Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: CALL (01/14/16)
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TITLE: Times of Change | Previous Challenge Entry
By Wanda Draus
01/20/16 -
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Ellen’s been at the assisted living center for a few months now trying to adjust to the idea that she has left her home of more than seventy years where so many memories were made.
She has always been one to know when it was time to evaluate a situation. Just as she knew when it was time to surrender her license and sell her Buick when she turned 85, Ellen knew when it was time to sell her family home and move into something smaller and more manageable. She never left that burden of deciding “what to do with mom,” to her children.
She slid open the glass door to the small private patio where her kids had made sure she had a nice place to sit and sip her tea. Wrapped up in her robe and her steaming cup of tea, she let her memories take her back.
Was it that long ago when she played with her sister Maxie in the old barn of their parent’s farm and all the fun they had helping their momma bake pies? Oh, and what a day it was when the truck pulled up and daddy and her brothers brought their very first television into the farmhouse.
At that time, it was rare for farmers to have a television, but daddy was always doing favors and making sure if he could help someone he would. So it was that we became proud owners of a television from someone daddy did a kindness for. She laughed remembering some of the neighbors coming by after dinner to chat and sit a spell in front of the television.
Taking a sip of warm tea, she was right back at the white frame church where her family attended and where she met her Bernie. He was so handsome and she wasn’t too bad herself, after all, the towns people had chosen her as West Tennessee Strawberry Queen 1939. It was a match made in heaven. Besides Bernie’s good looks, he had a heart for God. Not long after they said their vows in the white frame church Bernie was called to serve his country.
God answered many prayers during the war and although wounded He brought Bernie safely home. Soon after Bernie’s return he found a job in another state and Ellen for the first time would have to leave her family, the farm and all she knew.
They purchased a home in North Carolina and knowing how difficult this change would be for Ellen, Bernie had their very first telephone installed. With miles separating her from her family, her daddy thought it was high time the farm could use a phone too. Still sipping her cold cup of tea, she didn’t want to leave her memories.
Bernie and Ellen decided the phone would reside in the foyer by the staircase. Ellen laughed out loud as she recalled the first time the telephone rang. She was upstairs writing a letter to her momma when she heard a loud clanging, realizing it was the phone she ran breathlessly down the steps and picked up the receiver, “hell-o, hell-o.” The operator on the other end asked if she would accept a call from Mrs. Barnett? Ellen, responded quite loudly, “yes, yes.” The next sound she heard was her momma’s sweet voice.
So much has changed since those precious years. Ellen has outlived her momma and daddy, her precious Bernie, all her siblings and even her much loved pets. The family farm was sold years ago and now a new family was living in the one and only house Bernie and her shared for many years.
Suddenly the phone rang, one much different than the first one that sat on a table attached to a cord in the foyer, this one was in the pocket of her robe. She looked at the pretty image on the phone, smiled and slid the green bar. “Hi, Nana.”
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In this ever changing world one thing that never changes is our Lord. “Jesus, is the same, yesterday, today and forever.” Hebrews 13:8 (NIV)
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Good job.
God bless~