“Yeah, yeah,” Burley murmured as he staggered off.
We walked back to the porch in quiet. Joe said, “Well, I guess that concludes this ridiculous situation. Sorry you folks had to suffer this kind of thing, but then that’s the reason we need people like me. You folks go to bed and get some rest. Tomorrow’s a new day.”
He bid us a good evening, again tipping his hat in respect to the two ladies present. Before he stepped into his cruiser and drove off, he paused, as if speaking to himself, and said, “Tomorrow will indeed be another day.”
Inside the house the atmosphere was at the least, let us say, tense, not to mention the remaining unspent emotions. Silence reigned. Mom leaned back against the kitchen counter, a handkerchief in her hand, occasionally touching it to her face. The coffee pot broke the silence, percolating its dark brew into the clear glass dome that sat atop the shiny stainless steel pot. The sting in the tension abated like the coffee after spiking the cap of the percolator, then slowly draining down the glass dome.
Granny poured two cups of the hot coffee, handing one to Mom, the other to Dad. “A good cup of hot coffee can often serve for more than just drinkin’ liquid.”
For the first time since we’d entered the house, Mom and Dad’s gaze locked on one another, obviously trying to read each other’s thoughts. Mom broke the standoff, blotting her cheek with the handkerchief and looking away. Dad plopped down into a chair at the dining room table with a heavy sigh. Still, his eyes never left Mom whose head remained bowed.
“Bill, you know you don’t have any sense when you’re mad,” Mom said.
The Great Depression had left Dad’s memory scarred. Grandpa had been ill and unable to work the farm, thus Dad had worked doubly hard for what had left the family with little more than survival. The worst side of poverty is not the poverty, but the broken spirit it can leave its victim.
“Kathryn, don’t be that way,” Dad said, pulling me to his side, rustling my hair with his large hand. “I’m sorry you had to witness what you did tonight, son, but I’m also glad you did. Because sooner or later you will have to deal with the fact everything about this world is neither right nor good all the time.”
He seemed to go inside himself for a moment, a forlorn expression gripping his face. Unexpectedly, he smiled, turned up his cup and swallowed the last of his coffee. “Whether we like it or not, there are bad people in this world, and things we can’t afford to leave undone. Sometimes, we have to address reckless and irresponsible behavior such as that of Burley Davis.”
“Joe could have jailed him for a while. That would have taught him a lesson,” Mom countered.
A clawing sound came from the back door. Granny opened it, and Chubb, my champagne, miniature sheep dog entered.
“Where were you when we needed that bark of yours,” I asked, rustling his coat that was so furry sometimes you couldn’t tell the difference between his head and tail. That’s when Dad came forth with one of his sayings that often gave real definition to things.
He laughed heartily. “Locking Burley Davis up in jail would be about as effective as makin’ old Chubb here sleep in the bathroom on a cold winter night.”
I laughed until Mom glared at me, but when I couldn’t stop laughing, she could no longer remain stern and laughed as well. That seemed to put out the last spark of contention. We all met in the middle of the kitchen, and Dad folded us into his arms in a group hug. Even Chubb stood on his hind legs, trying to paw his way into the family huddle.
The final words of the evening were those of Granny as she did her duck-like waddle toward the hallway. “Lord, do help us to be Christian in these days of trial, tribulation, and turmoil.”
Moments later the house was dark, and everyone was in bed. But sleep evaded me, my mind trying to digest all the things my eyes had witnessed, my heart had felt, and my ears had heard that evening. One thing was certain. For apparent and sensible reasons, Dad had told Burley Davis, “Not through my window, you don’t.”
I realized I had, indeed, been privileged to see through several windows that evening: one revealing a sinner needing forgiveness, another a criminal deserving both judgment and sentence, another a victim needing compassion, and last but not least, a misguided parent who had totally abandoned his responsibilities to his family, his community, and most importantly, the indulgence of self completely absent any regard for others.
I was sure there were a multitude of other windows through which the events of that evening could have been viewed, but my last thought before closing my eyes was that of being thankful. Through the window of family it is clear that no matter what the challenges, none are beyond the powers of love and forgiveness.
The Circle of Life
Clara Wimberly
When I walked into Mom’s room, my sister Janice was sitting on the other side of the bed. She had a notebook and a pencil and was gazing down at it intently. She looked up as I came in. “Oh, you’re here. Where was Mama born?”
“Sherwood,” I said.
I went to Mom’s bed.
“Happy Birthday,” I whispered. She was 94 years old today, and I had no doubt that if she hadn’t developed Alzheimer’s, she’d still be working in her flower garden, raking pine needles and picking stray limbs out of her yard. She was a hard worker and a meticulous gardener.
She rarely opened her eyes any more, rarely spoke, and if she did it was just ramblings that couldn’t be understood. She was a mere shadow of the active woman she used to be. Having Alzheimer’s was bad enough; being in a nursing home for seven years was horrible. But I think what I hated most was that the vital, interesting, proud, well-kept woman who was our mother disappeared years ago and was never coming back.
I don’t know when I began thinking of the woman in this bed as someone else entirely. But I had long ago separated her from the woman I knew as my mother.
