Category: Friends & Family

Stories from the pews

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Last Sunday we attended church with our extended family.  My mother sat in the pew in front of me with my nephew and his girlfriend to her left.  Every now and then, when we stood to sing, the girlfriend placed her arm lightly around my nephew’s waist.  Each time this happened, Mom tapped the back of his girlfriend’s hand with her index finger, then turned and winked at me. 

I smiled watching the scene play itself out a couple of times—the arm around the waist, the tap, tap, tap, and the arm drop.  I’ve seen it all before.  My mother is not known for her good conduct at church. She tries to behave during the sermon; it’s the pre and post sermon parts that lead her astray. 

Aunt Elouise once said, “I don’t sit with your mother.  She shuts my hymnal in the middle of a song just for the fun of it.”  Mom also protests her least favorite hymns by choosing to sing a song she likes during the one she doesn’t. I admit I’ve caught myself doing the same thing. 

Hmmm…am I on my way to becoming my mother?

Kids love to sit near Mom.  They know her purse if filled with candy and she shares it with anyone in reach. My mother’s good humor goes to church with her, but she takes her faith seriously and taught us to prioritize from an early age. 

Growing up, skipping church was never an option for my brothers and me. Mom added an eleventh to the Ten Commandments: “If you’re too sick to go to church on Sunday, then you’re too sick to do anything else (fun) for the rest of the week.”  We had only to test her on this once to find out she wasn’t kidding.

The first church of my memory was an American Baptist in southern West Virginia.  The sanctuary was large, housing two sets of pews separated by a red-carpeted middle aisle.  Two narrow aisles ran up and along the exterior walls below stained glass windows.

At youth choir practice, the boys liked to jump under the furthest back pew and roll all the way to the altar. Our choir director Mrs. Murphy, chased up and down, fanning herself and pleading, “Now, boys, come out from under there. We need to begin.” 

Not that I was always innocent.  In those pews, my parents often attempted to reel in my brother John and me, nudging us with sharp elbows and locking their eyes on ours in a stern warning. John and I tried. We did.

When our five-year-old brother Donald belted Jesus Loves Me over the other Cherub Choir members, John and I held our breath, ducked our heads, but still fell to floor in front of our pew, unable to contain our laughter.

Once, for a reason Mom still cannot figure, Dad let us get a snack from the store around the corner between Sunday school and the worship service. During the opening prayer, the three of us strolled down the middle aisle, popping soda can tabs and ripping open bags of chips, while our parents wished themselves invisible.

From those pews my family watched my baptism. After, wet hair plastered to my cheeks, I walked outside and twirled under giant cottony snowflakes, before returning to sit with my family in the sanctuary.  

In those pews my mother often clasped my hand into hers and squeezed three times: “I… love…you.”  I returned four: “I…love…you…too.”  Then, Mom pressed my palm twice, asking wordlessly, “How…much?” 

I squeezed her hand with all my might.

Church provides a sanctuary for meditation and reflection, a place to rejoice in the gifts of love and life, and a pew to share a few winks and nods. In those pews, my mother taught me that God does have a sense of humor.

Dying thoughts

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Sometimes Gary and I talk about death. 

OK. I mention death now and then. Gary talks more of Eternity. But last I checked you’ve got to do one to get to the other. 

I’m not a Genny-downer, not even close. I just say things that come to mind. Like when I peek into my husband’s study and see he is so locked into whatever is in front of him, he may forget to come out.

“When I die, you’ll need to set a timer to remind you to take breaks—get out of this room, and stretch your legs,” I tell him.

He just smiles, but I mean it.

It isn’t that Gary never leaves the house. He hits the gym often and goes for walks on a regular basis. But the study is his absolute, hands down, favorite room. Once he cozies in, he’s all in. It’s my job to extract him from its clutches. 

Who will step in after I’ve checked out?

That’s why I tell the kids, “If I die, you’ve got to get your dad’s nose out of the book he’s reading and take him to a baseball game, a museum, or a park—anywhere.”

“Noooo, don’t say that!” they wail. “Stop being morbid.” 

What they call morbid, I call realistic. 

Sometimes, Gary walks through a room while I’m cleaning window blinds.

“When I’m gone, go over these with a Swiffer twice a month or they’ll get ahead of you in a hurry. And clean under the toilet rims. Or I guess you could hire a cleaning service.”

He just keeps walking. 

Oh, well, at least I know he’ll run the vacuum cleaner occasionally. And he won’t starve. Gary’s a good cook.

Too bad the poor guy was cursed with a wife whose hands and feet have only known warmth during her three pregnancies. My blood circulation stops cold at my wrists and ankles. 

Sometimes, after we’ve turned in for the night, I croon, “Want me to put my foot on your leg?” 

“Nooooo,” he laughs and rolls away.

