On Zion's Hill

  “Good evening, ladies. Welcome to our ice cream stand. How can I serve you?”

  Mother Milton looks at her friend and back at Angie, and moans. “Y’all ain’t got none of that Neopolee’tn so I don’t know what I’m gonna do. I was really wantin’ some good cream tonight.”

  “Not a problem, Ma’am. I can put a little of each flavor in a cup and you’ll be all set.”

  “Can you get’em in those little stripes like they got at the Winn-Dixie down home?

  “I doubt I can make them even, but the taste will be so scrumptious you won’t mind, I’m sure. Will that do?”

  “Well. I don’t know. I really like them stripes. I eat them one at time. That’s the way I always does it. What you think, Mary Ella? You believe it gonna taste all right if they ain’t in stripes?”

  “Mother Milton, let’s try it this evening. It’ll be something special just to have some this famous Conley ice cream. You know I’m paying. It’s my treat.”

  “Your treat? I was gonna treat you for bringin’ me up here this year. I been hearin’ ‘bout Zion’s Hill all my life. This is the first time one of y’all offered to bring me.”

  By this time, the two ladies next in line were showing signs of impatience, so Angie offers,

  “Mother Milton. Since this is your first time up here, let me treat you with my special cup of three flavors of your choice. Am I correct that you like chocolate, vanilla and strawberry, in that order?”

  “You’ll do that for me?”

  Angie nods her head.

  “You shore is a sweetheart. Yes. I believe I’ll try me some of that since you gonna give it to me. You gonna give a cup to Mary Ella, too. She brung me up here you know?”

  “Yes, Ma’am. I’ll give her a dip of her favorite maple walnut. She’s a regular and I look forward to serving her every year.” The ladies in back smile in concert when Angie quickly dips the flavors and hands them to Mother Milton and Mary Ella.

  Before closing the stand, Angie leaves the quarters for the two complimentary servings in the cash drawer since it was her choice, not Stella’s, to give away ice cream. It was worth it, though, to see the pleasure on Mother Milton’s face as she relished the creamy smoothness and rich flavors of the premium ice. And also the pleasure of the next two customers whose patience had worn just about as thin as a butterfly wing.

  ACROSS TOWN, KEN HAD HAD A PRETTY GOOD MONDAY. He’d ridden his old bike up to work in the vegetable garden and then stopped by Gram’s to help her pull weeds from her flower garden. His widowed paternal grandmother prepared him a hearty lunch of fried bologna on Wonder Bread, one of his favorites as a teenager. She added Wise Potato Chips and Faygo Red Pop, too. He’d eliminated chips and soda pop from his pre-season diet, but he wouldn’t dare hurt her feelings and refuse them. And, both still quite a tasty treat.

  He’d not slept well Sunday night and had been weary when he got back home, but having spent the afternoon chilling in the chaise lounge and studying out in the side yard under the only tree big enough for shade, he felt ready for whatever happened when his dad returned from his errands today. Relaxed, Ken didn’t get ticked off when, asking to use to car to go up to the campgrounds, his dad cautioned him for the six hundredth time,

  “Now, you be careful up there in those gravel parking lots. Don’t be driving fast and kicking up dust and flicking up stones. Yeah, I can wash off the dust, but I don’t want no dings in the paint. You hear me?”

  Thinking, I’m a grown man, raised in this house and I know how you take care of your things…aloud, he courteously agrees, “Yeah, sure Dad. I’ll be careful”.

  Ken jiggles the keys and heads for the car. When he opens the door, heat spews from the smoldering interior. By habit, his dad always rolls up the windows even if the car is parked in the yard. It’s like a furnace in there! Ken decides to stand outside a couple minutes to let the trapped heat escape before he gets in and starts to sweat. He’d already freshened up and changed for the evening.

  Ken admits to himself he is anxious to get back up Zion’s Hill. That hadn’t been the case when he was a teenager. He’d always known about the camp meeting because of the increased traffic in town. After all, the meetings have been held consistently for nearly half a century, but his family didn’t belong to that denomination when he was young. Even later, they hadn’t gone regularly even when they joined the congregation that helped host the annual gatherings.

