Can't Make This Stuff Up!

by Susannah B. Lewis

  He was the man in my life that he did not have to be.

  When he didn’t show up for Grandparents’ Day lunch at my daughter’s elementary school in September 2011, I knew something was wrong. My mother, brother, and sister couldn’t reach him on the phone at his house he’d shared with my mother when they were married. And a few hours later, it was confirmed by Mr. Charles’s brother that he’d had a heart attack and died in the home.

  For nineteen years, Mr. Charles filled the void my father’s death had left in 1992. When he was gone, I really felt for the first time that I didn’t have a dad. I was utterly heartbroken at the loss. His death was the reason I started my blog, Write, Rinse, Repeat. The first post I ever published online was called “My Two Dads.” (Yes, I stole the title from the eighties sitcom.)

  I like to think, though, when Mr. Charles was reunited in glory with his family and friends, that he saw my father. I like to think Daddy greeted him with a smile and a firm handshake.

  “I know what you’ve done. Thank you,” Daddy said.

  “She still misses you,” answered Mr. Charles.

  I like to think Mr. Charles shared stories with my father as they walked along a street of gold. Stories of how I had matured and married and had beautiful children of my own. How my daughter plays piano effortlessly and my son always has a toy truck in his hand. I like to think Daddy thanked Charles again for being there when he couldn’t. And for being there for my mother, being her friend and confidant, when he couldn’t.

  Charles was my mother’s first love, and she certainly mourned his death. They were always talking on the phone about the grandchildren or venting to the other about politics. They often sat around remembering stories from high school and leaving us all in stitches. She said to me not long before she died, “I miss Charles so much. I can’t wait to get to heaven to see him again.”

  Now that Mama, Daddy, and Mr. Charles have all passed away, I do feel as if I’ve lost three parents. Each one played a different yet equally important part in my life. Two of them gave me life, but all three of them gave me unconditional love.

  After Dad died, Mr. Charles often shared stories about him with me because he knew it would bring me joy, and he never had an ounce of resentment in his voice. I’m sure there were times he looked at me as a reminder of my mother’s leaving him for another man, and yet he treated me like I was his own.

  I’m well aware that we are instructed to forgive others as Christ forgives us, but I will admit that’s not one of my favorite parts of the Bible. I can get on board with “do not murder” and “do not steal,” but I’ve always had a hard time letting it go when someone has done me wrong. I’m still kind of angry with the boy who showed up on my doorstep with another girl’s mark on his neck. When I see a particular classmate, who stole my Lisa Frank notebook in sixth grade and lied about it, I smile at her but still wish I’d pressed charges and she’d spent a few years on the inside. I’ve forgiven the girls who bullied me in middle school, but I have no interest in being in their presence. And I think if Jason were to leave me for another woman and they had a child, I would probably be hesitant in loving on that kid. I know it sounds unChristian, but it’s the truth.

  But God is always present, working everything out for good.

  As that eleven-year-old girl looked down on her lifeless father lying on that ugly, blue carpet, she was hugged by another father who gave her Jesus’ love.

  Was my pain worth it? Was Charles’s worth it? Is yours worth it? Based on the purpose described in 2 Corinthians, yes. Absolutely, yes.

  CHAPTER 18

  Make a Joyful Noise

  If my life played out on the big screen, it would have the most amazing soundtrack. My earliest memories are associated with music. When I was a blonde, curly-headed three-year-old, Mama banged out Derek and the Dominos’ “Layla” on her old upright while I sat beneath it and played with a green and purple My Little Pony named Peppermint Crunch.

  “Susannah, get out from under there! It’s too loud! I don’t want your eardrums to bust!”

  “I like it!” I squealed over the noise and brushed the plastic pony’s tail as the vibrations of the piano strings rang through my soul.

  My mother played by ear. Despite taking piano lessons for many years as a child, she couldn’t read a note. When she made music, though, it was soulful and magical. It was amazing how she could hear a song one time and then sit on a piano bench and play it effortlessly. She played old gospel songs and Carole King and everything in between.

  “Mama, play Mozart.”

  “Okay.”

  “Mama, play Metallica.”

  “Okay.”

