Pennies (005)

This afternoon, I called Grannie to ask her if anyone in her or Papaw’s family ever drowned. My whole life, I have been a fish, but there has always been a fear of putting my feet straight down if I cannot see them clearly through the water. If my foot touches something, I have a very quick startle reaction. I startle easily at lots of things, and this possibility was one that bothered me to the point of preventing certain maneuvers in anything but a clear pool. Pools allow me to talk myself away from the edge of fear. Grannie told me that when she was around 8 or 10 years old, she got her foot stuck in something under water and she struggled up and down trying to get free. One of her brothers witnessed her, grabbed her shirt, and pulled her free. She couldn’t remember which brother; she had five that lived through infancy. 

I couldn’t help but allow the rush of tears when she told me that her last living brother’s wife put a large portrait of him in his rocking recliner and talks to him constantly. He died on January 1st, 2021 from COVID-19, just a few months shy of 83. As a kid, my mother and I would walk along the train tracks in front of his eastern Kentucky home and lay pennies when we felt a rumble. When I’m stopped in traffic by a train, I put the windows down and listen. I’ll live on property one day based on how close it is to a lake and train tracks.