Prelude to Alvina and Jed

California 1901

It was a dusty old room, musty and stale. The floorboards creaked and heaved underfoot something terrible, but you know... with a room full of dancers and a fiddle or two playing one never notices these things. Jedidiah loved to dance. That is with me only and in the shelter of our own home.

Jedidiah, I miss him so. His name means 'beloved of the Lord', or 'blessing', the name given to King Solomon, of course King Solomon - the second son of King David. Jed was certainly a blessing to me. I loved him so.

We never made an issue or really thought much of it - the fact that our skin colors are different. I only noticed the softness in Jed's dark eyes, the gentleness of his hand and the love he gave me. Only in the presence of more than one African American did I see how pale my skin was - as pale as the dough to make bread, inherited from my English ancestors.

My ancestors were a slender, thin bunch with long oval shaped faces and that long, linear nose. The shape one sees in so many of those old paintings. In my youth my hair seemed to fade into some sort of yellow-beige. You know, from warm summers out of doors or plodding in the garden patch. But as I got older it dulled into non-descript brown, absent of any particular character. That is before turning this silvery-white... I say with a subtle sigh.

That was fifty-six years ago... or sixty. My memory slips easily these days. Sometimes I don't know if my thoughts are dreams or actual memories. Jed nudges me from heaven and tells me "to get the story right".

"Yes, dear. But look Jed, see how your grandson wins over the room." I have to feel pride. David, our first born, turned out to be everything we wanted in a child. His son, Matthew, turned out the same, a practical and honest man that runs the farm well...

P.S. As soon as I wrote: Jed nudges me from heaven and tells me to get the story right - well, I knew I had Alvina's story to tell. The words that form prose are given to me from heaven above. I have felt this gift of creativity from as far back as I can remember.