It is one of those phone calls you never want to receive. You can’t take in the words. You think for just a moment if you hadn’t answered the phone, it would all go away, disappear, never have happened.

Terrible accident. The names listed out. Gone. No going back. The white caskets will line up in the church. You will all wait forever and ever to gather graveside because it takes longer than expected to bury so many at one time. And afterward an emptiness, a fear, a "how could this happen?" that never is answered. My fear of large trucks on interstates; watching the grassy area of the median to make sure they don't cross over without warning into my lane. The irrational thoughts while packing the car for a trip - wondering if we never return, is the house cleaned up enough if my family has to turn the key in the lock and come in to disassemble my life?

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We say we are taking Maybelle for a walk, but I think mostly we are taking one for ourselves. This week we walk the roads of my childhood and the ones that did not yet exist then.

We walk past where the Fisher's long straight driveway started and if we go farther down Fisher Road and turn left and then left again past houses on two-acre lots until the neighborhood road dead ends just past the house with the tennis court, we can look up into the enormous oak trees where the small white wood frame farmhouse of the Fisher’s once stood. It was surrounded by pastures and fields with a creek running through the woods where children waded, and sunlight broke through the canopy like glittering diamonds.

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Transformation. That is where I have lived this summer. It has been in the broken tile and concrete dust of tearing out my mother’s 1950’s burgundy and pink bathroom to redress it in shades of white and veins of gray. White travertine luxury vinyl tile (who knew there was such a thing?), ubiquitous white shiplap walls, and the easily installed cabinetry of Ikea.

We met a lovely French plumber named Jean Marie from Corsica who made crumbling pipes sound almost wonderous. Our dog Maybelle was enamored, and we soon discovered if we missed her, she could be found sitting in the bathroom with him, his hand absentmindedly rubbing her head.

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I am slowly dismantling my mother’s life. Last week it was the pink and burgundy tile of her bathroom. This week as the plumbers move the hookups for the toilet and the sink, I scale the built-in pine bookcases she designed to fill the entire wall in the living room in 1954 as the carpenter stood by waiting for her pencil sketch. There are books in the high nooks with cloth covers and faded titles no one has reached for in years.

I always knew this would be the hard part. When she fell in my backyard from a stroke, hitting her head on the terracotta planter on her way down, and promptly died 36 hours later, I sort of took that in stride. She had lived a full and vibrant life and had told me that last week she was lonely. “I want to go home” were her last words. My sisters and I met with the mortician in Greer, planned her service with her great nephew officiating, talked with the relatives who gathered, and I wrote a poem about not missing her enough knowing the missing her part would come later.

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“I tell this story, not because I am good, but because He is good.” Susan's voice is soft and soothing – as it always is. There are seven of us gathered on the screened-in porch; cousins who share the bloodlines and upbringing of Robert and Pauline, Doris and Helen. We gather once a year to share our food, our time, our stories. We once lived over the hill and down the road from one another – now time and distance and our own families have strewn us across the southern states.

Susan had gone to the grocery store after church on Sunday. As she waited in line to pay, a woman about her age and a young boy waited beside her. Joy spilled out of them and drew Susan’s attention. She smiled back at the little boy who proudly announced to her, “I got to ring the bell today!”

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My thoughts skip back to a distant time in my own young life. The sun is bright white light shining outside the open window. The white curtains blow into the room and float back in release. The sounds of ocean waves breaking against the shore are the constant - pierced by cries of seagulls. I am alone. It must be after lunch. Naptime.

I know outside the window play my older sisters, Ann and Kathy. My daddy is out there too. My mother is somewhere in the house with me. It is the end of an era. Perhaps 1959 or 60. When you drove to Florida and your daddy found a white-framed house right on the beach. The ocean breeze came through the windows and golden sand was outside your doorstep.

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