Tag: Love

Thirteen

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It is inevitable that we will lose some of those we love along life’s journey. But all is not lost.

When seminal I’ll-Be-Seeing-You moments, birthdays, anniversaries, songs reappear, we can’t help but acknowledge them.

Over the years, I have chosen to pay tribute to those I love in my memoirs in significant ways. None more than my mother.

These three sentences appear in my first book, From Fertile Ground, which I wrote and published in 2016.

“She died in the wees hours of January 26, 2013, at age eighty-nine and a half. The air was arctic cold and the moon was full. Every time I see a full moon now or experience the change in seasons, I’m reminded of my mother’s undaunted spirit.”

On this — the thirteenth anniversary of her passing — I pause.

I give thanks for Helen Matilda Ferrell Johnson.

I remember her unconditional love, her letters, her wisdom, her level-headedness, her resiliency, her love of nature.

And I do my best to carry on.

I keep writing.

Rolling Out the Dough

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Back in the early 1960s, Mom plucked two mounds of dough out of our Philco refrigerator.

She plopped them on the kitchen counter to let them soften and warm to room temperature, then pulled her rolling pin out of the cupboard.

Diane and I took our places on either side of her, holding our primitive cookie cutters. Grey. Flimsy. Metal.

One was a simple star. The second, a classic Christmas tree. The third, a basic bell. The fourth, a reindeer in flight. The last one, a profile of Santa Claus carrying a pack of toys.

Further down the counter, two slightly bent cookie sheets waited, along with green and red sugar sprinkles we would soon shake above our freshly formed Christmas cookies.

But, in this gauzy 60s slice of life featuring baking, rolling out the dough had to come first.

Mom reached into her container of flour and tossed a handful on the counter. Then, dusted the wooden roller with the remains.

She leaned in with the rolling pin and pressed the dough. Back and forth with equal measures of love. The surface expanded with our hearts and imagination.

We took turns dipping the cutters into the flour, creating our shapes in the dough.

Then, we lifted them carefully with a spatula onto the cookie sheets, added the sprinkles, and slid them into the oven for eight to ten minutes.

While the first batch of cookies baked, Mom gathered the bits of dough that remained. She created a smaller ball and flattened it out with the roller. Together, we repeated the process.

It was 1961. I was four years old. Diane was seven. We felt loved, safe in the presence of our mother.

***

Earlier this week, I found one green Christmas cookie cutter in our kitchen drawer here in Arizona. It was a gift from our friend Jillian a few years ago, but I hadn’t made sugar cookies from scratch since those early days in suburban St. Louis with my long-gone mother.

Tom and I bought a wooden rolling pin, and I found an easy sugar cookie recipe online. I assembled the ingredients to make the dough: butter, sugar, flour, one egg, a teaspoon of vanilla extract, and a dash of salt.

I mixed it all together and let the dough settle in two large discs in the fridge overnight.

On Monday, I rolled out the dough, cut the cookies, and topped my Christmas trees with green and rainbow-colored sprinkles. Then, I slid several trays of cookies into the oven to bake.

Why this year? I don’t really know, except to say it’s been an awful period in our country even though I’m a survivor and somehow have reached new creative heights in my personal life in 2025: several memoir-writing workshops, two joyful holiday concerts, and another book.

And, of course, I still miss my mother. She’s been gone since January 2013, but the grief reappears with the holidays. I suppose I needed to feel her presence again.

I needed to rescue my past Christmas-cookie-cutting memory with Mom. To keep that sweet, simple goodness alive in the stillness of my kitchen. To shepherd it into my present Arizona life with Tom and breathe new life into that tradition.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Potluck

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My husband is an excellent cook. He prepares our dinners with love and panache. I am more the pancake-and-egg guy in our relationship. Breakfasts are my thing.

Occasionally, we switch things up. Today is one of those days.

Our friend Jeremy has invited us to his Thanksgiving potluck this evening … a low-key gathering with friends and a few in his family.

Yesterday, I decided I would make a pot of chicken chili for Jeremy’s Friendsgiving today. It is simmering in our slow cooker as I write this. It’s a delicious, easy, non-traditional dish.

I haven’t made it in years, but the timing is right. The weather is cooler. I want to prepare something meaningful to share with our friend, who is managing his way on the road of life through a monumental year of personal growth mixed with significant detours and setbacks.

As background, Jeremy came out to his friends, family, and the world a little over a year ago. He and his wife are no longer a couple, but they continue to be loving parents to all five of their children. It’s impressive that even during this period of uncertainty they have maintained a respectful relationship.

