A Little Salty to Cut the Sweet

by Sophie Hudson

  “Sophie, I know you probably don’t want to think about this, because, well, I certainly don’t want to think about this, but if Mother, you know—if she, you know—well, I was wondering if you think this pink suit or this blue suit would be prettier.”

  I had no idea what she was talking about. If Sissie what? I wondered. If she went to church? If she entered one of those nursing-home beauty pageants? If she needed to interview for a job? Why in the world would Sissie need a suit? Martha’s question confounded me, so I looked at the two suits, then at Martha, then back at the suits, trying with everything in me to figure out what was going on. Apparently the expression on my face conveyed my confusion, so Martha tried to explain.

  “Mother isn’t—well, she isn’t doing very well. Oh, she still knows me! She knows me! And she’s still so dear! But she’s taken a turn over the last few days, and I don’t think”—she paused to clear her throat—“I don’t think it’ll be that much longer.”

  Suddenly I understood why we were looking at suits.

  “I didn’t want to upset y’all,” Martha continued, “so I didn’t say anything on the phone. But I think this blue suit is pretty, don’t you? And blue is such a pretty color on Mother! Such a pretty color! This pink is pretty, too, though—but I worry that it’ll be a little too low cut, and Mother wouldn’t care for that, you know.”

  She was right. Sissie would have been mortified if anyone thought she was being laid to her eternal rest in anything even remotely resembling a plunging V-neck.

  After considering the pros and cons of each suit while we stood in the guest room closet, Martha and I concluded that if someone could cut a panel for the front of the jacket, the pink suit would definitely be the better choice. We managed to have the entire conversation without using the words death, dying, dead, or funeral—a feat of discretion (with some denial mixed in for good measure) that shocks me even now. And with the suit issue settled, it was time to go to the nursing home.

  Usually when we visited Sissie we’d find her in a wheelchair in the hallway outside her room. That’s where the nursing-home residents liked to sit and visit. My sister-in-law Rose and I always marveled that Sissie sometimes struggled to hear the two of us, even if we screamed, but if Alex or his cousin Melissa whispered from forty feet away, Sissie immediately greeted them with “Oh, honey, come here! I sure am glad to see you!”

  This phenomenon played out over and over again. In fact, when we’d gone to see Sissie the previous Christmas, she acted like she couldn’t hear a word we said for the first thirty minutes of our visit. Martha was insistent that the hearing aid device in one of Sissie’s dresser drawers might help, but then she realized that the battery in the hearing aid thingy was dead, so she took matters into her own hands by putting her face approximately a quarter inch away from Sissie’s ear and saying, “Mother? Can you hear? Can you hear, Mother? Sugar, can you hear? Can you hear us, darlin’?”

  And after about the eighth time Martha asked, Sissie whipped her head around and said, “I CAN HEAR, MARTHA! I CAN HEAR!”

  So the issue wasn’t that Sissie couldn’t hear as much as it was that sometimes she just chose not to. And that was fine. At 101 years old, she’d earned the selective-hearing privilege.

  But after we arrived at the nursing home that May afternoon, Sissie’s hearing was the least of our worries. It was immediately evident that she was having a hard time. She was lying in her bed—not sitting in her wheelchair—and her breathing was labored and shallow. Martha remarked that her condition was worse than it had been the day before, and as Alex and I sat in the chair beside Sissie’s bed and watched Martha rub Sissie’s hands and gently ask how she was feeling, the realization that Sissie wasn’t long for the world started to settle in. In the strangest, most unexpected way, I was shocked that it might be the last time we’d see Sissie alive. You’d think that death would pretty much be a foregone conclusion when you’re talking about a 101-year-old, but Sissie had been a force in the Hudson family for so long that we’d halfway started to believe she’d outlive all of us.

  That Sunday at the nursing home, however, was a fresh reminder that the Lord has numbered all of our days. Even Sissie’s. Martha looked across Sissie’s bed and said she didn’t know what she’d do without her sweet mother, that it had been her great joy to take care of Sissie. That being said, she would never, ever want her mother to suffer, and she was grateful for the privilege of having had so many years with her.

  After we talked to Scott and Rose and made sure Martha was okay, we drove back to Birmingham late Sunday afternoon. Three days later Martha called to tell us that Sissie had passed away. She’d lived a good, sweet, long life, and when she left it, she was bound to nothing except the extravagant grace of God.

  Thursday morning we drove back to Myrtlewood, and the day was a blur of phone calls, funeral arrangements, and visits from Martha’s friends. I happened to be at Martha’s house when her neighbors Gertrude and Doris stopped by. Apparently, in the midst of making all the arrangements, Martha had completely forgotten to let them know about Sissie. When they found out from another neighbor, they immediately walked over to check on their dear friend.

  As soon as Martha opened her door, Gertrude and Doris hugged her neck and spent the next three or four minutes alternating questions.

  “Martha, are you okay, darlin’?”

  “Martha, why didn’t you tell us?”

  “Martha, is there anything we can do?”

  “Martha, do you know when visitation will be?”

  “Martha, why didn’t you tell us?”

  “Martha, have you talked to the preacher?”

