Wearing My Halo Tilted

by Stephanie Perry Moore

  “Such a godsend,” he whispered, before crying. “My mom’s gone.”

  I hugged him and tried to give him hope. “Yeah, I know it’s tough dad. Like you just told me, she’s in a better place and she loved you. You know you were her favorite.”

  He smiled slightly. We both knew they were all her favorite in reality, but I knew my dad needed to hear that. The doctor came out and stopped us from leaving.

  While my dad and grandfather talked to the doctor, I watched my aunts wipe their faces. My uncles, Sam and Phil, were still consoling each other. When I stepped outside of the hospital and felt that the wind had stopped, I could only hope the pain I was feeling would dissipate as well.

  My mom insisted on keeping my girls at her house when my brother brought them to the family gathering. I was supposed to go back to my house and pick up clothes and then come back over there so I wouldn’t have to be alone. But I took the time by myself to let out all the pinned up tears that just came streaming out.

  My granddad was right, my grandma was in a much better place. That still didn’t mean I wasn’t going to miss her. That still didn’t mean I wasn’t going to feel bad because she was gone. That still didn’t mean I couldn’t be sad at least for a moment.

  I got down off the bed needing to do something more constructive with my emotions. Once on my knees, I prayed, “Lord, I know You know what You’re doing up there. But I certainly wish You would let me in on it. This just doesn’t seem right to me.” In the midst of my prayer, my body started shivering as if God was saying, “I need to shake you up young lady because you’re not the one in charge. I don’t need to tell you anything. Just trust me. Just know that I’ve got this.”

  Something in my spirit clearly showed me my grandma’s face, and she had an enormous smile on it. She was perfect. She looked young. She was floating. Most importantly, I clearly saw she was okay. Though there weren’t any wings on her back. I could see a glow all around her. I saw no image of her new big mansion, but I knew she was at peace.

  I felt comfort. I jumped to my knees and sprang over to the window. As I saw the trees shaking from the fall breeze, I knew God did have this. I ran a hot bath. Put in a few drops of oil and got me a big cold glass of ice water. I found my tape recorder that had been just a little rusty, pulled out my new outline and just let the creative bug bite. I was so relaxed, so on fire, in an hour I had talked two chapters. I knew to be able to do that with such ease that Grandma hadn’t left me. She’d always be there.

  Not only did I have the Holy Spirit, but I had her spirit, her legacy, and her love still all over me. I was fired up. I started thinking about her and what she really meant to me. Before I knew it, not only was I writing my book, but I pulled out the songwriting skills I had developed with Bryce and wrote her a song. The lyrics rolled:

  When I think about my grandma and what she meant to me,

  she was loving and gentle and she loved to fix me tea.

  She cared for my babies and she sang me all her songs.

  I’ll miss my grandma, but she’s with God.

  She gave me love. She showed me peace.

  She said have hope, feel sweet release.

  I’ll miss my grandma, but I’m thankful she’s with God.

  Before I could create anymore, my phone rang. It was Mrs. Kindle. Gosh, she always knew when I needed her.

  “Hey,” I said, sounding like things were good.

  “I’ve been thinking about you, lady. How are you?”

  “Actually, Grandma passed today, but I’m good now.”

  “I’m so sorry, my mom’s not doing too well either.”

  As I thought about her sweet ninety-five-year-old frail mother in a nursing home, I said, “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah, she fell out of the bed again today and they got her in the hospital. She’s got a pretty nasty cut on her head too. We can’t live forever, so we’ve got to get it right so we can get into heaven and hear the Lord say, ‘Well done.’ How is your marriage going?”

  “The same. Not great. Dillon came to the hospital for support. He wasn’t rude to me or anything, but he was there for family then he left. I don’t even know if he knows that she’s gone.”

  She asked, “You haven’t called him?”

  “No, you think I should?” I asked, really unsure as I slid on some baby oil.

