A Medley of Moods

By Annie Pearl Asher

Twenty years ago I went to the funeral of a friend I admired and respected. The sadness I felt prompted me to write the fictional story "One More Time," in Part Two of this book; it's the ideal friendship between two friends who were inseparable. Over three decades ago I wrote "The Days Back Home," and "We keep Love Alive." I chose these two stories from the others I have written through the years because Part One of A MEDLEY OF MOODS is about family matters. I wrote The Unbroken Bond, The Sacrifice, A False Conception, and The Procrastinator to show how family members can come together in love and good will whether they are related or not--if they are willing. Death Pain and Being a Widow is my true story about the loss of my son and my spouse. Some of Part Two and Part Three are nonfiction. But whether the parts are fiction or nonfiction, there is a grain of truth in everything that I have written. And I believe that my readers will feel me through the things that I have written and they will know the difference between the two.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• Release date: Jan 24, 2018
• ISBN: 9781456630232

Book preview

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FOREWORD

My mother, Pearl Asher, describes herself as a dreamer. Born in the small southern town of Florence, Alabama in 1946 as the south was coming to the end of the Jim Crow era and was about to embark on the era of the civil rights movement.

And although African Americans, still referred to as coloreds at the time, were shackled in many ways by the Jim Crow laws, Pearl's mind could never be shackled. She was free to dream; to dare to dream of a better life for her and her husband and the four son's she would come to have in the future.

Pearl met her husband James hip-man Asher, when she was only five-years-old still wearing pigtails and dreamed of one day being his wife even though at the grand old age of eight, James was only interested in frogs and snails and puppy dog tails. Then an amazing thing happened, Pearl, never one to be ignored, grew up, and James no longer saw puppy dog tails.

They shared a love that spanned six decades and one that would rival all the great eternal loves of history. Romeo and Juliette, Antony and Cleopatra, Samson and Delilah, and now, Pearl and Hip.

Pearl knew the exquisiteness of love, but also the deep and abiding pain of loss. She lost her husband to cancer a few months shy of their 50th wedding anniversary. She had lost her third-born son Benjamin just short of his 41st birthday nearly seven years earlier, and Alzheimer's claimed the life of her mother Lillie, two years later, and as of the writing of this journal, Pearl lost her 2nd oldest friend, Izoner Rhodes.

The one constant in Pearl's life, after her devotion to her God Jehovah, has always been her dreaming, and as she dreamed, she wrote. Days dark and deep would visit her, days when she wished for the earth to open up and swallow her alive, and still, she wrote.

There were days when she felt as if her wishes were being granted, days when she existed in a place somewhere between sanity and insanity, between the living and the departed, and through it all, she continued to write and to dream of times gone by and times yet to be. Her ink pen became her lynch-pin for survival. Her paper became her confidant, her soundboard. Here she could scream, cry, accuse, beg and plead. Her writings became therapeutic, and Pearl would find both comfort and healing through her writings, and her faith in her God.

A Medley of Moods is the compilation of those writings. And in these writings, there is something for everyone. There are both heroes and heroines. There are the bold and the timid, the builders and the destroyers. (only the names have been changed to protect the innocent). Each character could very well be the neighbor next door, or your fellow PTA member, everyday people that we can all identify with and that is the allure of A Medley of Moods.

All of Pearl's words are delivered unabridged and without the filter of a professional editor, they are, simply put, the words, thoughts, and feelings of a dreamer. Pearl invites you into her world and wishes for you that there may always be a dream!

-Pearl’s son

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

THANKS TO JAMES P. ASHER, MY SON, FOR TEACHING ME HOW TO RUN APPLICATIONS, COMPOSE, AND MANEUVER MY WAY ON THE LAPTOP. THANK YOU, MY SON.

GLENDA D. LEWIS ANDREWS, MY SPIRITUAL SISTER, WHO SENT ME A SUBSCRIPTION TO WRITER'S DIGEST YEARS AGO. THANK YOU, GLENDA.

THANKS TO MURIEL WILLIAMS HARDIN, ARTIST, AND WIFE OF DR. LARUE HARDIN, DENTIST,--MY CLASSMATES, CLASS OF 1965--FOR ASKING ME THE SAME QUESTION EVERY TIME I SEE YOU: ANNIE PEARL, ARE YOU STILL WRITING? THANK YOU, MURIEL, FOR THE ENCOURAGEMENT.