  My mama and daddy loved making music together. Mama’s voice harmonized well with his unmistakable sound as they strummed matching Yamaha guitars or played blues harps. One of my most prized possessions is the cassette tape I have of one of their many jam sessions in our living room. They chatter and laugh with friends between songs. My mother tells my daddy’s best friend, David, that she heard he took Sybil out on a date last weekend. He says, “I don’t want to talk about it, Susan Ann! Billy Brown, do ‘Stairway to Heaven’!” I interrupt them a few times and ask for help reaching the VHS tape collection on the top bookshelf.

  One Saturday night, before I even met Jason, I sat on Mama’s bed with my daddy’s old Yamaha and strummed the only five chords I know, but we managed to get about twelve Bob Dylan songs out of those chords. She sang while I played, just like she did with my father, and my old cassette player sat at the foot of the bed and recorded us.

  We shared the piano bench after Christmas dinner and played a duet of “O Holy Night” while my brother, Keith, recorded us on his phone. In those moments, we not only made music together but we made so much joy and laughter. I knew one day she would be gone and I would cherish those recordings of us—just as I cherish the recordings of her and my father.

  When I arrived at my mother’s vacant house one January morning in 2016, the electricity had been turned off and the house was freezing. I pulled my coat close to my body and walked around the empty home. I peered into the kitchen and remembered the sound of bacon sizzling in a cast-iron skillet. I walked over to the dining room and remembered the last holiday meal we had at her table where I laughed so hard I choked on sweet tea. I peeked into the empty bedroom where my mama took her last breath. Nothing was in there now but a lone Kleenex wadded up in the spot where her bed used to be. And then I made my way to the living room. It was also empty except for the most important thing my mother owned—her baby grand piano.

  When Mama bought the house years before, we sat on the plush, beige carpet in that bare living room, both of our bodies tanned from the summer sun, and we discussed where the piano should go.

  “I think it would look best in front of the window.” Mama’s long, bouncy, blonde ponytail hung over her shoulder.

  “This room has good acoustics.” I echoed a few words.

  And it did. Once the piano was moved in the house and placed in front of the large window, the sound of her fingers effortlessly playing Chopin or “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” reverberated off of the tall ceilings. Occasionally, I sat on the couch across from her, pulled out my phone, and recorded her on the piano bench. I was so proud of her talent, and most importantly, I still wanted to hear her play when the day came that she moved to the angels’ choir.

  On that cold January day, Mama had been in the angel’s choir for nearly four months. I silently stared at the only thing left in the home, the baby grand, and a knot formed in my stomach. My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the piano mover’s large truck backing into the driveway. They would soon load up my mother’s most prized possession, now my most prized possession, and move it to my sister’s home because I didn’t have room for the baby grand in my house.

  Two men walked in with dollies and moving equipment and large blankets and immediately began disassembling the piano. This was nothing new to them. They moved
pianos every day. But watching them remove the legs from that piano was a really big deal to me. It made me realize my mother would never play those eighty-eight keys again.

  Within thirty minutes they were done, and the piano was loaded onto the truck with treble and bass clefs painted on the side. It disappeared down the road. Alone in the completely empty home, I fell to the living room floor where the piano had left indentions in the carpet. As I had so many times in the previous months, I cried. I buried my face into the soft carpet and cried nearly as much as I did when her body was lowered into the ground.

  “Susannah, see if you recognize this one!” I could almost hear her say. And I envisioned her gracefully moving her freshly painted fingernails up and down the keyboard.

  “‘Shine on You Crazy Diamond’ by Pink Floyd?”

  I don’t know how long I cried into the living room carpet. I don’t know how long I spoke muffled words into the floor—apologies for my wrongs, things I never got the chance to say, requests for songs I never got the chance to record. When I was done, my face damp and swollen, I walked to the front door and called out, “Bye, Mama. Love you,” as I had every time I left my mother’s house.

