The Sundial

CHAPTER 4
THE SUNDIAL
"to everything there is a season...” Ecclesiastes 3:1

When I was growing up in Tennessee, the place where Mom did the weekly wash during summer days, was where my grandma and grandpa lived. My Dad had built the two-room house for his parents. It was a pretty place. I remember the grass was always green. There were big shade trees, and the bluff behind the house made for a cool place even in the hot summer days in Tennessee. The rock creek ran on one side, and the spring branch that flowed from under the bluff met up with the creek on the other side. The spring water gave us cool water clear as crystal. The creek made for a great place to swim, bathe, or just wade for the sake of cooling our feet. It was a picturesque place for sure.
Grandma was a great cook. I didn’t get to eat there often, but when I did I always enjoyed the fried chicken and cornbread. It was definitely against the rules to sit on the two big feather beds that set side by side. How she could get them to look so neat is beyond me. There were just certain rules I had to follow – some Grandma made, some Mama had made, and sitting or laying, or even touching those made up feather beds was definitely against everyone’s rule.
Since becoming a grandmother, my recall of those days have been vivid. I've wanted so much to go back to grandma’s house and just sit and talk with her. Just to know her. She was not a touchy person. She was unable to show her emotions.
I understand it was difficult for Grandma & Grandpa to talk to little girls, but I wanted to get up in Grandma's lap, or sleep on her feather bed that looked so comfortable. Since going back is impossible, I did visit in my memory, and determined that my grandchildren would know me. As far as resting, yes even jumping on my beds, that was alright too.
For reasons unknown to me, I knew my grandparents as Daddy’s mother and father, and I called them Grandma and Grandpa but the relationship was little more than that.
During my times of recall, I dealt with the inquisitive little girl. Forgiveness is important for the release of that child within who hungers with the desire I had to have conversation with them. I cried for the lost opportunity I had to get to know them. Grandma and Grandpa talked with each other, hardly ever to the little girl that visited with them. Occasionally I could get into the conversation about meaningless things, for I was not experienced in many things outside the farm and family. I’m alright now, for I’ve learned to take even those lost days of regret to Jesus.
Grandpa was a unique old gentleman. I thought he had always been old, even though during those days he was probably only in his late fifties or early sixties. He was quiet and reserved and was probably very smart. In his latter years, to make a living, he re-caned chair bottoms along with helping Daddy on the farm. He had an invention however, that was so intriguing. I kept going back for him to show me how it worked. I’d never seen a sundial, never heard of one for that matter. So I kept finding excuses to go down the hill during the day - each day at a different time, so I could see it again. I still don’t understand, but I tried with everything in me to comprehend how it worked for him, and not for me.
On a plank on the little porch where the evening sun shone, he had cut several straight marks unto the wood with his pocketknife. When the sun caused the shade of the porch to be level with one of the marks he knew it was 12:00 noon. When it got to another mark, it was probably two o’clock. And so on. What I could not understand was how it worked when the days got longer, or shorter. How could he depend on it all year round? The truth is, he probably didn’t but it was one of those “clocks” that has stuck in my mind for a lifetime. Grandpa’s sundial was a lesson in life.
As far as I know, Grandpa had a pretty good life if you can call enduring the depression days, doing share crop growing, and having several mouths to feed, a pretty good life. I’m not sure when Grandpa became a Christian, or if he did. If there were broken clocks in his life, no one knew. I wonder however, if the sundial he had invented was a way of exploring his past while coming to the end of his life. What was he thinking while he was measuring the marks for time? What was he trying to show me as I watched so intently with the wondering eyes of a child? How would I know then that his sundial clock would stop and all that would be left for me was a memory?