A Little Salty to Cut the Sweet Read online

  Oh, my word—I almost forgot to mention that part. Laundry is my mama’s most favorite hobby. She’ll wash two kitchen towels at a time just so the laundry fun will last all day long. Apparently I was absent on the day when the Lord distributed that particular piece of my DNA.

  However, I have to admit that as Mama has crossed over into her sunset years, she has loosened up a bit, as well she should. She naps—sometimes for hours—in her chair. She’ll stay in her (matching) pajamas for an entire day, and she’s way more relaxed than she used to be, as evidenced by the fact that she now washes upwards of four kitchen towels at a time. Obviously she’s a grandmother who likes to live on the edge.

  Mama had an especially large time the night we went to the fish camp—she hooted and laughed all the way home. It reminded me of when I was a little girl and would hear her on the telephone with one of her friends. She always listened more than she talked, but when she got tickled—oh, my goodness. Her laugh—sort of an “A-HOO! HOO! HOO!”—would pierce the silence and make me grin from ear to ear.

  By the time we pulled into Chox and Joe’s driveway, it was a little after ten. There had been a whole bunch of A-HOO! HOO! HOO!-ing in the car, and I was a little sad that our big night out was coming to an end. Joe was nineteen kinds of thrilled about being home again, so he and Daddy immediately unbuckled their seat belts and walked inside while David stayed nearby to help Mama and Chox, who had been sitting in the third row, get out of the car.

  Navigating their way to a door required some doing, mainly because they had to squeeze between the seats and then duck down low enough to step out. Mama was first, with Chox right behind her, and between the two of them they provided a veritable chorus of ailments within the span of about fifteen seconds.

  “Oh! My shoulder is stiff. Hold on.”

  “Give me a minute. My back is sore.”

  “I can’t go too fast. My toes are numb.”

  “Well, you don’t even want to know how my elbow aches.”

  As we determined that the Battle of the Maladies was a draw, Mama started laughing because she got sort of wedged between the second row of seats and the door, with her behind way up in the air. She reached out so David could help her, and while he was grabbing her hand, he chuckled and said, “Are you gonna make it, Ouida? Don’t toot!” For some reason that struck our collective funny bone, and all four of us started to laugh as David pulled on Mama’s arm to help her out of the truck.

  The situation became increasingly hilarious with every passing second, with David tugging and Mama not making any real forward progress in terms of getting out of the truck, because in addition to being stuck, she was in stitches over the fact that her son-in-law had told her not to toot. The more she laughed, the more David pulled on her arm, and the more her behind crept higher in the air.

  And listen. If I hadn’t been there to witness it, I probably would’ve never believed it, but y’all, in the midst of all that laughter and silliness and good-time family fun, my mama, much to all of our surprise, hauled off and tooted. She surely did.

  Right in her sister’s face.

  It was almost like David called it into being.

  I would like to tell you that it was a very polite and delicate experience—that it was a mere whisper in the wind—but I cannot. No ma’am. Because the reality is that it was something akin to the sound of a freight train, or maybe even the freight train’s blaring siren warning you to PLEASE GET OUT OF THE WAY before said train comes barreling through your home.

  And if you thought we were laughing like crazy beforehand—well, it was full-blown hysteria afterward.

  I could pretend that I giggled in a very ladylike fashion, but the fact of the matter is that I belly-laughed to the point that my bladder totally betrayed me. David had to sit down on Chox’s retaining wall, and I thought he was going to quit breathing altogether—that’s how hard he was gasping for air. Chox understandably scooted away from Mama and found a perch on the other side of the truck, holding her side while she tried to catch her breath.

  Mama fell back in the car seat, and once she composed herself, she said, “WHEW! Oh, David, I’ve been holding that in the whole ride home! But like my mama always said, ‘There’s more room outside than there is inside! There’s more room outside than inside!’”

  About five minutes later, when we had ceased with the hyperventilating, David and I managed to say our good-byes so we could pick up Alex from Martha’s house. David was barely capable of driving; he was still shaking with laughter. Crying, really.