  Sometimes I sit on my back porch and watch the videos of my mother playing. I zoom in on her hands—the hands that held my own in parking lots when I was a child, the hands that packed my lunch for school, the hands that rested on the top of my head while blessings were prayed over my life. I often close my eyes and imagine I’m on her couch while she plays. I can almost smell the biscuits in the oven or the fabric softener in her washing machine. In some of the clips, I can hear my mother’s pink fingernails clacking against the keys. Sometimes she pauses in the middle of the song to say, “Oh, darn. I messed up. You need to cut your fingernails, Susan.” Only she knows she messed up; it sounded immaculate to me.

  Where words fail, music often speaks. Hearing my parents sing and play invokes warm and peaceful feelings within that cannot adequately be described with words. Music even sparks creativity while I write. Right now, Ray Lamontagne plays on the speakers of my computer and leaves me searching for the right adjectives. I also listen to music when I work out because, let’s face it, if nineties hip hop doesn’t make you want to pick up the pace on an elliptical machine, nothing will.

  So many songs are directly linked to my memories. My soundtrack, if you will. I’ll never forget being seventeen years old and getting punched in the eye at a party while Pearl Jam’s “Black” played. The Dixie Chicks take me back to my best friend’s Nissan Sentra when we rode around after school. Bluegrass puts me back in my grandmother’s kitchen. And Bob Dylan, every time, takes me back to our old living room with the corduroy couch and Quasar television and Atari in the corner.

  Thankfully, my love of music and my mother’s talent were passed on to my daughter. When she sits at Mama’s baby grand, which has finally been moved to my living room, and she beautifully plays a classical piece that resounds throughout the room, I close my eyes. I picture my mama right there with us. I remember her sharing the bench with a two-year-old Natalie Ann and teaching her “Twinkle, Twinkle.” Without a doubt, Mama would be so proud of the pianist her granddaughter has become.

  The Bible instructs us to make a joyful noise. I didn’t know that until I watched Footloose and Kevin Bacon told John Lithgow a thing or two. The Lord delights in music. Maybe not explicit lyrics about carjacking someone at a stoplight, but He delights when we sing praises to Him, even if we can’t carry a tune in a bucket. He delights when we play instruments. He delights in my daughter sitting on my mother’s piano bench. And I delight in it too.

  At Mama’s visitation, we were able to pull the audio from those many videos we’d recorded of her. When the funeral home finally cleared out that night, I sat alone in the parlor and looked at my beautiful mother in the casket. Over the speaker came a Willie Nelson melody that she’d played on my piano a few years earlier. I stood and walked over to her lying there, beautiful as ever, and I reached down and held her cold hand.

  “These hands did some marvelous things,” I whispered.

  My mother is gone now, but her melody is still in my heart.

  And it’s a joyful noise.

  CHAPTER 19

  Keep On Keepin’ On

  My sweet granny, Rebecca, was one of my favorite people. Physically, she reminded me of Dorothy Zbornak from The Golden Girls with her gray English-lawyer mane and broad shoulder pads beneath silk blouses. She wore so many bracelets you could hear her jangling from a mile away. Her rouge and her lipstick always matched perfectly, which I found fascinating. She must’ve used the lipstick as rouge. It’s the only logical explanation.

  Every time Mama had to make a trip to the big bank downtown (with the waterfall in the lobby), we visited Granny’s teller window. She stuffed a handful of suckers into the pockets of my bubble suit and showed me off to all of her friends at the bank. Before I left, she placed a lipstick kiss on my cheek, and we were suddenly wearing the same rouge.

  When Granny retired from the bank, she volunteered all her time at the Golden Age Center. She spent countless hours at the center organizing events and fun outings for the spunky retirees in our county. She baked cakes, sold raffle tickets, served meals, and played Rook. She cut hearts out of construction paper to decorate the small cement building on Valentine’s Day. She pulled the tree from the storage closet and adorned it with red and gold bows for Christmas.

  After a day of volunteering, she cooked salmon patties and french fries in her spacious kitchen and danced to the bluegrass gospel playing on her antique transistor radio. Before bed, she pulled a can of Diet Coke and a yogurt from her “ice box” as a before-bed snack. Then she’d put on her gown and a hair net, slather her chest in Vicks, and watch Lorenzo Lamas in Renegade on the television with the bunny ears.

