My life is in turmoil. My husband, battling leukemia, is home for a month before going back to hospital for evaluation. Does he still have to worry about cancer? Enough to worry the strongest person. But I have more. In the pressures on me from the illness itself, I have issues with my family-- i.e. my siblings. If I am to interpret one sister's communications as representative of the others the important issue in the potential death of my husband is "Has he been saved?"
We, my husband and I, do not understand. Neither of us is, as far as we can gather, is lost. Ergo why do we need saving? So when I need and could use support from brothers and sisters in my worries about the health of my mates's body, I find concern for the state of his evangelical defined soul. May I share with you the following.
My Soul Belongs To Me
By Jewellee Cardwell
Her words played over and over in my head. “We had a better time without you. You must know you never make any effort to get along.” My sister’s words when I said I was hurt they made no effort to schedule the sibling reunion around my conflict as they had in previous years for the conflict of others.
The impact of her words sparked in me an anger and hurt more fitting to a child than a seventy-five year old woman. An anger which compelled me slam the receiver down, an anger which lasted for days. I have struggled to reign in what could easily become hatred and faced some hard questions. Was she right? Had I made no effort to get along? Had I not tried to fit in?
Fretful days, sleep interrupted nights with frightful dreams later, I realized she was right. I was not making an effort to get along; I was not trying to fit in—except in the most superficial and guarded was. My early efforts to fit in had not gone well. Only when I gave up trying to fit did I find out who I was, who I could become. And for that, I was forced to realize, I feel no remorse. Where would I be, what would I be if I had made the effort to fit in, to become what they were and thought I should be? On further reflection I knew the price of getting along, of bending to their ideas of what was right for me, were far too high.
That realization, not acknowledged easily or openly, began early and painfully. With desperation I tried to get along, to fit in, the year I turned thirteen. It was summer revival time, a time welcomed by kids and more so by grown-ups as a relief from long days in the fields. The clean- up time needed to make the seven o’clock meeting was a respite from picking beans or suckering tobacco until darkness fell. My time with Jean and Annie, usually confined to Wednesday night prayer meeting and Sunday preaching became a nightly treat for two weeks. But the summer of my thirteenth year the fun of girl chatter became bitter. For the second night of the revival Jean and Annie decided to ‘get saved’.
Unwilling or unable to remain the ‘odd man out’ I made my way down the aisle amid the chorus of AMENS and THANK YOU JESUSES to the mourner’s bench, the mourner’s bench where I knelt night after night. No effort, no promise, no plea from me was to any avail. The Jesus who knocked at everyone’s heart, the Jesus who called all people to himself had no interest in me. He left me utterly alone, sin-stained and guilt ridden. With one night of the revival left my desperation met its limit.
The morning dew hung on the plants as I helped Mom pick beans. “You ain’t felt nothing?” she asked. At a loss of what she was asking I said nothing. “On the bench, I mean.” I shook my head. Her face was so sad, her voice so quivery. “I hope you ain’t devil-tied.” Without another word she returned to her beans. My thought whirled. I remembered how once I heard Mom and Aunt Eva talking about how sad it was that Grandpa was in hell, suffering the torments everlasting fire. Was he devil-tied? Would I go to hell if I died? Salty tears ran into the corners of my mouth.
That night I boldly rose from the mourner’s bench and announced neighbors and kin, “I am saved.” For I refused to be devil-tied; I refused to be hell-bound; I refused to be different; I refused ‘not to fit in’.
That attempt to get along, to fit in was disastrous. Subsequent days for the next week, the next month, the next year, and so many years later were filled with the constant and crushing fear of being found out. My nights were filled with vivid dreams of the horrors of hell’s fire, rolling up a long hall toward me, lapping at my tormented twisted arms and legs. I think I knew even then I had paid a mighty high price to fit in. But the need to fit does not go gently into oblivion. I kept up the painful pretense.
A successful product of a one room school’s devoted teacher I was infected early with the love of learning. My first library book regaling maple syrup production in Vermont awakened my need to know a world outside my realm, a need which by some plan of gods or government became possible. The consolidation of schools, the accessibility of a school bus going into the county high school opened a whole big world to me. But almost not to me. For my mother vowed she would never allow her children to go to high school where they would get strange ideas and surely become ‘godless’.
I remember vividly the day I stole a three cent stamp from the book of stamps Mom kept under the Bible on the table next to the sofa. I wrote a heart wrenching letter to Uncle Luther who had moved to Detroit to work in a war factory. I pleaded that he let me come live with him and go to school with his boys. Little did I know that Uncle Luther was living in cramped house with barely enough room for him, Aunt Lizzie and their five children. Little did I expect that Uncle Luther would send my letter back to Mom.
Challenged by Mom, who was angry because of my defiance and embarrassed at my choosing her brother as a refuge, I stood my ground. “I will run away,” I said. “I will go to Knoxville and find me a job. And you can’t stop me.” I never stopped to think about how I would get to Knoxville, where I would stay, and how I would live. For who would hire a fourteen year old? Mom and Dad did not ask me how and where I would live. In the end Dad relented and in one of his rare defiant moments with his wife announced that I could go to high school. Finally I had taken my first step of not getting along, of not fitting in .