  And when I could pick up the words that were muffled beneath the laughter, here is what I heard:

  “Thank you, God, for that. Oh, Lord, I needed that. Oh, God, thank you.” And he wasn’t just being funny. It was completely sincere gratitude to his Lord and Savior for blessing him with such a Special Gift during the Christmas season.

  You should know that before I told this story I asked my mama’s permission. I mean, heaven knows we all have gas skeletons in our closets, but I really didn’t want to embarrass her.

  So when I asked her if she minded my sharing the story, she hooted with laughter for a few seconds before she said, “No, I don’t mind—I mean, I was just in such an awkward position trying to get out of that truck and I had been holding it and I just needed some RELIEF! That should tell you how comfortable I am around David. And do you know I think about that night all the time? I do! I think about it all the time!”

  So do I, Mama.

  So do I.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  A Denominational Showdown in the Frozen Foods Aisle

  ONE APRIL AFTERNOON I was sitting in Martha’s living room, thumbing through the most recent issue of Southern Living, and she asked me if I’d tried a certain brand of frozen apple pie.

  When I told her I hadn’t, she explained why I should.

  “Well,” she began, “this kind that I’m telling you about has the Pippin apples. The Pippin apples! They’re just so good and not too sweet, and you really do need to pick one up the next time you’re at the Walmarts because they can be sort of hard to find.

  “I mean, do you know—DO YOU KNOW,” she continued, “that the last time our Walmarts got in a shipment of the Pippin pies, a friend of mine was there and she bought one and then she called me and she said, ‘Martha, you have to get to Walmarts right now because they have a new shipment of Pippin pies.’ So I put on some lipstick and hopped in my car and drove all the way to the Walmarts, and do you know—DO YOU KNOW, SOPHIE—that some women from one of the Baptist churches had come in and bought every last one of those pies—every last one!—to serve at their Family Night Supper? They bought EVERY LAST ONE!

  “So,” she said with a laugh, “I hope you can find a Pippin pie at your Walmarts sometime soon because they surely are good. Not that I’ve had one recently or anything because, well, THE BAPTISTS GOT ALL OF OURS.”

  The end.

  CHAPTER NINE

  For Better, for Worse, and in the Increasingly Likely Chance of a Heatstroke

  WHEN I WAS IN COLLEGE, I was pretty much the most selfish person in the universe. Oh, you can pat me on the back and tell me that I couldn’t have been that bad, but I’m fairly certain I could have won a Miss Selfish Coed pageant, complete with a big ole crown, $200 in fanned-out cash money, and a complimentary sportswear competition evaluation by Mr. Greg, the Very Best Pageant Coach in northeastern Alabama/northwestern Georgia/two smallish counties in southern Tennessee.

  (I don’t actually know a pageant coach named Mr. Greg.)

  (But if I did, my guess is that we would bond immediately while he worked wonders with my hair and makeup.)

  At the beginning of that particularly nasty run of self-centeredness that lasted from eighteen to twenty-five, some family friends of ours asked me to babysit. Robin and her husband, JD, were faithful members of my parents’ church, where Robin often moved the entire congregation to tears when she sang “Via Dolorosa.” I thought she was a better sin
ger than Sandi Patty even, and that is saying something considering I didn’t think there was anything on earth more funky fresh than Sandi’s rendition of “My God Is Real.”

  Remember when Sandi went up an octave at the end?

  Chills.

  I babysat a couple of times for Robin and JD’s first child, a precious little boy named Bart, but I was so wrapped up in my senior year of high school that any babysitting gig was pretty much just a way for me to kill time until that blessed moment when I could get back in my car and ride around town in my 1981 Buick Century (yeah, I was pretty awesome) while I listened to either Amy Grant or Violent Femmes.

  (Clearly I had very diverse musical tastes.)

  (Or maybe I was in the midst of an identity crisis.)

  (Or perhaps it was some combination of the two.)