  That wasn’t the case for many of the other camp staff he’d met this year. Lily, his co-camp counselor, said her family had been coming every year since her grandparents got married. In fact, they met on Zion’s Hill. They both were related to the original Brothers and Sisters of Love who’d started the annual gathering of colored Midwestern Christians, many of whom had migrated to Michigan, Missouri, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania during the Northern Migration in the twenties and thirties. Lily claims her grandparents were the original Sweethearts of Zion’s Hill. Over the years, dozens of couples have qualified as Sweethearts of Zion’s Hill, including Albert and Christine Taylor, the missionary couple who are to be the Women’s Day special guests for this year.

  A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO, SITTING AROUND after one of their camp counselor’s meetings, Lily had told them about how her widowed grandmother would hyperbolize, “I’ll die if I don’t get up to Zion’s Hill this year!” Lily had told them…

  “None of my aunts and uncles wanted Gramma to come last year, but she insisted. Her grown children didn’t have the heart to say “No” when, despite her failing health, Gramma always begged them to take her just one more year.” The team of counselors leaned in attentively. Pensive, many thought about the relations they had with their own grandparents as Lily shared her story.

  “Somehow, just planning to come to Zion’s Hill perked Gramma up. Osteoporosis had her nearly bent to the waist. She couldn’t walk very far and struggled even to breathe. Like every year, my mom and her siblings threatened to make that year the last year they’d drive her to her cottage on the grounds. It was just too rustic and isolated for her to be there in her condition. But, somehow, just mentioning not going made Gramma stand taller. She’d get up and walk more purposefully and plead her case.

  “Of course, during those entreaties, to hide how tired or out of breath she really was Gramma would sit down in her favorite leather chair by the window, not saying anything. She’d close her eyes to make it look like she was thinking about her and Grampa. We all knew it was to rest. We also knew she’d start reminiscing about the early years, try to sing some of the old songs, and inevitably would reach for camp meeting program booklets that she kept in the wicker basket next to her reclining chair. We listened as her words painted pictures of our favorite stories, some of which we’d shared with her and Grampa up here in their cottage.”

  “Really,” Charles asked. Your family has your own cottage? Do you all stay there?”

  “Yeah. Grampa bought it not long after they got married. It’s that little one just across from the parking lot by the tabernacle. It’s small. But we manage.”

  “Wow! That’s convenient. You staying there this year, too?”

  “Uh, huh. Gramma’s been coming to Zion’s Hill every year for nearly thirty years, including this past August. For the past five years, since Grampa died, one of our cousins has shared the cottage with her. Last year, even when Cousin Betty did promise to come again, none of us thought Gramma was strong enough for the trip. But she insisted. The family gave in. Last year, as they had in the past, my parents hired someone to open and clean the cottage. Gramma and Cousin Betty still liked to come up early to get groceries, to unpack their luggage, and be ready to sit on the porch to watch the rest of the campers arrive.

  “Last year, though”. Lily gulps and pulls tissue from her pocket. “Just three days after they got up here, our cousin called my parents. I answered the phone and heard the alarm in her voice. ‘Yore Gramma. She don’t look so good.’

  “Mom and Dad didn’t wait
for more details. They had me call my aunt, Cecelia, in Kentucky. She’s the one with medical training; she drove nearly non-stop to get there. Up at the cottage, Cousin Betty knew things looked bad, but was not sure what to do, so she just sat with Gramma, prayed for her, and waited for relief to come.

  “When Aunt Cecilia arrived, Gramma sat crouched in her chair, struggling to breathe, so Auntie bundled her into the car and sped to the nearest hospital. Thankfully it’s one of the best in the Valley, staffed with doctors from the university. Within an hour, though, Gramma suffered a mild stroke. Her vital organs started to fail. Before I’d hung up the phone, my parents were packed. They jumped in Dad’s car and left right away.

  “Auntie called the rest of the family to come as quickly as we could. My mom told me to drive across the town to bring my Aunt Vonita. Her husband took off work and drove us back over here. We joined Mama, Daddy, and Auntie in the hospital room. Cousin Betty was too upset to join us until later.”

