by Neta Jackson
Oh God, thank You for bringing Becky into Your kingdom! Lord, for Little Andy’s sake,we want to take back all that Satan stole from her.
To my surprise, the praise team wound up the worship with a hymn: “On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand . . .” Everyone seemed to know the words; the singing was deep and soulful. As we sang the third verse— “When all around my soul gives way, He then is all my hope and stay” —I heard Florida shout, “Thank ya, Jesus! Thank ya! Oh, thank ya.” And on the other side of the room, I heard Avis cry, “Glory! Glory to You, Jesus!”
The hymn stuck in my throat. I couldn’t imagine being in their shoes—my daughter and grandson in a shelter? My son arrested for an armed robbery he didn’t do? —and yet there they were, shouting, “Thank You!” and “Glory!”
Oh God! Give me that kind of faith! Faith in You, no matter what.
I SENT OUT AN E-MAIL to Yada Yada that afternoon with new prayer requests, tried to keep it brief and not say more than necessary about Avis’s daughter or Chris Hickman. Also included the news that Becky had moved over to the Hickmans, needed a lot of household stuff, and could we give her a housewarming party?
Chanda was the first one to respond—by phone. “Sista Jodee!
What you tinking ’bout where to have dat party? Mi tinking me house would be good.”
“Really? That’d be great, Chanda. Except . . . aren’t you still getting those radiation treatments? You said fatigue was a big problem.”
“Oh, girl. Dat be true. Mi boobs draggin’ like a cow wit short legs. But dis week be de last. I’m tinking if we can wait till Tanksgiving weekend, mi have one whole week ta be mi self.”
I laughed so hard over the “cow with short legs” that I forgot to tell her that one week to recover from six weeks of radiation didn’t sound realistic to me. But I let it go. If Chanda thought she could, maybe it was good therapy.
That third week of November passed in a blur. At school, Carla came with her hair uncombed and took it out on the other kids. But this time I saw the scared little girl, afraid her family was falling apart again. At lunchtime, I asked if she’d like to eat in the classroom with me. “S’posed ta get a hot lunch,” she said warily. “But Mama forgot ta give me money.”
“My treat,” I said, though how anyone could call a slice of cold cardboard pizza and canned fruit cocktail a “treat” is beyond me. I added chocolate milk. As we munched, I told her I knew about her brother being in jail, how sorry I was, and anyone would be upset. I gambled: “Would you like to move your desk close to mine this week? ”
Her eyes narrowed. “You givin’ me a punishment? ”
Bright little girl. But I shook my head. “Nope. A treat. You could be my special helper, pass out papers, pick them up, stuff like that.”
She frowned.
“And,” I added, “having your desk close to mine would remind me to pray for you and your mom and dad and Chris.”
“An’ Cedric? ”
I smiled. “And Cedric.”
“An’ Becky? She livin’ in our house now.”
I smiled bigger. “And Becky.”
BY THE TIME THE WEEKEND ROLLED AROUND, the temperature had moved back up into the sixties and it felt like Indian summer again. Half my class had sniffles from the up-and-down temperatures, and I didn’t feel so hot myself. But Yada Yada was meeting at my house that Sunday, so I bucked up, sucked on my zinc lozenges, and downed copious amounts of orange juice. I really didn’t want to get sick with Thanksgiving right around the corner. Who wanted to spend a four-day weekend in bed?
Thanksgiving . . . hadn’t given it much thought. But the bowl of candy corn I put out for Yada Yada Sunday night got me thinking. Last year—oh Lord, was it only a year ago? —Nony and the boys had been in South Africa, so we invited Mark Smith and Hoshi Takahashi to be our guests. On the way to our house, Mark and Hoshi had been pulled over by police for no reason except “driving black” in a white neighborhood, and maybe to check out why a black guy was driving with a “light” girl. Sheesh.
But it gave me an idea. Maybe we should do a reprise and invite all the Sisulu-Smiths for Thanksgiving this year, and Hoshi too. Might be good for Mark to get out of his housebound state.
The doorbell started ringing; Yada Yadas started arriving. Well, I didn’t have time to ask Denny about it, but maybe I could check it out with Nony tonight, see if they had any other plans.
