It Was the best of Times | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: Please join me in welcoming Author Michele Rhem, who presents us with her poignant mémoires of the Rabbit Patch, where her diaries weave tales of a simpler, expressive life lost to many, but gathered together in her most familiar environs - the Rabbit Patch.

    Yesterday was the kind of day I want to always remember. It was the best of times. I did not win the lottery nor was bestowed any title of honor-those would have been lesser deeds in my moments. I left the old house on the rabbit patch in an old car. I came back the same way to the same place-yet I knew for certain, that I was wealthy, yesterday, and that my life far exceeds what "the world" deems successful.

    Jenny was in a wedding yesterday, so Lyla and I stayed at my parent's house for several hours, til the newlyweds were officially married and had danced for a long while afterwards. Meanwhile, I was attending an event, that I realized soon enough, was every bit a celebration and every bit as sacred as the one, Jenny was attending.

    Mama had Lyla in a wagon, when I got there. It was sweet sight to come across and it just made me happy. I am older now and know little for certain, but a great grandmother pulling a wagon with her grand daughter's child in it, is a thing of beauty.

    Daddy was outside in a few minutes of my arrival looking under the hood of my car. He checked everything and declared the car a safe way to get around, after all. Daddy is eighty one years old and I am in my late fifties, and that did not matter.

    In less than fifteen minutes, I had seen authentic and everlasting love in my parents and their "ordinary" ways.

    Lyla walked around the yard and examined pine straw very carefully-she did the same with leaves. I did not rush her thoroughness, but instead joined in and saw that pine straw actually shines in sunlight. We watched a hive of honeybees at a safe distance. They were working frantically, as they know it is autumn, too. There was a quite a bit of activity. Lyla watched a while intently-and so I did too. I marveled that the whole affair was so well orchestrated. Humans would have surely been pushing and shoving one another -but the bees worked efficiently towards their purpose of "the greater good for all" and I took note of that.

    After supper, I found mama and Lyla on a bed. Lyla was jumping as best she could and mama was laughing. Ever so often Lyla would stop and hug mama. Lyla was not tired after all, but was playing the way babies do and mama was laughing the way grandmothers do. It did not seem so long ago that Jenny had done the same thing- and then again it did.

    I have lived in several houses in my life. I have worked at different jobs and driven many different cars. My phone number has changed several times over the years. Trends do not appeal to me and I do know that "all that glitters is not gold". It is the things that remain constant that I value above all else, I realize . Authenticity does not change up, but shows up in the same familiar forms and in my life- in the same places-like the north star itself.

    I do not know what the future holds. . . but I do know what the past held. For me, it is love, pure and simple. It is the one thing that I have been able to depend on and it is the only thing that even matters.