We sat on an old patchwork quilt spread out on bright green summer grass. “We” included me, my daughter, and a duck. Two red plastic plates held the remnants of our bologna and cheese sandwiches, carrot sticks and puddles of ranch dressing. The duck rested in my daughter’s lap, politely declining a nibble of carrot, but keen on leftover bread crusts. We’d just entered the second summer of our global pandemic years — that hard time of fear and separation from the rest of the world, but not from each other.
In the middle of our resting time, a huge white SUV rolled into the driveway and stopped. Inside the SUV was a very elderly lady and her two grown-up daughters. The daughter in the driver’s seat explained they were just out and about, taking a drive along roads the mother had known way back when. She’d grown up in this old homeplace, had wanted to drop in to see it just one more time, and would I mind the interruption?
Being southern and all, I’ve been blessed with the dual weight of hospitality and the love of a good story. I secured the duck, assured my daughter everything was safe, and invited three strangers in.
We live in a house that, best we can tell from a deed search, is nigh on 110 years old. It was one of many tenant houses associated with the old Bates Farm. The original “big house” had been across the road. The only thing left of it is a jumble of limestone slabs that once were steps. The neighbor’s house to our left now sits on the place where the great, black, tobacco barn used to be.
Our front door neighbor told me the story of the day they tore that barn down and the snakes were so thick in it that when they were routed from their den, she found them in her windowsills, seeking shelter. I’m reminded of her story every time I’m startled by those stripe-backed serpents in the mint patch, or in the strip of grass between the garden and the chinquapin oak in the yard. Once, when the plumbers came to take care of a leaking gas line in our crawlspace, they pulled out an intact, five-foot-long, sloughed off snakeskin. I measured it by my height, being as how I’m five-foot-four. I figured I had four inches on the creature, as well as a Savior who had long ago defeated the most famous serpent of all time. We’d be okay. But I digress.
Our house originally consisted of four rooms and an attic. Over time, someone added a mud room and a bathroom. They made the attic into two large rooms and built a stairway so steep I have to take it sideways. They used what they had, piecemealing lumber and hardware. They put things together in a way that made sense to them, just like my papaw did. Just like my dad did, too. There are places in our home that demonstrate a resourcefulness that I cannot help but respect.
I think the people who lived in our house treated the land in much the same way. Our square-ish domicile is on a bit of a rise. If you look, you can see where the yard ended and the crop line began. Some of our biggest trees live on that boundary. We’ve a rusted disc harrow in what is now our chicken coop yard, and we’ve unearthed bricks that used to be part of an old smokehouse near where someone once housed rabbits.
I got hungrier for the story of the place with each new discovery.
Seems this very elderly lady lived here with her aunt and uncle after she lost both her parents. I held her arm and helped her up the back step into the mudroom that hadn’t been there the last time she was. She drank in the changes with her eyes and pressed her lips together like I used to watch my grandmother do when she blotted her lipstick. She cleared her throat in a gentle lady way and swallowed. Somehow, somewhere deep inside, all the new was reconciled with the old.
That’s when the story began.
“There was a big cast-iron cookstove in this kitchen,” she said.
“There was a little cast-iron wood stove in the front room,” she said. “It had a pipe that went into the wall.”
“My little bed was there in the corner.” She pointed out where her family had made room for her orphanhood.
“That was my aunt and uncle’s room,” she said. Yes, she remembered the wallpaper and the brown, oil paint trim.
She waved her hand in the direction of one wall. “My aunt had a mirrored dressing table there. She had a brush and a comb set,” she said. “I wasn’t allowed to touch them.”
With pale, thin, purple-veined hands, she waved the memories to life, setting the furniture and people proper-like in their places. She looked out the wide windows and drew verbal pictures of tobacco and corn. Yes, she remembered the smokehouse.
“And there,” she nodded to the corner of the yard just this side of the CSX, “We had the outhouse there.”
“There’s something wonderful and fearful about outhouses,” she said.
I nodded my head. I could see that. I could see it all.
Every now and again the very elderly lady stopped speaking. She pressed her fingertips to her lips, and her eyes held rivers that caught the summer light and held it there, glittering.