That’s when I say, “You won’t know if I die in my sleep because my hands and feet are always ice cold. Don’t call 911 until you’re sure I’m dead.”

I got that last bit from my grandmother.  She used to pull my 12-year-old self close, look me in the eyes, and say, “Genny Ann, promise me you’ll make sure I’m really dead before you let them take me away.”

Shivers ran through me the first time Grandma said those words. People could be mistaken for dead when they’re still alive? Yikes.

I’ve given Gary the usual instructions. A modest service. No viewing. (I don’t want anyone looking at me if I can’t look back.) 

Cremation, probably, though I could still change my mind. If I go to the crematory, put me in a tennis shoe box when they send me back. No expensive urn, please. 

There are plenty of empty shoe boxes on the closet floor behind my clothes. Yes, a tennis shoe box is perfect for storing me until I’m scattered hither and yon.

Speaking of which, I’ve told my husband, “When I punch my ticket to Heaven, keep the traditions going with the kids and grands.” 

Cookie parties. Christmas stockings. Christmas lights. “The Quiet Man” on St. Patrick’s Day. The Fourth of July at the lake.

Our girls will help him.

I’ve shared these dying thoughts, not often, but more than once. Still, I’m not convinced Gary has tuned in. 

“Can you tell me the things I’ve said about when I die?” I asked recently.

He rolled his eyes and said, “Burn your journals.”  

If I die, will someone please send this column to my husband?

Life is a box…

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Forrest Gump’s mama was onto something when she said, “Life is a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.”

It’s better not to know, at least for me. I’d waste too much time worrying about what I most dreaded, the imminent Almond Creams, Butter Creams, Orange Creams, and—the worst—Liquid Cherries.

My single-minded efforts to change my fate and sidestep life’s unpalatable surprises would keep me from fully embracing the Chocolate Fudge, Coconut Crunch Cups, and Caramel Cordials that came my way.

Had I listened to my husband, I might have missed out on the bits and pieces of “Forrest Gump” wisdom. After viewing a preview for the film, Gary said, “Looks ridiculous. I’m not spending money on that one.” 

OK. Fine. 

I asked my dad to go with me.

Gary eventually saw the movie. I dragged him to the theatre and said, “You might like it.”

He did.

But I digress.

By the time Dad and I took our seats for that July matinee, he had been declared healed from a bout with cancer. He had no idea he was on the cusp of a second, similar diagnosis, no relation to the first.

In other words, Dad had already swallowed his fair share of those wretched “butter creams,” in the forms of surgery, chemo, and radiation. But like Forrest Gump, my father had a knack for finding positives in any situation and taught us to do the same.

If my brothers or I said a classmate bullied us, Dad said, “We need to pray for him (or her).” 

If we complained about a demanding teacher or coach, he said, “When it’s too tough for everyone else, it’s just right for me.”

Dad also could summon a laugh at a moment’s notice. He often kept his sense of humor intact when righting our wrongs. 

If one of my brothers misbehaved, Dad playfully warned, “Cross my line one more time, and I’m sending you to Pruntytown.” 

Pruntytown (in Pruntytown, WV) was a reform school for wayward boys that employed military discipline to teach self-control. My girl status earned me an exemption. And Dad chuckled every time he threatened. Still, the mere mention of Pruntytown gave me a shiver.

At the theatre near us, Dad and I relaxed back in our seats with popcorn and zero expectations. “Forrest Gump”unfolded on the big screen and wooed us in. We subconsciously crossed the screen’s barrier and become part of the story.  

Dad and I laughed. We cried. We said not a word when the final credits rolled, as though the slightest whisper might sever the magic. Given the choice, we would have remained in our seats and watched the film all over again.

A few years later, after enduring treatments following his second cancer diagnosis, a terminal Liquid Cherry found its way into Dad’s box of chocolates.

His response?

“Don’t cry for me,” he said. “God has blessed my life. I’ve had so many blessings.”

My father chose to focus on the parts of his box that had delivered countless Chocolate Fudge-Coconut Crunch-Caramel Cordial moments. The day we saw “Forrest Gump” together was a triple sweet one. 

After Dad received the incurable diagnosis, our parents called a family meeting.

“I want you to know I’ve arranged to be buried at the National Cemetery in Pruntytown,” he said.

In a flash, my brother Donald said, “Pruntytown? Pruntytown? All those years, you told us we were headed to Pruntytown, and you’re the one who’s going to wind up there!”

Laughter filled every pocket of air in Mom’s kitchen, Dad laughing the longest.

Here’s the thing about life’s box of chocolates: we can’t spit out the bites we don’t want, but we can choose to make the best of even the bitterest of them.

The berries

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After taking a dip in the lake on a warm July evening, I took Louisa’s hand, and we hiked up to our castle on the hill. Our castle is our home away from home, though some mistake it for a cabin.