  “Yeah, you should. The good thing going on with me is that my boys are doing well. My oldest has a promising superintendent’s job. My younger son is exploding with his whole music business. He’s got all this new equipment and some new clients. We’ll see what happens with his tracks. He is so inspirational.”

  “Oh my, goodness,” I said as I thought about the song I was composing for my grandma. “Do you think he will work with me? I’ve got a few dollars I can give him to lay some tracks.”

  “Perfect, he’ll work with you. Call now. I think he’s home,” she said before giving me his number.

  Soon as we hung up, I was dialing her son. He was so excited to get my call. He had me sing it. The rest of the song spilled out:

  I remember when I was really young.

  I spent time at her house and we had so much fun.

  And when I became a lady, she was still by my side.

  Telling me, with Jesus, I could fly.

  She gave me love. She showed me peace.

  She said have hope, feel sweet relief.

  I’ll miss my grandma, but I’m grateful she’s with God.

  “Alright, I recorded you on the phone and I’m going to work on the music,” Harry told me. “Then tomorrow you can come in and lay the tracks.”

  “Really,” I said, so excited.

  “No problem. Anything for my mom and the song is tight. You need to sing this at her funeral.

  “Oh, no, I couldn’t do that. I’ll be too emotional. There is no way I could sing over her body.”

  “The way I’m hearing the music . . . trust me, you will want to sing this for her. You’ll have everybody in tears.”

  “Starting with me,” I said, still doubting, as we finalized plans to meet the next morning.

  When I hung up the phone, I heard the garage door go up. I knew it was Dillon. I wasn’t ready for a confrontation. I didn’t know what to say in order to avoid one. I didn’t have time to put on any clothes. So I sprayed Bath and Body Works ginger scent all over me, grabbed my fuchsia robe, and headed down the stairs. He came inside and I wasn’t able to read his mood.

  “I was just about to call you,” I said, breaking the awkwardness.

  “Yeah, I checked in with your dad. I heard the news.” He came walking toward me and placed his arms around me. “I’m so sorry, Shari. I know how much you loved her.”

  Darn it, I was fine. I was okay with it. I was cool. But being in his arms, having his sympathy, knowing I really would miss her, I fought hard to hold back the emotion from flowing out once again.

  “No, I’m okay,” I told him. “I know she’s not suffering anymore.”

  “I’ll be here with you through this.”

  God was really great to me. He’d already allowed me to express my thoughts through music. He helped me be productive with my writing and now He walked my man back into the house to be supportive.

  Being in Dillon’s arms felt right. “Thank you, Dillon.”

  “I’ll miss her too.”

  “She loved us both. She’d want us to be here with each other.”

  Dillon smiled. At least he didn’t disagree. He followed me over to my parents house and when we got there it was a zoo. It was ten o’clock at night and the adults were bickering like first graders about what color the dress was going to be, what kind of coffin they were going to buy, who was singing a song, who was doing this, and who was doing that. They just couldn’t seem to agree on anything.

  My grandma had too many strong-willed kids. Though I longed for a son, I thought maybe my two girls needed to have a will with it clearly spelled out, so the two of them wouldn’t have
drama, issues, or trouble once I was gone. Just seeing my dad and his siblings go crazy let me know I needed to get my house in order, because tomorrow wasn’t promised. These folks were fools, nothing got settled.

  Even the next morning they started the day doing more of the same. I cut out to go to the studio.

  The time with Harry on the keyboard was magical. I could just see all the times I was with my grandma. Every note he perfectly created moved me. The song was the bomb, I left there with a CD of a instrumental track and a vocal one.

  When I got back to my parents house and heard more arguing from my family, I just played the music. My recorded voice carried throughout the house. All the adults wanting different things for their mom quieted down. The song helped them understand that this wasn’t about them or what they wanted. But this last good-bye was a collective effort that we all had to work on to get closure.

  “This has got to be performed,” my dad said with excitement.

