Screaming Jays by Susan L.

  The rasping screech of Blue Jays always takes me back in time. When I was little, we'd go and visit  family friends of my dad in New Brunswick where he grew up. We'd set our pop up, canvas top trailer in the yard beside their old country farm house. The Blue Jays would sing their rather unmelodious song early in the morning from the pussy willows that lined the back of the yard. I can still smell the sun warmed canvas and remember lying there, listening, happy as a clam.
  Mrs. Morgan still cooked on a wood stove. The memory of her home made biscuits and preserves still has the power to make my mouth water. It fascinated me that she kept her flour in a kitchen drawer and not the bag it came in. I was even more fascinated by how quickly she whipped up a batch of biscuits without seeming to measure a thing. The metal sifter, with its metallic scrape softly echoing the jays, would create a fluffy, pristine mountain of flour on the counter. A dash of this, a splash of that, roll 'em out and toss them in the oven. She made it look so easy!
  There was a rocking chair beside the stove that begged to be sat in. Her large cat was more than happy to share as long as he got petted. I was more than happy to sit there while the adults talked of adult things as they polished off the last of the breakfast biscuits and coffee. Back and forth, feeling my long hair move in unison with the timeless rhythm of the chair. The cat purred like a diesel engine under my gentle attentions.
  It was the time when I could still hear bats. Their noises are now, sadly, far outside the range of my adult ears. Back then, their tiny squeaks filled the night sky as they hunted the fireflies that flickered in the air and turned the lawn into a magical carpet of stars.
  The plants in the sun porch, so many the tables groaned under their weight. The grill in the upstairs hall floor to let the heat from the stove upstairs. The Devil's Paintbrushes, a wildflower that filled the meadow across the road with flaming yellow, orange and red. Fishing in the stream that ran through the back of the property. My dad freaking out when I caught an eel. (The only time I ever saw him lose his cool!) My brother falling on a rake and putting the spike through his hand. The sound of the Morgan's grown up son playing the bagpipes. Seeing the house where my dad was a boy. The country store that sold everything from candy to nails.
  Thank You Lord, for the good times. I don't mean the rake, but the rest of it for sure!
  "So He said to them, "Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who as left house or parents or brothers or wife or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who shall not receive many times more in this present time, and in the age to come eternal life." Lk 18:29-30