My Mom Used to Love Bluebirds

My mom used to love bluebirds, I always remember that, with love, about her.

I have a little glass bluebird she kept in her windowsill.

My grandparents were Kansas farmers and went every Sunday to a little Methodist church called Grandview about seven miles down the road, except for the rare Sabbath when the summer harvest took priority. I am sure God understood. I remember, so fondly, the distinctive smell of Jergen’s lotion which my Grandma would work into her hands before leaving for worship, where Grandpa would always bellow, it seemed to my young ears, the Old Rugged Cross, or about come, come, coming to the church in the wildwood.

I remember the masculine smell of my Grandpa’s cigar as he would drive his old truck to weigh a load of wheat. I can almost catch a whiff of the scholarly smoke wafting from my Dad’s pipe, the pipe…