Feeling Lonely

Just before dark, I finally got around to fixin' beans. 

Daughter was at work, and, because it was such a small mess, I didn't ask Husband to help. 

Alone on the back porch, stringin' and snappin', I felt kinda lonely.

Lonely isn't something I feel much. Raised for almost eleven years as an only child, I learned to be alone, keeping myself entertained. (Which is one reason, I suspect, I am a writer.)

But somehow my mind went back to one summer afternoon, when I lived away in the big city, that I reluctantly and temporarily called home. My granny answered the phone, sounding a little irritated as well as a little out of breath.

"What ya'll doin'?" I asked her, after the usual, "Hey, it's me."

"We's out on the porch a'fixin' beans. You shore do need to be here."

I felt a pang of homesick stab me in the heart so sharp I didn't think I could breathe.

I wasn't made to work much as a child, but when it came to beans, we all worked. Everybody sat on the front porch, aproned lap full of beans ready to be fixed. On one side was a large pan for throwing the strung and broke beans into; on the other side was a waste basket of some sort to dump your strings and bug bit pieces in when your  lap got full. 

I usually had a grandmother, Mother, if she wasn't at work, and a granddaddy there. Most times my aunt and Yankee Cousin were there, too. I also  helped out on the other side, grandmother, granddaddy, Mother and myself.

Since talk was cheap, there was plenty of it to go around. Me and Yankee cousin didn't say much because if we were quiet, we could get quite the education from hearing all the adults chatter.

But last night, I was alone - missing them all. Grandparents have gone on, as has the aunt. Mother was at her own house, oblivious I even had a mess of beans.

And Yankee Cousin - well, I kept expectin' her to walk through the door and get busy helpin'.

But she never did.