rocky top, you'll always be...

Last weekend, my little family joined all my aunts, their husbands, and my cousin and Grandmama for what is becoming our annual post-Christmas Christmas gathering. We went to this same cabin last year - The Old Mill at Dry Creek - near Smithville, Tennessee. You can read more about our travels to this wonderful place last January 2012 trip here and our Memorial Day trip here and here. 

After our trip, we swung through Camp Bethel in Waynesville, which is about 30-40 minutes West of Asheville, to spend the night with our friends The Stiggins and spend a little time with Richard. His lovely wife Karen was in an unfortunate accident riding the previous Thursday when their Polaris slid down the mountainside with Karen in it. It eventually rolled over Karen and she sustained some pretty significant injuries. Thankfully she was able to come home after a few days and we were able to see her before we left. We are praying for her quick recovery.  You can read more about Camp Bethel and previous trips here and here. We absolutely adore these people, their hearts, their true joy, life, and freedom they demonstrate can be had through living as Jesus asked us to live - sacrifically and for the well being of others. We love them and cannot wait to return. Of course, we were too busy visiting for me to get any photos this time.

As usual the Stiggins sent us home with something harvested from their land. This time it was about ten pounds of ground beef from the cows they raised last year. 

Here are photos from our trip. 

harriman, tennessee

My Uncle Clyde died last Wednesday. October 3rd. 

I wasn't extraordinarily close to him in my adulthood, though as a child I remember warmly the attention received from him. His voice and laugh and smile are so distinct in my mind. Him calling me "Brookie"... so clear in my mind today. Uncle Clyde was the last of the line from my great-grandmother Sarah Elizabeth and Papa Collins (James Amos Sr.)... Papa and Sarah Elizabeth had Sissy, Clyde Ray, James Amos Jr. (my granddaddy) and Gene. Sarah Elizabeth died when Gene was three months old from sepsis as a result of untreated mastitis. Gene was sent away to be raised by my great grandmother's parents at three months of age. The other children, including my grandfather, were cared for by other family for a couple of years before Papa Collins met and married who I knew as Granny and they took the children back home... Papa and Granny had two children unto themselves... Betty and Paul. Betty and Paul survive and are precious holders of stories and memories otherwise held captive in the graves of my Granddaddy, and now my Uncle Clyde...

There aren't enough pages here on this blog to capture the things I learned that added to my memory while I was away in Harriman, Tennesee last weekend. My Uncle Clyde was interred in Roane County Memorial Gardens where my grandfather lies today... Roane County, where my whole family has lived for generations... just a small patch of Tennessee along the ridge and valley system, off US-27... small town that everyone wants to get away from... that my mother did, "The Hill" we all come back to, the land my Granny purchased with the help of my Granddaddy, who in turn it was given to... where my Grandmama grows old today... living in the same house my Granddaddy built, where my mother and her sisters were raised, where so much goodness and tragedy transpired... in so many ways, in all its brokenness, it is home... the only homestead our family has to return to... as Tennessee backwoods and hillbilly it is, I love it so very much. 

And I will miss my Uncle Clyde... the only connection growing up that I ever had to my Granddaddy... So sad to know he is forever gone away. So many questions I wished I had asked...