When my three-year-old grand and I reached the smooth fieldstone steps, we bumped into Bartholomew. Bartholomew is our resident toad. He lives in his own castle, deep in the cracks between the rocks that form a wall along the back of ours.

“Look, Louisa, there’s Bartholomew,” I said. “He’s come out to say ‘Hello’ to you.”

Louisa crouched low and tilted her head forward to have a better look. 

“Can I pat him?” she asked.

“Sure.”

The toddler reached out and lightly stroked the toad’s bumpy back with her index finger.

Bartholomew didn’t hop away until Louisa caressed his leathery skin a second time. 

My baby grand giggled when I said, “Wow, Louisa, Bartholomew thinks you’re the berries!”

I shared this story with some friends in South Carolina and discovered they had never heard the expression: “You’re the berries.”

“You’re the berries is the same as telling someone she is the bee’s knees or the bomb.com or, more simply put, the best,” I said. 

If you look up the phrase, experts claim it’s slang from the 1920s, not tied to any particular region in the U.S.  It says the same thing about “the bee’s knees.” 

I beg to differ. 

For one, when I related the story of Louisa and Bartholomew to my WV friends, they all knew exactly what “you’re the berries” meant.

For two, the 1920s took place a long, long time before I came into the world, and I am more than familiar with “you’re the berries” and “the bee’s knees.”

Old sayings? Probably. Slang they may be, but both phrases appear to be common in the Mid-Atlantic region. In the South, not so much.

While living in Alabama, Gary and I raised our eyebrows when a neighbor offered to “carry” us in her car to the store. 

It was also in Alabama that we heard news reporters say, “A cutting occurred last night around midnight.” “Cutting” as in someone had stabbed (or knifed) someone else.

In Charleston, SC, when I said, “Will you all be joining us at the courts?” a woman replied, “You all? You all? You must be from the north.”

True Southerners say, “Y’all.” 

OK. Fake Southerners also say, “Y’all” (bless their hearts), but it’s easy to tell genuine from imitation when it comes to dialect.

West Virginians face the problem of being stuck in between. Northerners consider us Southerners, and Southerners deem us Northerners. 

But I know I am a “you all” and not a “y’all.”

Midwesterners also have unique sayings. My hair ties are their hair binders. I would rather when they have their druthers. When I see a baby, I say, “Oh, how cute.” Midwesterners say, “Oh, for cute!”

The Western part of the U.S. claims its own slang to fame. For “all talk and no action,” they say, “All hat and no cattle.” People who talk too much are “jawing,” and a “tenderfoot” is someone in training.

Westerners say, “Don’t squat with your spurs on” and “Never ask a barber if you need a haircut.”

Food for thought.

Born in South Carolina, my grand toddler is a true Southerner with West Virginia in her blood. At three, she worked out her own understanding of “You’re the berries.” 

While eating breakfast the morning after she met our resident toad, Louisa said, “Vieve, will we see Bartholomew today?”

“I hope so,” I said, “but he doesn’t usually come out this early.”

At that, Louisa smiled at her mom and dad, and said, “Bartholomew thinks I’m the fruit!”

Mrs. Murphy

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Some people come into our lives and stay for a while. Others dance and flicker among us for a brief moment, like a candle’s flame.

How long people have known us has little to do with the impression they leave on us. Sometimes, we don’t realize the extent of that imprint until much later.

That’s how it is for me with Mrs. Murphy.

Every now and then, Mrs. Murphy rises from my heart and into my consciousness. I can’t say what triggers the appearance of those memories, but I welcome them all the same.

She was the Music Director at the First Baptist Church of my childhood in southern West Virginia. I picture her tall with a solid frame, but then I was small and skinny.

Her close-cropped dark hair held a bit of wave or curl. Maybe a perm? She wore black framed eyeglasses with upswept corners (in cat-eye fashion)—or so, I thought.

Mrs. Murphy’s responsibilities included directing all choirs, Cherub, Youth, and Adult.

“Responsibilities.” I wrote that word with hesitancy. Mrs. Murphy exhibited so much joy in what she did that it never occurred to me it was part of a job.

She even made certain the kids’ choirs had holiday parties, Halloween, Easter, and Christmas.

When my friends and I were promoted to Youth Choir, we walked to the church every Wednesday after school for practice in the big sanctuary with an inclined floor.

Mrs. Murphy got a workout at those practices. She spent the first 15 minutes running up and down the middle aisle in her chunky heels, trying to get the boys to stop rolling under the pews and take their places in the choir loft.

“Now, boys, come out from under there,” she said with firm gentleness.

Then, she clapped her hands to coax a little stronger, “Come along, now, boys. It’s time to get started.”

