Today is Oct. 2

Today would have been my parents' 60th anniversary. When they married way back in 1948 they told my grandparents they were going to the county fair in Franklin, Ky., the same place where June Carter and Johnny Cash got married. I have never heard what Grandmama and Pappy's reaction was to the news, but I don't think I would have wanted to face Pappy with the news of that elopement.

Sunday we finally finished the moving fiasco. My mother is now in her two bedroom apartment and all of her and Daddy's treasures have been divided between four households.

My greatest treasure, by far, is the big cupboard that my grandmother kept in her kitchen. The bow face cabinet went to live with my sister in Bowling Green, the Jackson Press to the sister's house up the road, and since my sister who lives in Columbia, Tn. didn't want the grandfather clock she let my daughter have it.

And boxes and boxes of glassware are everywhere, all gone to find new homes with four proud new owners who have been told the history of each piece.

This is the last house we will have memories of Daddy living in. The house we all considered home on the farm burned several years ago. In a way I am glad that house is gone, because now we have our memories of it, and don't have to see what other occupants have might have changed about the home place.

We divided all of Daddy's books up, everything had been left as it was when he died five years ago. Since he was an avid reader, there were quite a few books to go through. His jacket was still hanging on the hook in the utility room where he had hung it himself for the last time. Since I had been working on this moving project for over three weeks I just didn't have the energy to draw for another item so we let my two younger sisters flip for it. Even though the "baby" of the family won the flip she let Ramona have it. They both cried and I had to walk away before the tears started to flow from my eyes as well.

My mother has worked very hard at this being a peaceable distribution of her things and I think, considering the amount of possessions we went through, she achieved her goal.
One of the saddest aspects of losing a parent, or both parents, is the splitting of a family. Siblings do not speak any longer because one feels the other was given more or treated better than another.Or someone gets an "uppity air" and decides they want to be the one who runs the show.

We drew for everything that was in the house, so everyone got an equal number. There are no need for anyone's feelings to have been stepped on.

We all parted as sisters, a family still in tact.