Thursday, May 26, 2011

THE VILLAGE SMITHY ~ By Absolutely*Kate

THE VILLAGE SMITHY
 
~ By Absolutely*Kate  

It was a new town. It was to be her town. The kind of town you just wanted to amble around. And so she did. From the Essex train station, she gathered her weathered valise and leather shoulder bag, sauntered up Broad and sashayed down Elm. She crossed Genesee to see what she could see and meandered her enthusiasm along the bends beckoned by winding round Juniper Lane  . . . which turned enchanting when its tour de force hit the high notes of ample brass fanfare upon the Village Green.  
 
Over hill and over dale, a resounding gazebo band was practicing star-spangled standards of Memorial Day renditions. The jostling chatter of townsfolk interjected here, there and everywhere, evoking Norman Rockwell with sound effects. The butcher and the baker were haggling over meat on the street. No doubt the candlestick maker in the shop where forest green canvas awnings were flapping could wax eloquent over town goings on. What a wide open view to pan the panorama!
 
And so she did, and from her vantage near the street light on the streetcorner named Desire, she saw him, the most evocative character to jar her peepers so far, in all the travels in all the towns -- and even a few gin joints she'd known. She spied him under the spreading chestnut tree. Yes, that was where the village smithy stood. An urge warmed her bold, an urge lunged her fearless. Instinct pummeled nerves, to speak out to him if she could. "Well, move feet,"  Liza admonished, setting her stroll from the sunny side of the street to where shady leafed branches bid wonder and she hoped . . . welcome.

© 2011 ~ Author Absolutely*Kate
in a small-town large state of mind 
  
Photo ala Wolfrage



TO BE CONTINUED
NEXT WEEKEND
ON THE VILLAGE GREEN
WHERE THE WHIPPORWILL
WARBLES STILL . . . 

... OR ...

Click here for Epic*sode 2 ~ "Need A Hoof Nipper?"


Thursday, May 19, 2011

JOSH ~ Absolutely*Kate's Congrats!

J O S H

~ Best Wishes from Absolutely*Mom 

His baby bottle was shaped like a baseball. It was no novelty item though that he grew to naturally grace pitcher's mounds when he wasn't throwing his lightening arm and mind into double and even triple plays from his sure-footed shortstop stance. Took more than chance and circumstance for how the kid applied his know-how to ace exams in high finance as well as the hearts of all who came to know him. 

He's a hearty, good-lookin' 22 that always pulls through, and he's my son. He's pedaled bikes, delivered papers and successes as he routed his life into the greater world around him. Though he will likely trounce most in Madden's challenges and Xbox offerings of any imagination's pondering, I can hold my own in ESPN's Pigskin Pickems when sharing Subway sandwiches across couches during the season called gridiron. Simple pleasures, vast pride, such is the stuff the dreams for our children are made of.

He's a Red Sox fan and I root, root, root for the Yanks. Essentially, that's our major difference, for we both hold high the winning score that family, friends and loving laughter brings on home. My father's golf prowess is par for this young man's course now too, along with mighty sports skills in all endeavored fields of contention. Yep, his life is a wide open playing field and I'm betting high hopes on a lively boy who grew up loving a black cat named Lucky.

Josh graduates from Bentley University near Boston, this Saturday. His warm or wry texts from afar have gladdened this mother's happy heart countless times. His strength, higher than sadness, has steadied this mother's sorrowful heart during the loss of our beloved spark of mother and  grandmother who held tremendous pride in a tall, lanky good-looking guy who reminded her often of the fella she fell happily-ever-after with.


Yep. I can hear my Dad's voice, complete with the smile in it. It's loud and clear, higher than afar, "Josh has grown up into a mighty fine young man. Holy Mackerel! He'll go far -- you just watch and see!" 

I always listen to my Dad. I'll always root, root, root for my son. Best men the world and I are fortunate to know.

Best to you in all the life you go for, Josh.

