Her life had been hard. She was the youngest of three, born on the cusp of The Great Depression to a quiet woman of faith and an alcoholic. She saw a brother go away to war and miraculously welcomed him home again. She didn’t go to school beyond the 8th grade except for cosmetology school, which helped her begin her career at the age of 18. She “did hair” exclusively in the city of East Point, Georgia for over 50 years.
She married young and was a divorced, single-mother in the 1950s. While her divorce carried with it the all-important distinction of “biblical grounds”, she was still marginalized in the South of the 1950s. After her divorce, she moved back home with her parents. Her father died shortly after her move home and it would only be after another brief respite that her mother would begin to show the signs of early onset Alzheimer’s. I remember the story of how she checked my great-grandmother into a nursing facility when her behaviors became overwhelming. She said that once the sun went down she knew she’d made a mistake and she cried all night. That was the only night my great-grandmother, after whom I am named, spent away from the home she had made for her children.
My grandmother married again when my mother was a teenager. Knowing the story as an adult, I believe she probably married out of loneliness and fear more than anything else. They were only married a short while before he was diagnosed with cancer and died. The majority of her life was spent in a small, yellow shotgun house on the corner of Semmes Street and Westwood Avenue. Most of that life was lived in the company of her beloved dogs, all of whom are buried in the backyard. Most of this life was also lived alone.
Looking back now, I don’t know how she did all of this alone except for sheer strength of will. The yard blossomed with flowers and shrubs that came to life under those same fingers that rolled many a permanent wave. The home of her childhood became her own home. I can recall her saying that she loved to travel and see the sights of the world – as long as she was at Semmes Street when the street lights came on. Like her mother before her, she loved the house she had made into a home.
Before I paint too rosy a picture of my predecessor, let me say that she was quite a character. Perhaps a local minister characterized her best during the days as she lingered before death when he said, “Well, I imagine God’s trying to decide what to do with her: heaven won’t have her and hell is afraid she’ll take over.” Known for speaking her mind, she was a woman feared by many. Her personal credo was to let people know exactly what you were thinking because it would either 1). Endear them to you or 2). Cull them right out of your life, for which she said you’d always be better off in the end. She was tall and intimidating and of strong persona. She didn’t like too many people and only had a handful of friends. But she loved me fiercely.
I christened her “J.J.”, a name of uncertain origin. When my mother corrected me, her statement was: she can call me anything she likes – as long as she calls me. I think it was in these early moments that her steps began to shorten. While she had little use for children, or people in general for that matter, she saw something of value in the girl that bore her mother’s name. I can say, without question, that the women in my family have been the greatest female influences in my life.
With her patient insistence, I learned to walk on the same wooden floors that my grandmother did. Before I was 3 years of age, I had regular nights of the week when her home was also mine. In her kitchen I learned to cook. In her yard, I learned to garden. This woman, feared by many and hardened by circumstance, consciously shortened her steps so that I might walk along her side. If she ever tired of my presence, I never knew it. By the age of 4, I knew her work schedule and would call before her last appointment of the week to ask when she was coming to get me and bring me “home”. I know that, to some degree, this hurt my mother. The only reasoning I can give is that J.J.’s steps were shorter and easier to follow. Now my mother, in turn shortens her steps for her own grandchildren.
Short steps allow for little ones to keep up. Adults are often so busy that they stride through life purposefully with long strides and much to accomplish. When I came into my grandmother’s life, I think her steps shortened because the only thing she felt she had to accomplish was to love me deeply and make sure I knew it. Those steps that often left people quaking in their wake, were a safe place for me. Time was ours and it seemed unlimited. Because she was willing to take short steps and allow me to follow closely, I am the person I am today.
