Thanksgiving and another day in the life of Aunt Ira Mae…

Crawfish Creek Manor

Yesterday, I received an update on Aunt Ira Mae’s Thanksgiving week. She chose to stay in the Crawfish Creek area and spent most of her time with her new “Mr. Roy”. She begin with how he makes the worst coffee since the discovery of the coffee bean! There in the morning right! Their week was quiet and peaceful and they never lack for conversation.

He had told her of the love of his life whom he had lost after fifty years of marriage, and she disclosed briefly her failed forty-year marriage. They walked the pumpkin patch to find that perfect pumpkin that he would use make a pie, by now she has told him that she was allergic to cooking. In the afternoon, they had road around in his old pickup truck and found the perfect Christmas tree. This was a special time since she said he had not celebrated the holidays for years, and she had always hoped they would fly by quickly.

To her surprise, he had enlisted the help of some younger neighboring farmers and their wives to help decorate his house inside and out, it took on a special glow, another first for her. Then the day ended and he took her home. As they pulled out of the long driveway, she said that as she looked back the farm looked like it was out of a Norman Rockwell painting. She confessed that she begin to cry, somehow he understood and patted her hand gently.

He said for her not to be sad that it would all be there tomorrow.  “Well of course, and early, I have a Thanksgiving dinner to make for my new friend”.

Then she added what I had been waiting for…

They entered the front door and she turned to Mr. Roy saying…

“Mr. Roy, would you like a shot of Jack”?

“Girl, of course”. His smile broadened.

Passing the “Gathering Room” they stared at a sea of blue waves and curls; it sounded much like a chicken farm. “Cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck”!

When she and Mr. Roy walked past them a silence fell over the room, she heard the Warden say to the others , “Well I never”! Aunt Ira Mae turned to face her saying…

“And, you probably never will”.

I am so pleased that she has found a bit of happiness and one would think after almost a century, it has been a long time coming.

I am beginning to think like her in the fact that as we age we should just be thankful each day that we wake and keep telling ourselves…breathe damn’t.