The Motion of Comfort

When I was three, my family moved to Southern Illinois from Cocoa Beach, Florida where we had lived for a little over a year while my dad followed a job prospect that didn't work out.

My parents chose to relocate to  So. IL because that's where they had grown up and with five kids, my parents needed an extended family to help with childcare while they secured jobs.

During the work week, my four-year old brother David was to stay with my grandmother (whom we called "Mommie" – a name shortened from my oldest cousin who coined the name “Big Mommie” for her) while I spent week days with my great-grand parents, “MawMaw and PawPaw” on their 10-acre farm.

My Great Grand Parents Altha and Oran Copher ( "Mama & Papa") at the time I began to stay with them.

At first I was not happy with this arrangement. When she had brought me to the farm on that first day, my mom must have sneaked away while I was distracted by farm yard chickens (those bipedal feathered beasts, pecking and scratching the ground seemed fantastical and enormous to me as I gazed at them through the fence).

When I noticed my Mom had left me, I was inconsolable. No toys, pats, hugs nor words could dull my bereavement over having been abandoned. Finally, I was left to myself as I sat on the back steps and cried for what seemed to be hours.

Finally, after my grieving was spent and my wail-coarsened voice was tired out. I looked for my ancestors. Through the screened back door, through the enclosed back porch, through the kitchen and into the living room, I found them watching the old bunny-eared black & white TV. MawMaw was in her rocking chair when I approached. She smiled and I lay my head in her lap and lost myself in the gentle motion of her rocking back and forth. I found my comfort and my great grandmother's heart melted. For the next 10 years, even during my grade school years, I would stay weekends and Summers with them. It was just the space I needed to grow in imagination and faith.