Closets

Earlier I wrote about the doors of my childhood closet, and finding new perspectives. I'm not the only one--look at the Narnia kids. All kinds of cool stuff behind the coats.

But closets have other connotations as well. Skeletons, for one thing. And whether to come out or stay in, and who should know about it. I have friends still struggling with this one, in our days of continued injustice.

My whole family was in the closet. We lied, we covered up, we told half-truths. And as I peek out through the doors now, I'm amazed at how many people still don't know what's behind the coats.

All of you, my blogfriends, you know. Some were there for it, some knew us back then and are only just now learning, others of you are just getting to know me, and are hearing the whole thing. But other people out there still have no idea, even after the divorce and all these years. I have to say it aloud, sometimes two or three times, for it to really dawn on people who were kept in the dark.

But it's true. It happened. He used his hands, his fists, his anger, his strength. It wasn't just words, as so many believed. There were bruises, blood, slams against the wall. Choking. One time, he threw an iron skillet. That kitchen floor still bears the scar. I saw some of it, heard it all.

It's time for the secret-keeping to be finished. It just shames all of us.

Tellin' it

My granddaddy, Walter L. Moore, was not a civil rights leader per se. He was a company man. He did the usual company-man things: wore a suit, drove a big car, played golf, all of that. His company just happened to be the Baptist Church, a subsidiary of the Kingdom of the Lord.

Okay, I'm trivializing to make a point--Granddaddy was a man of deep faith and strong leadership, and his faith guided his leadership all the way along. But it's true that he was a man of his generation, and although he spoke out strongly and used his influence to further the cause of civil rights in Georgia, he didn't see himself as being a part of "the movement." Until last year when our family celebrated his 100th birthday, I really didn't even know that he felt the injustice all around him so keenly.

But listen to this piece of a sermon from 1938 in Cedartown, Georgia:

Even until this good day, race prejudice and provincialism have retarded the spread of the good news. We feel that we are the only race worth saving. . . . If an African is worthy to carry our crosses, he is worthy to hear what the cross means. Christ does not recognize the barriers of race. If you can't find it in your heart to have a brotherly feeling for the brother in black, I'm afraid you'll have to sit by him in the next world, because some of them are going down there, too.

Whew! Them's fightin' words!

But I'm struck, too, by the end of this very same sermon:

Is it fanatic and unbalanced to be wholly Christian? Since he made us and made us for that purpose, that life is unbalanced and wholly frustrated which devotes itself to anything else.

Granddaddy had not yet met Al Henry, my father, when he spoke these words. And the young Al Henry himself was a long way from his out-of-balance adulthood. But since we lack a professional diagnosis, "fanatic and unbalanced" is a pretty fair assessment of what he became. "Fanatic and unbalanced" is what he became when he felt the unresistable call to leave all and follow Jesus--leave his wife, his daughters, his responsibilities. To live in a tent in the swamp.

The area between wholly Christian and wholly fanatical can get kind of gray. Granddaddy recognized the difference, but not everybody does. Including my dad.

Brilliance

Today I watched the birthing of the sun from the ocean. Too bad the word "awesome" has lost its meaning, because I need it now. It was a breath-taking start to my day.

They say you're never supposed to look directly at the sun. But in that moment, how could I help it? And it's true, I brought the sunrise back up the beach with me, seeing it again each time I blinked.

My journey feels a little like that. I've been telling myself for years not to look too closely at what happened long ago--it would just bring it all up again. I should put it away, move on. Enjoy this happy adulthood.

But now I'm looking. I can't help it. And although it does sometimes preoccupy the backsides of my eyelids, it's not destroying me. In fact, there's some freedom in there somewhere, I think.

Being near the ocean just always does bring thoughts of Dad. He found peace at the beach.

Ballooning

When I left my job, my career, and my identity, the love of my life decided it was time for a balloon ride. So that's what he gave me for my birthday that year--a ride in a hot-air balloon. What a way to celebrate.

I thought it would be exciting, but it was one of the most peaceful things I've ever done. Since you travel the same speed as the wind and the blast of hot air is only occasional, the silence up in a balloon can be profound. That day, the tourists who had also plopped down the big bucks for their time in the sky couldn't make it, so there were just 5 in the basket: the pilot, the two of us, and two guys who had grown up in that same valley--a father and his grown son.