  A couple of months into my freshman year at Mississippi State, my mama called me with the news that Robin had given birth to a baby girl. We’d known since Robin was about two days pregnant that she was going to name a girl Mae, and that’s precisely what she did. Little Mae was an absolutely gorgeous baby—all blonde hair and blue eyes and sweet little smocked dresses—and when I went home for Christmas that winter, I babysat Bart and his new baby sister for several days in a row. By day two I was absolutely smitten; even now I tell Mae that she was the first baby I ever loved. That little ten-pound bundle made me wonder for a split second if I might just be able to put another person’s needs in front of my own someday, and for an eighteen-year-old, self-absorbed fool (FOOL, I SAY VERILY UNTO YOU), that was a new and different line of thinking. I was still miles away from Thoughts of Motherhood, but at least it was a baby step toward selflessness, so to speak.

  Since Robin owned a clothing store in my hometown, she had a flexible but busy career, and at some point in the spring of my sophomore year—when Mae was officially into the toddler stage and Robin was officially back in the swing of being a working mama—Robin asked if I’d like to babysit Bart and Mae during my summer break. The prospect of keeping those darling young’uns for three whole months was more than I could resist, so I agreed. And lest you marvel at my maturity, you should know that there were three primary motivating factors in my decision: (1) since Robin owned a clothing store, I hoped beyond all hope that she would pay me in sassy new outfits; (2) Mae was just learning to work the big bow into her hairstyle repertoire, and while I was not good for much in the way of discipleship at that stage in my life, I was highly qualified to be a little girl’s big-bow mentor; and (3) I’m not sure if I mentioned this, but since Robin owned a clothing store, I hoped beyond all hope that she would pay me in sassy new outfits.

  What can I say? I was a simple girl with simple needs.

  Plus, I really needed some new 100-percent-wool outfits to wear to Mississippi State football games that September. Because even if the thermometer said eighty-five degrees, the calendar said, OH, YES, MA’AM, IT IS FALL, and I wouldn’t have dreamed of not adhering to the seasonal fashion codes.

  Really, I was a wellspring of sense and substance. Yes, I was.

  Much to my surprise, my summer with “the children” turned out to be pretty idyllic, even though the daily responsibilities of looking after a five-year-old and a one-year-old required me to demonstrate some responsibility by doing things like “waking up on time” and “feeding the little people” and “following through with commitments.” Mae initially had a little trouble saying my name—the ph sound gave her fits—but by the second week of summer, that precious twenty-month-old had figured out a name for me that sidestepped the pesky digraph: “MAMA SOAKIE? MAAAAA-MA SOOOOOOAK-IEEEE!”

  I’ll never forget where I was standing the first time I heard her say it. I was at the breakfast bar, fixing Bart something to drink, and from that moment on, I was officially toast—toast that was wrapped around Mae’s tiny index finger, I might add. The entire summer became an exercise in Indulging the Children. Bart and I played Nintendo, Mae and I sang all the songs from the Stealing Home sound track (she and Bart liked to break out their best dance moves to “Great Balls of Fire”), and I carted them all over town just like they were my own.

  It’s hard to explain unless you were, you know, me during that time, but in lots of ways babysitting Bart and Mae gave me a purpose when I didn’t really feel like I had one. I mean, I guess technically the fact that I was in charge of planning the Chi Omega Choo-Choo party for fall rush should have given me some sort of purpose, but as you might imagine, basing one’s identity on sorority party planning is sort of a risky proposition. I believe that’s what the experts might refer to as shaky psychological ground.

  My renewed sense of purpose wasn’t the only benefit to spending my summer with a couple of adorable kids, though. Lots of afternoons Robin and I would visit when she got home from work, and I was always astounded by the way she talked about Jesus. He was such an integral part of her life that she talked about Him like she would talk about a friend (a supremely holy friend, mind you, but a friend just the same), and even though in my head I could relate to how openly she shared her faith, I remember feeling like a piece of the Jesus puzzle must be missing from my heart. I’d trusted in Christ for salvation at a church camp when I was in ninth grade (Did you notice my Reformed-ish language just then? Thank you. Thank you so much. I believe John Calvin would be proud of me despite the fact that my life has been the denominational equivalent of Heinz 57), and a few years later, when I was a senior in high school, there was an emotional rededication of my life at another church camp. However, I have to admit that the rededication may have been prompted more by lingering guilt over the illicit consumption of some Bartles & Jaymes wine coolers a few weeks prior than by any real work of the Holy Spirit.

