggly little pine into a homespun Christmas beauty. I
choked back tears several times while decorating the tree, particularly when I got to the box of ornaments my mother had sent a week earlier,
along with a note saying, “I’m sending you a box of our ornaments for
your tree, something of home for your tree.”
Throughout the month of December I busied myself with
activities that celebrated the season with a sense of community that extended
beyond the barbed-wire walls of the base and to our Japanese friends. I baked
American goodies and took them to our neighbors who didn’t speak English. I
discovered that food—and especially snacks—had a universal language of its
own. I invited the neighborhood children inside to see the Christmas tree and
have cookies and punch. The awe on the faces of the Japanese children as they
looked on the glittering tree warmed my heart
.
As we shopped in Iwakuni department stores we realized that Christmas was just a minor marketing event in Japan. New Year was the big gift-giving event, and the Japanese retail economy
thrived on New Year’s gifts like American trade plunders Christmas. What
little decorations the stores carried focused solely on the American version of
Santa Claus to the exclusion of anything Christian. Yet, the Japanese ladies to
whom I taught English and American culture were extremely curious about
Christmas.
We decided to have an old-fashioned Christmas party for our Japanese friends since we couldn’t be home to share with our
families. We invited several of the Japanese people who worked in Dave’s
office, along with my English and culture students, and a couple of Japanese
friends we knew from chapel. We served a variety traditional Christmas foods,
plus spiced cider, eggnog and plenty of goodies. Christmas music seasoned the
background, while the mixture of English and Japanese voices in festive
conversation enlivened the gathering.
The star of the evening was our six-month old, blue-eyed
daughter “Elle-chan,” who was passed from mama-san to mama-san, charming the
group with her fair-skinned innocence. Everyone mingled and stretched through
the language barrier enough to communicate mutual respect and admiration.
The pinnacle of the evening came when Luke’s account of
Christ’s birth was read by Dave from an American Bible, followed by the same
passage read from the Japanese Bible by our Japanese friend Yuki Murakami. For
most of our guests it was the first time they had heard the story of Christ’s
birth.
Our Japanese friends enjoyed the Christmas party so much that for the next few years in about October they would ask whether
we’d be having another one. Yuki always asked if he could give the Japanese
reading from Luke’s gospel and he always read it with honor and reverence.
While we celebrated Christmas in Japan, our families joined together back home without us; Dave’s family in
North Carolina
and mine across the continent in
California. My mother placed a tape recorder on the dining room table and recorded the
family chatter for me. Laughter mingled with tears as I listened to the voices
of my family sending their Christmas cheer. Several of those voices are silent
now, including my mother, my younger sister, and my grandmother. But the
memories of holidays past, of laugher linked in love, and the hope of eternity,
keep their voices alive in my heart.
A joyous Christmas and blessed new year to all.
In
Loving Memory of
ELNORA
JEAN WILLHITE
By
her brother, Walter Vernon Marshall
 Most
of us want to know if our life
matters. That we are doing
something worth while. That we are not just existing. My sister Elnora’s life
mattered.
Across
time immemorial this quest for significance has inspired us to live better
lives. A scholar has wisely noted, “… most people are not afraid of dying,
they are afraid of not having lived.” Not having found purpose beyond the
meaning of the present moment. He has written that, “Living a life that
matters brings us a type of immortality. I find
in the work I have performed, the acts of
kindness I have done, the love I
have given, and the love I have received, the people who smile when they remember me, the children and the grandchildren
through whom my name shall be perpetuated.”
 Most
people who live a life that matters rarely make headlines. More often they play
a quieter role in the grand pageant of life. With good hearts and willing hands
they make meaningful differences. They are kind and compassionate. They care
about others. They forge strong relationships. They love and forgive. They seek
God’s guidance and draw upon his strengths. For who finds God finds life. A
life that matters for good is full of purpose and hope. People who strive to
live such a life find that love and goodness are stronger than death. They live
on in the hearts and memories unto generations yet unborn.
Our life
matters if we give of ourselves, show kindness, and proper mercy. Our life
matters for good. Our goodness and influence never dies. It has been said that,
“that a good person, even in death, is sti1l alive.”
Elnora has
shown us these things by her life when with us. She has become immortal in our
memories, because we hold her fondly in our hearts. As we reflect on the life of
Elnora Jean, sister, mother, wife and friend, let us look in retrospect within
ourselves at what this precious personality means. A daughter of the living God,
sent to us by His will. She came to each of us, filling our lives with purpose
as assigned by the Sender.
A brother
writes here to honor his sister; remembering with deep affection the
copper-haired companion of his youth. A spritly little girl filled with joy
for life and the adventures it held. The partner in mischief and comforter at
times of strife. The helping hand of encouragement for projects anticipated. My
advocate when wrongly accused. My council on matters of the heart. We truly
lived our youth together in unspoken love. Sharing our personalities with
understanding. Yet knitted together with our siblings
by bonds of love that chained us together.
The teen
years, with all the excitement of our maturing minds, brought the awareness of
our abilities to light. For here was discovered her greatest talent. Music! That
rare gift from God that challenges
our understanding. For in this gift is the true meaning of giving. Only
the ear can receive it and the mind of the giver may reproduce it.
It was my pleasure to have been in high school choir with Elnora. It
thrills me yet today having heard her luminous voice giving a soaring solo and
then accompanied by the rest of
us. I sometimes wonder if the vibrations of her voice linger yet
in the far reaches of God’s universe, as they linger in my mind’s
ear.
Her humor
was a balm to the disquieted soul. Uplifting and tenderly administered to the
one in need of it. Only could she and I could take twenty minutes of doing
dishes after dinner and extend it to an hour or more of jovial labor, woven with
antics of splashing and comedy. We just liked doing things together and made it last as long as possible.
I rejoiced
for her when she married. Loved her and helped bear the experience of the
arrival of her daughters. Cried with her during our losses. What a blessing it
is to have lived with her.
Proverbs
31 verse 10 to the end of the chapter more than adequately describes my sister
Elnora. It begins, “Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above
rubies.” We surely could not have found one, but God gave us one in Elnora.
I have
witnessed Elnora’s unending faith in God and his word. She had the fortitude
of a true prayer warrior, looking to the promises of God for strength. A witness
to all that knew her, she lived her faith. “In the way of righteousness is
life, and in the pathway thereof is no death.” (Proverbs 12:28)
The
Psalmist has written, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His
saints” (Psalm 116:15). The word “precious” here has a special meaning:
not only valuable in his sight, but also honorable. Honorable to him in that we
have passed our sojourn here on earth, to be released of its bondage, but freed
to the realms of heaven’s sanctuary.
Now is the
test of our faith. Do we believe the promises of God? If so then in our
heaviness of heart let us also be of strong faith. Elnora, that precious
personality, would truly agree that “The Lord is my strength and song, and is
become my salvation.” Yes, Elnora lives in immorality in our hearts, and bound
now in heaven’s immorality. Truly a life that mattered.
This selection is more personal than most. Written by her uncle, this
memoir was a memorial tribute to Carolyn Burns Bass's mother who passed away in
June 2003.
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