
These days, with my third career as a teacher, summer affords me a
time to change my work to focus on tasks of choice, like writing, gardening, or
designing a mosaic glass table. There were plenty of other times in my life
that work meant doing whatever I could to pay the bills. I have cleaned other
people’s toilets, hung off ladders painting way too many feet in the air,
delivered newspapers in the middle of the night, even cleaned out nasty basements
getting covered head to toe in sweaty dirt all in an effort to earn my keep.
I tried to teach my kids to work hard at an early age. I remember
many sweaty summer mornings helping my kids pick blueberries for sale, so that
they could buy themselves things I couldn’t afford.
I hope when they think of me they will be reminded of my perseverance
and my hard work and know that I did it for us all. I’m no hero, though. I just
did what many people do each and every day. When I think about my perseverance I
have to admit that it was driven out of sheer fear. My drive to work hard
stemmed from the thought of what might happen if I didn’t.
As I think about hard work I am reminded of my great-grandmother
working in the hot cotton fields to earn a little money for her children. My
basement cleaning pales in comparison. Here is a portion of her story from my
book Leave Him? available on Amazon.
As Ella tied her bonnet on
her head to prepare for another long day of working in the field, she noticed
herself in the mirror. A talk with her mom always lightened her worries a bit.
She thought, “Every time someone whispers that I can’t make it on my own, I
need to remind myself that they are right. I can’t—If I didn’t have the help of
mama and daddy I wouldn’t have survived this long.”
She grabbed the cotton sack
and slung it over her aching shoulder, sighed a bit and said, “Bye mama, and
you be sweet Roselle. See y’all this evening.”
As she walked toward Mr.
Wilson’s farm she could see the three little brown heads of hair blowing in the
breeze as they chased after the baby pig who had gotten out of the pen. As
Henry grabbed the pig by his hind leg it let out a squeal. Floyd noticed her
walking towards them and said, “Have a good day Mama! If I didn’t have to go to
stupid school, I’d come help you.”
“Floyd, you know school is
the most important job you have. Study hard so you can be something when you
get big. That goes for you too, Henry and Buford. See ya this evenin.” Ella Mae
waved as she walked past them to the fence-line. She crawled over the top of the
fence to save a few steps and remembered, “It sure was easier to hop over this
fence when I was going over it on the way to meet Harvey.” Many times he would
come here to meet up with her.
“Come on Ella Mae. Jump to
me and I’ll catch ya,” Harvey said as he pushed his hat back to show his face.
Ella Mae perched on top of
the fence and paused to study Harvey Pate. His smile caused the left corner of
his mouth to rise slightly more than the right, displaying his dimple all the
more. When he smiled he seemed like a playful little boy. Ella Mae thought he
seemed a bit mischievous, and he seemed to enjoy planning their sneaking off
together.
“Come on girl, jump. Don’t
ya trust me?”
Did she trust him? Oh, she
trusted him enough to jump from a three foot fence, she just wasn’t sure she
trusted him enough to jump into a life together with him. She looked into his
eyes, said nothing, and leapt. Harvey caught her and twirled her around making
a full circle before allowing her feet to touch the ground. “I told you, you
could trust me, Ella Mae. I won’t ever let you down.”
The breeze blew into her
face making it impossible to stop her tears from falling from her eyes. Walking
as fast as she could toward Mr. Wilson’s farm didn’t seem fast enough. She
suddenly had the urge to run. She hiked up her skirt and ran toward the tree
line. Maybe she ran to remind her of her girlhood and innocence, maybe she ran
to have a moment of feeling like she was escaping. When she got to the trees
she stopped. Leaning her back against a dogwood, she looked up at the rustling
leaves, took a deep breath and wiped the tears from her face.
“Harvey, you did let me
down! You should’ve taken care of me and treated me right! Every time you beat
me, you let me down. Every time you spread lies about me, you let me down.
Every day you refuse to take care of our kids, you let me down.” She shouted.
She slid to the ground and
looked up toward heaven.
“Lord, why can’t you make
Harvey change? Why can’t you fix him? How many times have I cried out to you
asking you to heal his mind? You made heaven and earth and all that is around
me. You can do anything because you are almighty. Why can’t you fix Harvey?”
The sound of the leaves
brushing against each other in the breeze was the only sound she heard. Ella
Mae knew better than to question God, especially out loud. She never had voiced
the questions that plagued her mind night and day before now.
She bowed her head and
said, “I’m sorry, Lord. I realize that you gave us all a free will and I know
Harvey is using his to choose the bad things that he should not choose. I just
get so frustrated and since I can’t tell him all of this, I guess I sometimes
blame you. I’m sorry!”
Feeling spent from all of
the emotions boiling up inside her and from her run, she had the urge to just
lie on the cotton sack under the trees and take a nap. A couple of feet from
her a squirrel crept down a tree trunk and dug in last fall’s leaves looking
for something to eat. Ella Mae watched his tiny hands bring forth a hickory nut
and take a nibble, while looking at her. She kept perfectly still, so she
wouldn’t scare the creature. The little fingers on both his hands clung tightly
to the nut as his big brown eyes studied Ella Mae. He twitched his tail a bit
then scampered off to hide behind a distant tree.
Ella Mae stood, dusted off
the back of her dress, picked up her cotton sack and said, “Well, even the
squirrels have to work to get their food. The Good Lord doesn’t rain nuts down
from heaven when they are hungry, so I guess I better go make some money to
help feed my babies.”
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