T P Graf

Roots, Branches and Buzz Saws T P Graf

After August Kibler's death, his executor and friend, Tyler Marvel-Jemison, finds a file on August's computer that enlightens Tyler on August's ancestral roots and earlier years before he, Johnny and Jimmy wandered into the old man's life at the Daisy Cafe. In this collection, August expands on the people and places in his life beyond those introduced in As the Daisies Bloom. We sojourn with August from the rural Ohio township, to Indiana, down to Louisiana and finally to North Carolina. August peels back the hidden layers of a life lived in the shadows of abuse-facing his own regrets for how he might have been a better friend. He unwittingly exposes an unhealed wound from Miles' childhood. He and Miles learn just how Maggie and Ethel from the Daisy Cafe are "joined at the hip." We witness how time and circumstance shape lives and families and diverse friendships over a lifetime, and how the Hope Mennonite "creed" of Loving God, Loving Ourselves and Loving Others is all the creed we ever truly need.