I know fatherhood is important to Jeremy. He loves and supports his children. I remember how difficult it was for me to balance my fatherhood, demanding career, and “gay awakening” thirty years ago. I suspect it is the same in this moment for Jeremy.

All of this leads me back to this recipe for chicken chili. In the early 1990s, after Jean and I divorced, I felt broken–broke, too–and I existed in a fog, especially in the colder months.

My sons spent half their time with me in my tiny apartment. I needed to find inexpensive, flavorful dishes, which I could prepare for dinner for Nick, Kirk, and me. To feed and nourish us. To keep us close.

This chicken chili recipe is one I made frequently thirty years ago. Not so much lately. But it makes perfect sense to resurrect it today. To bridge the past of balancing my gay identity and single fatherhood with the present of Jeremy’s.

So, I am making chicken chili now for about a dozen (Jeremy’s supportive friends and a few of his children) who will gather on a coolish and likely rainy Saturday evening in the desert.

Together we will give thanks for friendships … the potluck of life that nourishes us and allows us to learn and grow during good times and bad.

Survivors

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She’s survived another summer in the Valley of the Sun. Living life on the lam.

Climbing walls and trees. Stalking birds, lizards, and rodents. Dodging haboobs, monsoons, and ICE agents. Ducking in and out of covered patios … sleeping on weathered blue cushions melting into wicker chairs outside our front door.

Poly is her given name. Given by me to her. No doubt, she has other assumed names from other presumed cat lovers in our Polynesian Paradise condo community.

I hardly consider her a stray anymore, because we are three years into our relationship … our parlor game of fancy treats followed by quick goodbyes.

In 2022, she wouldn’t get close enough to touch. Tom and I left kibble outside our door in the same chipped dish you see here. She ate quickly, then darted off … back into her Sonoran neverland.

But in 2025 we have reached a deeper level of closeness, intimacy, love perhaps. Maybe she’s been reading the news and needs comforting. I know I do.

Every morning around 6, Tom or I open the security door and look for her. Nine out of ten days, she hops down from that day’s pre-selected chair, meows as she glides and stretches on the mat in our foyer.

She trails around our legs, marks our shoes and furniture with the scent of her furry face, and shimmies up and down as Tom or I (we take turns) prepare her dish of Sheba cuts in gravy with sustainable salmon.

The frequency and volume of meows increase as the dish comes close to the floor. Poly purrs loudly, then polishes that off in less than a minute. Her eyes sparkle with gratitude.

Lately, she’s been staying longer after her meal. Sometimes returning later in the morning or evening for a second round of treats. Dry savory salmon-flavor Temptations for the cat that deserves the best.

On September 1, at 11:13 a.m., Poly allowed me to sit on the floor and give her love. I patted her head, back, and tail as we talked about her morning … our day.

Then, I placed brunch before her and captured this kitty-calendar portrait of Poly, our cagey Sonoran friend, modeling in the kitchen on our new, natural oak flooring.

After she consumed her meal and licked her paws, she glided and sniffed through our bedroom, den, and sunroom.

Poly then departed through the front door, left ajar for her safe departure (she is a free spirit, after all!) back into the wild of intense sun, hissing sprinklers, spiky cacti, and random critters (animals and humans) … all of us living each day, giving and taking what we can, embracing or deflecting each moment as it comes.

Because that is what survivors do.

A New Life

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I understand why you feel betrayed,

why you can’t stay any longer,

why you don’t feel safe

in a country ravaged by hate.

It has fallen far beneath the one

you and I once believed was true,

the one you and I thought we knew.

As you fly away to begin anew,

to begin a new adventure,

to begin in a new life in a new country,

those of us who love you,

those of us you leave behind,

hold this gift of friendship high,

as we also hold our breaths.

We wonder what you will learn,

what you will discover in your new land,

what tomorrow will bring

for those of us,

who stay behind

to live each day

in this familiar zone

of divisive uncertainty,

in a country we still love,

as our forefathers

and foremothers did,

all of us that much

closer to midnight.

Photo by Bob Price on Pexels.com

For my friend, who is beginning a new life today. He will remain nameless.

Nostalgia

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Music is a great elixir for what ails you.

What ailed me for three years–2013 to 2016–was grief spawned by the loss of my mother.

Listening to Annie Lennox’ soaring voice–her Nostalgia--pulled me through and beckoned me to complete my first book From Fertile Ground.