  Perhaps you’ve picked up on the fact that I was walking around with some rock-solid theology during that particular period of my life.

  The bottom line is that, by the time I got to college, I had full confidence that I was a believer, but what I didn’t have was any spiritual maturity. I kept waiting for Jesus to just fix everything that was wrong with me, and when He didn’t, I wondered if I’d missed some critical step along the way, if maybe I’d missed church on the day when somebody explained how that “following Jesus stuff” worked once the mountaintop experience of youth retreat was over.

  Robin, on the other hand, seemed totally committed to walking out her faith on a daily basis. She loved (and still loves, I might add) the Lord with sincere transparency, and it fascinated me. Over and over again I wanted to ask her how she and Jesus had made it from point A to point B, but my pride wouldn’t let me. That tendency to pretend I had stuff all figured out when I actually didn’t have the foggiest idea what was going on was one of my most consistent weaknesses during my teens and twenties, and WHOA, NELLIE OLESON, did I ever pay the price for that again and again, especially in my walk with the Lord.

  So for the rest of that pre-junior-year summer—and throughout the rest of my college days, in fact—Robin, JD, Bart, and Mae were a big part of my life. We’d eat supper together at Mama and Daddy’s house when I was home on weekends, we’d visit when they were in Starkville for a football game, and they became a very real extension of my family. When I flirted with going off the deep end during my second year of grad school and for a few years that followed (I basically decided to question everything I’d ever professed to believe and, while I was at it, say a big, fat “NO, THANK YOU” to anyone who tried to step into my life with some wisdom), they continued to love me. It couldn’t have been easy.

  Even though those years weren’t my favorites, and even though I made some choices that, as Sister would say, pretty much make me want to claw off my face when I think about them, I always kept a little picture of Bart and Mae on my nightstand. In some small way I think I felt responsible to them. The picture, which is in the playroom off my kitchen right this very second, was from that first summer when I babysat the kids every day, and it was a reminder of a time that was far happier and far
better than the awkward, angst-filled years of my early twenties that followed.

  To be fair, there were also some really good times in my early twenties. It’s just that in retrospect, I think there may have been some moderate, albeit undiagnosed, “HEY, MAMA SOAKIE, IT MIGHT BE WISE TO CONSULT WITH A PROFESSIONAL” depression going on. So for better or for worse, I tend to remember the dark more than I remember the light. And certainly more than I remember the Light.

  Eventually I grew out of my early-twenties identity crisis and my annoying tendency to shirk responsibility. I got engaged, got married, found a life-changing job, moved to Birmingham, found another life-changing job, joined a wonderful church, learned to navigate the inevitable hurdles of life without plunging into a melodramatic crisis of faith, etc., and so forth, amen. I also became a mama, and by the time that happened, Bart and Mae were nineteen and fifteen, respectively. They were both growing up to be what my daddy would call Really Fine People, and I have to say that seeing the two of them hold Alex for the first time is one of my favorite mama memories—which is why I have approximately 481 pictures to document that momentous occasion. I remember looking at Alex, who was about three months old, then looking at them and thinking, Okay. Robin and JD managed to get Bart and Mae to the point where they no longer cry incessantly, they feed themselves, and they sleep through the night. I CAN TOTALLY DO THIS.

  By the time Alex was five (and I certainly don’t mean to brag, but he was potty trained and everything, y’all), Bart and Mae were bona fide grown-ups. Both of them worked for their family’s business, and when I couldn’t keep up with the state of their respective dating lives by asking them seventy-eight questions and embarrassing the fire out of them in person, I’d go with the next best option and ask Mama to fill me in whenever we talked on the phone. My just-ask-Mama system worked beautifully for several years, and it was sometime in late 2008, if memory serves, when Mama told me that Mae was dating someone new. Since I don’t think that there’s any such thing as too much information, I tried to get as many details from Mama as possible.