Long Ago and Far Away

With company coming today, I needed to finish digging through the trove of memorabilia in the milk crate.  I had a little extra time because that danged Inga skipped breakfast (and milking) again.  I believed we'd worked out a new system:  she would dawdle and I would go out with the grain bowl, fending off the others who thought seconds were a good idea, and coax her to follow me.  It was working.  Yesterday she stayed up at the corner, pensively chewing on alfalfa, dreamily staring off into the distance, and totally ignoring me.

A friend came to get some milk and eggs and brought the youngest of her four children.  Bessie was delighted with this little boy; someone to play with who was just her size.  I think the towheaded boy was not quite three.  I handed him a dog biscuit to give to Bess and he did, after he took a bite.

I should say here that Bessie likes men and males in general.  She had made an absolute fool of herself over Clay, flirting outrageously, batting her eyelashes, scooting so close she was sitting on his feet, anything to get his attention.  There will be a repeat performance today; she's got Craig wrapped around her little finger (if she had fingers).

At any rate, I later dived head first into the past again, pulling out cards and letters from the crate, smiling as memories came flooding back.  The pearl in this collection was a small scrap of yellowed paper, thin as tissue, the writing in my father's hand.  My parents' marriage was not a particularly happy one and they ultimately divorced, but this note was a declaration of his love for my mother, probably written early on in their relationship.  I wondered why she had saved it, and then realized it was perhaps for the same reason I kept poems I had written to my Kids' father and saved some of his letters to me; to let our children know that there had been love in a time long ago and far away.