Ronda Rich
Syndicated Columnist
It was a simple gesture. Probably meaningless to anyone but me.
We were at the funeral home, celebrating the well-lived, godly life of our Aunt Kathleen. Tink and I were seated on the sofa, near her beautiful casket, when my cousin, Wanda, plopped down in my lap and threw her arm around me.
Gone was the picture of the quiet, deacon’s wife that she has become. In an instant, we were transported back to the young’ins we were, sharing a barn loft at our grandparents’ mountain home. We spent our Sunday afternoons there, telling ghost stories.
Wanda and I are “first” cousins.
Unless you were born and raised in the South, you may not realize – my husband didn’t – that we are only one degree removed from being sisters. That means that one of our parents – in this case, our mothers – were siblings.
Playfully, Wanda sat down, observing with her keen sense of humor, the kind-hearted disagreement going on between me and a childhood friend.
“I’m not gettin’ involved here but I just want to tell you that I love you and I miss you.”
In the blink of an eye, I was swept back in time to that little mountain shack of our childhood.
It’s hard to look back and imagine, but I was the privileged one.
My parents had both, separately, escaped the desperation of the Appalachians and discovered new lives. They were enough alike to understand each other so when they met in the “big” town, they had an alikeness to who they were. I was raised to remember that, though I was more blessed, I was never to forget from whence I had sprung.
Never has it crossed my mind to forget.
Wanda was fortunate but not as fortunate as I. She, like I, had a strong mother. Though she was in an abusive relationship, my aunt had not settled. She had brought her three children home, Wanda no more than a toddler, toted on her mother’s hip, to live away from an unhappy home. It was there, in that four-room mountain abode, that Wanda and her siblings grew to adulthood. Two bedrooms bedded four adults – including my simple-minded Aunt, Bessie – and the three children. On Sundays after church, we cousins, who visited, gathered in one bedroom with two wrought iron beds covered in homemade quilts, and shared our stories.
Sometimes, we ventured out to the barn, climbed to the hay loft, and told ghost stories. If we were lucky, Wanda’s eldest sibling, Gail, would climb up and tell us a compelling story. This is my earliest remembrance of storytelling 101.
Wanda, despite her less fortunate upbringing, would be cheerfully funny. Her mother worked in a carpet thread manufacturing company. The hard work of her calloused hands, combined with my grandparents’ frugality, made a life for her children. They all grew up to have strong, long-lasting marriages and to find success. Yes, their success is different from mine but it is just as important; to them and to the deep rural South of their upbringing.
On the night that Wanda plopped down in my lap, I was wearing an expensive dress that she would never have considered.
She was in a black and white dress with a draped front and a knot at the side. Yet, she looked much prettier than I could ever hope to.
In those long years passed, we’d never have guessed where life would take us. Unexpectedly. Wanda married a handsome, God-loving man from further up in the mountains, who knew how to make a good living through common sense in a business setting.
Me? I married a handsome, God-loving man from Beverly Hills. We only knew of Beverly Hills from watching Jed Clampett and family.
Our lives are equally successful, mostly because we have faith in heaven that awaits us. That night, she plopped into my lap, and, suddenly, we were children again.
Thank Jesus for good childhoods.
Ronda Rich is the best-selling author of “St. Simons Island: A Stella Bankwell Mystery.” Visit www. rondarich.com to sign up for her free weekly newsletter.