A Country Homecoming – Epilogue

A Warrior’s Peace

1951

Dear Heavenly Father,

            Sir,

               I feel strange. Not bad, just strange. Doctor Sharon said I’ve experienced a “small stroke”. I can’t talk easily, the side of my face droops. She tried to make a joke of it, that I never had more than twenty words to say at one time anyhow, but I can see by what her face is trying to hide that it is more serious than they want me to know. At least I still have You to talk too, Jesus. You always understood me, even when I wasn’t sure what I was trying to say. It’s just that suddenly there are so many things I have left unsaid to my oldest and that is my only regret as I lay here in the dark and the cold. Why is it so dark?  I hear footsteps in the hall, swift and muted, but no one comes in here. I am so lonely, why won’t they come in here? Do they think I can really think I can sleep in this strange, cold place?

            “  Is somebody out there?  “

            “  It’s only me, Amos-father. “

            “  Whose me?  “

            A dark figure moves and now I recognize the smell, unwashed body and rotting teeth but as her thick brown fingers stroke my flesh above the I.V. needle my heart floods with joy. At least I will not die alone!

            “  Is only me, Amos-father. Matalinga. “

            “  I’m glad you came. “

            Tears fill my eyes and I taste salt but I can not move to wipe them away. She seems to sense what I can not ask for. Raising the bed just slightly she wipes my cheeks with a fresh tissue, how strange it looks against her dark skin. The ice chip melts slowly past the gnarled tree rooted against the back of my throat and the gratitude I feel is so profound that I don’t even mind the cold neck of the plastic urinal. Eminently practical she washes her hands and I try not to stare. It’s a ritual of cleanliness I did not expect of her and my father’s voice comes back to me in those stern tones he mistook for loving correction.

            “  Cleanliness is next to Godliness!  “

            “  I soon journey home to Maude Amy-mother and Jesus-father. I come see if I make journey alone or if you come with me. You not look like you ready to go, I go now. Pastor Jim-son not like find squaw in same room with dying father! “

            “  I want you here, isn’t that enough? “

            “  I stay a few minutes, maybe you closer to journey than I think. “

            “  I have only one regret in that Mat…what is your name, Child?  “

            “  Long time ago his mama give me pretty name. I witch-woman, Matalinga. I not have name of my own, my people but his-mama she give me name beautiful to hang among the stars. I Burr..gnaw…debt!  Pretty name, to hang among the stars.  “

            She lifted her arm and waved it gently as if the stars were a pool in the sky that she could swirl with her brown fingertips. I had to swallow twice before I could speak, she slipped another ice chip between my unevenly clinched teeth and I tried to smile and hold it in place without my dentures.

            “  Bernadette. What a pretty name. Did my wife give you that name?  “

            “  It long, long time ago.  “   She intoned seriously, frowning as if it was a struggle to remember back over so many decades of loneliness and abuse.  “  I there for your birth, I there for Maude Amy-mother’s birth, his-mother there many times old when I had seven, maybe eight summers, maybe more, maybe less. It long, long time ago. But she taught me Jesus-man.  “

            “  I beg your pardon?  “

            I thought for sure I had misunderstood her. I knew for a fact that she had never been to church other than to try and hang around beneath the windows when she was younger and still pretty and the street urchins were encouraged to throw rocks at her and drive her away.

            “  Your wife, she much kind woman. She bring me good things eat, make dresses for me to wear, help me to bury my babies. The Great One who sees everything from above the Clouds, he come and take my babies to happy place of sunshine with him! I sad to see them go, but I learn from his-mother that The Great One who sees everything from above the Clouds, he understands lonely. He had to send away his son Jesus from his side so Jesus could come be born as Natalli Hey’sus. Him Jesus-son he grow up at his mother’s breast and he grow like people, walk people and when they sick he touch them and if they love the Great One who sees everything from above the Clouds then they fall down and realize how bad they have been! And Jesus-son, he can touch them and make them stand up, leave bad behind. No more bad, but some men evil. They bad men. “

            I coughed and hated myself for it! But she continued, after pushing herself to her feet to help me. So solid, so earthy, yet so tender. How I had misjudged and shunned her!

Father! I am so ashamed!

            “  One time, wise man, teach at church, his only daughter die and he weep so hard he almost want to make journey with her to… “

            She hesitated and I struggled to fill in an appropriate word for her, and that only distracted her more. When she sat down with a deep groan, on the chair beside my bed, ready to leap to my assistance, I was profoundly grateful I hadn’t tried to finish the tender story she had to tell in her own way. It was too much like hearing it for the first time, for a fact honest! How tenderly she tells me a story I only thought I knew!

