What wasn't said...

Grandma Rosemary-

            All the things I never said are rising in my throat like the steam from a teapot. When I was younger, I just didn’t think it mattered whether I said these things or not. I assumed you knew how fond I was of your good company, but over the years as I got busier you may have started to doubt. Grandma Rose, never for a minute did I ever stop loving you. When I was ten I heard a country song by Jessica Andrews titled, “Who I Am”. The lyrics contained this message:

So when I make a big mistake
When I fall flat on my face
I know I'll be alright
Should my tender heart be broken
I will cry those teardrops knowin'
I will be just fine
'Cause nothin' changes who I amI am Rosemary's granddaughter
The spitting image of my father
And when the day is done
My momma's still my biggest fan
Sometimes I'm clueless and I'm clumsy
But I've got friends who love me
And they know just where I stand
It's all a part of me
And that's who I am

I used to sing this song at the top of my lungs—in the shower, in the car, on the swing, and I’d whisper it in moments when I needed reminding who I am. I thought this song was written for me, because who else had a Grandma Rosemary? I often thought of you during my years away at college too. In fact, I wrote a paper about you and meant to share it with you. Funny how time has a way of slipping past and good intentions turn into regrets. Here I am writing another paper, but this one I know you’ll never see. I wanted to say so many things, and being older I should have known to seize the moment but too often I walked away not saying them. So here I am writing them all down.

            I hope you knew how very much I adored the time we shared together. There are so many memories I treasure; memories that reach back to “good ole Hoover days”. You see, even when Grandpa was alive I spent my time admiring you. I would sit in the kitchen watching you fix dinner, marveling at the first model microwave with all its gadgets and gizmos, nibbling away at a windmill cookie and washing it down with Vernors’ ginger ale. After grandpa passed, I remember riding my bike across town and parking it in your backyard. You would dump out some old change from Grandpa’s big mason jug and I’d spend the afternoon making waves at Brigg’s pool. Sometimes I’d be so tired afterward you’d tuck me into your bed and read me a story. And oh how I loved the nights I slept over. Theresa was home again and we’d enjoy the evening watching the Lawrence Welk show, I’d bath using rose shaped soap, and then snuggle into sheets that smelled just like you. Later still, when you lived in the apartment, you inspired my love for tea by always brewing me a cup of lemon zinger or chamomile. One of my fondest memories and consequently my mother’s most terrifying, was the day you “kidnapped” Luke and I and road-tripped it to Pentwater. I can’t remember how old we were, but I do remember how happy you were. Somewhere we have a picture of that day; we are at the beach and I am wrapped in your jacket and tucked in your arms.

            I can recall memory after memory. Sometimes the location is obscure and all I can pull out is a sound, a smell, or a feeling. Like your voice—oh how you loved to sing. I hardly understood a word of those old cassettes but your voice was so beautiful. I have another favorite memory though Grandma. This one took place just a couple months ago. You had no voice, just tears. I shared my whole life plan with you and shared with you all the recent boy troubles, and you just cried. I crawled into bed with you and laid my head on your shoulder and we cried; both expressing trapped sorrows. Grandma, I never felt like I gave you enough time and now time is gone.

            It hurt me so deeply to see your vibrance fading as years kept passing you by. I want to remember you always as stories often drew you in my mind – with a gleam in your eye; the constant smile lined by pink lipstick; elegant yet strong. But no matter how wilted, bent, or broken you may have felt in the end, you were and forever will be my sweet Rose!

Your Ever Loving Granddaughter-

Devon VanGessel

A Different Life

I am free
I wonder about those who live in fear
I hear about the exploited children
I want so badly to unveil the women
I am free
I pretend everyone experiences these privileges
I feel a revolting sickness in response to media
I touch my skin and I am thankful
I worry that persecution will go on without end
I cry at my own idleness
I am free
I understand pain
I say I will help; that I will make the change
I dream of heaven on earth - coexistence and camaraderie
I try to contemplate the difference between their life and mine
I am free

Father's love letter

I needed you...