  The young counselors held their breaths as Lily talked, gasping for air themselves as they followed the story of the family gathering at their matriarch’s bedside. They thought, too, about their own aging grandparents.

  “When we got to the hospital, Gramma’s dark brown hands and toes were turning dark blue. I touched her foot. It was icy cold. We saw she was dying inch by inch.” Lily looks around at her fellow counselors’ shaking their heads. Seeing the doubt in their eyes, she nods that she’s telling the truth. They concede and nod for her to continue.

  “Mama had called her only brother, who was down in Fort Lauderdale on a business trip and told him to get back fast. That’s a thousand mile trip! Sensing the urgency, he’d canceled his meeting and left at once. Thankfully, his wife was with him this trip and shared the nearly non-stop drive here. Unfortunately it started raining so hard, they couldn’t see and had to stop until the rain let up. It was too dangerous to drive and they were too tired to be driving in the pouring rain, so they took a hotel room for a couple of hours for a short rest.

  “While awaiting Uncle’s arrival we tried to keep Gramma alert. The hospital staff’s shaking heads and somber conversations, however, didn’t give us much hope. Still we sang Gramma’s favorite songs of the faith and prayed the prayers of the faithful. We just wanted her to stay alive until my uncle got there.

  “Cousin Betty knowing the camp meeting was starting the next day, called the ministers who already had begun pre-camp prayer meetings. We knew the Saints would pray for Gramma and felt a little less anxious; even when Gramma kept drifting off into unconsciousness.”

  Suddenly, Lily perked up and smiled. She rushed on, watching the riveted eyes of her fellow counselors.

  “Gramma rallied. She couldn’t sit up, but she did speak up. ‘I wanna go home,’” she said weakly.

  “We jumped up and crowded around her bed wondering if we’d really heard her say something. Everybody looked at everybody else. Our eyes agreed. Gramma wasn’t strong enough to survive the trip. So we just smiled and nodded and sat back down. I wondered who would tell her how really sick she was.

  “Praise the Lord, everybody! Gramma in a spurt of energy, exclaimed, ‘I want some hot tea. Can one of you get me a cup a orange pekoe tea? I want lots of honey and a slice of lemon? I don’t want none a that store brand tea. Gimme some of that Twinings kind.’” Lily looked at their dubious shaking heads and nodded to their unasked question.

  “Of course she got it. The nurses, who’d been so professional, were also solicitous. One of them found china cups and some colorful napkins and brought them in on one of the trolleys. She even added a flower in a bud vase. Yes, indeed! We had an impromptu tea party for Gramma with Twinings orange pekoe tea and lots of honey! She didn’t notice the missing slice of lemon.”

  “You kidding us,” Josie challenged with what all of the counselors were thinking. “Your grandmother had a stroke, was already turning blue and y’all had a tea party for her? That’s hard to believe.”

  “Yes. It was a miracle to be sure. Just then, Uncle breathlessly burst into the room. His wife trotted behind him. He looked around with what can only be described as ‘askance’. He clearly doubted our word. He and his wife had driven nearly non-stop till night fell, rain poured and was unsafe to continue only to arrive to see his mother sitting up drinking tea and talking like nothing was the matter. But, seeing her sitting up and chatting with us, he was both livid and relieved.

  “You know, I’m not sure to this day that he believes that Gramma had one toe into Jordan’s chilly river. In our mind’s eye, those of us with her that first evening saw the death’s door open for her and it was only the power of our songs and prayers that closed it.”

  Ken picked up on the mixed metaphor but said nothing. This was an oral narrative of a real story not a college essay. As he listened with the same incredulity, he also was thinking of Gram and Mom Bessie. His own grandparents who lived nearby. He’d been visiting them regularly during this summer at home. But could this happen to one of them while he was away at college? Would he be the one called home to their bedsides?

  His fellow counselors with similar imaginings and anxieties just sat silently considering what they’d do in a similar situation. Eager to hear what happened next, their stillness quietly encouraged Lily to continue.

  “I doubt the doctor was misled by Gramma’s revival. But knowing she really wanted to go home, he told us they probably could use medication to balance her systems and get her numbers down to a safer level. He warned us, though, that her days were numbered. Thanks to the prayers of the Saints and the skill of the doctors, in two days Gramma did stabilize.