  Every time the doors of Marvin’s Chapel United Methodist Church were open, Granny was there. She sang a loud, joyful noise to the Lord in the choir, oftentimes off-key, and stayed after the service to pick up programs or hard-candy wrappers left in the pews. My grandmother was the busiest, most outgoing woman I knew.

  And when my daddy, her only child, suddenly died, Granny didn’t let up. No sir. She kept on rolling.

  I spent a lot of time with Granny the summer after Daddy passed away. I spent the hot, humid days with her down at the center, entertaining the old folks with elementary songs I knew on the piano. I snuck Nilla Wafers from the kitchen and taped crepe paper to the cement block walls when we decorated for an octogenarian’s birthday.

  After a long summer day of blessing old folks with pudding cups and intense games of Scrabble, we spent the evening hours sitting on Granny’s front porch. We cooled ourselves with cardboard fans and sipped Diet Cokes. Her friends stopped their cars in front of her house, rolled down the windows, and yelled at us from the street. Granny chattered and laughed with them until another car pulled up and honked for them to get the heck out of the way.

  Some nights we went to Ms. Dora’s or Mrs. Maxine’s to play Rook. I soaked up the humor and wit and wisdom in those conversations as the Southern grandmothers gossiped and poured cans of Coke over ice. I scarfed down pounds of Chex Mix and nearly choked when Granny said something like, “Did you see Mary Martha’s hat at church on Sunday? Lord have mercy, it looked like a traffic cone.”

  I had many wonderful memories at my granny’s charming white house on the hill. I helped her shell peas and pick corn. I swayed on the porch swing while she push-mowed her yard in bare feet stained emerald green. I played in the shed behind her house where my dad had held practice for his band, the Shags, when he was in high school. I threw leftovers into the backyard for the birds and the neighbor’s dog to gobble up.

  Not long after my father died, Granny started hanging out with a new “friend” she met at the center. His name was Mr. Hardister and he drove a little Chevrolet Cavalier identical to my grandmother’s car. I still smile when I think about those matching vehicle
s sitting side by side in her steep, gravel driveway. It was the cutest. Thing. Ever.

  Mr. Hardister had been a widower for many years and owned a Lhasa Apso named Fuji. The dog survived on hot dogs and belly rubs. He resembled my Lhasa Apso quite a bit, but he had many more dental issues than my beloved Peaches. Fuji had what I liked to call “summer teeth.” Some were here. Some were there. Fuji could also be kind of salty, but I didn’t mind. He growled at me a few times, but at least he wasn’t trying to rip my arm off like my aunt Cora’s “Sweet Lady.”

  Fuji and I shared the back seat of Mr. Hardister’s Cavalier as he drove us through the countryside. He told stories of his youth and talked about the ugliest woman he’d ever known. Her name was LuCindy and she had large, floppy ears like a bassett hound. Then he’d point out the driver’s-side window and tell my grandmother, “Now, that’s where Dale Bridges grew up. Right there in that wooden house.” And Granny would point out the passenger-side window and say, “No, Prentice. He grew up in that wooden house.” I didn’t know Dale Bridges from Adam, and I didn’t care where he grew up, but I sure enjoyed their banter.

  On Saturday nights, we’d go with Mr. Hardister to little Podunk towns with names like Salisbury and Grand Junction to attend bluegrass gospel singings. Instead of dreading watching old men play fiddles and stomp their feet for two hours during my weekend, I relished in it. I’d get all filled with the Holy Spirit when they cranked out “I’ll Fly Away” and lift my little thirteen-year-old hands in the air.

  I delighted in every moment spent with my grandmother. We both shared immense pain in losing a special man, my daddy, but we found so much joy together. I knew she was in deep mourning over the loss of her son. I saw the tears fall. I saw the grief in her eyes. But I also saw her plow straight through the heartache and loss, knowing she’d be reunited with Daddy someday. I saw her laugh with her friends at that kitchen table covered in Rook cards. I saw her serve the little old ladies at the center who were grieving their own losses. I saw her minister to them with her servant’s heart and her compassion and her own humor and wit. I saw her mow the grass in bare feet and talk about poor Mary Martha’s hats. I watched her sing that bluegrass gospel, loud and off-key. I watched her keep on loving and keep on living.