"Esther and Charlie - maybe 1960"
This picture just popped up on FB this morning on the site for Bruce/Exeland…and tears immediately filled my eyes. Esther and Charlie Turner. They were close friends of Mom and Dad. Whenever Esther and Charlie had been in Bruce shopping, the place they stopped for coffee on their way home was Mom’s and Dad’s house. I remember all of them sitting around gossiping and laughing. Charlie was an old lumberman from the days when lumber was king in that part of Wisconsin…and he loved telling tall tales which mesmerized this little kid that was me. They did not have much but they had big warm hearts. Their house was four rooms and you had to use an outhouse. Yet the house was always immaculately clean. Sometime us kids (me and their grandkids) would camp out under the stars in their front yard. No tent. Just blankets and pillows and stars over our heads when we eventually would fall asleep. A big breakfast always greeted us the next morning. Esther and I would go looking for Christmas trees together (I was 10, 11, and 12 years old) in the woods across the road from their house. I remember both of us plowing through the snow hauling our trees behind us and she being so patient with my 10 year old babbling. When Charlie died, she remarried and it was not a good marriage. I don’t believe it was abusive but she was not the same. When Esther died it was at church (the Island Lake Church of Christ) during service. She was with a friend…and the friend felt her suddenly lean against her…and Esther was gone. This picture…these memories make my heart ache. It aches because the times shared were so pricelessly wonderful…and it aches because they are now gone and only alive in my heart. How fleeting these moments are??? I wish I could go back and experience them once again.
RSS Feed