‘Sunday Meetin’Time’ – The unexpected

November 9, 7:52 PMAtlanta Faith & Family ExaminerPatricia Walston

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Ole country church - First snow
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“Well, Mama, you shore do look nice today – you headed out somewheres?” “I been doin’ some hard thinkin’ on old Granny Wilson now for the past few days and was just wondering how she might be gettin’on. That sweet ole lady is shore missed by the folks at church; but especially the young’uns.”
“You want I should go with you? That is a pretty long trek up that mountain; and with you carrying’ that extry load,” he said as he carefully rubbed her baby filled belly.

“No, I don’t think so – it’s just a nice healthy walk for me and it’ll do me some good to git out away from all the young’uns for a while and stretch my legs, and smooth my brain. Besides, I got myself some thinkin’ to do and the beauty of the Fall leaves will give me joy to behold as I walk along. Won’t be long now before they will all be gone. I can feel ole man winter just creepin’ up on us bit by bit.”

“Well, do like you want. I done been married to you long enough to know when you have set yore bonnet to do something that is just about what you will do. It is seems like there is a nice day a comin’ there was a red sky last night – the Fall is surely upon us and before long it will be too cold for you to go wandering somewheres by yoreself – not to mention that load gettin’ heavier. How are you feelin’ – think that young’un will be here afore Thanksgiving?”

“Well that is another reason I am going to see ole Granny. She was a mid-wife around these parts for powerful long time; and I supposed she knows more about this kinda stuff than the doc does – being he ain’t never had no young’un.”

“You feelin’ poorly?” “Oh, naw – it ain’t time for the full moon yet. I’ve got a while yet.”
“But I mostly want to check and see how’s she’s doin’ since Earl died. You know they were married nigh on to 68 years?”

“There was a time when the church doors were open you could depend on them to be there – and I hear tell it was always that way even when their children were little ones. It seems such a shame that she done outlived her husband and both her children don’t it?” said Herman.

The day had turned out to be beautiful. Mama took her own sweet time as she walked along the crooked road that wound up and around the little mountain that set way off in the distance from the church and their home. She thought about the times when she was young and still living with her parents when they would hike up the little mountain – pick blackberries – wade in the creek that trickled down from up further in the hills.

There was the most beautiful clear blue sky above and the surrounding oaks, elms, hickory and cotton woods had already put on their fall festival of leaves of such bright and beautiful colors – the red, the yellow, orange and the different shades of brown looked as if they had been tipped in the one of the young’uns paint boxes.

As she walked up the hill enjoying God’s handi-work, she thought to herself just how blessed she was to have such a big family, a husband who loved God and her. She, in turned thought about each of her children from the oldest to the youngest – and said a special prayer for each of them that they would grow up to be like their Daddy – strong, faithful, and dedicated to the things of God. She also said a prayer for the little one to soon to come. She had this nagging feeling for a few days that something was just not right.

She could see the smoke coming from Granny’s chimney a few hundred yards before she got to the neat little log cabin built so many years ago by this old couple who were then so young and so much in love. Their love had carried them through many trials; and together with God they had turned their sorrows into joys. Their daughter had caught the measles when she was about ten – they settled somewhere in her body and Granny did everything she knew how to get them to break out again – she had fixed a special herbal tea for her to drink, kept her warm. She had kept the windows covered to keep the bright light out of her eyes; and sat keeping by her bedside for days; but when the pneumonia set it there was just nothing could be done. That sweet child went suddenly to the arms of Jesus and left behind a sorrowing Mama, Daddy, and big brother, Pete.

Mama was getting a little winded as she turned the bend in the road; and looking up she could see the freshly dug grave of Granny’s husband Earl – the ground had not healed even though it had been a month since he died. Beside him were two other graves, the little daughter and Pete’s. Pete was one of the first sailors to go overseas soon after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Mama would never forget that day as they hovered around the radio to get the sketchy details of the sneak attack on the US by the Japanese. Could it already be two years since that terrible day? So many of their young men had gone from the town to fight in that awful world - so far away no one knew for sure where they were.

Young Pete was onboard a ship headed toward some far away island when the siren went off and all the sailors had to man their stations for an enemy air attack – and Pete hurried to his seat behind the big 400mm gun; but never knew what hit him as the Kamikaze plane swooped down and let loose a hail of bullets from the cockpit. Another gunner mowed him down; but not before four men were killed on deck; among them Granny and Earl’s last child.