  None of his siblings gave any arguments. In fact, they swarmed me sharing his sentiments. I wanted to argue, but time passed so quickly. We were on one accord. We loved on each other and got to the service.

  I wasn’t comfortable about singing, but when I stood in front of grandma’s still body all my doubts were washed away. I sang the song with power, passion, and ease. The closing lyrics were:

  See now she’s with her grandmas. I have peace because she is there.

  One day I will join them, we’ll be with God.

  We’ll be with God. We’ll be with God.

  We’ll be with God. We’ll be with God.

  For now I will miss her, a lady I held dear.

  Sweet peace precious grandma. Go be with God.

  “You did great,” Dillon said to me as he rubbed my back when I set back in my seat. “She’d be proud.”

  My babies really didn’t understand why their nana was laying there peacefully, not moving. Why those men in dark suits closed a steel, gold lid on her. Though my dad, aunts, and uncles were strong, I knew their hearts were wounded. Later when they lowered her sweet body into the ground and the wind started swirling again, we all felt refreshed and revived. We rejoiced. My grandma was caught up with Jesus in that sweet breeze.

  Chapter 13

  Dream

  “It was real,” I said to Dillon a week later as we sat atop a revolving restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia, the night before South Carolina played Georgia. “I can’t believe you rented a limousine to take us from Athens to Atlanta. Wow!”

  “This is so unlike me,” he said. “That’s what I want to change. I had to look within to what drove my wife into the arms of another.”

  “Shh,” I said, placing my finger over his lips. “It’s just us, baby, we gotta be real with each other, we gotta talk about this. I was wrong to do what I did.”

  I shook my head and looked away. I didn’t want this to turn into a nightmare. Actually, I still couldn’t believe he asked me to come to the game. We hadn’t talked and I’d been writing, but I certainly missed Dillon. So, I didn’t want to talk about such deep issues right now. I only wanted to enjoy my husband and continue feeling like the queen he had made me feel. But he persisted and as I listened I was actually surprised at what I heard.

  “The night before your grandma died, Shari, I was in agony wishing I had you by my side. Mad at myself because I allowed you to slip away. I was angry at God for not keeping us from this situation. It’s around the clock work for me because it’s football season. When we had free time, I just stayed in my office. There were times when I cried.”

  I hated hearing he personally had been dealing with a lot. I could only imagine how I reduced him to nothing around his players. A jock letting his woman get out of control, I felt bad.

  He continued, “I also talked to a few of the Christian coaches and it was interesting. Coach Nixon, you know the defensive coordinator, said he really hated that our business was out like this for all the world to evaluate. I was just ranting and raving kind of going off saying my marriage was over. Though I was saying it, in my heart I didn’t feel like I truly wanted to lose you. I know my hard ways turned you against me in the first place.”

  This was so amazing hearing him take on a big part of what was wrong with us. Admitting his faults meant more than he’d ever know. God was doing something.

  “Another coach told me what gets him through life is knowing that when he’s wronged he is not supposed to respond naturally. He is supposed to respond supernaturally. I was angry at my wife, myself, and God.”

  My husband went over to the window and looked out over the capital city of the peach state of Georgia. The serene view was beautiful. I couldn’t believe we were having this deep conversation.

  He turned back to me and said, “When I saw the whole situation from God’s perspective, He clearly showed me what I’d done to you. Not being there like I needed to be and not loving you like Christ loves the Church.”

  Trying unsuccessfully to hold back the tears, my husband got up from his seat, came over to me, and kissed my tears away with his sweet lips. He gently grabbed my hand and led me toward the empty dance floor. Then he held me in his arms as we enjoyed each other over the sweet music of Luther Vandross. The communication between the two of us was genuine. I didn’t want the night to end, but I knew I needed to get my man back up to a hotel near Athens, Georgia, so he could get ready for a victory the next day.

  After dancing to two more songs, I starting feeling dizzy, I didn’t know if it was the actual room or if it was really me spinning. When the twirling did stop, I knew something else was going on with me.