There wasn't much wind that day either, so we didn't go far. Instead, we travelled in time as we brushed the treetops, with the old father telling stories of who used to own that land over there, and how that barn there was the most modern thing going when it was built in 1955. Now that developers have gotten interested in that whole beautiful valley, his family's deep connection to the land will soon be stripped away.

When we landed on the roadside it was church time, but I didn't see how being in church could make me feel any closer to God than brushing the treetops and listening to stories about the soil.

With my father's mental illness, talking to him was like going up with a balloon, but that was a whole different thing. More like holding onto the single string of a helium balloon, holding on for all you were worth.

You'd start with both feet on the ground. He'd be easy and friendly with you, asking about something he knew you were interested in. Depending on the time in my life, it would be Shakespeare, or literacy, or the YWCA, or whatever. He somehow knew enough about where I was to have a good solid starting point. I'd think we were going to talk about me for a change. Or at least places that our interests connected.

But then would come the gradual lift-off, so gentle you wouldn't usually notice until your feet were about 5 feet off the ground. At that point it felt rude to let go, so you'd hang on. It's just a conversation, you'd think--what could be the harm? Then that deep-south drawl would take you up and up, higher and higher, until the ground looked too far away for a safe jump. At that point you held on because you had to. And here you were, up in the ether with him. How did we get from Shakespeare to the ancient rituals of the Chaldeans, and how they could save our world if people would only listen? Then the question would become a little scarier: am I crazy, too, now that I'm up here with him?

And that question, that very question, was the one that haunted me throughout my childhood, adolescence, and beyond:

Am I crazy, too?

It was a fear way beyond any of the others.

Now that I'm almost 40, I think I have the answer. And some peace.

Celebration

In the March sunshine at mid-day, four mid-life women shared a picnic. It didn't look a thing like Renoir's party, but it was still great fun. A theme of our conversation was celebration. We all need more of it. It feeds us, keeps us going, gives us strength. Play is a powerful thing. I didn't always get enough celebration in my childhood.

A month after our family moved to Cabbagetown, here came the Christmas holidays. Tinsel, lights, wrapping paper, gaiety. Dad wasn't having any. Mom announced that we were going to her parents' house for Christmas; Dad got on a bus for Chicago. When he came back, it was the beginning of his first deep depression. Days, if not weeks, in a darkened room, with the quilt up to his chin. Mom's next announcement was to us: "well girls, it looks like we're going to have to choose between having Christmas or having a daddy, so we'll have to give up Christmas." I was a year old. We didn't celebrate Christmas again in our home until the divorce, 13 years later.

Birthdays soon went the way of Christmas--Dad decided they were too materialistic, and we weren't going to celebrate them anymore. So the only birthday celebration that I remember from my childhood, at least the only one that we didn't have to sneak away for, was when I turned 6 at Hidden Springs. You saw the picture of my grandmamas there. I'll never forget the cardboard dollhouse that Janet and her friends made for me, with lots of rooms, all painted peacock blue. I thought I'd bust with happiness.

Dad left for the woods right about that time. It was his first disappearance. He was gone for weeks, and we had no idea where he was.

So now, as a result, I have a missionary-like zeal about celebration. I love to be silly in front of crowds, knit silvery scarves, and fling them around my neck. I love to bake birthday cake and give presents. I love to turn the music up loud and dance in the kitchen. And perhaps most of all, I love the lights of Christmas. The simplest Christmas tree of all (like the first one Mom and I had in 1980, when we cut our own tree in the woods and hand-made the God's eyes to decorate it), takes my breath away.

I am alive, and I love to celebrate it.

Over Easy

Last week I had some fine quiche. It was light and fluffy, made with eggs fresh from the farm of wise friends. They're old friends of our family--they first met our clan at Koinonia in 1965, and have kept in touch over the years. Never a part of our everyday lives, they've been in and out, and they shared with me their perspectives on our family from a distance.

