Hold Everything Lightly #1 {The Lake}

The installments in this series will not be an easy read nor easy for me to write.
 I do not intend to sully the memory of my parents but to tell the story as it was told to me and as I remember it. I am as imperfect as they were and I believe we are all damaged in some way. 
I loved my parents.
I love them still.

Charles and Kay were at Clarks Hill Lake, a large body of water that straddles the states of Georgia and South Carolina. Charles my father, by all accounts, was drinking and Kay, my mama, was hollering because she always was. It was 1964 and they were on a dusty dirt road in one of daddy's old cars. No one used seat belts in 1964. Daddy either hit the brakes or hit a stump in the road or both.
One could hardly tell if he was drunk, he held his liquor well.

 Until he passed out. Either way he wrecked that hot summer day on the Carolina side of the lake and mama's head struck the windshield with force. She was unconscious and he took her to University Hospital about thirty minutes away in Augusta, Georgia. She was admitted to the hospital for concussion. I was two years old and this would mark a seminal event in my life.

We lived on Carey Drive in Beech Island, South Carolina in the second house on the right. They were small houses, not mill houses, but almost with two bedrooms and one bath, most were one thousand square foot or less. My parent's house had a wispy weeping willow tree in the front yard and I always think of that little house when I see a willow tree. Mother's older brother Lester and his wife Vera lived four houses down from us. I went to live with them that day mama and daddy wrecked. Aunt Vera and Uncle Lester took me in during a critical time of my development and heaped love and attention upon me. They built me a bedroom onto the back of the house and bought me girly French Provencal furniture that I still have and will never part with. Mama and daddy loved me but fought frequently and there was a lot of chaos in contrast to my new family's home.

Living four houses from mama she was in and out all the time and is in all my elaborate birthday party pictures. I have few memories of daddy during this time and only two photos. In each photo I am sitting in his lap. My Aunt Vera was a gentle soft spoken woman who delighted in little surprises for me. One day I came home from school and there was string all over the yard and house and I was instructed to follow it. It lead to a pretty doll with ringlets in her hair. Vera was an expert seamstress and sewed most of my clothes and made intricate Barbie clothes too. My aunt and uncle taught me about living a daily life of faith that has never failed me even when I have stepped away from it. One day, when I was in first grade, I came home from school and my beloved Aunt Vera was laying on the sofa and I could not wake her. Vomit was all over the living room floor and my six year old mind did not comprehend what was happening.
I never saw her again.
 She died, at the hospital, a few hours later from a stroke. 

This would be the initial lesson in holding that which I hold dear lightly.

"Hold everything in your hands lightly, otherwise it hurts, when God pries your fingers open." 

---Corrie Ten Boom 1892-1983

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I have several installments written, as of yesterday, and will post in this series at the end of the month. I will let you know in advance. Thank you for your support and comments yesterday. Your comments mean more to me than you will ever know.
 

Olive