The Unbroken Circle by Rocky Kidd

Granny would sit on this old front porch of an evening, rocking away in a chipped, blue rocking chair, drawing deeply from a cigarette she rolled herself with Prince Albert tobacco. She would watch the dark night roll down the holler with the day’s fading light. Every evening since I can remember, this is how Granny put the day to bed, her kitten cough clearing her lungs between draws of the home-rolled tobacco stick that stained the paper-thin skin of her ancient fingers.

Standing here in her place, I hear Granny sing to me inside the buzz of the June bug and the rush of the creek mumbling over rocks. It’s hard to believe she’s gone. When I was a child, we would hoe the garden or plant beans and corn of a day and rest on this old wooden porch, built high off the sloping ground, where bottom meets hillside in the alluvial flow of earth and water. She would tell me about the circle of life. How we come from dust, and to dust we return when we go home to be with the Lord.

Ruminating on the day, the peach and purple sky giving way to black, I was drawn back to the morning’s service and the disembodied sound of a dulcimer plucking out the mournful sounds of the age-old ballad “Barbra Allen.” The preacher prayed that we had to allow Jesus to cleanse us of our sin if we wanted to see Granny again on the other side. The good, clean smell of freshly turned soil filled our senses as we lowered Granny’s pine box casket into the ancient holler ground.

Interrupting my contemplation, my own granddaughter took me by the hand and said, “I love you, Papaw.”

“I love you too, Spud,” I replied.

“Are you sad your granny died, Papaw?” said Spud.

“Yes darling,” I said, as I lifted her up into my arms. “Dying is part of living, Spud,” I told her. “My granny taught me that right here on this porch. Held me like I’m holding you. The Good Book says we come from dust and to dust we’ll return when we go home to be with Jesus.”

“I love you, Papaw,” whispered Spud, as she wrapped her arms around my neck and buried her face into my chest. Holding her close, I was sure I heard that dulcimer lining out a song of joy about the circle of life coming down the holler.

Rocky Kidd lives and writes on the Indiana side of Chicago with his family and three cats. His family hails from Southeast Kentucky. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing and a MA in English Literature.

**Featured image from Evie S RJla0, Unsplash