She told the story of bringing a big ole casserole to help feed the helpers moving our family into Cabbagetown in 1967 (you can check out the Cabbagetown link). Having already met us at Koinonia and knowing that our family had moved from Birmingham before that, she had some concerns on that November day. Why was this father of four moving his family into riskier and riskier situations? To Birmingham at the height of the violence there, to Koinonia in the midst of the boycott, and now, as a civil rights activist, bringing his wife and daughters into a blue-collar white neighborhood. It made her appreciate her own steady husband.

And he talked about the atmosphere of the civil rights era. "It was hard," he said, "and yet there was an exhilaration about it. You were on the edge a lot." Which, of course, is right where Dad was drawn, time and time again. He was a passionate man. He craved that exhilaration.

As my friend mused, it does make you think about the whole question of whether the man makes the history or the history makes the man. Chickens and eggs. And mighty fine quiche.

Literacy

My first real job set a path for my life, too.

When I finished my master's degree in English at Chapel Hill, I knew I didn't want to be an academic, but I had no clue what I was supposed to be doing. A friend suggested that I volunteer as a tutor at the local literacy council. So I did, and before I knew it I was the executive director. It was a hold-onto-your-hat kind of experience.

I learned so much in that job--about management, nonprofits and how they work, and the field of literacy. (Here's a picture of a highlight day from that job: I got to introduce one of my personal heroes, Lee Smith, when she spoke at a fund-raising event.)

Through my work in literacy I learned the word "participatory," and it spoke to so much of my upbringing: finding the strengths that already exist in a person or community and fanning the embers, rather than bringing flames from the outside. I learned that even in a town like Chapel Hill, where you can hardly spit without dampening a PhD, there are many adults who grew up without the printed word, and are still getting by. It takes real strength and ingenuity to get by like that.

I know because I've done my own share of getting by, slipping through. As I've said, my dad turned against the church in 1965, one year before my birth. So once I came along, we never darkened a church's doors. And that meant that while my older sisters had a fairly decent foundation for their biblical education, I missed out altogether. No Sunday School, no sermons, no bible reading, nothing. Zilch. My mom tried, but I had been well-schooled by Dad in the hypocrisy of organized religion, and I bucked it. So I missed out. While my friends in high school, college, and graduate school were picking up the Christian references like windfall apples, I was blithely watching the butterflies. I faked it, wrote about other things. Slid through.

And now here I am, writing the story of two seminarians who were both deeply influenced by their reading of the scripture. They were steeped in it. And I'm illiterate. Where in heaven do I start?

Whitfield

My dad's mother was mentally ill, too. I don't have many of the details. A fuzzy story about her standing in front of Rich's department store in downtown Atlanta, handing out money to the passersby, introducing herself as the Virgin Mary and Dad as baby Jesus. A low-voiced remark about shock treatment. Bitter memories from Dad about all the time he spent with his grandparents, while his mom was in the hospital. I've heard she was diagnosed bipolar.

By the time I knew her she just seemed, well, odd. She loved to shop for bargains, and had all kinds of strange things under her bed. Lots of underwear that were unlikely to fit anyone she knew. She made us ice cream floats with Tab (blech, but we drank them politely) and fed us those wafery cookies with the creme centers. I loved her, but never felt the bond that I did with Grandmama Moore. (Here's a picture of me with both my grandmamas on my sixth birthday. Dad's mom is in the foreground.)

Considering all that, it's fascinating to me that Dad's first real job was in a mental hospital. After he left Southern Seminary in Louisville, he got a job as chaplain at the Mississippi State Mental Hospital in Whitfield, 15 miles from the state capital, Jackson. Mom tells the story that when they went for his first interview, they got lost on the way, and stopped to ask for directions to Whitfield. The friendly fellow at the gas station replied, "well, you just start acting crazy, and they'll take you right to it." Dad actually worked there twice, from 1953 to '55, and 1961 to '63 (again, there's a link, if you want to see what it looks like today).

What must that have been like--a state mental hospital, in Mississippi, in the early 50's? And knowing that your own mother experienced this treatment, and maybe even worse, in the decades before? To me, it sounds like the stuff of horror movies. And there he was, providing spiritual sustenance and support to patients and families inside the asylum's brick walls. Trying to give them hope.

I wonder if he had any nightmarish glimpses of his own simmering demons.