My brother Donald, two years my junior, was born with a baritone, man-sized voice. He took his place in front of the church with the Cherub Choir, in his white robe and ginormous red bow, and belted “Jesus Loves Me” like a miniature Johnny Cash with a little added thunder. The rest of the cherubs were reduced to a tweet here and a tweet there.

I was a cherub alumnus by then. Donald’s “Jesus Loves Me” roar sent our brother John and me into titters, followed by giggles until we tumbled from the pew and tried to smother our howls into the deep red carpet. We hiccupped rising chortles, but that didn’t keep tears from laughing all the way down our cheeks.

Mrs. Murphy remained unfazed.

On Sunday mornings when the little ones took front and center, her hands and arms sang with the notes as she led her Cherub charges. The louder Donald’s voice, the bigger her smile.

When thoughts of Mrs. Murphy came to me last week, it occurred to me that I knew very little about this woman I admired. We lost touch after I moved away in 6th grade.

I emailed my very first best friend, Stilts, whose parents called her Nancy, but I never would.

“…I’ve been thinking about Mrs. Murphy, our choir director. I loved her! Do you know what happened to her? I can’t recall her first name. Ugh.”

Stilts wrote back, “…Her name was Florence Murphy and her husband, Eugene…they were the most fabulous couple at church and as neighbors.”

Lucky Stilts, to have had Mrs. Murphy for a neighbor.

I don’t know if Mrs. Murphy enjoyed gardening, if she had a dog, or liked to cook. I don’t know if she had children or how many. I don’t recall the color of her eyes.

I do know she brought music to the hearts of many. And she loved children.

Maybe, for me, that was enough.

Words from my father

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On Memorial Day, I visited my father’s grave at the National Cemetery. I hadn’t been there in a long while, and I wasn’t certain I could find it on my own.

Cemeteries aren’t my first choice to visit when I want to pay tribute or find solace. I feel my dad every time I step onto a tennis court. He’s everywhere I look when I find my way to Camp Mountaineer in Morgantown. He’s ever-present when I visit the Baptist Temple or wander up to Morris Park, both on the east side of Fairmont.

But no matter where I am, I hear him.

The tone of his voice when he said, “Genny Ann” or, on occasion, “Genevieve Ann” and his advice and stories and songs remain with me.

Dad often sang to my brothers and me. The songs he gave us, he also sang to his grandchildren. Now, we sing them to our baby grands. Like “McNamara’s Band”:

“Oh, my name is McNamara I’m the leader of the band

although we’re few in numbers we’re the finest in the land…

and Hennessy Yennessy toodles the flute and music is somethin’ grand

a credit to old Ireland is McNamara’s Band….”

And “Tora lora lora”:

“Over in Killarney

Many years ago…

“Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral, Toora-loor-ra-li,

“Too-ra-loor-ra-loo-ral, it’s an Irish Lullaby….”

And, of course, “Hail West Virginia”:

“It’s West Virginia, it’s West Virginia

The Pride of every Mountaineer….”

Dad would chuckle and lower his voice to a murmur when he recited:

“One dark night in the pale moonlight,

two dead soldiers got up to fight.

Back-to-back, they faced each other,

drew their swords, and shot each other.”

He reserved one song just for me, a tune from the early 1900s that I doubt anyone else recognizes.

“Oh, Genevieve, sweet Genevieve

the days may come, the days may go

but still the hands of memory weave

The days of long ago….”

The many Carolines whose fathers sing “Sweet Caroline” understand what “Sweet Genevieve” means to me.

Whenever my brothers and I went out with friends, Dad said, “Don’t take any wooden nickels.” It took a while, but I finally realized that was his way of issuing a witty warning: “Pay attention. Don’t let people fool you.”

We lost every battle for a later curfew. Dad always said, “Nothing good happens after midnight.” When we slept past 8 AM, he cautioned, “You’re sleeping your life away.” He was right–on both counts

A few times I came through the door in a rage—angry and complaining about having been treated unfairly by a friend or a teacher or a supervisor.

“What we really need to do is pray for her (or him),” said Dad.

“Pray for her? Pray for her? You pray for her,” I recall telling him once.

I didn’t get it then, but I do now. I still hear Dad repeating those words. His calm voice is a lifetime reminder of how to turn negative thoughts into positive activity.

When I arrived at the National Cemetery, a plan took shape in my mind. I drove up the American flag-lined hill as the reds, whites, and blues waved to me in welcome. I made the loop at the top and headed down to park and start my search.

I said to myself, “Self, just start out along this row, and check names three rows back.”

Halfway down the perfectly manicured green lawn, my father’s name in block lettering brought me to a halt. Below his name, his Navy credentials, and the necessary dates, I read the familiar inscription:

“When it’s too tough for everyone else, it’s just right for me.”

Dad said those words often as he helped my brothers and me learn how to persevere through challenging times in our lives. I heard him then; I hear him now.