What A Day, Gracie

Life has been a whirlwind – both in my mind, my spirit and my reality – these past several months.

Since deciding I had to keep on living and find new things for which to live – beyond loving my son and his wife – I have been ring-around-the-rosy since February.

It kicked off with looking at a couple of independent residential situations; to looking at selling my house and downsizing to move closer to the kids; to getting a reverse mortgage; to staying in my own house with its low interest rate, VA guarantee and great neighbors around me.

The financials and my relatively young senior status make aging in place the best option. So I called a contractor to get some project quotes and now I find myself in the midst of three work crews swirling around me as they prime, paint, hammer and saw nearly half my house, and in the backyard as they replace an existing deck gone bad.

My anxious nature isn’t built for days like this. For constantly hearing my security system say, “Front door,” each time someone goes out or comes back inside. For the smell of the primer that lets you paint over wallpaper rather than the dirty work of stripping, sanding, then painting. Of ensuring that what I thought the contractor said is what the contract actually said. Of feeling so out of whack and behaving so whacky.

But maybe every home makeover feels like this. Being my first, all surprises are upsetting, including paint that looks different on the wall than in the sample.

Before the renovation ride, I had a weekend retreat to attend before making my first promise as a Lay Cistercian at the Monastery of the Holy Spirit here in Conyers. I am supposed to start living a simpler, more contemplative lifestyle based on the Liturgy of the Hours and the Rule of St. Benedict. Yeah, like that’s compatible with remodeling a house.

And tonight I still have to prep for a speech for tomorrow in front of the district meeting for the PCCW, the Ministry of Catholic women from parishes throughout Georgia. It is being hosted by my Church, St. Pius X, and the invitation to speak is a week-old surprise of its own.

Maybe today wasn’t the best to get my latest COVID booster. But having so many people in and out of a house where for the COVID years it was me and the cat…well, I am taking no chances.

But since I am getting a slight headache, my left arm hurts and the cat has finally stopped mewling and is napping, time for me to take a nap too.

Not to mention that along with the master bath, they have covered my second full bath in plastic and my electric toothbrush has been enfolded in that process.

“Say goodnight, Gracie.”

George Burns and Gracie Allen “The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show” (1950-1958)

The Bastard Child “Thief”

It is nearing the end of Good Friday, 2023. For the past several days, I have contemplated Christ’s Passion and his last “seven words” from the cross.

I have thought about the thief on the cross next to Jesus who taunted him, and the other thief who said to leave Jesus alone, because he was an innocent man, while the thieves were guilty as charged and deserved their punishment.

“Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He [Jesus] replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” (Luke 23:42-43)

This part of Good Friday and its Stations of the Cross has brought up memories of when I was a child and accused of thievery by Mrs. Smith, wife of Smitty, the town pharmacist whose drugstore sat at the corner where the two streets that made up the small Indiana town in which I was raised crossed.

Mrs. Smith had never liked me. She looked down on me because I was the product of a teen pregnancy and being raised by my maternal grandfather and his second wife – who I called Dad and Mom – even though my birth certificate bore my birth father’s name and the fact he had married my 16-year-old biological mother.

Also Dad was the town bartender and known to be quite the beer drinker. Mom and I would often end up at the bar with him because Dad had Mom come up to help him with the noon day lunch crowd. This was especially true in the summer, when the lake on which the town snuggled filled up with summer cottagers who came for the Friday fish fries and the cold slaw for which my parents were famous – sweet, not tart, in taste.

I was not the ill-raised bastard child Mrs. Smith and the parents of my other school mates thought me to be. Far from it. I was raised to always say “please and thank you,” as well as “may I.” In fact, as I learned late in life from Morman geanology, I could claim entry to the Mayflower Society, as Reverend John Robinson of that ship was my 10th great-grandfather.

I don’t think Mrs. Smith would have cared though, as you will see later in the story.

It was a spring day, windy and cool. I am guessing it was late in April or early May, as the snows of the upper northeastern part of Indiana where I grew up clung to the ground throughout March and into early April.

It was a Saturday, and I had walked the mile or so from our winterized cottage at the lake to town. I had money with me that I had earned from babysitting the toddler daughter of my Dad’s boss. So I must have been about 11 or 12-years-old.

I started off as I always did when I had money in my pocket – at the Variety Store, where I would browse at what seemed a never-ending, always varied supply of what-nots and thing-a-ma-jigs.

Usually I shopped there for gifts for Mom on Mother’s Day. But that Saturday I settled on a white, bouffant style wind bonnet. As I paid I told Campy, the store clerk, I didn’t need a bag because I was going to wear it on the walk home.

Then I stopped off at the drug store and sat down at the counter to order fries and a cherry Coke from the fountain. Smitty served me cheerfully as always. It was when I went to pay for the food that my sunny spring day turned dark.

At the register, Mrs. Smith tried to charge me for the bouffant hair bonnet I had bought at the Variety Store. I explained where I had got it, but she didn’t believe me. She marched me to the back of the store to a rotating rack that held a similar stock of the hair bonnets. She kept insisting I had taken the bonnet from there and was trying to get away without paying for a purchase.

Once again, I explained I hadn’t done that. So, rather than going two doors down to the Variety Store to confirm with Campy I had purchased the bonnet there, she marched me catty-corner to the tavern where Dad was at work and insisted he come outside.

On the street corner, as the bar customers wondered what was going on and the drug store customers surely knew, Mrs. Smith accused me to my Dad and – in my mind – the rest of the world as being a thief.

My Dad asked me where I got the bonnet and I explained Campy had sold it to me. Very calmly, he suggested we all walk to the Variety Store and speak to Campy. She confirmed my purchase.

Mrs. Smith’s response was not an “I’m sorry” for thinking I was a thief and accusing me of it in front of many townspeople. Instead the incident was still somehow my fault. “You should have had Campy put it in a bag,” she snottily said before going back two doors down to the drugstore.

I don’t remember crying. I do remember feeling shamed and humiliated. From that day onward, Mrs. Smith would avoid waiting on me if she could, and she was always begrudging when she did, even when I was an adult and back in town for a visit.

Never would I put myself in my Savior’s place on that fateful day at Golgotha. My place is at the foot of His cross as a faithful disciple and witness to what he endured so I may deserve the mercy and grace of his Father, my God. Because though I may not have been a thief that blustery spring day so long ago, I am capable of sin, both little and large. Though in the end, our sins hurt us as much or more than those against whom we commit the sin.

I don’t know whether Mrs. Smith ever knew this or not. It’s surely not an insight she would ever have shared with me. But in this my 69th Easter, I pray Jesus long ago told her, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.”

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