They weren't dreams (Blogger Chicks Carnival #6)

I was reading Notes from the trenches as she commented on the continuing, but probably unintended, cruelty of peoples remarks about her large family.

I found myself dreaming back to many years ago and what I experienced as the youngest of eight.

I didn't know we were poor.

I thought people stared at us 'cuz we were so good looking.

My sisters and I sang when we did dishes. There were loads - and we were the closest thing to automation in the house. Mom activated us by pointing her ‘don’t start with me” finger.

I shared a bed with my just older sis until I was eight. Even after that, there was always someone to crawl in bed with when I had a nightmare. My sis tells me I was the nightmare when she woke up in my occasional accident. (Sorry, sis.)

My two oldest brothers picked me up and threw me back and forth between them when they got home from school. It never occurred to me that my friends never had the pleasure of being a wiffle ball.

We ALWAYS sat around our old wooden table as a family. Our food was simple, but Mom did her best with what the garden produced and what she canned and preserved. We all shared in the weeding and harvesting. In the summer months, Mom kept us busy husking corn, shelling peas, and snapping beans.

Dad would be up at 4 a.m., light a fire, put a pot of cereal on to cook, and head down the hill to start milking. Now when I smell a 'just lit' match it reminds me how I would wake up just a little, take a sniff, and then snuggle down in my blanket. I knew the house would be cozy by the time I crawled out of bed several hours later. (I also remember the rubbery cream-of-wheat that would be waiting for me when I arrived at my breakfast bowl. Argh!)

We walked to school every day. I was never alone until I was the last one in elementary school.

Mom's hands were so rough from her hard life that she had to use gloves to pull on her nylons before we went to church. But I remember them only as having the softest most tender touch when I needed a hug.

Most peoples dreams consist of wants, wishes, and deepest desires for what may come.

Not mine. My dreams take me back to when I never knew I didn’t have it all.