“Sherwood, Tennessee?” Janice asked.
“Yep,” I said, sighing heavily. I turned away from the bed and sat in a chair across from Janice.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing,” I said. “I just never get used to seeing her this way. I’ll never understand why this happened to her or why she’s had to endure it so long. It makes me sad.”
“You can’t let yourself be sad. You have to think positive,” Janice said, forcing a cheerfulness I sometimes wondered if she really felt. “You can’t think bad things and be sad when you come in here. It’s not good for either of you.”
“Okay,” I said, knowing better than to argue with her. We had long ago passed the point where I was the big sister or she was the baby sister. We became equals many years ago and now we were both growing older with grown children and grandchildren.
“Can you believe she’s ninety-four? A few months ago no one thought she’d make it to this one.”
“I know,” Janice said. “She’s amazing.”
“What are they saying about her this morning?”
“She’s having problems swallowing.” Janice put her notebook aside and moved closer to the bed, brushing Mom’s hair away from her face. “And she’s very congested.”
“Her skin is so soft,” Janice said. “She has hardly any wrinkles. The nurses are amazed. I have more wrinkles than she does.”
“She always had nice skin,” I said, smiling. “It’s her Dutch ancestry, I guess.”
A vision popped into my head of one of our many trips. Mom always bought refrigerator magnets as a memento of where we’d been. I could see the one in my mind’s eye now—it was a Delft blue tulip with the words “I’ve Dutch Roots.” Mom loved it.
“I didn’t get any of that fair, flawless skin,” Janice said.
“I got the fair skin, but I don’t know about flawless,” I said, thinking of my own problems with sun-damaged skin. “Personally I always wanted to be
tan.” Mom and I had fair skin, blonde hair and hazel eyes, while Janice was dark with brown eyes and brown hair. Her skin tanned easily, and as a girl she’d loved nothing better than lying in the sun while Mom and I had to find a shady spot.
“Her breathing seems more labored today,” I said.
“That’s from the congestion. Every time she eats she gets congested,” Janice said. “I told them this morning not to feed her any lunch. They need to give her a chance to get over this first. You know what they told me?” She looked over at me, her eyes wide with disbelief, lips compressed as she shook her head. “They said they have her birthday cake waiting for her in the refrigerator—they keep reminding me as if I’m somehow depriving her.”
“Good grief,” I said, nodding my agreement. “How do they think she can eat something like birthday cake?” I muttered, mostly to myself.
“I told them she can’t.” Janice took a deep breath and sighed. “They say they have it soaking in milk.”
“That sounds appetizing,” I said.
“What are you working on?” I asked, nodding toward her notebook.
“The obituary. The one you did last year when we thought she was dying. I still had it in my computer where you’d sent it to me. I’m just adding a few things.” She picked up the notebook. “How should I say this about where she was born?”
“She was born in the small mountain community of Sherwood,” I said.
“Oh, so it is in the mountains,” she said, writing. “I’ve never been to Sherwood.”
“Up the holler, Mom used to say. Don’t put that in,” I added, laughing. “She used to talk about when she was a baby and when she cried, the foxes would come near the house and yelp.”
“You sure it wasn’t coyotes?” Janice asked wryly.
“I’m sure she said foxes. And I like the idea of foxes,” I said.
“You’re a romantic.”
“That’s true. It’s the writer in me,” I said, smiling. “I make a story out of everything, always did. If there’s an abandoned car parked on the side of the road, I begin to imagine what happened to the people inside. I’ll have a chapter written about it by the time I get home. But I’m sure it was foxes,” I added, glancing sideways at her.
We both laughed.
“Well, I definitely didn’t get any writing talent,” Janice said.
“Be glad . . . it’s a burden,” I said, purposely teasing her.
She just shook her head.
“No wonder you and Mom butted heads so often. She didn’t do drama. She was the most practical woman I ever knew,” Janice said.
“Tell me about it,” I said. “She always hated my flair for the dramatic even when I was a little girl. To her, emotions and feelings didn’t equate with anything she knew or liked. Made her uncomfortable.”
We both nodded in agreement.
During the past few weeks, when the nurses had begun telling us that Mom was at the end stages of her disease, my sister and I sat beside her bed for hours. Sometimes my daughter Suzanne joined us. We talked about everything. And even now we never seemed at a loss for conversation.
“You have a visitor.”
I turned and saw my daughter in the doorway. She had her arm around one of the residents. I wasn’t acquainted with this patient, though I’d seen her around and knew her name. It was my habit to come in, wave to the nurses at the front desk and go back to see Mom. After my visit I would leave, wave goodbye and see you later. I am basically shy, though no one believes it. Janice, on the other hand, is very outgoing. She knew every patient’s name on the Alzheimer’s Unit and also knew the names of the nurses and nurses assistants and anyone else who worked there.
“Hey there, Maizie,” Janice said. “What have you got?
Maizie, a small thin, gray-haired woman with big eyes, stepped toward me and handed me a teddy bear.
“For me?” I asked. “You’re giving your teddy bear to me?”