We had a good turnout that night—even Ruth showed up with her inexplicable knitting, every part of her rounder and plumper than the last time I’d seen her. “You are looking good, girl!” I laughed, giving her a big hug.
“Humph,” she snorted. “Mashed-potatoes-slathered-in-gravy good? Or a one-humped-camel good? Water I’m storing like one.” She sank onto the couch like a sinking ship settling underwater. I did wonder how many of us it would take to get her up again.
I thought maybe we’d skip worship and spend more time in prayer, given the number of critical situations that needed prayer this week. But Avis took us to Isaiah 61, reading the first three verses in her New King James Bible. “The Great Exchange,” she called it: “Beauty for ashes! . . . the oil of joy for mourning! . . . garments of praise for a spirit of heaviness!”
“Here. Let me read that in my Bible,” Florida insisted. We ended up reading it four or five times in different versions, each one driving the words deeper and deeper into our spirits. I heard sniffles all around the room.
“That is so beautiful,” Hoshi said, her voice almost a whisper. “‘Beauty for ashes’ . . . That is what I want to pray for Sara.” Seeing the questions about to pop, she held up a slim hand. “Yes, I have a little good news. Sara came back to class this week. She avoided me the first day, but on the second day, we talked a little.”
“Uh-huh. All right, now!” said Adele.
“She was nervous but finally told me she had hoped to be anonymous on this campus, just go to school and put all that White Pride stuff behind her. So when I brought her to Yada Yada, and she saw Dr.Smith and recognized the house—recognized you, too, Jodi, from the rally—she was afraid her past had caught up with her. That’s why she didn’t come to school the next week. I tried to tell her the Smiths were grateful for what she did, telling the authorities who was responsible for the attack on Dr. Smith, but she didn’t want to talk about it. But” —Hoshi smiled at Adele— “if God chose me to be her friend, I won’t stop now.”
“Oh, thank You, precious Lord, for those promises!” Nony cried out. And there we were, pouring out our hearts in thanksgiving—thanksgiving!—that God was bigger than all the trouble in our lives. Bigger than Mark’s long road back to health . . . bigger than the shock of discovering Hoshi’s friend Sara had been in the White Pride group . . . bigger than Chris Hickman ending up in the juvenile detention center for an armed robbery he hadn’t committed . . . bigger than Rochelle’s flight from her desperate marriage, with nowhere to go . . . bigger than Ruth (oh dear, I snickered at that, couldn’t help it) getting pregnant “late in life.”
But my private smile quickly faded and I added my own P.S. to the prayers for Ruth: Oh God, Ben is still scared about the possibility of Tay-Sachs.Thank You, God, that You are bigger than Tay-Sachs! Bigger than Ben’s worry! Bigger than—
The prayers had quieted. A rustling filled the room as heads lifted, noses were blown, people helped themselves to another cup of tea from the carafe I’d set out on our beat-up old coffee table. Stu cleared her throat and broke the silence. “Well, if I say it, then I have to do it, right? ”
“Say what? ” Yo-Yo said.
Stu took a deep breath. “OK. I’ve been thinking maybe I should go home for Thanksgiving—you know, visit my mom and dad.”
“Gracias, Jesús!” Delores lifted a hand in the air.
Stu tucked a stray wisp of blonde hair behind her ear. “The family reunion didn’t work out last summer—probably wouldn’t have been the best way to, you know, get our relationship back on t
rack even if my parents had come. But . . .” She blew out a breath. “Becky’s moved on, and Jodi’s been telling me it’s time to take care of my own mess.”
I hid a grin. Stu was quoting me?
“Well,my biggest mess right now is that I’m not speaking to my parents, or maybe vice versa. But . . .” Tears slid down her face. “I’m the one who pulled away when I got pregnant. I was too ashamed. Then I got, you know, the abortion, and that terrified me even more, what they’d think of me. But God’s been telling me the only way to untangle the mess I’m in is to tell them the truth.You know, that verse we read a couple of weeks back: ‘You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.”
“If you abide in My Word,” Nony corrected gently, “then you will know the truth that can set you free.’ ”
“Abide? ” Yo-Yo piped up. “What the heck does abide mean? ”
We laughed. Hoshi, of all people, screwed up her face as if searching her English lessons. “Abide, I think, means to dwell in it, live in it, comply with it.”
