Undimmed Love by Ronald Robinson (a.k.a. my dad)

Copyright 2024

Undimmed Love.

I left pieces of my heart in North Carolina, and I put pieces of North Carolina in my heart.

One of those pieces came with me to Pennsylvania.

That piece fills my heart,

Her name is Carolyn.

She does not say so but I know she has unfulfilled longings, longings for the place of her home.

The place I also long for,

The place where we started our life together,

The place where her family is my family.

Carolyn’s companion aunt who is near the same age as Carolyn has never forgiven this Yankee for taking her beloved niece away.

Away to frigid Pennsylvania.

We kid about that to this day, but I wonder, hmm? It’s okay though. She loves me and I her. In her heart, she waits for our return.

We miss seeing her and Carolyn’s cousins as well.

We visited when we could and we always made the trip south for Christmas except for one year when her parents and sisters came here. Her father loved Christmas.

When I say Christmas trip I mean Christmas trip. More often than not it was an all night Christmas Eve trip, arriving Christmas morning . Snow and ice storms were of little or no deterrent. There was always a scoop shovel in the trunk with my toolbox. Scoop shovels are more rugged than snow shovels. Any breakdowns were usually on the return trip. Just now had the thought, was that a sign that we were supposed to have stayed?

On one trip though, on the way down with two children in a subcompact Ford Fiesta, a strut mount broke loose, loudly banging and shaking the end of the strut came right up through the housing behind the rear seat. We finished that trip to NC with a spider web support cap made of coat hanger wire holding the strut in place.

We would calculate expenses and often pulled into our PA home low on gas.

One evening north of Harrisburg on a lonely stretch of highway the automatic carburetor choke had been stuck. That likely doubled fuel consumption. We ran out of gasoline. People and times were different then. A house light could be seen down a lane toward the river. I walked down the dark drive, knocked on a door and a couple opened it. The gentleman came out and we went to his shed for a can of gasoline. It had enough in it to get us to an open gas station. There were other times but enough on that.

I will mention a couple of welcome center stories. One incident involved an encounter I had with a pervert at the PA welcome center with me finding Carolyn to grab her oak walking stick. I wanted to kill the guy (some events in between) but, ended up later praying for him.

Another time going South we stopped on the way for an evening church service. Afterward, we mentioned to the pastor’s wife that Lisa and Bryan were not always the best travel companions. She prayed for them in Jesus’ name to fall asleep and not wake up until we were in NC. The children laughed at that. It was kind of funny. However, in a matter of a few miles they both fell asleep. The next words we heard from them was “Where are we?”

We were parked under the pines in the NC welcome center.

On another trip, one of those pine trees tried to kill Carolyn. We arrived in a windstorm.

Carolyn took some trash to a trash can. She heard a loud crack.

The crack was not thunder, it was a large tree snapping off . She saw the tree coming, started running, and prayed “Don’t let that tree fall on my mother-in-law’s car (borrowed Cadillac)”. That welcome tree smashed that trash can and fell into the car area but missed all the cars. At least Carolyn got the trash in the can first. We cleared a few branches and went on our way.

Carolyn’s soft southern accent is not as accentuated as her family’s but, when traveling South, her voice would start changing and the rest of us would practice up on our faux southern speaking flow. We were well-equipped in the native language when we arrived.

On one occasion we stopped at a rural area Bojangles eatery. After I placed an order, the girl was just staring at me.

“Oh no”, I thought, “she does not understand me.” I repeated with my recovered practiced accent and she said,“Yes Sir!” And we were promptly served. Keep in mind in those instances, it’s not them. It is us Yankees with the strange accent.

We have not been back to North Carolina in nearly 15 years. The reasons for that are part of what I intended to write but, I digressed, it’s late and that story would have turned to our diminished glimpses of hope of ever seeing our North Carolina nor loved ones there again this side of Glory. That story would be dark.

But, the ending of this story has some light: We possess and cherish pieces of their hearts, and they ours.