You see, Annie’s rendition of twelve stirring and mostly southern-sometimes-smoldering tunes written in the 1930s and 1940s primed the pump of my southern sensory memories.

Sometime in 2015, I unearthed a tender memory of making homemade peach ice cream with my grandmother Georgia on the rickety porch of my grandparents’ North Carolina farm.

It was Annie who reminded me that I had Georgia on My Mind. Sherrell Richardson Ferrell, too–S.R. for short. He was my farming grandfather who left behind more than fifty years of diary entries.

Annie’s music, Georgia’s love, S.R.’s spartan stories (primitive blog entries really), and Helen’s litany of letters (she was my wise mother) gave me all the creative inspiration I needed to finish and publish my first book in 2016.

Why is this all relevant today? Because I have Helen on my mind. She died twelve years ago on January 26, 2013.

For the most part, my writing and the constant love and support from my husband Tom have helped soften the grief as the years continue to roll by.

Helen would have been happy for me on both counts. She suspected Tom and I would retire in Arizona one day.

However, I doubt she would have imagined the entirety of this literary chapter for me, which lately includes teaching memoir writing at our local library. (I’ve been asked to lead a third workshop in April.)

Or the growing community of loyal followers Tom has inspired with every immersive movie series he hosts (also at the Scottsdale Public Library). His next series–Movies That Matter: The 1970s (a tribute to six film directors)–begins tomorrow and continues on most Mondays until early April.

I firmly believe it is the arts and the artists–like Annie Lennox, even the less renowned ones like Mark Johnson and Tom Samp–who through their music, writing, painting, poetry, and true cultural perspectives will help pull us through this dark and uber-turbulent period in our once-proud country.

For now, that is the hope I cling to. Along with the memories of love and gratitude–the nostalgia–framed by indelible moments with family and friends past and present, who I love dearly.

You Wouldn’t Believe

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Since you’ve been gone, you

wouldn’t believe how the world

and our lives have changed.

You never knew that I married

a man I love, or that we live

in the desert where I can swim

outside in the winter, or that

I survived a heart attack on

my sixtieth birthday, in the

city where both of us

were born, or that

the grandsons you loved as

children are thriving, though

they have nearly reached

middle age, or that some people

now ride in cars with no

actual drivers, or that it’s kind

of a metaphor for our

country, which has lost

its moral compass, or that

the flag you defended and

saluted is no longer yours, or

that I am thankful to write and

sing in my late sixties, because

I was meant to do those all

along. All of this is true, and

it prompts me to worry and

hope–mostly worry–that

even though I am thankful

for good health, my kind and

compassionate husband, my

own boundless empathy, and

the relationships I’ve nurtured

with my sons, and many diverse

friends, I feel heavy uncertainty

in our country, and anticipate

more losses ahead only

to protect myself, and

of course, it reminds me of

other losses I’ve endured,

especially on the anniversary

of your passing the day after

a big Thanksgiving meal

with your sisters. By now,

you can see that the world

you knew is most definitely

gone, but you live in

my memories, and

I still love you, I grieve for you,

I grieve for me, I grieve for us.

Most of all, I still remember the

many monumental moments

–the good and bad–we shared

so long ago, Dad.

Desert Moon

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As we count our losses,

we brace for shadows

and ripples lurking

in the darkness.

The comfort of an

undeterred desert moon

shines stillness.

It conjures hope

and the ebb and flow

of constancy living

on their own cycles.

It rises with flickers

of unfulfilled promises

and etched memories

of loved ones gone

but never far away.

In the Gauzy Evening

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In the gauzy evening of our disparate lives, we stand by our loved ones and convictions. We continue to grow strong in spite of our spiky imperfections and ominous shadows on horizons beyond us.

We are not always as close as we appear, but–because we grew from the same earth–we are never too far apart from the history we share as we reach higher toward distinct patches of blue.

At times, we wonder what binds us. But–with a nudge or two–we recite lines from the pages of our youth, we remember trailblazers before us, we whisper today’s dreams and tomorrow’s travels.

Replenish

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In the base of nature’s jagged bowl, weighty wings of clouds gather and descend. Endless cascades of cleansing tears appear to wash tangled unsuspecting souls.

“Fly away” they shout. “Show us those we knew are lasting. Bathe us in revealing light and budding promise. Help us replenish and remember what has gone.”

***

This poem is dedicated to all those who have gone before us. To enjoy more of my poetry, buy my latest book–A Path I Might Have Missed–on Amazon.