I nodded my head at that, too.
We had moved from the back door to the front porch. Momma always said back door guests are best, but I’m thinking any door will do for the wealth of memory the very elderly lady gifted to us.
“Do you want a picture?” I asked.
She trembled a little. “Oh, would you?”
I captured the moment and texted the picture to the daughter who’d driven them all here.
“We didn’t think you’d let us in,” she said.
I understood that, too. I looked at the very elderly lady straight-like. “You’re always welcome here.”
The river in her eyes overflowed its banks and trailed down her cheeks. I fetched the handkerchief I kept tucked under my watchband and pressed it into her hand. She stemmed the tide. When I opened my arms, she stepped into my embrace, and I held her until the trembling stopped.
“Thank you,” she whispered real soft-like into my shoulder. I could feel the cold of her hands through my t-shirt.
I thought of my great grandma, whose forever cold fingers taught me how to draw yarn into granny squares with a crochet hook to tell the story of how to keep warm in winter.
I thought of the treasures I’d found in the yard. A pencil with some long-forgotten politician’s name on it. A mangled utensil. A pink satin ribbon with little white daisies painted on it. A tiny porcelain teacup with the handle broke off.
After the women left, I went down to the corner of the orchard, just this side of the CSX. I turned and looked at the distance from there to the house. I imagined the tall cornstalks and the broad tobacco leaves that took turns standing at that little corner. It wouldn’t be so bad at first in the spring, but there’d be a point where the green was so tall and so broad a body couldn’t see what might be coming.
Wonderful and fearful indeed.
I think of the very elderly lady often. I thought of her when we remodeled our bathroom. I thought of her when I reached for where the knob to the cabinet used to be.
All kinds of things get moved around over time. Things like knobs on bathroom cabinet doors. Some things you keep. Some things you discard. Some things you just move from here to there, but a body tends to remember the way things were for quite some time.
As I write this, it’s been months since we moved that little bathroom cabinet knob, and I find myself still reaching for where it was. One day I’ll stop that. One day I won’t reach so high, and I won’t even realize it, but for now, the change gives me pause.
In the pausing space, I think of story and writing and living a faithful life.
I also think of one little phrase: by reason of use.
That’s fancy talk for habit.
It’s used one time in the New Testament.
Hebrews 5:14 (NKJV) says: “but solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.”
For context, the author of Hebrews is speaking in chapter four regarding the difference between those who are immature in Christ and those who are mature in Christ. Those who are immature still must be reminded of “elemental” things. They are spiritual babies and can only stomach milk, but those who are of full age have matured, and now have the teeth to chew and the gastric constitution to handle strong meat.
Those who are spiritually mature have made a habit of chewing and digesting The Word.
By reason of use, and by the power of the Holy Spirit (John 14:26; 1 Corinthians 2:1-16), they benefit from all the wisdom and understanding found there.
The very elderly lady who used to live in our house had a different experience of habit. And I will have a different experience of habit than the folks who will come along behind me.
The very elderly lady’s story is neither less nor greater than mine. Likewise, my story will be no less and no greater than the ones who follow me. Stories often come from experience.
And yet, I will have no story if I don’t employ some sort of habit.
By reason of use, I will move my hand in the current direction of the little silver knob. By reason of use, I will replace the old habit of the way things used to be. By reason of use, I will find success and, ultimately, a new toilet paper roll because that’s where we keep the extras.
My faithfulness of habit will benefit not only me, but also the next person who needs to use the fine, remodeled facility.
One day, if the Lord grants me length of years, I might pull up into this driveway a very elderly lady. I might walk through the rooms of my memory and think about the time we remodeled the bathroom and how frustrated I was that I kept forgetting where we’d moved that knob.
I might think about how foolish I was to be so long about reaching for the right place. I might tell that story if someone cares to listen.
I’ll be sure to add how grateful I was that, though the learning was slow, I got there by the by. I hope I slap my wrinkly old thigh and cackle like a very elderly lady as I say it, too.
Move the knob, well beloved.
Then reach for it again and again.
There is faithfulness by the reason of use.
Leave a Reply