The Memory Makers(Evangeline) The Memory Makers


Once upon a time, not so long ago to me but very long ago, lived two people who were almost magical. This is part of their story.

In the house where these two people lived the outside came inside between the cracks in the walls but even when it snowed it was still warm inside. You could get in really big trouble in this house if you were mean to your baby sister or if you jumped out of the barn loft to see if you could fly, but you didn’t get in trouble for much of anything else.

The man had magic cows. The cows were milked twice a day and the milk was always ‘just enough’. The man had an old mule who was so magical she plowed without reigns. The magic man would walk beside the mule and give firm but gentle commands mostly to keep her company. She magically plowed very straight rows for the magic garden where crops grew in bountiful supply and watermelons could be split open, eaten warm, juice running down your arms turning dust into little trails of mud and the magic man would smile down at the little children. The mule was called June Mule because she was born in the summer when the water is warm and she drank deep from the trough.

Never was there a day with the magic man and the magic woman where their memory makers ran empty. Days were spent in sunshine, running barefoot through fields leaping over streams and down hills with wind whipping so fast you knew you had caught the magic, too.

Quilts became magic carpet rides and the children soared off to lands unknown with the magic man and the magic woman and imaginations. The children took hay rides through pastures and over bridges and were lifted off wagons and tractors with magical force onto shoulders that gave the views of a giant as the children held on so tight while the magic man ran through the forest, trees passing so fast you couldn’t even see the sky. Then the magic man would stop just to hear the children’s laughter. Fairies danced in raindrops there.

Even in the magic house little boys and little girls had to go to bed and sleep they would. The children would sleep next to the magic woman under layers of quilts. The quilts and the gentle hand of the magic woman brought the best warm and with ‘sand in the right eye and sand in the left eye’ the children would close their eyes until morning. There was no need, you see, to cry at bedtime because in the magic house the magic woman and the magic man didn’t put little children to bed in rooms far, far away. “No, we’ll have none of that” they’d say. With beds pushed together and stars peeking through the windows, bedtime came magically with no fuss at all.

Morning came soon and it was time for a new magic day. Biscuits and sorghum syrup, potatoes fried in onions, gravy if you wanted, homemade blackberry jam, eggs from just outside the door and milk so thick you would shake the gallon jar before you poured it. A full belly and you were off and running.

One day the magic man got very sick and even the magic woman couldn’t stop the sick. June Mule was brought to the bedroom window and with an outstretched hand to old June Mule, the magic man said a final ‘giddy up’ and soared into the heavens.

On the same day in a different year the heavens opened once more and the magic woman joined her magic man.

Love you to the heavens and back, Granddaddy & Grandmamma. The best Memory Makers in the whole wide world.

- Evangeline

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