Granny & Papaw.

Granny's eyes were bright blue and her hands were always soft.  I remember her wedding band well enough, but whenever I think about her hands, I always think of her gold and emerald ring (the emerald was her birthstone).  In later years it moved to her forefinger as her skin became thinner, her fingers smaller.  Always dainty, always just enough fingernail length to know she cared for them, kept emery boards nearby.

She smelled like Angel Face powder, Scope and Freedent. On Sunday mornings when I became restless at church, she would give me a piece of gum and twist the foiled wrapper around the end of her finger, fold it this way and that, and then present to me a tiny paper wine-glass shaped cup .  I never did figure out how she could do that.  Church, when I was four, consisted of Crayolas in a plastic sandwich bag, Mead notepads, and a handful of quarters I was allowed to drop when the "money plate" came around during the Lord's Supper.

If it is possible to genetically pass such a trait, she is definitely the person from whom my literature obsession is inherited.  She was a faithful penpal and wrote letters to many, never missing a birthday, an anniversary, a sickness, a death, or a thank-you.  Hallmark owes a lot of business to Granny.  So does Papermate -- she used to buy the soft-grip pens in blue.  I always liked them because of the two tiny hearts on the clip.  I don't think they make that particular style anymore.

She also loved to read.  She was constantly in the middle of two or three books at once, and though in my youth I could never understand how she kept up with so many characters in so many worlds at once, I find myself doing the very same thing today.  She read the Bible all the way through once every single year, a very dedicate Christian woman to the core.  Words were one of her true loves.  She solved Jeopardy questions, Wheel of Fortune puzzles, and crosswords in record time.  She was brilliantly intelligent and taught herself well beyond her tenth grade level of education.

She's the only person who could ever cook eggs the way I liked them.  She let me turn the handle on the flour sifter even though sometimes I missed the bowl.  She pointed her finger warningly at me through the back window as she was washing dishes whenever I began to swing too high in the swingset out back, the set that had somehow survived so many grandchildren over the years.  She rubbed my back and recited Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Little Red Riding Hood, and The Little Red Hen to me when I couldn't fall to sleep.  The Little Red Hen was our favorite.

And Papaw. 

Papaw made the best milkshakes in the universe and his grilled hamburgers were a force to be reckoned with.  He would have lived outside if Granny had let him and only came in when it was lightning and stormy outside.  Naturally, when Papaw stood outside on the porch to watch thunderstorms, I would be anxious to be outside, too, because I have always loved storms, but Granny always felt that Papaw standing outside on a porch watching a storm was probably setting a bad example for the grandchild with her nose smushed against the screen door.  Papaw would reluctantly come in and sit in his chair, but the door would be left open behind him and we could smell the summer air, full of humidity and electricity.

He raked leaves into enormous piles and didn't mind if I jumped in them.  I would take a running leap, jump, and the leaves would fly up cartoonishly and scatter all about.  Papaw would just laugh and shake his head and remind me to be careful.  He didn't mind raking them up after I had wrecked them -- once, twice, goodness knows how many times.

He watched The Price is Right every single day.  I remember staying with them during the summer while Mom went to work, curling up on a pallet in the middle of the floor with a can of Pringles and watching The Price is Right on TV.  I never understood how people remembered the prices of all those products, and Plinko was my favorite game.  I cheered for people when they won a brand new caaaar.

In the middle of the day, I would go outside with Papaw and we'd let Max out of his pen.  Max had been my dog originally but due to a shift in policy and an altercation with our landlord, Mom and Dad decided it would be best for Max to stay with Papaw and Granny.  Max would run around the house several times, "stretching his legs" as Papaw would say, and then Papaw and Max would go beyond the old barn and pick blackberries while I trailed behind playing and making up my own stories or songs as I followed.  I'm still not sure how I grew up with a distaste for blackberries when literally everyone else on that side of the family melted into a happy puddle whenever Granny would cook blackberry cobbler or make blackberry jam.

I loved going to the carport because usually there were birds' nests in there.  Papaw would put on gloves, pick up a birds' nest out of a crook between planks of wood, and show me the flightless baby birds, all beaks and eyes and stretchy-necks -- and terrified, I'm sure.  I wanted to pet them but Papaw always told me that if the Mama bird could smell a human on one of her babies, she wouldn't take care of it anymore.  I would quickly put my hands behind my back, afraid of being responsible for a baby bird's demise, but my hands itched with childhood anticipation.

I miss them so much.
How long after you lose someone do the dreams stop?
September 23, 2007 -- Granny.
September 4, 2008 -- Papaw.

The dreams come and go. I'll go a couple of weeks without them at a time but then they come back for several nights in a row and I'll wake up crying, like tonight.  I still feel like part of my heart is missing -- they were my second set of parents. They raised and taught me just as much as my parents did.  They considered me to be baby #8 (my mother, the youngest of the Cabler children, was baby #7).

It would be different if I felt remorse, if I felt guilt.  Maybe I didn't visit enough, maybe I could have done more for them, something like that -- but that isn't it at all.  I was there constantly, I ran errands to get them food, I helped them out in every way I could -- except taking them to doctor's appointments, which was always left up to Uncle Kenny or my Aunt Linda or my mom -- so I really have no regrets at all.  I know that I cared for them and loved them and did all that I could. 

So why the constant dreams?  Yes, I miss them, and no, I'm not saying I want to forget about them or to push this aside, but I have always heard that it gets easier with time.  While the initial shock from losing them has faded away, the everyday heartache has not -- at all.

Neither of them would approve of me fussing so much over them, of stressing so much over something of which I have no control...

...I just miss them so much.  Still.
...always.

10/13 -- X-Files Day!