Crossed hands, braided hair

Here's a picture of me with my hippie family and some friends in 1975.

You can see why everybody thought we were basically okay.

That was probably the summer that we camped by the creek. Janet and I would retreat into the undergrowth of rhododendron and imagination when the campfire burned too hot. Somehow we still got burned.

Ups & Downs

Huh. From this vantage point, yesterday looks like a pretty bi-polar day, doesn't it?

Fascinating.

The Lottery

If I won the lottery, I'd build myself a room just for wrapping presents. I love the whole gift-giving business.

I love the planning, making lists, thinking of quirky things about the people I love, and finding the perfect present to fit each quirk. I love walking through a store when something yells, "Buy me! I need to go to [fill in the blank]'s house!" I love buying fun wrapping paper, making the corners crisp, and tying the ribbon around Katie's little index finger. And I love the light in people's eyes when they've gotten a really fun present, something they never would have gotten for themselves.

An unexpected delight of this book process is the presents that have come to me. There are the stories, of course--each one gives me more to think about and adds another facet to my growing story. But then there are other spontaneous gifts: a 50-cent yard sale umbrella big enough for my whole family, a Cabbagetown CD with songs that make me laugh aloud, record albums of Clarence reading his Cotton Patch Gospel. Oh, and the books. Loads of 'em. I just wish I had enough shelf space!

I'm loving the gifts. I guess I am winning the lottery, a little at a time.

Solace

Today is the second anniversary of my daddy's death. I sure did love him.

Yes, he was scary, and violent, and left us for months at a time. Yes, he blamed me for things that weren't my fault, and used his tears to make me feel guilty. Yes, he put himself before us, refusing treatment for his mental illness, when medication may well have made a difference. I was livid for years, and a big part of me still is.

But I still love him. He had a twinkle in his eye, and he told me I was the apple of it. He sang silly songs sometimes, and played the spoons in old-time jam sessions like nobody's business. He loved the old spirituals, too--they still take away my voice when I turn to them in the hymnal and the rest of the congregation begins to sing. Precious lord, take my hand, lead me on, help me stand. He loved to swim, with a beautiful, long, lazy, comfortable stroke. He read my palm and pointed out the "mystic cross," telling me I would accomplish great things one day, change the world. I believed him.

These are the reasons that, in spite of everything, my tears begin to flow before the sun even rises.

Goodbye, my daddy.

Blue Roof

I found the website for Dad's church in Birmingham. I put the link over there on my list.

This is where Dad was getting installed September 15, 1963, two weeks after Janet's 4th birthday, a week and a half before Linda's 11th, and the same Sunday as the bombing at the 16th St. Baptist Church 4 miles away.

Dad left in 1965 because the church refused to integrate, but their website looks pretty inclusive now. Mom says the reason they didn't want to integrate was their new building. They were worried about all the church bombings.

Based on the web address, it looks like their building is still pretty focal. A good reminder about what matters.

My Bag

I was walking through the garage just now, when something fell from a shelf and landed at my feet. My sleeping bag.

When I was 9 years old, my mom made me this down sleeping bag from a kit. That week, there were feathers everywhere.

How I loved that down bag! We camped a lot, since we had no money for any other kind of vacation and Dad's ultimate goal was for us to live in the woods anyway. And I took my bag to two camps, most summers. Way later when I went away to college, I had my sleeping bag on my bed the way some freshmen had stuffed animals. It was my comfort object.

When my sleeping bag was a year old, we moved to Celo, Janet left, and it was Mom, Dad and me. Period. When he was there, anyway. And when they'd fight, there was no big sister to hustle me out the door or crawl in bed with me. Instead, I'd head for the river or the porch, or hover around the edges, waiting for the sign.

Eventually, Mom would mutter to me, "get your sleeping bag," and I knew we were out of there. We'd sleep in the car, or maybe in a friend's attic--waiting for the wrath to dissipate.

Now it's 30 years later, and I have a 9-year-old myself. The downy, delicate feathers inside this thin nylon membrane are still intact. I could still cinch up the string around my nose and be completely protected from the winter winds. If I needed to.

Instead, I put it back on its shelf in the garage. It's good to know it's there. And just as good to know that I really don't need it,
except for camping.