  “Martha, have you picked out the music?”

  “Martha, why didn’t you tell us?”

  I came to a couple of conclusions as I listened to their questions. One was that they loved Martha to the moon and back. The other was that when it comes to matters of death, the over-sixty-five set likes to be informed as quickly as possible. Martha did her best to convey the craziness of the previous twenty-four hours, and she said, “I meant to let you know! I really did! But you just can’t even imagine how nonstop things have been! You just can’t even imagine! The phone has been ringing nonstop, and I’ve been on my land phone and my cordless phone and my cell phone all at the same time! My land phone and my cordless phone and my cell phone! All at the same time!”

  I don’t think Martha ever realized that her land phone and her cordless phone are the same thing, and honestly, that pesky little detail was hardly worth clarifying. The point was that Martha was overwhelmed, and after she told Gertrude and Doris about the land phone and the cordless phone and the cell phone, she sank into one of her dining room chairs and rested her head in her hands. Gertrude and Doris immediately moved to either side of Martha’s chair and patted her back while they consoled her. The tenderness of the moment struck me as I stood in Martha’s kitchen and scooped tablespoons of Maxwell House into the coffeepot. The attentiveness these women showed to Martha was the picture of 2 Corinthians 1:3-5: “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ” (NIV).

  In true Martha fashion, she allowed herself approximately one minute of sadness before she asked Gertrude and Doris if they’d like to stay for a little longer and maybe have some cake and coffee.

  That’s the thing about steel magnolias. They never wilt. And they’re fueled by sugar and caffeine.

  In keeping with Sissie’s no-nonsense approach to, well, everything, Martha planned a simple, sweet funeral. After selecting the pink suit for Sissie (complete with a custom-made panel for the jacket), Martha decided to have visitation for an hour on Friday morning, followed by a graveside service at a nearby cemetery. The visitation—which was held at
the church where Sissie had worshiped and served faithfully for more than sixty years, the church where Mama, Daddy, and Martha are still active members, the church where David and I grew up and got married—was an incredibly touching testimony to the impact of Sissie’s life. The line of people who came to pay their respects stretched down the center aisle, through the foyer, and out the front doors, and Martha would have been perfectly delighted to talk to every single person for fifteen or twenty minutes each. We eventually reminded Martha that we had to be at the cemetery in an hour so we couldn’t really extend the visitation time until, well, Tuesday—which meant that she needed to try her best to keep the conversations short and sweet. Asking Martha to aim for “short and sweet” is sort of like asking a fish to walk a little faster, but apparently the Lord is still in the business of miracles. We left the church with about ten minutes to spare.

  Martha’s one wish for Sissie’s funeral was for someone to sing Sissie’s favorite hymn at the graveside service. She asked the Johnson children—three Myrtlewood teenagers who meant the world to Martha and Sissie—if they’d be willing to sing an a cappella version of “Amazing Grace,” and it thrilled her to no end when they agreed. Sissie’s burial plot was at the top of a hill, right next to her late husband’s, and as the pastor finished his remarks and closed the service with a prayer, the Johnsons stood on the side of the hill and sang out over the valley below:

  Amazing grace! how sweet the sound—

  That saved a wretch like me!

  I once was lost but now am found,

  Was blind but now I see.

  ’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,

  And grace my fears relieved;

  How precious did that grace appear

  The hour I first believed!

  Through many dangers, toils and snares

  I have already come;

  ’Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,

  And grace will lead me home.

  When we’ve been there ten thousand years,

  Bright shining as the sun,

  We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise

  Than when we’d first begun.

  As the last note trailed away, Martha turned to Rose and me and said, “Have you ever heard anything more perfectly beautiful? Was that not perfectly beautiful? It was just perfectly beautiful!” And Martha was right. The service was perfectly beautiful, a wonderful tribute to 101 well-lived years.

  And even though we miss her like crazy, our family is so fortunate to have the peace of knowing that Sissie is with Jesus now. She’s free to run and dance and rake to her heart’s content. And while I don’t know for sure, I strongly suspect that her bangs are holding up just beautifully. I bet her hair even stays set when it gets wet.

  It’s part of her heavenly inheritance.

  Lord be praised.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Because Nothing Says “Happy Anniversary” like Eight Pounds of Bacon

  SEEING AS HOW I was a late-in-life baby who arrived almost a full decade after the sibling before me, I was only nine years old when my parents celebrated their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. Chox and Joe hosted a party to commemorate the occasion, and while I don’t remember much about the night, I do remember that my mama very elegantly held the same glass of wine for approximately three hours. Mama doesn’t drink—she has always contended that she’s allergic to alcohol, that even the smallest amount makes her fingers go numb and therefore renders her incapable of cutting her food—but that night somebody handed her a glass of wine, and since she didn’t want to be rude or appear wasteful, she walked around and visited with her and Daddy’s friends, all the while cradling the base of that wine glass like she was waiting for a congregant to dip some bread in it for Communion.

  Eventually she was able to discreetly dispose of the warm wine in Chox’s sink, and for that we’re all quite grateful. Because believe me, if Mama thought there was the slightest chance she was going to hurt anyone’s feelings by pouring her wine down the drain, she would have cradled that glass for the remainder of my childhood.

