(LEGACY: Inheritance, heritage, something transmitted by or
received from an ancestor or predecessor, or from the past. Merriam-Webster)
I'm calling this, the 'Biscuit' iris.
Well, I was texting today with my cousin/sis Sharon from
Goreville. As it happens they were in
Marion, so we met at Gabby and Gramma’s for lunch (out by New Virginia) with
her handsome husband Lavon. (The boyfriend
I tried to steal from her in high school, but he got away – from me – but not from her.) Anyway the kid from Happy Hollow bought our lunch. Thank you, Lavon. And I got to see Dr. Roger Hendricks and Pam,
talked a bit. Now, there are some good hospital doc/nursing stories, but better save for another time.
And met another old friend, Gwen, from Grace Baptist in West
Frankfort.
Then we got to talking to the waitress (Gabby’s daughter)
who knew Lavon and Sharon from working in a prior Gabby’s restaurant, in Goreville. Turns out she’s married to Don Stroud whose
sister was Brenda Stroud McKeand. I
worked with Brenda, RN, at Herrin Hospital and Marion VA. Brenda died Dec 21, 2010.
Brenda Stroud McKeand
Brenda was also a poet and had a small chapbook of poems
published. She wrote a poem each year
for Nurses’ Day. One year at the VA, she
called me and said she wanted to talk to me about my nursing career for a poem
she was going to write. So I agreed. We talked.
She wrote it. Later, she actually
published her book of poems. And I’m
honored that it is the very first poem in her book.
Yes, this was when all student nurses wore blue checked or
striped dresses, stiff starched collars and cuffs, white aprons and, yes, white starched caps
on our heads.
So, I told the waitress about knowing Brenda and we all had
tears in our eyes before it was over.
The proceeds from her poem book established a nursing scholarship in her
name at Johnston City High School.
(Now, you may think I'm chasing rabbits, but, please, stay with me.)
Gary and I bought the Johnston City house on Prosperity Rd
in 1994. That fall the youngest Crain
family moved in next door on the South.
So every house from us, south on Prosperity Rd., all the way to Stotlar
was inhabited by a Crain family. We
joked that Mr. Kenny Crain was our Mayor.
Thought we ought to call our community Crainville instead of Boyd
Knob. His grand-daughter, Emmy Gael was
a babe in arms. Sisters, Natasha and
Hannah used to play in our front field and rode sleds down our hill when it
snowed and bicycles in our driveway in the summer. Emmy Gael grew.
Emmy Gael Crain
She used to come up to the house to talk and play with
Biscuit. Biscuit was my Y2K (remember
that?) cat, all yellow with a white ring around his neck. So when he curled up asleep he looked like a
fat little biscuit. Anyway, Emmy
persevered greatly at trying to teach Biscuit how to dance. She’d take both his front paws and lift them
up and sway and sing and dance. Biscuit
allowed this, but I’m not sure I’d say he ever danced. When we moved to Christopher in 2005, I couldn’t
see Biscuit making the move. He was a hunter,
leaving back door trophies, live in the woods - kind of cat.
I figured he’d head south to Johnston City and to his woods between Highway 57 and Prosperity Rd.
So Emmy Gael took Biscuit and kept him and loved him, as I knew she
would. When I moved back to Herrin,
2011, on Callie Court, Emmy, now all grown up and in high school, came by to
visit. She announced she was going to be
a nurse. I was so proud of her. And tonight, May 16, 2013, she graduated from
high school.
CONGRATULATIONS EMMY GAEL !!
And this year, the winner of the Brenda Stroud McKeand
Nursing Scholarship is none other than my precious friend from Prosperity Road,
Emmy Gale Crain.
Emmy has already earned her nursing assistant certificate
and plans to go on.
Brenda’s daughter
Sherry became an RN.
And Lavon and Sharon’s granddaughter, my third cousin, a 2013 Goreville HS
graduate with her own honors and scholarships,
Alexandria, has chosen to become a nurse
practitioner.
Here is Brenda’s poem about my nursing life.
Those of you who are nurses and knew me as such,
student and graduate, will recognize me in
Brenda’s skillful use of words.
By Brenda McKeand in
“The Summer of Riding Horses.
About Nursing and other things.”
Copyright 2010
The Story of a Nurse
Blue and white checked dresses;
Stiffly starched collars and cuffs;
Bright white ruffled pinafores.
Like nuns to morning chapel,
first inspection of the day.
Menial work, late classes,
cloistered lives, learning.
In the newborn nursery,
I held the tiny preemie,
the first feeding for this sad
scrap of life left by a mom
lost to addiction and pain.
Cleft lip, palate, just three pounds.
I prayed for God to assist.
thirty CC’s slid down the tube-
no distress, he’s on his way.
Three months later, he’s a son
going home with his new mom.
Billy, the chemo patient
trimming his beloved roses,
severed his infusion line.
Jokes in a blue binder;
aura of laughter and hope.
Then he gave me the binder,
saying, “It’s not fun anymore”.
Needing us to understand,
to accept his choice to die;
and pass his joke legacy
on to ourselves and others.
Jean had schizophrenia;
had not spoken in nine years.
A wasted life, one might say.
Veteran of shock treatments;
insulin and electric,
cold wet packs, group therapy.
My assignment - to sit with her,
write the experience down.
Days passé with no response.
Jean was silent; my pages blank.
When she spoke, “My name is Jean",
I understood what I had done.
I’ve since become a manager;
teacher to other nurses:
computers, standards of care,
budgets, management, leading.
Three lessons I have learned:
trust in God to guide my hands;
accept the patient’s wishes
when I don’t want him to die;
listen, Nursing’s greatest skill.
It really is a small world.
It really is amazing how life comes full circle.
It is invigorating to feel how much life can show you in just one day.
So this legacy that
we love is called nursing.
And it lives
on!
Copyright – 2013 –
Doris Grant Frey
