OFF THE PAGE WITH RAYMOND ATKINS

Mama

The old folks used to allow that if you lived long enough, you would see almost everything. But now that I'm the oldest person I know, I can't say that I share the sentiment. The long years have blown past like clouds on a windy day, and in my time I've witnessed a century of living, but I know there is more to behold. I've been a daughter, a wife, a mother, and a widow, and I still haven't seen it all. I've been a farmer, a teacher, a storekeeper, and a midwife, and I still haven't seen it all. I lived through the Hoover Days, and they weren't all that bad, considering that you can't get any poorer than dirt poor, which is where we started. I lived through the war to end all wars and the one after that, both to my sorrow, and several other wars as well. Small or large, they were deadly just the same, with the young men coming back broken and scarred if they came back at all.

I remember automobiles when they were new and moving pictures when they couldn't talk. I remember being afraid the first time I ever saw an airplane. My brother, Spartan, shot up at it with his shotgun because we didn't know what it was. I remember Sputnik, but to this day I can't tell you what all that fuss was about. I remember watching what they claimed was a man walking on the moon, which you can believe if you want to, and I'll just keep my opinion to myself. I've been alive in three centuries, and I have outlived everyone I ever cared about and some that I didn't. All of them laid aside their burdens years ago, and they all rest in the boneyard now. I am one-hundred and two years old, and I've seen till my eyes burn with the memories. I still haven't seen all there is to see, but I have seen about all that I care to, and it will be a relief to me when I close my eyes that final time. It will be a mercy long overdue. I am tired, and I am ready to go on home.

I was born on the twenty-fifth day of July in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and ninety-nine. My grandfather would have said that I am as old as the hills and twice as dusty, but he was a rounder who wasn’t always as clever with the words as he thought he was. The old home place was on Dirtseller Mountain over across the Alabama line near Dirt Town, and I lived there with my mother and with my brother, Spartan. It wasn't our land, which was just as well, I suppose, because the soil was thin and rocky, more suited to digging chert than to raising crops. But we sharecropped it anyway and managed to make a living, at least until Mama went to live with Jesus. Then I married Horace Brown, and Spartan went off to the Army.

After Mama was called home—a little early, in my opinion—Mr. Stuart, who was the owner of the acreage, allowed me and Spartan to continue cropping for our keep. This arrangement was a little queer, since I was only eleven and my brother was just fourteen, but I suppose Mr. Stuart took pity at our plight. He had enough money to burn a wet mule, but he was a kindhearted man. Or maybe he just couldn't find anyone else who would take on such a meager tract.

"You children stay on," I remember him saying, with one eye on each of us even though we were a good five feet apart. Mr. Stuart was cross-eyed, and he was ugly enough to run a hungry dog off of a meat wagon. Then he unloaded two sacks of seed, five chickens, and a baby pig. "This will get you started," he said as he climbed back onto the wagon and grabbed the reins. If I live to be one-hundred and three, I will never forget that man's kindness. I suppose that Spartan figured at the time that Mr. Stuart had other reasons for being benevolent, reasons that had more to do with our departed mama than with us, but I didn't know that theory then and don't necessarily hold with it now. Spartan was always the suspicious type, even as a boy, but he always tried to look out for me, and nobody is perfect.

Mama claimed to be a widow woman until the day she crossed the river, and I never knew the facts of the matter until Spartan told me after he died that she had never had a husband, and that my daddy and Spartan's daddy had been just two of the crowd, in a manner of speaking. I received this information in the letter that Spartan sent to me after he was buried, although he did not see fit to tell of how he found out the news—or when—and it was too late by several days and six feet for me to ask him.

