Jill's Stories

As I was editing my story about Georgie, I lost the entire post.  This is extremely sad as I was ready to share the unusual occurrences that took place whenever I lost something, I would enlist Georgie to find it, and she always did just that.  Well, I lost the story of the lost items, and then two words appeared on my empty post.  The words were “Happy Birthday”.  Interestingly enough, my own birthday is just around the corner.   I must begin again.

The answer to the question is Georgetta Haven.  She lived on 13th Street in downtown Cincinnati. Now, that was the poorest part of the city, and because of her frugality and her husband’s hard work, she was able to move to the suburbs right next door to my parents’  house.  Georgie and Joe (that is her husband, built their home right next to my parents’ new home). I was only two years old at the time, so I don’t remember much of that.  Georgie loved to snoop around and look in drawers and closets and nooks and crannies.  So whenever we lost something, and that happened quite a bit, we would enlist Georgie’s fine talents and she would come over and start the looking.  Then there would be the moving around of things, then the putting back of things and eventually finding the lost item.  This could be keys, papers, rings, hair brushes and just about anything a family could misplace. One of my favorite sayings from Georgie was “For the simply reason.”  I never was sure just what that meant, but I can assure you that I nodded as if I did.  So there you have it.  Simple searches always finding the item.  During the four decades or so that these normal seek and find activities occurred no one thought much about it.  Well, after Georgie’s death, the finding continued.  Rings were still lost and still found.  A 50 dollar bill was lost and the earnest prayers began.  “Please, dear Georgie if you can hear me, help me find the 50 dollar bill.  It belonged to a friend. He gave up on his search.  I told him to keep looking and asking for Georgie’s help. Of course he thought I had lost my mind but he took my advice and it occurred to him that it might have ended up in the dumpster at the apartment where I lived at that time.  He climbed into that awful container, and sure enough, there was the 50 dollar bill.  There have been literally hundreds of items that I cannot recall individually, but time and time again, I will beseech my good friend Georgie to enlist her talent for finding treasured belongings.  Each and every time, I am able to relocate the lost things.  The most unusual detail is that the items are  found sometimes in a place where I have already looked and it was surely not there.  One of her gifts was the art of organization.  Her home was perfectly ordered and tidy. She knew where everything was.  This was the opposite of what the house next door displayed.  Therein lies the secret.  In her effort to organize my parents’ home, she developed her own gift of  detective expertise carried on for eternity.  Every once in a while she drifts back to our plane of existence and exercises her talent, smiling away at the desperate attempts at trying to find things.  She already knows where the “lost things are”.  For the simply reason.

66 years ago a 2 pound infant came into the world for a visit.  Would he stay?  Would he just look around and choose the better? Indeed, he stayed. He struggled. He thrived.  He grew up to be 6 feet tall and invincible. He worked and studied.  He played a lot.  He brought others into the world….three to be exact.  We are so glad he stayed.  Now let’s see what happens next! You know who you are.  Have fun!!

Tonight  I am in LasVegas and I am finding it to be unbelievably beautiful.  Palm trees, warm weather, people everywhere.  My adventure began at the airport in Knoxville, when the pilot announced that the plane would back up to another area and get de-iced. That procedure was supposed to take 10 minutes.  After about 15 minutes we taxied along and ascended toward Dallas. Now that might seem uneventful, but the connection to LasVegas was tight.  On top of that, the pilot announced that he was flying the aircraft into a head wind, and we would be running (flying) a little behind schedule.  So there.  I proceeded to finish my latest best seller, My Stroke of Insight, by a neuroanatomist whom had suffered a stroke and told the story of how our brains do indeed work for us.  It was appropriately added to my schedule, as I learned through reading those pages that my right brain hemisphere has the choice of reacting positively to stressful events. Voila!  Not only were things a little testy, the passenger sitting next to me decided to use one and a half seats for his body and arms, and the half part was my arm rest.  Oh well.  You probably guessed the rest.  Upon landing in Dallas, the attendant, asked who was the passenger going to LasVegas. She said there was just one person. I had to identify myself….she allowed me to leave the plane first in an attempt to “try” and make my connection.  So embarassing.  I had all of 15 minutes to a) find the Sky Link  b) board the train  c) hope with all that was in me that A-29 was the right gate. I ran with rolling luggage behind me. Quite the site.  A young lady said “LasVegas?”  I said of course, “yes” and I boarded the aircraft.  Everyone looked at me again because I was “holding up” the departure.  With all of that behind me…I am hoping my luck has changed for the better….as before this adventure began I had a little mishap with my Miata to the tune of 2200.00.  Vegas couldn’t come soon enough!

The little girl hummed as she ate her morning bowl of cherrios breakfast cereal.  Her grandfather grinned.  One spoonful at a time, she ate the luscious morsels.  Then both of them hummed.  Pappa and Mary Jane were joining in melody as the meal went on. Mother and Grandmother buzzed all around the kitchen, preparing things, washing things, frying things, mixing things, drying things, cleaning up things, returning things, flitting around doing all of the important things.  And all of the while this was going on, the two most important things were going on in the breakfast room: sharing the cherrios, sharing the love between spoonfuls of song.