Young Pete was not really buried there – they had buried him at sea – but Granny and Earl had to make a special resting place for him so they could go, mourn, place flowers, and honor him. Instead of Pete’s body they buried in the pine box, they put in his fishing rod, his old hunting boots, a special plaid flannel shirt he often wore – saying it was his lucky shirt. How often Granny had shed tears and wiping them on the corner of her uplifted apron, she would say, “If only he had been wearing it that day.”

Just as Mama approached the old sagging porch to the cabin, she felt a little bit of a twinge in her side – she stopped for a minute and took a deep breath and kept going toward Granny’s closed door – it was getting a might cooler as she climbed up the mountain, than it had been down below. Mama felt a kinda of chill run down her back – she should have worn a thicker sweater. Actually the one she was wearing was not hers at all – but Herman’s – she had far outgrown the two that she had.

As she approached the doorstep – ole Rusty, Granny’s hound raised his head, twitched his head back and forth flopping his ears in every direction; and then put his head back down on his paws to finish his nap. He must have figured she was safe enough.

Mama walked across the creaky old porch and gently knocked on the door. She waited. She knocked again and there still was no answer. She began to feel a little fright when she called out, “Granny, oh Granny, yoo hoo, are you in the house?” No answer. The little fright was now a full blown big fear. Stepping over the old hound dog, she went to the end of the porch and leaned over to see if Granny was anywhere near the house outside – no sign of her.

Confused (and that little twinge bothering her somewhat), she knew she had to find Granny. She would not have left her cabin with a fire in the fireplace and with fresh laundry on the line blowing in the soft Fall breeze. The twinge became a little harder and she just had to pull Granny’s old rocking chair around and sit down for a minute or two.

In so doing, unintentionally she rocked the rocker over the tail of the old sleeping hound – he was sleeping no more – he let out a howl that would wake the dead. Mama could not bend over too much because of her girth and the pain in her side; but she tried to reach down to comfort the ole hound and he wanted no part of her - so up he shot and ran down the steps and underneath the house.

Hearing the painful howl of her old yard dog, Granny scooped up her herb basket and headed out of the woods and down the path – past the outhouse – to her little cabin. She need not try and hurry - for at age 85, there was no hurry left in her.

The late afternoon rolled on, the wind began to pick up and the temperature began to go down and there was no sign of Mama coming back down the road that led up to Granny’s mountain. Feeling that something must be wrong as Mama would never had stayed away that long, Herman rounded up the kids and instructed the older ones to keep track of the younger ones by feeding them and putting them to bed.

He went out into the white sandy front yard and climbed into his old 1936 Ford - four door Humpback. He had bought it second hand and in 1943, it was already seven years old; but was still a good running little car – most of the time. But this was not one of those times. He got in behind the wheel and turned the switch – RRRRR – nothing – he tried it again RRRRRR – nothing. It would not start. Worrying was not something a country preacher, who preached reliance on God, should have been doing; but he was beginning to falter when with one more turn of the switch, it whirled a little and then started. As he turned around, he saw all the children standing at the door in the middle of the porch – they had not learned the rule, “Thou shalt not worry” so good either – for it shown in the face of each one of them.

A little ways up the road, Herman had to turn the lights on and after a while he began to hear a sputtering sound ending in total quietness – the car had stopped about half way up the road to Granny’s. That full moon that Mama had been talking about earlier was no place to be found. Try as he might, there was no getting that car to start again.

Earlier that afternoon, Mama and Granny had gone into the house after they had nearly frightened each other to death as Granny came around the corner of the cabin with a hoe raised over her head in her bony hands. At eight-five, she was ready to do battle to protect her hound and her home.

Later, she and Mama had sat in front of the fire in the cabin and talked about the good ole days, their children, their husbands and their life – all the time Mama shifting in her chair to find a little more measure of comfort. Granny asked her several times if she was okay; and she said she was. Secretly, she was thinking that she probably took on a little too much with such a long walk – she should have listened to Herman.

Mama rose to leave and bent down to give Granny a big hug; and then it hit her right square in the back – her first labor pain. When she grabbed her back and then held her stomach up in the front – Granny knew. And Mama knew.

