Dawn Phelps
Columnist
“Joy Time” is about 4:15 every day for me. That’s my agreed-on time to call my oldest sister Joy in Kentucky to check on her, and I call her almost daily. In fact, when is it close to 4:00 each day, either my husband Tom or I will usually say, “It’s almost Joy Time!”
When I call her, we chat a bit and catch up on how each of us are doing. Joy lives alone and home caregivers come to her house a few hours each day to help keep her independent, and they prepare her evening meal five days a week.
I know her caregivers by name and have met one of them—Sumay who moved from Jordan to the U.S. She is knowledgeable about teas, spices, herbs, and soups, and she sometimes introduces Joy to a new dish. If Joy has an upset stomach, Sumay knows just the right tea to make for her.
Delicia is from Central America. She makes delicious tamales and yummy potato soup. And Tasha makes chicken salad for Joy’s sandwiches for the weekend and helps Joy in many ways. I appreciate each worker and love how they care for Joy.
But back to Joy Time, that special time that I connect with Joy almost every day. Our conversations usually begin with “How was your day?” “How are you doing?” “What are you having for supper?”
During most of our phone calls, we talk about present-day things, but sometimes we talk about our past years in Tennessee when we were kids—both of us enjoy remembering and reminiscing. Like the old song “Remember When,” it is fun to talk about and relive our past childhood experiences.
We remember how little money there was when we were young, how we had to pitch in and help with the chores. Counting our grandmother who lived with us, there were ten mouths to feed for each meal, and just peeling enough potatoes for that many was quite a task for a young kid!
We had to draw a lot of water from the well for drinking water and laundry. It took 10 buckets for the washer and 8 buckets to rinse. We washed our clothes in a washing machine, rinsed them by hand in a large tub of rinse water, and wrung them out with the wringer on the washing machine.
We hung them outside to dry, sorting them as we hung them. And oh, they smelled so good when we brought them into the house after they were dry!
Joy and I talk about how we had to learn to cook, sew, and clean at early ages and how we loved living in the country. We agree that the years we spent on the farm were our very best years of all, and we talk about our fun experiences and adventures.
We canned vegetables from the garden and picked wild blackberries from the fields. We were always watchful, listening for rattlesnakes as we picked! Other than the danger of snakes and possibly our black horse that we were afraid of, we felt safe.
My siblings and I explored our farm acreage, swam in the creek, and checked out the paw-paw patch on the backside of the farm for paw-paws. And there was nature—our daddy taught us to love nature.
He taught us how to “whistle up” a male bobwhite by whistling the female call while we sat high in a tree. I remember one day that a male bobwhite responded to my whistle and flew to a tree near where I was hiding from him. It scared me—I wondered if the bird would be angry if he figured out that I was not a female bird—I quit whistling.
Our daddy taught us how to identify the trees by their barks. He would quiz us as we walked along, not letting us look at the leaves on the trees to help us identify them.
Despite the hard work and our frugal income, life was good and peaceful! As I get older, even though we have so many more conveniences, some days I long for the simpler lifestyle and the peaceful life of my childhood; when the pace was slower, people were kinder, the world was safer, and our personal connections felt stronger.
As for my wish for a peaceful place, I realize that I usually find peace outside. In a lawn chair. Under a tree. A gentle breeze. Listening to the birds and the sounds of nature. That has been impossible in recent weeks due to the frigid weather. But I keep telling myself that spring does always follow winter, and I can hardly wait.
For now, I will keep on talking to my sister Joy each day I can. And until spring, Tom and I have decided to look for simple, small Joy Time experiences—like a cup of hot tea, music, reading, or occasional popcorn and a shared Coke in the evening.
And probably more importantly, I will try to keep in touch with someone else who may need someone to call and ask, “How are you doing? How’s your day going?”
Joy Time need not be expensive—keep it simple—as you intentionally plan ways to put a little extra Joy Time into your lives, especially on the days when the temperatures don’t rise above freezing. Wishing you special Joy Times to help warm your heart!