That first step led to a second and a third. With each step differences grew; with each step I fitted in less and less; with each step I moved farther and farther from the need to ‘get along’ except in the most superficial way; with each step discord was kept at bay by distance. Removal of that distance – there-in lies the rub.
Dad’s early death and Mom’s dependence on my siblings, who lived near her, left me free of the demands of intimate family interactions. Only after her death did we siblings make an exerted effort to forge and nurture the family relationship. Hence the yearly weekend retreats of siblings was born. It was an idea fraught with possibilities and hazards.
There is no inherent right or wrong in being different. There is little serious fallout when a balance of power is in place, when one side equals the other. But who is right and who is wrong takes on exaggerated proportions when that balance is lacking. That balance we did not have. Step by step by step I had moved to religious, social and political beliefs at the opposite spectrum from my four siblings. It did not make me wrong; it did not make them right. For in the larger population, albeit religious conservatives are on the increase, they, not I, are the odd men out. But it did not make for easy retreats with my siblings. It did not make for the warm fuzzy feelings families rarely have, but like to pretend they have.
The last weekender I attended was on a hot October weekend, in an overcrowded, traffic congested resort, inside a fifth floor condo. Obama had been elected president; the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan raged; the economy had tanked. All fodder for opposed political ideas. We met on a Friday afternoon—five siblings and three spouses. After a dinner of too much food and to my way of thinking too little wine (for I daily enjoy wine with my dinner) we retired to our condo. I might have survived the next few hours without discomfort had not my sister, Diane, asked, “Do you remember the night you got saved? I remember mine like it happened yesterday.” She proceeded with a blow by blow description of her experience. “I was in the back bedroom; Mom and Dad were in the living room. I felt this urge to pray. I knew I was saved; I felt the terrible weight of sin had been lifted from my heart.” She continued to talk or question or what – I do not know. I left and went to the bathroom where I could not decide if I needed to cry or vomit or slip away and unannounced go home. There was no way I could go back into that. Because- oh yes I remembered the day I didn’t get saved. What I thought was a conquered ache was fresh and vivid.
When finally I regained my composure and returned they were in the midst of singing gospel hymns. My brother ,Arville, a preacher, had brought his church hymnal; my brother-in-law, James, his guitar. I made an effort to sing along, but after fifty years of removal from the gospel singing venue I had forgotten most of the words, of anything but the popular AMAZING GRACE. Then came a blessing to be treasured – introduction of other songs. James sang a Jimmy Dickens favorite, SLEEPING AT THE FOOT OF THE BED.
“Do you know TAKE AN OLD COLD TATER AND WAIT?” I asked with relish. With help from the group he managed a rendition.
“I know a song; it’s from OKLAHOMA.” I said and began to sing in my not great voice, “I’m just a girl who can’t say no; I’m in a terrible fix. I always say come –“ One by one they began to talk to each other. I was no longer there.
Finally bed time came, a welcome respite from the pretense I was forced to maintain. A welcome relief from the alienation I felt. Saturday’s agenda was a late breakfast and the Tennessee-Mississippi football game on television. “If it’s ok with you I think I’ll go across to those stores and do some shopping,” I said. “Football is not my thing. I’ve got to tell you, I went to Penn State and have been at Virginia Tech for the last fifty years I have yet to see a football game. Now’s not exactly the time to start.”
That was the last meeting I attended. The next year I got a call. “We’re going to meet at the same condo we had last year. We’ve reserved it for June 12 and 13.”
“I can’t come then,’ I said. “You know that. You know Sylvia always come in from Alaska with the kids for her Dad’s birthday and out anniversary. And this is a special anniversary—fifty years. You know I can’t come then.”
“Well,” my sister said, “Golly-bum I’m sorry. I’ll tell the others. Hope you enjoy Sylvia and the kids.” This was the same sister from whom the reunion had been re-scheduled last year because of her illness.
Hence long after their reunion, after the ‘You don’t try to fit in’ phone call, after the harsh words, after my hostile reaction, I have had time to consider, time to evaluate, time to reflect on the times we spent together. My sister is partly right. I do not fit in—not for lack of trying. Perhaps I do not try hard enough to get along. But I have come to realize that by the same token they do not try to get along with me. Their notion of getting along means I get along. That notion of getting along comes at a far too high cost. For their idea of getting along requires me to deny who I am, what I am. That is surely the greatest sin I could commit, one I will not commit lest my soul should really be in hell.
* * * * * * *
I cannot say my spirit is at peace. How could it be when those I need to have near me, supportive of me, are so alien? But as I am sure, Cartimandua, Tanaquil and especially Julia will understand me and what I am feeling. Perhaps peace will come. Perhaps not. Time as Julia once told her maid Phoebe, does not heal all wounds. The reality is that new wounds merely replace old ones. The pain adds up, grows bigger, takes over part of your life. In the loss of family I so hope that I can summon my ladies very soon. For I need them.