I’m still convinced that I am the child of some Jesus loving, academic gypsies and not my family because I am so different from any one of them – including my grandmother. Never a reader, she seemed to tolerate my quiet presence in the rocker beside the front door with my nose “stuck in a book”. While she had been raised “in the church” herself, she hadn’t the temperament for memorization of scripture her mother had desperately tried to instill in her. But I think she saw in me, the redemption of her ways. I have early memories of stories of my great-grandmother, the “first Vangie” and how she loved the Bible. She encouraged this love of knowledge and memorization and told everyone who would listen how gifted I was. I was even trained that my name came from the word evangelist and that I was to be one who would spread the Good News. It was in my name, and it would dictate my steps for the rest of my life. (Unfortunately, her Restoration Movement view of Church also led her to say many times, “it is just such a shame you weren’t a boy….the things you could have done for the kingdom of God!”) Nevertheless, my love of learning was encouraged in her home. While those were not the steps she chose for herself, she could make her steps short enough to allow me my own way, even though it was different from hers. It seems that shortening her steps also allowed me to out pace her at times without resentment.
My favorite memories are of riding with her through downtown Atlanta. As winter approached, she always found extra money to go to Kmart and purchase fleece blankets. On the coldest of nights, she would come over shortly before dinner to announce that she was “taking me to Shoney’s” to celebrate some accomplishment – usually a good grade. Now what I knew, which my parents did NOT, was that this was actually code for something altogether different. Upon leaving my parent’s home on these cold winter evenings, we would hit a drive thru and then head into downtown Atlanta. She always took the back roads anywhere she went. Her justification was that she had learned to drive without the interstate and didn’t need it to get where she was going. These paths often took us into the roughest areas of town, which is just what she had in mind. We’d drive around for an hour or so and each time she saw someone down on their luck without a jacket she’ d say, “Vangie, hop out and give them a blanket.” So an eight year old, little white girl from the suburbs would jump out and deliver a blanket to a stranger with a smile and without judgment or fear. I think she knew this was the greater gift than the blanket itself.
Short steps taught me that there was always someone in worse shape than you. Short steps trained me that it was not in my heritage to turn anyone away who came to the door asking for food. My great-grandmother had given out food in this house to anyone in need, my grandmother would give the last of her leftovers to anyone who asked, and so would I. Short steps taught me the pace of the Kingdom of God here on earth, as such as that we gave to those in need without concern for our own well-being. We were God’s sparrows and he’d care for us. Only short steps can teach these truths because long strides in this direction create fear and uncertainty. But somehow, walking short steps in the ways of the Kingdom made it easier to learn this kind of faith. How thankful I am for those short steps.
As her steps did, literally, begin to shorten she would often ask, “Vangie, are you going to take care of Semmes Street when I’m gone?” I would dutifully reply “yes” even though I could not fathom a world without her in it. Even as I decorated her home for what I knew would be her last Christmas in 1997, I could not imagine this place without her presence. She died in February and through the spring as my mother cleaned out her house, I was unable to enter my safe haven. In a time of transition myself, I was suddenly without a place to live. To my mother’s credit, it made complete sense to her that I would move to Semmes Street. I recoiled at the idea because of the pain her absence left in that place. But after a few months, it became clear that my steps would lead me to Semmes Street once again.
It was the end of May when I moved in and my heart lurched as I moved my things into her home. I could hear her each time I went out the back door say, “Vangie, don’t slam the screen door!” I could see her at the sink each morning when I rose to make coffee. And, worst of all, I could smell her in each room. I remember distinctly the day I knew I could make my own steps in this place. The second week of every June, her gardenias dutifully bloom. So on a beautiful Georgia June morning, I awoke to the smell of 8 gardenia bushes –all as big as Volkswagons – blooming in unison. I could feel her say, “Vangie, take care of Semmes Street. I’m still here.” And it was in that time that I learned that taking all of those short steps had led me to a place where I know who I am. That is the best way I can describe how I feel here in this place so many women in my family have called home. Walking in those same short steps remind me, daily, that I am Evangeline – a bearer of Good News about this life. Treading the short steps she taught me to take is helping me train my son in them as well.
Knowing the ways of the kingdom of this world, anything small is also seemingly insignificant. The tiny and minute are generally marginalized in favor of “the bigger the better”. In our super-sized worldview, small steps seem like a waste of time. But I believe that the small steps are of greater value than the greatest strides. At least I know that to be true in my own life. So I pray that I, too, will leave not great marks on this world but small steps in which another can imagine walking also. For I have found that it is the small steps which lead me on the most beautiful path.
Atta girl.
ReplyDeleteWaht a beautiful compliment you have given my Mother. I know she has read these words and is so pruod of you,.....as I am. I love you, MOM
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