  I’m not kidding. That glass of wine would have gone to my high school graduation. Might have even made it to my wedding.

  You may be picking up on the fact that people pleasing runs deep on that side of the family. I come by it honestly.

  Since I was just a bystander at Mama and Daddy’s twenty-fifth anniversary (well, a bystander and a copious mental-note taker, apparently), it was strange to find myself in the role of party planner when it was time to celebrate their fiftieth. Sister, Brother, and I agreed that a celebration was most definitely in order, so Sister, Janie, and I took the party bull by the horns.

  We wanted to make sure we gave the milestone the attention and care it deserved, but at the same time we didn’t want to do anything that Mama and Daddy would consider overly fancy. Since Daddy detests the slightest hint of pretense and Mama would rather be with family and close friends than just about anything else on earth, it didn’t take long for us to decide that a dinner at Brother and Janie’s house in Memphis was the way to go. We set the date, sent out the invitations, and planned the menu, and the Wednesday before the party (which was to take place on Saturday evening), I loaded my car and drove to Memphis. David and the little guy would join me a couple of days later, but until then, I had a whole lot of grocery shopping and prep work to do. Not to mention panicking.

  I’m not an organized person by any stretch of the imagination, but whenever I face a process that has more than, say, five steps, I become a hypercompulsive list maker. The fear of leaving out some critical piece of the logistical puzzle prompts me to write and revise and type and revise and cross out and revise until the list is thorough and comprehensive and completely and utterly annoying to anyone besides me. I like to think my obsessive lists are part of my winsome charm, but really that’s just a lie I tell myself in order to justify my fondness for the sight of a clean, sans serif font, double-spaced and appropriately numbered (maybe even alphabetized!) list on a piece (correction: pieces) of white paper.

  You may be thinking that I need to get out more.

  And I’m totally fine with getting out more as long as I can take Microsoft Word with me.

  When I was a junior in college, my friends Marion, Tracey, Katy, and I decided to go to Washington, DC, for spring break. I wish I could remember what prompted such an unconventional choice—especially since the rest of our friends were going to Fort Walton Beach in Florida—but we were gung-ho about traveling to our nation’s capital. Our parents were immediately on board with our plans (“You say you’d like to spend spring break visiting museums and historical monuments? Stopping by the Library of Congress? Taking a tour of the White House? Learning more about our country? LET ME WRITE YOU A CHECK”), and a travel agent in Starkville helped us find plane tickets. Since we read newspapers back then, I actually saw an ad in USA Today for a great hotel that was running a spring special, and our room ended up being super affordable.

  Once we were all set in terms of getting there, I apparently needed a new problem to tackle and grew increasingly concerned that we’d arrive in DC and squander our time. I was afraid we’d sleep late every morning and wind up staring at the Washington Monument for ten seconds and calling it a day. In retrospect, I’d tell myself, LIGHTEN UP, MAMAW—YOU’RE TWENTY YEARS OLD, but for whatever reason, the prospect of having five days in DC and not making the most of the time was a completely unacceptable option to me.

  I countered my apprehension by going to the bookstore when I was home in Myrtlewood one weekend and buying a copy of the Frommer’s guide to Washington, DC. Then I sat down at my daddy’s computer and came up with an itinerary for our trip. I typed out everything in WordPerfect, and when I finally came up for air three or four hours later and ripped off the tabs on the printouts from Daddy’s sah-weet dot matrix printer, what I had created wasn’t so much an itinerary as a travel manifesto.

  It still makes me a little giddy w
hen I think about it.

  Fortunately, the DC manifesto served us well. We made some incredible memories, and we still laugh hysterically when we talk about how Tracey wore a red, white, and blue outfit—with matching hair bow, no less—to tour the White House. Without a hint of irony.

  I am also pleased to report we didn’t miss a single monument.

  When it came to planning Mama and Daddy’s anniversary party, all my list-making training from the DC trip came in handy. Oh, I’d had several opportunities to make equally extensive lists over the years, but the anniversary list was special because it incorporated groceries, a prep schedule for the food, a setup schedule for the party, and a pre-party cooking schedule so we knew when to put what dishes on the stove or in the oven.

  I’m not gonna lie. It was spectacular.

  Janie and Brother couldn’t resist teasing me about it—it was five pages long, packed with asterisks, addendums, and codicils, and just a hair shy of being notarized—but considering my brain isn’t terribly detail oriented, that list was the only thing standing between me and a complete pre-party meltdown. Plus, it reminded me that my first order of party business on Thursday morning was to GET THEE TO THE GROCERY STORE.

  And that’s exactly what I did. I loaded two carts to overflowing before you could say, “This celebratory meal appears to be somewhat high in trans fats,” and once I’d hauled everything back to Brother and Janie’s house, I tried as best as I could to arrange all the cans and boxes in the order we’d need them. Ironically, Mama is the first person I think to call when I’m in a situation where I need to organize a pantry or a refrigerator or a cabinet in a way that will make cooking more efficient and less frustrating, so I really could have used her help that afternoon.