  “Suddenly,” I said to my husband, clutching his arm “I feel nauseated.”

  He tried helping me over to my seat, but I dashed to the ladies room. I made it just in time before all the delicious dinner came up in the wastebasket. Moments later as I dabbed my mouth with water to relieve some of the distasteful duck, I looked in the mirror and saw how flushed I looked.

  I said out loud to myself, “You’ve been awfully tired lately. What’s going on?”

  I didn’t even notice a lady coming out of the stall. I thought I was in the restroom alone. She stared at me and chuckled.

  She said, “It looks to me like somebody is expecting.”

  As she quickly washed her hands and gave me the eye like uh-huh. I shook my head no, and left. I thought, No, no I can’t be. The last time I had sexual relations was with Dillon. However, a couple of days before that I was with Bryce. We were so tipsy there was no condom used. I could not be one hundred percent sure this baby was my husbands. Therefore, I couldn’t be pregnant. That would be a cruel joke and I wasn’t laughing.

  When I got back to the table my husband had already paid the check. “Shari, I need to get you to bed. Everything with your grandmother and keeping the kids has been stressing you out. You need to get some rest. You don’t have to go to the game tomorrow if you don’t want. You can take a taxi to meet us at the airport after the game.”

  “Thanks,” I said, realizing if I was with child I might be taking him up on his offer to rest in the hotel.

  “Plus, I’m dying to hold you all night,” he told me.

  I was hoping he wouldn’t pry and ask if anything else was wrong with me. I didn’t know if my mind was playing tricks on me or what. The whole limo ride back to the hotel, I felt sick. Thankfully nothing came up. But before getting in bed, I took a nice hot shower and when the water touched my chest my breast felt tender, so tender that I had to turn to the side. My husband made good on his promise as he held me in his arms and he drifted off to sleep. His sweet snoring that used to annoy me was comforting. This is where I wanted to be; his wife, with him on the road during football season.

  Everything I held dear was in jeopardy. With my butt safely nestled in his stomach, I thought about the whole pregnancy thing. And with everything happening with grandma, and Dillon moving out and me losing a publishing deal, I realized I’d missed a cycle.

&nbs
p; I couldn’t sleep and tried not to wake Dillon. I moved from under his arms and called downstairs to the front desk and asked if the hotel store was still open. My heart hurt when the guy said no, I didn’t know what I was going to do. I had to find out certainly, but I couldn’t get caught leaving the hotel at weird hours of the night. All kind of South Carolina alumni might be roaming the halls. I’d just have to bear it.

  As I slid under the covers once again, Dillon said, “Oh, you feel good.”

  He bit my neck. That one innocent kiss led to a night of passion. I was so forceful, like something inside of me wanted to make sure that if there was a baby that it was Dillion’s. How crazy was that, because if the baby was there the father was already determined. However, my psyche was so screwed up that none of that mattered. During our lovemaking, I wanted my husband to know how happy I was to be with him again.

  I said, “Oh, that feels good, Dillion.”

  He shook me and said, “What feels good? Are you dreaming?”

  I tried to wake up. I was losing it in a good way. I had drifted off to sleep and dreamed about my man. That was a good sign that things were going to be okay. Dillon placed his hand on my stomach and I believed it had to be okay. So I told him what I suspected.

  “What do you mean you think you may be pregnant?” he shouted back at me in disbelief.

  I didn’t know how to respond to his question. He was being facetious. He had heard what I said. I did not stutter. I made it plain. So in reality, I knew that he didn’t need for me to repeat what I had just told him.

  Based on his frantic actions, the way he coupled his head in his hands, started twitching his feet, sprang off the bed, and paced back and forth, I knew this wasn’t good news for him. I could have hit myself in the gut at that moment for even telling him before I completely knew. Now I had opened up a can of worms that I could not close the lid on. I had to watch Dillon distraught.

  I finally just said something. “Well, what’s the big deal?”