PAMELA BROWN, DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, WASHINGTON, DC., FOR STARTING MY SON, BEN'S WEBSITE: www.ben-asher.memory-of.com. THANK YOU, PAM, FOR BEING A FRIEND OF THE ASHER FAMILY.

PART ONE

SHORT STORIES

THE DAYS BACK HOME

I can still hear mama's voice calling papa from the field. I can still see weary children with smudged faces scattering out to their various homes as the long hard-day grew still. Old Pa sat by the fire in his rocker, extending a crabby, old hand to each passerby. His tired, old eyes would follow us around the room, then linger on the portrait hanging on the wall. I knew he was thinking of Old Ma, who passed away years ago. Papa would sigh as he came through the door, his eyes expressionless as he washed his hands in the sink. Mama's hands would shake when she set his plate before him. Papa would grunt, his usual response to her How was your day? I never missed the look in her eyes as she would turn away and busy herself at the stove. The way her shoulders would slump as she pushed back a strand of hair from her wrinkled brow, I always knew she wanted more. It bewildered me how she managed to keep her expectations alive while Papa had long since lost all hope; if he ever desired anything, we had no way of knowing. I remember how my brother would attempt conversation with him. He always had such a need to get into Papa. But Papa was private and was sparing with his words. Life ain’t easy, boy, you gonna find that out someday. I chose silence, my safety from Papa. Not long after supper, Papa would help Old Pa from his rocker, and they both would retire early. Mama washed the dishes then pummeled her tired body through the door and sat in Old Pa's rocker. We kids would scramble around her feet. For a long time, nobody would say anything while Mama rocked back and forth. Her eyes closed, and her head pressed against the back of the rocker. Then finally the rocking would stop; Mama would open her eyes and look at each of us. My, how you have grown, she would say. It won't be long before you are leaving me. I would lay my head in her lap, and she would stroke my hair. I can still remember the good feeling I got from her rough, overworked hands. I shall never forget the sound of her voice or the words to the song that she would croon softly to us. How sad, today, I missed you—Tomorrow, maybe I’ll find you again—Yesterday was heaven, I got a glimpse of you—Always, I'll hope that we shall meet again. Mama didn't have very much, yet she gave to us abundantly because she gave of herself. Yes, Mama had dreams, passions, and desires, but no one to help her realize them. And she didn't know how to cultivate them apart from Papa. Mama was a sensitive woman. It was that sensitivity of hers that kept her going. I used to hear her crying and pleading softly to Papa at night. Then complete silence. I somehow knew that he had failed her once again, in one way or another. It was about three a.m. one chilly morning; we were awakened by the slamming of car doors and the sound of the motor when the car rolled away. It wasn't until morning that we knew that Old Pa had died quietly in his sleep. After that, it seemed that Papa aged more rapidly. His eyes had that haunted look each night he came in from the field. One by one, we kids grew up and left home. I'll never forget the day I left. How Mama cried and clung to me. It tore me up inside to leave her. She had done everything in her power to give me roots, and she did, but now she had to give me wings. My flight would have to extend far beyond her destiny. Papa drove me to the bus depot in silence. I stole a glance at him. I never could read him, and it was no different now. I purchased my ticket and headed for the bus. I took one step up and turned to wave at Papa, who, to my amazement, had followed close behind me. He thrust his hand out quickly and pressed something into mine, then quickly departed. Tears filled my eyes as I found a seat and sat down. I let them roll unchecked down my cheeks. I turned to take one last look at Papa's old jalopy and watched until it disappeared out of sight. I sank back into my seat and closed my eyes against the dismal little town that I called home. It wasn't until miles down the road that I opened my hand to check what Papa had given me. Inside an envelope were ten crisp one hundred- dollar bills and a note that said, Life ain’t easy, girl. You gonna find that out someday. That's all it said, no signature in love. But that wasn't necessary because then, at that moment, I knew. I knew that Papa's love for his family had moved him to scrimp and save—a dollar here and there—and bank it for safekeeping so that when the time came, he could give to his children the best way he knew how. I knew, too, that he had given the others the same thing when they left home. I knew they had felt what I was feeling now, that revelation, somehow, knit my family together. At different times in our lives we all had come to the same conclusion. That there's a method to Papa's madness. Then the knowledge hit