Sliding Doors

In 1976, Mom had her own epiphany.

She was working as a cook at camp that summer, to help pay my tuition. It was a welcome relief for all of us, getting out of the heat of the Georgia summer.

That day, she had finished serving lunch, and walked through the woods to the little house where she was staying, the Meditation Hut. She lay down for a nap, her usual 5-minute refresher. But that one was different--she woke up with a shining new thought--"we will move to the mountains before the year is out." And we did. December, 1976, our family moved from a suburb of Atlanta to a little community in the middle of the NC mountains. Celo.

We lived in a house up the hill from the river--you had to cross a swinging bridge to get to it. I loved many things about that house: the porch swing, the bridge, the river, the sledding hill, the barns.

And I loved my room. I had my own window seat, looking out at the mountains.

The closets on each side of the window seat had sliding doors, and I loved to pretend they were elevators. I'd shove all the junk to the side (I was not a very organized child), and get in, sliding the door closed behind me. A brief pause--one, two, three, four--the door would slide open, and then, voila! I was in a whole different place! No end of fun.

It feels like the doors are sliding again now. Stories I've heard my whole life have begun to take on new meanings. Memories that used to be funny now seem poignant and powerful.

Interesting what happens when you slide the door closed and let yourself pause in the darkness.

Guts

When Janet was 12, she ran away from home.

We were living as part of another farm community, this one smaller, in the country outside of Atlanta. It was nearly midnight, and as far as Janet was concerned, the yelling had gone on long enough. She'd had enough. She was over it. Done.

She got a paper bag, put a few clothes in it, and stomped down the road. The dark, gravel road. But she was stomping. She didn't notice.

Janet stomped a good long way before she began to feel the rocks under feet, hear the night noises, realize what she had committed herself to. But if you know Janet--well, she's stubborn. Let's leave it at that.

A few steps more, and she began to hear footsteps on the gravel behind her. Still mighty dark. She sped up, not daring to turn around. On came the footsteps, getting faster behind her. Louder.

And finally--"Janet?" It was Dan, wonderful, safe, Dan. Linda's boyfriend, personal Prince Charming to each of us. Janet's relief quickly turned to sobs. Dan knew all the right things to say, respected Janet's anguish, got her safely home without forcing her to concede her point. After all, she was right. She shouldn't have to put up with it anymore. But there we were. Just kids.

Janet was the only one of us who ever took a stand about our parents' fighting, the only one who ever physically got between them. And therefore she was the only one of us who ever got hit herself. But she was also the one who took care of my dad in his last year of life, found him a place to live, did his laundry, made sure he had food, checked in on him daily. Janet was the one by his bedside when he finally slipped away.

The girl's got guts. And heart.

Still Got My Wit About Me

Whew. This is getting heavy. Time to lighten it up. Let's talk about Granddaddy. As he would say, we need to be having "Moore fun."

Whenever you ask anybody to talk about Walter Moore, the first thing they lead with is his sense of humor. The man was funny. He told funny stories in his sermons (sometimes to my grandmama's chagrin), joked in a self-deprecating way, used humor to diffuse conflict in tense situations, and just generally had a quick wit in every situation. When he was in a car accident in 1969 and ended up with a blood clot in his head that required surgery and kept him out of work for 6 months, this was his message to the congregation:

I asked my doctor if I would be able to play a respectable game of golf after the surgery, and he assured me that I would. I told him I've got a long list of friends, then, who would probably like to sign up for this same surgery.

And for the visual among you, check this out:



I think it's hilarious. I showed it to a friend, who asked if I thought Grandmama and Granddaddy thought it was funny, too, camping like they were in their living room. It hadn't even occurred to me that they would take the picture for any other reason. But after he asked the question, we looked at the picture more closely. Can you see Granddaddy's left foot, the way it looks like it's in motion? He was the photographer, set up the camera and timer, and ran to jump in his chair with the newspaper. It's all set up. They were playing.

I love thinking about the gifts I've gotten from my grandfather. The genetic ones, I mean. I didn't get the long ear lobes, thank goodness, but I like to think I got a little of the sense of humor. And actually, when I think about how I survived all the childhood stuff I did, I realize that my sense of humor was (and still is) my number one coping mechanism. Without it I would probably be a wreck.