            “  Everyone jump up and down outside and make fun of Jesus-son. This girl has begun her journey and you just a man-son, you no bring her back. But he take sore heart mother and sore heart father then he take little girl hand and call her back to them. Maybe they can’t have no more natalli, I don’t know that part, his-mother never say. But now all the time people jumping around all excited and it is Jesus-son who has to remind them that she has had nothing to eat on her journey. Feed the girl, he tell them! Jesus-son, he CARE about little things other people too selfish to think, then he go away and never see her again, I think.  “

            She looked up to me, as if being a white man I could confirm or deny her suspicions.

            “  You not know either?  “

            “  No.  “

            “  We ask Jesus-son soon. Or little girl Tabith. “

            “  I’m sorry, Bernadette. My son James is the pastor, not me.  “

            Her frown at James’ name frightened me. I didn’t want her to get angry and leave! I was so cold and so lonely and it was so dark. Even her whispers were clearly heard, but when she flushed the toilet the footfalls outside the door paused then resumed. They should have known I lacked the strength to get up and walk past the two empty beds, but some graciousness kept them from coming in and making me be alone.

            “  Jesus-son, he walked a man among men but the bad men, they see him and they look away, they hate him because he shine like new snow and he tell them personal stories about the Great One who sees everything from above the Clouds, and they grow darker and darker in their hearts Pastor Jim-son, he come home lost legs, lost arm, lost heart, he get darker and darker like bad men. “

            I thought a rustle of cloth or leather from the opened doorway but I feared to move or to look away for fear of breaking the spell as the old Indian woman struggled to tell a story in a language she seldom used. I could only imagine how beautiful it would be in her own tongue, with her thick set but graceful hands miming the story she was telling out loud. A peacefulness lined her face that I envied Father, I couldn’t help myself. I envied her that peaceful telling of a truth she had borne in secret these many decades of isolation and banishment with no name of her own!

            “  This Jesus-son tell men they can be healed, but bad men, they kill him! Kill him bad on a tree! That bad death! It take long time. I know! I see it! I was just girl of seven, maybe eight summers, maybe more, maybe less, the children they cry. Bad death! Bad death! But three days after he in ground, Jesus-son he walk up from the inside of the grave and he roll back the stone. See Sunday morning sunshine, walk outside tomb, hear birds. He go to his friends and make them not weep and be sad anymore. All my bad, he leave it there behind him in the grave, he didn’t take none of it out with him! All the bad, he leave there, and then him not want his friends be sad, so he visit with them and he make them laugh then he go journey home to his father in the sky. He promise come back and take us there. I go that journey soon. I push open the stone from the inside and I walk out. I will see sunlight, I will hear birds sing, all my bad I leave behind, I not take it with me. Then Jesus-son introduce me to his father and I be Burr-gnaw-debt, pretty name to hang among the stars and it never go away. Always happy with Jesus-son and Father! All the time we be happy! “

            “  I owe you my sincerest apologies, Mata…Bernadette! My sincerest apologies! Oh Father! I’ve been so blind and foolish! Please forgive me!  “

            “  Why can’t I move Father? Why can’t I speak?  Make him look in my direction, Father! Please! Just this one last time!  “

            “  Mata…Bernadette, please don’t go!  “

            “  I go home, Pastor James-son. I go home!  “

            “  Yes, home, I understand. I just want to take a moment to speak to my father and then I’ll drive you anywhere you need to go!  “

            “  I go home now, he follow soon.  “

            When he looked at me Father, his eyes so filled with tears and confusion I was suddenly seeing the boy who left home to join the Army, never guessing the horror his eyes and his senses would soon see. Love and forgiveness flooded my heart, taking away any words I would have been so foolish to try to speak, and I think for the first time in all my long life, I really understood You! 

            I breathed in his aftershave and felt his one good hand clinch the underside of mine with such intensity that it held the I.V. needle upright painfully but I couldn’t ask him to stop, for it was love flowing between us man-to-man unlike any I had been able to speak; though my heart beat of it every day of his life from the moment Matalinga laid him in my arms, steaming and wet with the fluids of birth!

            “  Daddy!  Daddy!  Please don’t go!  You can stay at the house with Beau and Mrs. Kelsey! And the kids, all of the kids! We’ll adopt more if that’s what you want! Only Daddy!  Don’t leave me! There’s so much I have to ask you now!  And Sandy! He and Cathy are coming home just to see you one last time. Can’t you wait for them? You HAVE to wait for him!  Molly! YOU tell him! He’ll listen to you!  “

            “  James, honey?  He’s gone!  He’s gone home, Honey. It’s just us now.  “

            “  No!  No!  “

            I remember looking at them thinking, “ But I’m right here! “ Then the warmth started and I knew as I laid there, at peace at last, that the Book of Life would soon be opened for me before the Throne. I remember vaguely, but You’ve got all the details!

A Country Homecoming

The End