Stu smiled through the tears dripping off her chin. “All right. I got it. But please pray I’ll have the courage to ask my parents to forgive me.Not just for the abortion, but for—for cutting them out of my life. But I know if I don’t invest anything in my relationship with my parents, it’s going to die. Maybe already has. But . . .”
“No, no, no. With God, nothing is impossible,” Delores said emphatically. “Lord God of heaven! We come to You with our sister, Stu . . .”
Delores moved into an impassioned prayer for Stu. Others reached out and held her hands,murmuring assent. But Stu’s words kept replaying in my mind: “If I don’t invest anything in my relationship with my parents, it’s going to die.” What had I invested in my relationship with my parents recently? How long had it been since I’d seen them? When they came for my birthday a year ago? A whole year ago? They couldn’t come for Josh’s graduation because my mom’s health kept them from traveling. So why hadn’t we taken the time, made the effort to go see them?
I peeked at Ruth, sitting there so very pregnant, so eager for her babies to be born, willing to take all the risks to bring them to term. Had my parents felt like that when I was born? Duh! Of course they had! Hadn’t Denny and I cried for joy when Josh had been born? Then again when Amanda came squalling into the world?
But would Denny and I one day spend Thanksgiving alone, because our kids were too busy with their lives, their friends, their activities? . . . Like us?
I could hardly wait for my Yada Yada sisters to leave. I had a phone call to make, a Thanksgiving invitation to propose. And it wasn’t to the Sisulu-Smiths.
I CORNERED DENNY AND THE KIDS that night for an emergency family meeting. “I know it’s last minute, but we haven’t seen my folks for a long time. I’d really like to spend this Thanksgiving with them. In Des Moines.”
Amanda pulled a pout. “Mo-om! I won’t get to see my friends all vacation!”
“You see José every day at school,” I tossed back. “You’ll live.”
Josh shrugged. “Sorry, Mom. I promised to help with the Thanksgiving dinner at Manna House. Why don’t you just invite the GPs here? ”
But the Voice in my spirit said strongly, Make the effort to go see them. Invest, Jodi, invest. “This is important to me, Josh. I’m sure there are other volunteers who can help at Manna House.” Avis and Peter Douglass, for instance, I thought wryly. “But no one can take your place visiting your grandparents.We need to do this.”
I looked hopefully at Denny. Nothing happened if Dad wasn’t on board. He rubbed his chin. “What about the dog? Becky moved out, and Stu’s going to her folks.”
OK. He almost had me there. “Details,” I said. “We’ll take Wonka with us if we have to.”
When we got my parents on the phone, my mother was so happy she started to cry. Even my dad’s voice got husky. “That’s great, honey. We’ll be so happy to see you. But I don’t know about a big dinner. Your mom has arthritis in her hands now, can’t cook like she used to.”
“Dad, don’t worry about dinner! We’ll bring it—or cook it there, or whatever. Just stock up on a lot of popcorn and dust off the Scrabble. Your fireplace still work? ”
To tell the truth, I was excited. I’d missed the family trip to New York last spring,when Denny took the kids to see the Baxter grandparents and do the Big Apple during spring break. The SARS scare had been rampant, and me without a spleen. But all I had now was a minor sniffle. And Des Moines was only a five-hour drive.
Well, I hadn’t counted on the extra hour and a half it took just trying to get out of Chicago on Wednesday afternoon—after delivering Willie Wonka to the Hickmans for Becky to take care of. It was nearly seven o’clock by the time we got on I-80 heading west. I’d packed the usual bagel sandwiches with shaved chicken and cream cheese, so we didn’t have to stop to eat. But by the time we got to the Iowa state line, Denny said he needed a nap. Josh took over the wheel, and I stayed up front to ride shotgun and navigate while Denny crawled into the third seat and zonked out.
Josh drove silently into the night for another half hour, broken only by bits of small talk as we left the Quad Cities behind and sailed smoothly along the interstate toward . . . home. I glanced into the second seat. Amanda was plugged into her CD player and curled up in her big yellow-and-black comforter from her bed at home. I glanced at Josh in the driver’s seat, looking more and more like his dad, except for his scraggy hair, which hung around his ears in casual indifference. Couldn’t wait to see how long it took my dad to comment this time. But mostly I wondered, what was going on in Josh’s head? We didn’t seem to talk much anymore. Why was that?