So no, Granddaddy didn't figure out what was happening with us, didn't ride up in his big white Ford and scoop us up and carry us off. But without knowing it, without meaning to, he gave me a gift that would help me survive. Help me thrive. Boy, am I thankful.

What We Do

We had a family dinner last night. I was explaining to Mom (again) about my book project, and through the uneven haze of dementia, she began to figure out what all this might actually mean.

"Is your dad going to be in your book?"

"Oh yeah, he's a major part."

"Well, I hope you're going to say nice things about him."

How can it be that she's STILL protecting him?

My Dad

1960

1990

'Nuff said. For now.

And then there was Josh

Here's a picture of me looking at my little brother Josh. You can tell how I feel about him.

And here's one from the day after I met him:

What? Little brother? What about the whole four sisters thing, the complete set? And what's all this about "the day after I met him"?

Okay, I'll back up and tell the story.

Less than a year after I got the double-whammy letter from Dad, I still hadn't seen him, but I got another letter. This one was glowing:

Dear Cindy,
I've fallen in love with a woman named Dana and we're very happy-- we're going to have a baby together! We're moving to California.

WHAT?!?! I was stricken. Yes, I was happy he was gone for good. But I was supposed to be in the catbird seat, youngest of the four, apple of my daddy's eye. How could he do this? After all I'd been through, I was going to be dethroned, too?!? I was incensed. (I know, given the other letter, my reaction made no sense. But I was 14. Go figure.)

Well, as it happened, they did go to California. But no surprise, the relationship didn't work out. She left him while he was out looking for a dishwashing job one day, and went back to her old boyfriend. They got married, moved to Seattle, and Josh was born. Until he was 8, he never knew of any other father. We knew he was out there, and Dad even showed me an elementary school picture of him at one point, but that was pretty much the extent of it.

Until one day in 2001, when my sister Janet got an email out of the blue:

Hi. I'm your brother Josh, and I'm ready to meet you.

We were blown away, thrilled and fearful. Janet and I drove up to Virginia to meet him at camp. We had been campers there, too, long ago, so it was a good neutral place to meet.

I walked into the old familiar camp kitchen, saw a younger, male version of myself looking back at me, and loved him immediately. As it turns out, little brothers can be a gift. Especially if you meet them when they're mostly grown.

The Letter

In 1978, my grandfather died. In 1979, my mother filed for a legal separation from my father. In 1980, they divorced. I have always thought of the years that followed, my teenage years, as The Healing Time.

Shortly after my parents' divorce, I got a letter from my dad. In the envelope were two letters, actually. I'll never forget the moment I read that first letter:

Dear Cindy,
I know that this divorce is entirely your doing, and I blame you.
I don't love you and I never want to see you again.

Dad didn't sign his letters, so that was pretty much it.

I pulled the second one out and unfolded it:

Dear Cindy,
I've changed my mind. I think maybe I do still love you.
But I don't want to see you again for a long, long time.

That day, I showed great wisdom for a 14-year-old. I threw both letters in the trash. But I never did manage to forget them.

Sense of Direction

My sister Nancy claims she's directionally handicapped. When she goes to a new place, she always needs step-by-step directions, with lots of landmarks, and even then she's nervous. She doesn't trust her gut or her ability to follow a map.

And yet, when we go walking in her woods, Nancy leads the way. She's got that intricate network of trails and grassy roads completely mapped out in her head. While many of us know which back streets to take during rush hour, Nancy knows just which path to take if you want to miss the dogs, see the wildflower that just started blooming yesterday, or avoid the washed-out footbridge.

I must admit, I share some of Nancy's angst about directions. And today I drove to Greenville, a city I'm not familiar with, to walk in the park and have lunch with an old family friend. I got up this morning and came straight to the computer, printing out the directions he had emailed me, as well as double-checking both Google and Mapquest for all the places I wanted to go. First stop: Falls Park.

Sitting in the driveway before I left home, I pulled out all my notes and realized I'd printed out directions to every possible destination from every possible starting point . . . except from home to Falls Park. But I also realized that it didn't matter. I had collected enough information, I knew basically where I wanted to go, and I could follow the signs and my instincts. If I made a few wrong turns, I'd probably see things I would've missed otherwise. I did. And I did.