“Yes,” Maizie said. “You need it because your mama’s sick.”
“Oh, that’s so sweet of you,” I said. “But I think you should keep him. He likes you better.”
Maizie stepped back, and her eyes grew even larger. “Why, you are so full of it,” she said.
I’m sure my mouth flew open as I stared at her. “Why do you say that?”
“Because you’re telling a story,” she said. “It don’t like me better. Why, he can’t even talk, he ain’t even a real bear. Are you just crazy?”
She seemed so normal that I wondered if she really had Alzheimer’s. I shrugged my shoulders and looked toward Janice for help, but she was laughing so hard she couldn’t say a word. Thankfully one of the nurses came at that moment and took Maizie and the bear back down the hallway.
Suzanne came in and pulled another chair across the room to sit with us.
“Well, that was awkward,” I said, feeling rather sheepish.
“It’s okay, Mom,” Suzanne said. My beautiful thirty-eight-year-old daughter, so protective, is always on my side. She has a career she loves, works hard, is a great mother and wife, a good sister to her two brothers, and a wonderful daughter. Besides all that we’re best friends. Sometimes when I look at her I can hardly believe how lucky I am.
“Maizie is a pistol,” Janice said. “She’s in the early to moderate stage of Alzheimer’s, about like Mom was when she was in the assisted living place. Remember some of the stuff she said?”
“Oh, I do remember,” I said. “She seemed so normal but would say outrageous things.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“You know what the last thing was that Mom said to me that made sense?” I asked.
“What?”
“It really wasn’t that long ago. Just a few months actually. I was here one day, and she was mumbling, completely incoherent. I talked back to her though, and suddenly she said, ‘I think I’ll just go to the house.’ She was clear as day. I was so shocked that I repeated her words. ‘You think you’ll go to the house?’
‘Yep,’ she said. So I told her that I’d go with her. She said, ‘Well, get Frank, and let’s go.’”
“Really?” Suzanne looked over at Mom.
It seemed impossible looking at her now that she had said such a thing. That she’d said anything.
“Wonder which Frank she meant, Daddy or Frank our brother,” Janice said.
“I don’t know. Probably our brother. She probably thought she was working in the fields, and so she would be talking about getting her little boy and going to the house.”
We all fell silent for awhile.
“I’m always amazed that sometimes out of the blue she just comes up with something like that,” Janice said.
“As if for a moment something clicks inside her brain, and she’s lucid,” I said. “I think one thing that troubles me most about Alzheimer’s is that you never really know if they’re in there—if they think and can’t speak, or if they hear you but can’t respond. If I think about that too long it really bothers me.”
“Then just don’t think about it,” Janice said.
“Granny used to say that.” Suzanne laughed. “On one of our trips to Shakertown when I was about thirteen. The house we stayed in was big—can’t remember which one, but you could hear pretty clearly through the walls. One night we woke up, and we could actually hear a man snoring somewhere in the house. Do you all remember that?”
“I do,” I said, laughing. “It was about three in the morning and pitch black outside. Shaker Village is so quiet. The snoring woke me up, and I couldn’t go back to sleep. I read and turned over in bed about a dozen times. Mom was snoozing away in the other bed. I think I finally woke her up without meaning to. She turned and looked at me and asked what was wrong. I told her I couldn’t sleep because of the man’s snoring. She gave me such a look
and muttered ‘just don’t think about it.’ Then she turned over and went right back to sleep.”
“Yeah,” Janice said. “Must be where I get it.”
“I wanted to shout—how can you not think about it? Oh, that was funny. Mom was always so practical and nonsensical. I swear she could lie down in a patch of cactus and go right to sleep, and she expected you to be able to do it too.”
“And her hair,” Janice said. “You know how particular she was about her hair.”
“I remember she used to wrap toilet paper around her head before going to bed,” Suzanne said.
“I always thought that was funny. And we never went anywhere that she didn’t ask how her hair looked or declare that her hair looked awful,” I said. “You all would tell her that we were a long way away from home, and we’d never see any of those people again.”
“Didn’t make a bit of difference to her,” Janice said.
“Nope,” I said.
“You know what I remember most about those trips?” Suzanne asked.
“Lord, do we want to know?” Janice laughed.
“You probably remember being bored to death,” I said. “We dragged you all over the country looking at old houses, historical villages, Presidential homes, not to mention various inns and stagecoach stops. Not exactly what a teenaged girl is looking for.”
“I loved it,” Suzanne replied. “But you know, even as young as I was, I remember thinking how fearless you all were.”
“Fearless?” Janice hooted. “Us?”
“You all didn’t seem afraid of anything,” Suzanne said. “You never expressed any fear at driving anywhere. Interstates, back roads, mountain roads—rain, snow, tornado watches—it didn’t matter. I don’t remember ever hearing any of you say maybe you shouldn’t go here or there, or that we should cancel a trip. I never heard you express any fear or any doubt about where we were going or that we were four females, alone. You’d just pick out a place and go. Anywhere you wanted.”
“Maybe we just didn’t have enough sense to be afraid of anything,” I said.
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