Love,
~ your very proud Mom










Sunday, May 15, 2011

MY HUMBLE LOVE ~ By Absolutely*Kate

My Humble Love
 By ~ Absolutely*Kate
Hummingbirds darted into all the action on the patio back in Ohio where Franny and Paul's kids put sorrow and grief aside (away?) to hustle a home into a house ready for another young family to find and grow up their own kinds of joys.  Mementos were shared. Closets, cupboards, rooms, basements, garages gave way their furnishings and adornments, tools and tenacities to family, friends, neighbors, the timely church rummage sale (where Franny used to skim good pickins' for the church card party that she chaired) or the Happy Dumpster -- all in a matter of 4 hard hustling days. 
FRANNY & PAULTOGETHER AGAIN
We done the ultimate of superb parents proud, parents who provided home and heart in love, laughter, learning;  parents who treasured well the people who walk into and fill our lives with real colour;  parents with values and propensity to work smarter not harder, (Paul's credo), and ever to leave a moment kinder, stronger, better than you found it.
In a literal "labour of love", Kate, Dave, Jim, Lorri and Jeff Pilarcik closed full and fine the chapter of where we came from . . . ergo a softer (thus stronger) peace now exists to hold high the beacon to where we're going. 
My Thanks for how you tremendously kind folks were with me on chronicles and bolsterings, prayers and good vibrations along this bittersweet journey of bidding farewell to the reunited love birds, Franny and Paul, who fell in love on a dance floor when she was a sparkling 19 and he a dashing 21, a young man going places with just the right gal at his side. There remains ever a remarkable awareness of their presence in mine and my valued siblings, mates and our collective children's lives. 
I'll hold close this core into a new sense of clarity. 
My humble love,
AbsolutelyKate
 
God Bless Paul Edward Pilarcik
~ Who believed in the goodness of folks and the Pittsburgh Steelers, teasing into deep laughter, his Slovak father's grapevines, bountiful gardens, supervisory skills more like coaching, the wealth of a good cup of coffee on a back patio, and winning a ball game against all odds even if it was the 9th inning
29 June, 1930   ~   22 September, 2010
~ JOINED TOGETHER AGAIN ~ 
God Bless Frances Delores Kozel Pilarcik
 ~ Who favoured family, friends, flourishing faith, flowers and fine fun; who wrote and created and painted, who gave without measure, touching forever the lives she graced
13 October, 1932  ~  3 May, 2011
FRANNY & PAUL ~  TOGETHER AGAIN
 

Friday, May 6, 2011

A KISS TO BUILD A DREAM ON . . . By Franny's daughter, Absolutely*Kate

" T O G E T H E R   A G A I N "
A KISS TO BUILD A DREAM ON

By Franny's daughter . . . 
Coincidentally, by Paul's daughter too, 
~ Absolutely*Kate



It's inordinately quiet in the house I grew up in. Childhood bedroom doors our enthusiasms pushed open to  jump on each other's beds or share a secret or play another summer round of Monopoly are closed now. People and memories are sleeping, even the ones from the West coast contingent who flew in tonight from their other timezone. 

The youngest brother was here first when I pulled up the long driveway I'd learned to back a 1971 red Camaro out of using only side mirrors. Our first hug mirrored the sides of emotion that dug the depth to devotion of parents who gave life a full-fledged thriving. We acknowledge where words are superfulous that constant laughter churned achievements into places heavens hailed. The younger sister arrived next with the middle brother closest to the Cleveland airport. As he headed an hour's drive home, before his return the next day and the calling hours one after that, and the funeral one after that, and the final family farewells one to be after that, neighbors who were friends and ladies of the church who became extra sisters to our mother, trickled into a gush of how a sensitive stream splashes bounty. 

The care that comes in foil dinner platters tastes unsuspiciously like sausages, rigatoni, cabbage rolls, saucy meatballs and love that begets love. The baked delicacies of pineapple zucchini bread, homemade cinnamon rolls and orange cream pies mingle on the kitchen counter and table where I've arranged yellow tulips from Mom's gardens midst thoughtful breakfast items and even good hearted pizzas and beer. 

Condolence callers come in sad but leave with the kind of light that laughter's resilience rekindles to teary eyes. Both comfort and energy emanate the stuff that hugs are made of, and words no longer need sound to speak their better volumes.  Cheer responds to challenge when we open their share and tender our current trivia query ~ "What was Mom's favorite flower?" (No two same answers have collided - she loved them all. There'll be no clearcut winner, or they all will be, which makes more sense.)

The brother just two years younger than I, whose spirit once mailed me a real tumbleweed just because I marveled at its wonder, lands after midnight at the Pittsburgh airport. More family from the sister burst in a few hours ago, rejoined generational joy. More stories swapped. A toast to Franny, clinked 'round the kitchen table. My childrenfolk and love take to the road before and just after the crack of dawn's early light. The more we're together, the more we sense Mom's alright.

She wrote the input 
for her own obituary here.


Yes, on a typically sad page where the news is dying, our Mother, Frances Kozel Pilarcik inserted a photo of her with Dad under the heading "Together Again".


God Bless the Lady who held the hand
and kissed away the tears.


And God bless all of you,
whose worldwide webbing reach
is so touching . . . 

 You've bolstered me,
for the hurts and healing
of the next two 'morrows.

 Good Night. I sleep perchance to dream
of the beginnings this sleeping house shares.

Love, 
~ Absolutely*Kate