Stories of Texas

Bless your Heart

Among the underappreciated treasures I was born with were eight Texas aunts. They did strange things like bend down and kiss me unexpectedly---I usually cringed and wiped it off. They said strange things like “Bless your heart”---something this military kid heard nowhere else. Of course, my brothers and I loved Texas, full of cousins and free vacation time.

My parents and relatives showered me with love as I grew up, and naturally I came to think that I deserved it. Looking back at the thoughtless things I did after I left home (and can still do if I don’t pay attention), that understanding has changed. I, too, have changed, a result of hammering at life and being hammered back at. One sign of that change has been that a few years ago, I found the words “bless your heart” coming unexpectedly into my own mouth, often spoken in gratitude to someone who had gone out of his or her way to do a favor for me. Always they seemed at ease with it; it’s a more frequent habit now.

In 1995, my Rienstra relatives met in Port Arthur, Texas, for a family reunion. Our grandparents had settled nearby a century earlier, but no venue in Nederland could accommodate the one hundred of us that attended (out of 300 in the family list collected by Cousin Joanna). As I looked out over the room, I was the richest man on the planet. All the people I loved and had loved for so many years, and their children, spouses and grandchildren, were contentedly visiting. The next morning at the First Methodist Church in Nederland, about a quarter of the pews were ribboned off for us Rienstras and in-laws. My Uncle Albert, then in his 80s, sat on the aisle; at the end of the service a man came by and silently put his hand on Uncle Albert’s shoulder in passing. Why he cared so much for my uncle, I don’t know. I do know that once, mowing Uncle Albert’s lawn in the 1950s, I came across a spigot with a hose connected to it that disappeared underground. To my question about it, Uncle albert replied that the hose carried water over to the home of his neighbor who couldn’t afford it. A few years later I spent a summer in Nederland, working at Uncle Albert’s hardware store. The other employee was singularly incompetent but needed the job. Uncle Albert gave him one and treated him kindly. Uncle Albert and his family, however, pulled like draft horses to keep the enterprise going.

As a young man, I wanted nothing more than to be omniscient and omnipotent. Now I know that “Bless your heart” is aunt-speak for “I love you.” Now I prize the values of family and community.

Jill and I are currently watching the Canadian television series Heartland about a multigenerational family on a ranch in Alberta. The characters get into the usual emotional difficulties, and the series shows how they get through it. Ty and Amy love each other but face recurrent and lasting hurdles of mutual misunderstanding. Caleb and Ashley the same, but have a rule that any disagreements of the day expire overnight. They start each day pressing the reset button if they have to, knowing that family is the foundation of life---always has been, always will be.

Gone to Texas

On May 2nd, Jill and I are flying to Austin. Courtesy of the COVID-19 vaccine, my two brothers and I will be joined by nieces, a nephew, at least three cousins, and various in-laws to help my Mom turn 96.

So that’s the news from here. Coronavirus cases are going up, severity and deaths are going down, and my official advice is that you get vaccinated when you can. If you can’t, or don’t, at least be careful.

We’ll be back to work on May 20th.

If you’ve read this far…

…bless your heart.