I decided to risk it.
“So when are we going to meet this Sue you’ve been dating? ”
Josh shrugged, kept his eyes on the road. “Not really dating her. Just doing stuff. You know, a friend from work.”
“Well, still. Dad and I like to meet your friends.”
He cast a sideways glance at me. “I don’t want you to ‘meet’ Sue, Mom. That would definitely send Sue the wrong message. She is just a friend.”
“Oh. I just thought . . . I mean, maybe you had a new love interest, and we should—”
“Mom!” Josh hissed. He glanced in the rearview mirror, seemed satisfied that his father and sister weren’t eavesdropping. “Look, Mom. I only have one ‘love interest,’ as you so delicately put it. That’s right. I . . . love . . . Edesa. But she’s not giving me two cents right now. So, I go out with friends, even hang out with some other girls. I’m just . . .” My stoic, six-foot son’s voice caught, and he had to clear his throat. “I’m waiting.”
His voice trailed off. I think I forgot to breathe. I kept my eyes fixed on the yellow dotted lines racing through the pool of light from our headlights. Finally, Josh spoke again, his voice barely a whisper, full of pain.
“I love her so much,Mom. But I don’t know what to do.”
43
I got out my travel pack of tissues and blew my nose. Wished God had travel packs of wisdom I could pull out. My son had just bared his heart to me, and like the doctor’s creed— “First do no harm” —I didn’t want to bungle this moment. Delores’s words echoed in my head: “Edesa talks about Josh all the time.” I’d brushed it off at the time.We all knew they were friends. But—did Josh mean something else to Edesa?
Finally I screwed up my courage. “Josh, does Edesa know how you feel? I mean, have you told her? ”
In the glow of the panel lights, I saw the slight shake of his head. Well, who could blame him? He’d asked her to his prom and she’d said no. His mother and probably everyone else had pointed out the obvious: he was just out of high school and she was a third-year college student. To his credit, he’d pursued the relationship on a casual—but maybe deeper—level, asking her to come along with Uptown youth to Great America and as a chaperone for the girls at Cornerstone Music Fest. And now volunteering together at Manna House. The prom was then;
what was Edesa feeling now?
I couldn’t believe I was saying this. But I reached over and laid a hand on my son’s knee poking through his ripped jeans. “I think you need to tell her. And then—leave it to God to work out His purpose.”
THANKSGIVING WAS, WELL, DIFFERENT. Josh got my brothers’ old room—the site of many sibling battles and Girls Stay Out signs posted on the door. Amanda slept in my old room up under the eaves of the two-story house, which still looked pretty much as I’d left it twenty-plus years ago. My ceramic collection of dogs and cats. The broken music box with the ballerina on top. The faded, flowered bedspread. The bookshelves were empty, though. I’d confiscated all my favorites and read them to my own kids.
Denny and I got the foldout couch in the living room, a backbreaker if there ever was one.We pulled the mattress off and actually slept quite comfortably on the floor. But it meant I heard every trip to the bathroom my parents took during the night. Four or five times between the two of them.
Still, Thanksgiving Day was fun in a visiting-the-grandparents sort of way.My dad cooked sausage and scrambled eggs and pancakes for breakfast, making a Mickey Mouse pancake for Amanda, just like he used to do when she was little. Denny and I got out of doing the dishes with a shopping run to a Hy-Vee Food Store that—hallelujah!—was open on Thanksgiving Day. From the deli, we loaded up on smoked turkey breast, Hawaiian salad (the kind with mandarin oranges, pineapple chunks, and marshmallows in a sweet, fluffy dressing; not my cup of tea, but Josh and Amanda—and my dad—loved it), ready-to-heat dinner rolls, and two bakery pies: pumpkin and apple. But Denny balked at the two cans of chicken gravy I’d put in the basket. “Canned gravy? ”
“And just how are you going to make homemade gravy with no turkey drippings? ” I shot back. But I had second thoughts when they charged us a buck-fifty per can. Sheesh. I could make gravy at home for pennies—maybe less.