"Now that I am dead," his letter read, "I hope I can find the courage to tell you something that I should have told you long ago." Then he proceeded to find his gumption and share with me the story of Mama's checkered past. I loved my brother, and for that reason I hope he got some good out of unburdening himself, because if he did, then that would have been one of us. He told me that he didn't know for sure who my daddy was, but he figured that his buck teeth and crossed eyes made him a likely candidate to be heir to the Stuart fortune, thin dirt, wet mule, and all. I will have to admit that the older my brother got, the more he favored Mr. Stuart, but Spartan’s wife, Sophie, hadn't married him for his looks in the first place, and his children didn't seem to mind, and it certainly didn't matter to me. He was my brother, and he had a kind heart, and beauty is only skin deep and fleeting.

That was thirty years ago, when I was almost seventy-two, and the news was a blow to me, at first. I took to my bed for three days until the shock of it wore off, although I should have known better than to act the fool. Nowadays, it seems more common than not for young women—and some older ones that should know better, for that matter—to wallow without the benefit of matrimony. But in the old times it was not done much and talked about even less, and it shamed me at first to find out that Mama had been giving away the milk without selling the cow, if you'll pardon my expression. But a long life has many miseries, and you can't live as long as I have without realizing that most people are doing the best they can, despite the fact that it usually isn't nearly good enough by plenty. So I got over my embarrassment, because it wasn't for me to judge, anyway, and if it had come down to it, I guess I would have done the same if my own child was hungry or cold

Mama died when she was thirty and I was eleven and Spartan was fourteen— the same year they say that Mr. Mark Twain rode off on that comet, which is hogwash if I ever heard it, but some folks will believe anything—and I don't recall as much about her as I wish I did. She was a Bell, Mae Bell, and I carry her first name as my second, with my first being Ruby. It's a name I've never really cottoned to, and I don't suppose I ever will if I haven't by now, but it doesn't really matter much, since everyone I know calls me Granny, anyhow. But Mama thought it was a fancy name, and poor folks tend to give their children fancy names because they don't have much else to give them. She always told me that I was her fancy girl, which is the kind of thing a young girl likes to hear.

My memories of her have gone scant over the years, and I can only get a small glimpse of her in my mind from time to time. I realize now that she was a beauty, but back then she was just my mama. She had red hair like mine used to be before I turned white-headed, and in my one-hundred and two years I have never seen a greener pair of eyes, although Spartan, bless his color-blind soul, always remembered them to be brown. I recall she had two dresses—a blue one for everyday use and a pretty green one that she wore when gentlemen came to call. She called her visitors uncles, and I can remember thinking as a child that it was peculiar to have so many kinfolks.

I can see her rolling out the biscuits in the kitchen in summer, with the heat from the wood stove as hot as the hinges of Hades. I can see her hoeing her garden, wearing overalls cuffed up nearly to her knees. I recall her rocking me as a child, singing a lullaby I can't recollect, but which I know I'd recognize if I heard it. She never laughed out loud, but I do recall her wiping at tears from time to time. She died holding my hand—the influenza was bad that year—and my final memory of my mother is of her laying there in that pine box up on those saw horses, wearing that pretty green dress and looking peaceful but kind of sad. It's not much to say about someone's life, especially if it is your mama. But that is all I can bring up from my feeble memories, and wishing there was more won't get the butter churned.

When I get to Heaven, I intend to tell her a thing or two that I wish I'd said when she was here but didn't have the chance to, because she was gone so soon. But that is the way of it. I was only a sprout and I didn’t understand that life is a precious gift that the good Lord takes back at His own whim, and He can be pretty whim-ish at times, meaning no disrespect. But while she was breathing, Spartan and I had food to eat and a roof over our heads, and shoes to wear in the winter, and it isn't for any man nor woman to say it was wrong for her to provide for her children the only way she could figure to do it. And after she passed, Spartan and I set to farming that pitiful patch of ground on Dirtseller Mountain. We didn't have much of anything, so we didn't have a whole lot to lose, and over the next few years we managed to not starve, although to this day I can't eat a turnip, and I don't care much for turnip greens, neither.

Hello gentle readers (yes, I have been watching Bridgerton). This month instead of my column I am sharing with you the first chapter of my novel in progress. I would like to know what you think of both the character and her voice. You can email me at raymondlatkins@aol.com or message me on facebook. I hope you enjoy!