After six children, there was no doubt in Mama’s mind that her seventh was about to greet the world. But what to do? It was too far to walk back down the hill and Granny never had an automobile – she only had Brutus – an old blue nose mule – who in mule years was as old as she. It would have been a contest between the two of them who succumbed first if they started down the hill with Mama on his back and Granny walking along like Joseph did with Mary hundreds of years before; and at least they had a starry night. That was out of the question on that little mountain for as the sun set, the darkness quickly took over – it was as they say, “dark as night.”

Mama told her to not worry that Herman would see she had not returned and he would be along shortly and he could drive her right into town to the doctor’s house. Mama continued to sit in one of Granny’s old rockers and they resumed their conversation as if nothing was going on.
“Granny, how have you been doing since Earl died? I know you must be lonely without him.”

“I won’t lie – don’t take to lying – won’t say it’s been easy – cause it ain’t been. Losing Earl was like losing part of my self – my very soul – me and him… we wuz partners – in everything we ever did – I did what he couldn’t and he did what I couldn’t and between the two of us, we got it done; whatever it was. Losing my little girl and then losing Pete – now mind you we wuz mighty proud of that young man – but he was so young and we could’ve stopped him from joining up – but he said they’d draft him - come and get him anyway – so he thought he would just go ahead and sign up - and……

“Ow,” Mama said as she nearly raised up in the chair – but leaned back and holding her belly, she said, “Go on – that was a good one.” Granny picked up where she left off ….”but losing Earl was different somehow. We had been married so long – it was like sometimes I forget where I left on and he began. I was just 17 when we married and he was barely 21 and……

“Ow – “came from the direction of Mama once again and this time she did stand up.” Granny went into her little back room and turned down the covers on her bed – she reached up into a cabinet and took down some old blankets and made a pad on the bed and stacked newspapers up in a thick pile and covered them with a good clean sheet. Then she went into the living room and tried the best as she could to help Mama up who had sat back down in the chair. Granny helped Mama into the room with the bed.

At home Billy Joe Bob and Sarah Louise had followed their father’s instructions. There had been left- over cornbread in the pie safe – a pot of beans on the stove that Mama had started early that morning in her black iron cooking pot – there was fresh buttermilk. They fed the little ones and made sure they washed the bottom of their feet. And after one or two tries, they got them to stay in the bed. They took turns telling Bible stories and singing hymns together, the little ones were finally asleep. Sarah Louise had rocked baby James until he was fast asleep.

Asleep - Papa was not. Figuring the night was too dark and he had little idea how far he was from Granny’s cabin, he decided to stay in the car. He figured getting lost in the dark of those mountains would do no one any good. Trusting in God that Mama had not left Granny’s, he curled up in the front seat of his old 1936 Ford, with no blanket for his cover, shivering in the cold, in the dead darkness of the night. He knew that God would take care of them all and he said this prayer to his Almighty God.

“Lord….it is me Herman. I know that You done said that You would never leave us nor forsake us and that You know every time a little sparrow falls to the ground – You know when the wind blows in from the east or down from the north – Your know all the stars in the sky and You know the predicament that we find ourselves in tonight. Lord, they just ain’t nothin’ that takes you by surprise.”

“Lord, I’m praying in faith – for it is faith that moves mountains – that Mama is still at the top of this here little mountain not only safe with Granny – oh Lord, please don’t let Granny be sick – and that the children are tucked in bed fast asleep. Lord, I don’t ask for sleep for myself; but your protection through the night until the first peak of that ole sun comes in the sky in the morning when I can see to put one foot in front of the other and go and find Mama – I am thanking You in advance. Lord I’ll be giving you some of yore Words right back to You not that you forgot nary one of them; but that I need to hear them agin my own self.”

“When thou liest down, thou shalt not be afraid: yea, thou shalt lie down, and thy sleep shall be sweet.” Proverbs 3:24

“I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the LORD sustains me.” Psalm 3:5

“I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety.” Psalm 4:8

“He will not let your foot slip he who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.” Psalm 121:3-5

“Now Lord, I claim all of these yore Words for all my family and for Granny, too.”

The dark of the night grew darker and the wind grew stronger and the first snowflakes of the season began to blanket the earth like sprinkled sugar on one of Mama’s fresh baked pumpkin cakes.~~~

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-m9A7tKDoA  Jim Reeves sings “Precious Lord Hold My Hand.”

Hope you enjoy this video of the “First Snow Fall” by Thomas Kinkade – As the Good Lord would have it, I found this when looking for the video above – now tell me if this just “ain’t” perfect for this chapter?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tDQB5BnhDM