Made with:
The Anne by Heather Joyce
Afternoon In The Park by Etc by Danyale
Journaling (279):
There's no real story to tell, except this: They were coal-miners' daughters, and they were stronger than you can ever imagine. Raised Appalachian poor in the hollers of eastern Kentucky during the Depression—breakfast was biscuits and gravy made from flour, water, and grease. Dinner was pinto beans and cornbread if they were lucky. Christmas presents were corn husk dolls, maybe an orange if things were really good.
And yet they grew strong and determined. They fought everything they had to: the world, the system, each other, themselves. They stuck together like glue, even when a thousand miles separated them. You needed something, you called. You couldn't call? They'd show up anyway. They helped raise each other's children. They helped bury each other's husbands. They passed around quilts as often as recipes.
It was the last time they were all in the same room together. No one knew that at the time, of course, life rarely gives you hints about things like that. There was always talk of another trip, the one who never got closer than four hundred miles coming down to have one more reunion. Life got in the way, as it so often does. Health, troubles, timing, something always put it off.
There's just two of them now, the middle born girls standing on the left. The oldest and youngest died last year, within six weeks of each other. The ones left behind have trouble hearing phone conversations and writing letters but they still try. Neither one can travel now and it's all they can do while they wait for the time they can all be together again. Jewel Nadine, Mona Jeanette, Anna Catherine, and Joy Fay.