I keep meaning to update this more regularly...

Perhaps I'm destined forever to the land of pen and paper... not that online journaling is a bad thing at all, I just feel a little more at home rockin' it old-school in spiral-bound notebooks.

Anyway, good things today:

• Thrift store finds: goofy-looking owl novelty bank & a set of drinking glasses, both of which are materialistic proof that the 1970s actually existed.
• Sweet Peppers Deli -- chicken club, no mayo, pasta salad, honey mustard on the side.  Sometimes positively nothing else will do.
• Californication.  Finished season 2 with Joanna, started season 3 ... and decided that in the world of Bex Logic, Californication ended with the second season finale.  I'd rather have the plot maddeningly and questionably open-ended than forced off a cliff.
• Rain.  Rain, rain, and more rain.  I've listened to it on the car roof, the windows, the street today.  People forget to pay attention to the little things, and I've always adored the sound of rain.  I was thankful for its presence on my only off-day.

Unfortunately, I believe my bed and my iPod are calling my name.  I would hate to disappoint either of them.

I think it's going to be a Jack's Mannequin type of night.

Sweet dreams, angels.

Love is a mix tape.

I ♥ mix CDs. They're the quickest way to my heart. I have been blessed with friends who have been known to rock a playlist or two.

The track list to Jo's mix to me, titled "The Bex Sessions," is as follows...

1. Something to Believe In [Aqualung]
2. Swimming in Miami [Owl City]
3. Weightless [All Time Low]
4. Take me fo the Riot [Stars]
5. Oxford Comma [Vampire Weekend]
6. 1,000 Words [Savage Garden]
7. Last Words [Real Tuesday Weld]
8. The Man Who Can't Be Moved [The Script]
9. Nicest Thing [Kate Nash]
10. We Are Not Alone [Karla DeVito]
11. Good Girls Go Bad [Cobra Starship]
12. Lever [Takka Takka]
13. Xavia [The Submarines]
14. Cute [Stephen Jerzak]
15. Extraordinary [Liz Phair]
16. Strange [Tori Amos]
17. Why Do You Let Me Stay Here? [She & Him]
18. Queer [Garbage]
19. Womanizer [Britney Spears]

We Had Him.

Beloveds, now we know that we know nothing, now that our bright and shining star can slip away from our fingertips like a puff of summer wind.

Without notice, our dear love can escape our doting embrace, sing our songs among the stars and walk our dances across the face of the moon.

In the instant that Michael is gone, we know nothing. No clocks can tell our time and no oceans and rush our tides.

With the abrupt absence of our treasure, though we are many, each of us is achingly alone, piercingly alone.

Only when we confess our confusion can we remember that he was a gift to us and we did have him.

He came to us from the Creator, trailing creativity in abundance.

Despite the anguish, he was sheathed in mother love, family love, and survived -- and did more than that.

He thrived with passion and compassion, humor and style. We had him, whether we know who he was or did not know, he was ours and we were his.

We had him, beautiful, delighting our eyes.

His hat, aslant over his brow, he took a pose on his toes for all of us, and we laughed and stomped our feet for him.

We were enchanted with his passion because he held nothing -- he gave us all he had been given.

Today in Tokyo, beneath the Eiffel Tower, in Ghana's Black Star Square,
in Johannesburg and Pittsburgh, in Birmingham, Alabama and in Birmingham, England
We are missing Michael.

But we do know we had him, and we are the world.

[Dr. Maya Angelou]
[read by Queen Latifah @ MJ's memorial here]

Remember the time…

…you first heard the voice of the adorable little boy who would later be crowned the undisputed “King of Pop”?

…you saw the “Thriller” video premiered world-wide, forever revolutionizing the definition of ‘music video’? Remember the controversy that surrounded it?

…you tried to do the Moonwalk on your kitchen floor? Remember the rush you felt the first time you got it right? Remember the time you tried to do the ‘Smooth Criminal’ lean and nearly ended up flat on your face?

…you heard the single that you knew would forever be your favorite? What was it?

…his hair caught on fire while he was shooting that Pepsi commercial and the media flocked all over it?

…you watched his live broadcast from Neverland Ranch and he begged the public to stop treating him like a criminal? Remember crying for him during those dark years of his career and vehemently defending him against ignorant snarks from your peers who were looking for a cheap laugh?

…that he fought to overcome the evil of greed and lies that had sullied his reputation, and he just kept singing anyway -- Album after album of the brilliance we had come to expect from him.

…you heard that we had lost our beloved Michael? Do you remember where you were when you heard? Who you were with? Were you there to watch the headline on CNN fade in transition from “Michael Jackson hospitalized due to cardiac arrest” to something much more terrible?

Who did you tell? Which song did you play first as a tribute? Did you cry? Did you share stories with your friends or post on message boards? Did you glue yourself to your television, hoping desperately that it wasn’t true, feeling your heart sink when you realized it was, and worrying about his three beautiful children, his family, his friends that he left behind? Were you close enough to a landmark of his life to be able to go and leave a letter, a candle, a picture, a flower? Did you hear the hearts breaking around the globe, or did you just find your favorite album and turn it up as loud as you could?

Love him, hate him. Listen to him or don’t.
Criticize him for whatever you think he did or didn’t do right, but right now is not the time for your negativity, if that is what you choose to bring to this discussion.

No matter your opinion, no matter my opinion, Michael Joseph Jackson changed the way we listened to music. He changed the way we danced. He changed the way we watched music videos and he broke the race barrier on several levels. Those truths are undeniable.

The world has lost its most revolutionary and ground-breaking entertainer of all time.

The King is dead...

... and I am having a very, very tough time dealing with that.


Rest in Peace, Michael Joseph Jackson.