I have laughed, in bitterness and agony of heart, at the contrast between what I seem and what I am. Though it ails me to expose this disparity I must press boldly forth to divulge the pains that brood deep within my heart. The object of my affliction is someone I hold dear; someone who in all his stature has belittled his repute through negligence, unbeknown. Years have I felt the absence of the love I ought deserve. Is it the vitals that compose me that make me less worthy than my male counterparts? Have I no purpose than to shadow the ball that knowingly is chained to domestic affairs. That life is too dull and repetitious to be long endured, though without doubt, capability is not in question.  Am I but an empty frame? Do I not possess beauty worth pausing to admire or qualities that reflect a masterpiece? Why then am I repulsed? Perhaps, repulsed is too stringent a word to describe the indifference I am shown.


This indifference came as dew upon a fertile grass, for when I was a child your eyes beheld me as gently as your arms, but a blossom changed your grasp forevermore. Think not that I have forgotten the days before my womb did shed. Cherished deep within the hold of my mind are your labors that  pushed the hands of time beyond duty to share and expose the happiness life contained. When fear took flight as the cycle swayed, it was your arms that reached to steady me. When of age the boys became and the hunt grew as a fever, pigeons of mud became our evening game. When scorned and outcast by my team, it was your smile from the crowded lines that  made my heart play on. Language was not necessary to bind our souls and pass along the message that each was valued beyond measure. It has always been your presense , your gentle touch, your crooked smirk that allowed me to see the words that never flowed. But as if the hands of time spun out of your control, those gestures of affection emaciated leaving me longing for something to replace the joy they once inspired.

Here is where my bitterness steeps. Like a stream that babbles on, whispering tales of the heart - kind, quiet, soothing, gleeful - my life has bubbled on til suddenly, as though some obstruction was jammed forth, the stream struck a melancholy tune, like the voice of a child that was spending infancy without playfulness and knew not how to be merry among sadness and events of dismal hue. I knew this to be not true. My childhood possesed many a reason to be loquacious. And when joy did find itself hidden beneath the surface, it was always your strong reach that pulled it afloat. Now, unbeknownst to me, there was no saftey net coming to the depths of which abandonement had plunged love. I asked myself, "How now are you not concerned with my hearts happiness for the rest of time? How can you send me on quest for something I never saught to find?"

Scared, I followed nature's course downstream only to be entrapped by one pseudo assurance after another. I felt as garbage being thrashed about the turbulent current, pausing briefly along jagged rocks before being thrust into the grasp of another. Expended beyond what good faith could redeem, nature at last delivered me ashore. Though outwardly exposed, the sun was powerless to penetrate the shame that dwelled deep in the shadows of my being. Whenst I found the courage to open my eyes, the sourroundings mirrored the tangled moral forest of my heart. Then I saw it, above the treetops, the net that had been held from my grasp. I cursed it and yet longed for it in the same breath. I knew in that moment that if a language of words had not been taboo all the offense could have been spared.

My plea is this. Do not abandon me to the world of men; do not let go of my hand without questioning to whom will grasp it hence; do not assume you are no longer of great necessity. For a father's love is the first a daughter's heart does trust and til the sun doesth not rise she'll need to be assured. Though I be a woman, I pray thee never again neglect thee as a daughter. I need you now as suredly as I needed you when my existence was conceived. You have taught me to be diligent in character, organized in mind and strong in duty. There is not a day that passes that I do not look to you for guidance. Though it be true that my gender role closer resembles that of my mother, it is your influence that lays the foundation to building my self-love and confidence. Long have I toiled to appease you and yet I still wait to have your blessing. I want to hear that the work I do, the challenges I conquer, and the adventures I pursue fill you with pride. Most desperately I want you to protect my heart from accumulating losses that may go ungrieved and lead to despair without restoration. My prayer now is that my father would reach out his hands once more to embrace his tremulous child and release the words that have since accumulated a musty fragrance. And that he would realize that heroism is not something a father must earn but is esteemed as such from the moment he has a daughter.