Perfect Oklahoma Summer

Today I needed to remember all the beautiful memories and put the painful and sad things to rest.  I needed to close my eyes and feel the cool concrete porch on my feet where the pecan trees shaded my grandparent’s house. I needed to sip the strong, wonderful tea with undissolved sugar in the bottom under the ice cubes.  I needed to have a “sherbet and ginger ale float” at the end of the day, sitting on the metal porch swing cold against my bare brown legs.  I needed to hear the pumpjacks lulling me to sleep under sheets white as snow from hours in the sun and smell of the pure clean that only my grandma could produce. I needed to wake before sunup to ride with my grandpa on a bumpy pick-up ride visiting the oil leases he cared for (even if it meant he would try to trick me into coming up on the metal walkway so he could stick my hand down into the nasty smelling crude oil). Always a perfect summer with my grandparents in Oilton, Oklahoma. 

Thank you, God, for these memories that sustain me when I struggle to see the sun behind the rain clouds.