I've been feeling some impatience (already!) about my book process. I'm wanting to know what the shape of it will be, how the pieces will fit together to tell the story. But it's too soon to know.

I need to trust the process, which is just what I did this morning: collect enough information to have a general sense of where I'm heading, follow the signs and my intuition, and be willing to explore some wrong turns.

When I get there--like today--it'll be better if I've enjoyed the ride.

I got all my sisters and me

I have always loved having big sisters. Four girls, and I'm the one to make it a complete set. My spot is the catbird seat. Yes, I suffered plenty of psychological torture, but sheer idol worship always won out in the end.

They were my babysitters and camp counselors, and on highlight days they were even my playmates. We sang together and made fairy houses in the roots of old trees. They snuck in Hostess cupcakes during the sugar embargo. I got to listen to their Beatles records and feel cool. When they went off to college, I got to visit, and learned The Hustle. They were my protectors. Until they went off to live their lives.

But most of all, having 3 older sisters means there's always an authoritative expert on every subject. If it had to do with big words, it was Nancy. Guitar chords and handsome boys--Linda. And for the final word on any other subject, see Janet. As a teenager, she was the one --duh-- who already knew it. Whatever it was. From my perspective, she was the epitome of cool.

And now I'm writing a book about all of it. So many questions, so much fuzzy history. And who do I go to, when I need to sort it all out? Duh--the experts.

Ray's Tears

When I went to Macon, Ray and Ruth opened their front door and their hearts to me. They fed me bacon. I felt like family.

Ray and Ruth have had their share of heartbreak. Two of their children, Becky and Charles, were born with a rare congenital metabolic disease. They died at ages 8 and 7, respectively.

When Becky was 5, she was in the hospital for tonsil and adenoid surgery. Medically fragile anyway, she barely made it through. My granddaddy, Walter Moore, was pastor at Vineville Baptist Church at the time, and came by the hospital to visit. Ray and Ruth were both there, and they all had a friendly visit, talking with relief about Becky's surgery. After a few minutes, both Ruth and Dr. Moore left, leaving Ray to sit with little Becky as she slept.

After a few minutes, Ray broke down, all the fear and worry finally overtaking him. As Ray wept alone in the hospital, Granddaddy came back to comfort him.

When Ray told me this story, he asked me, as he asked himself, "why did he come back a second time?" Because he saw something in Ray during that first cheerful conversation, something Ray didn't even recognize himself. After all, he'd known Ray since Cedartown days, when Ray was just a child. Walter Moore had an intuitive understanding of human nature and grief. And so he came back. As Ray said, "he knew where people really were."

How could he not know where we were?

Sticks & Stones

Until recently, my daughter had no use for girls. As a feminist, I kept trying to tell her how cool it is to be a girl, but she wasn't having any. She worshipped her big brother, and was only happy when she was playing whatever boy thing he was into. Now that she's in first grade, things are changing. She has her first Best Friend.

Oh, I remember those feelings. The possessiveness, the loyalty, the anger, the love notes. It's how girls practice all those relationship things that drive boys crazy later on. Katie and Alyssa do it all: they're in the same class, partners on the jump rope team, seatmates on the bus. They're both eager to have their first sleepover, but we haven't been able to schedule it so far. I'm sure the giggling will last into the wee hours. Mine did.

My sister Janet had her first best friend in first grade, too. Kay and Janet had chemistry--they recognized their kindred spirithood from the first day. In the same class, eating lunch together, sharing secrets and smiles. They were anticipating a sleepover, too, and were excited to ask their parents when it could happen.

Kay went home to ask her daddy, the sheriff of Sumter County, if she could spend the night with Janet. When he heard where Janet lived--that detested, communist Koinonia place--he told Kay in no uncertain terms: not only could she not spend the night with her friend, she was never to speak to Janet again.

The next morning, when the two little heads came together at school, Kay shared the answer, and both girls were confused and heartbroken. After that, Janet's best friend in Sumter County was a brick. Literally, a brick.

Sticks and stones may break my bones,
But words will never hurt me.

So they say.