  “My parents arranged with an ambulance company to transport her the three hundred miles back home. While being gurneyed from the ambulance, she reached out to my uncle, tugging his arm so he looked into her eyes. She just murmured, ‘I’m tired. I’m ready to go home.’ This time we all knew she meant her heavenly home. Our family caravanned behind the ambulance praying that Gramma would survive the trip.

  “Did she?” asked Josie with her hand gently on Lily’s shoulder.

  “Yes. She did and that evening in the hospital room, once the nurses got her settled, we gathered again at her bedside. Cranked up in her hospital bed, as the nurse was leaving, Gramma asked her if we could use the phone to make long distance calls. The nurse advised us to just dial nine and then the number. She also cautioned that the long distance fees would be billed to the room. Dad nodded okay. Anything for his beloved mother-in-law.

  “Gramma, the baby girl in her family, wanted to speak to her three brothers and older sister. They range in age from eighty-to ninety years old. She also asked us to call my cousins who were not there with us at the hospital. Next, she instructed us to find the numbers of a couple of her dear longtime friends. Thankfully, with the phone book in Gramma’s handbag, among the six of us in the hospital room, we located numbers for most everyone Gramma wanted to talk to.”

  Josie interjected, “She was strong enough to talk to everybody? It’s a wonder they all were at home at the same time.”

  “Yeah. That was amazing. Miracle number two. One of her younger brothers kept assuring her that he and his congregation were praying for her healing. Gramma begged him not to be angry with her, but to please stop praying. Eventually he wept and told her she could go if that’s what she really wanted to do. Gramma nodded and smiled.”

  “I bet that was some phone bill!” Ken remarked.

  “You’d win, Ken. But that expense was worth it. Gramma got to say her goodbyes.”

  “Wow. What happened next?” Charles queried.

  “Well, after the phone calls, we relaxed. Auntie pulled out the letter Gramma had written ten years ago. Auntie’s a nurse and she thinks of official stuff like this. It was the statement that Gramma didn’t want any heroic medical intervention should her health decline.

  “A little while later, Uncle asked Gramma if that still was her wish. Gramma nodded and replied firmly, ‘Yes, I
’m ready to go home’. Looking around at all of us there in the room, Aunt Vonita asked Gramma if she’d be willing to initial that letter so we could add the current date. Gramma said, ‘Yes.” The nurse was still in the room, so she left to send in the doctor on duty to witness the signing.

  “The doctor came in right away. He asked Gramma the same questions and she gave the same answers. She signed and they asked me, as the oldest granddaughter present to co-sign. Aunt Ceci handed the doctor the newly signed letter. He looked at it, nodded, then left and sent the nurse back in.

  “She removed all the tubes and monitors, called in orderlies who efficiently transferred Gramma to a stretcher, wheeled her out, and led us all up to a quiet, private room on a higher floor of the hospital. What a parade we made. Little did we know we were marching Gramma off to Zion…for real this time.”

  Though it seemed a little out of place to those listening, Lily tittered a bit, then continued. “Gramma was always a little vain. So none of us was the least bit surprised when settled in the new room, she commanded, ‘Comb my hair and let me go!’ My mom looked at me, indicating this would be my honor. ‘Be sure to comb it smooth. I want to look good for my Jesus.’ Gramma, ever the boss, gave orders to the very last. And we obeyed.

  “Once ready, Gramma lay there like a queen, giving us instructions for her funeral, making sure we knew what songs she wanted sung, the specific outfit she wanted to be wearing, and even what color casket she wanted to be laid out in! She wanted her yellow Easter hat on her head and her mother’s rose-gold watch pinned to her suit. We did it all, of course.”

  Brother Ralph interjected. “Didn’t anybody call her pastor? That’s protocol at our church.”

  “Yes sir, we did. In fact, just as Gramma got to the part about who she wanted to read the Scripture, Reverend Stokeley got there. He read some of her favorite Bible verses, prayed with us, and then assured her that she wouldn’t die that day. He waved goodbye. Gramma smiled at him and called after him to have the choir director ready to lead “We Have a Hope”.