Home Is Where My People Are: The Roads That Lead Us to Where We Belong

by Sophie Hudson

  “Essie? Would you like me to take a picture of you and the girls? Of you, Sophie, Katy, Wendi, and Tracey?”

  Elise whipped her head around and did her very best to keep her voice down when she answered. “HERE, Mama?”

  “Well, sure. I thought you might want a picture! Y’all have always been so close! And this will be their last time to be with you and Paul!” Cindy was doing her best to remain cheerful.

  Elise’s volume was at full throttle when she spoke up again. “Yes, Mama, we are close. And yes, this is their last time with Paul and me. But if it’s all the same to you, I really would prefer not to have a snapshot taken with my friends at the bedside of my near-dead husband.”

  Tracey, Katy, Wendi, and I were doing our best not to get tickled, but oh my word, our shoulders were shaking. So when Elise and Cindy started to laugh, the collective dam broke, and we were all so hysterical that we had to bend over and hold our knees.

  The next night we were back in Mississippi at Elise and Paul’s house. Elise and I were in her bedroom, working on the program for the first memorial service (there was one in the town where they lived, then another in Paul’s hometown). Elise was trying to figure out what music would be most appropriate, only she and her sister, Christy, got sidetracked by the memory of how their mama used to sing an operatic rendition of “His Eye Is on the Sparrow” in the church where they grew up. In no time they were both on their feet, clutching an imaginary podium and belting out the lyrics in their very best Cindy-esque contralto.

  I sing because I’m happy, I sing because I’m free,

  For His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.

  Their impression was hilarious—especially the dramatic delivery of the word watches. It occurred to me then, just as it occurs to me now, that sometimes the Lord gives us the perfect words in the most unexpected way.

  The first memorial service was Monday afternoon, and while most of it, quite honestly, was a blur, I will never forget seeing Elise walk down the aisle with her three handsome boys, ages eleven, ten, and six. Paul was such a great daddy, and there’d been more than one occasion when David and I had quoted some of Paul’s Words o’ Parenting Wisdom with our own little guy. Our favorite was “You will eat the food that your mother has lovingly prepared for you, or you may sit here and watch the rest of us enjoy it. But your mama is not a short-order cook, so there will not be any other culinary options.” We also subscribed to Paul’s theory of keeping extravagances to a minimum so there was plenty of room in the budget for (1) groceries, and (2) a summertime thermostat set to a cool seventy degrees (Elise and Paul actually kept their thermostat on sixty-eight, which meant their house was my favorite place on earth every August).

  After the service, Marion (who had driven back to town the night before), Wendi, Tracey, and I piled in Tracey’s car and set out for the Mississippi Delta, the location of the second memorial service. We’d traveled to the Delta together who knows how many times over the previous twenty years; we’d been to weddings, to girls’ weekends, to parties, and to Elise and Paul’s first house during their early married days.

  The fact that we were traveling to a memorial service for Paul felt all kinds of wrong.

  We spent most of the trip talking about everything and nothing; it was almost like we needed to fill the silence but had nothing left to say.

  When we had first heard about funeral arrangements and realized there was going to be another memorial service in Paul’s hometown, I had called a hotel chain, asked about their accommodations in the area, and made a reservation. Being proactive felt oddly comforting for me, and even though it was getting dark when we finally arrived at our destination, the hotel looked decent enough. It was nestled up against the Mississippi River levee, only blocks away from the church and the cemetery we’d be visiting the next morning. It seemed functional, efficient, practical—exactly what we needed.

  However.

  I think maybe the first indicator that it wasn’t quite time for me to pat myself on my travel-planning back was that our “doormen” were a couple of stray cats that were jumping in the garbage can by the front door and—I kid you not—leaping out of the garbage can with chicken bones in their mouths. For a split second I wished Elise were with us, because she would have wanted to investigate to see if those chicken bones came from Church’s or Popeyes (Elise has been on a first-name basis with the employees at the Church’s in northeast Jackson for upwards of ten years). Marion seemed concerned that the cats weren’t being taken care of and thus had been forced to forage for food, but my primary concern was HUNGRY CATS LEAPING IN AND OUT OF THE GARBAGE CAN. That has to be some sort of urban legend omen.

  Once we got to our room, we immediately noticed that it wasn’t just humid—it was DAMP. Borderline wet. The window unit was pumping out cool air, but seeing as how the humidity in the Delta is about 98 percent at all times, we were pretty much standing in the middle of a cool sauna. Even though the conditions were less than ideal, everybody immediately got ready for bed, which was quite a feat considering none of us wanted our feet to touch the wet carpet. Nonetheless, we were exhausted and went to sleep pretty quickly. Safe and sound, snuggled in our semi-wet beds.

  It was every bit as luxurious as it sounds.

  We all slept fitfully that night but were up and at ’em early the next morning. And if you’ve doubted my assertions of the high level of humidity in the room, I offer you one more detail as proof: when I was putting on my makeup, the brush that I used for blush was wet. I hadn’t run it under the faucet or anything—it had just been sitting in my makeup bag.

  I bet the mold-spore count on that brush was high enough to merit a mention on the Weather Channel.

  I mention all of that because focusing on those sorts of trivial details is exactly what we were trying to do that morning—trying as best we could to lighten the mood—but we couldn’t escape the heaviness of why we were there. It wasn’t lost on us that it had been only fifteen years since we’d put on those blue floral-print bridesmaid dresses and stood at the front of the church while Elise and Paul said their vows. So while our attire wasn’t nearly as floral that morning in the hotel, we were once again going to a church for Elise—only for an entirely different reason.

  And yes, you do your best to trust the Lord when someone you love is smack-dab in the center of tragedy. But still, it’s hard. And it’s heartbreaking. And sweet mercy, it hurts.

  Tuesday’s memorial service was just as tender and poignant as the one the day before. There was a moment, however, when a ringing cell phone interrupted the quiet reflection of the pastor’s words, and after Tracey and I very discreetly rolled our eyes at each other because FOR THE LOVE, LET’S PUT THOSE PHONES ON SILENT, FUNERAL ATTENDEES, we simultaneously realized that the ringing sound was closer to us than we thought.

  In fact, the ringing sounded like it was right beside Tracey.

  Then we looked at each other again, clearly in a contest to see whose eyes could be bigger and rounder as panic started to set in.

  Yep. It was Tracey’s phone.

  Tracey began fumbling through her purse, pulling out anything she could get her hands on. The reality was that only five or ten seconds had passed since that first RING A DING DING, but it seemed like a small eternity as I watched Tracey pull lip gloss, gum, a hairbrush, sunglasses, and several ponytail holders out of her purse before she got her hands around that blasted phone.

  She finally hit a combination of buttons that convinced the phone to HUSH IT, but by that point it was too late. Tracey and I were so tickled that tears were streaming down our faces, and while I kept biting the inside of my lip to hopefully stop what was shaping up to be an incurable case of the (completely inappropriate) giggles, I was also very aware that if Paul had been sitting with us, he would have been laughing harder than anyone else.

  And of course that made me cry all over again.

  After the memorial service and burial, Paul’s mama’s sweet friends, whos
e history together was almost forty years strong, served lunch to the family and the out-of-town folks. When Elise finally finished making the rounds and speaking to everyone, she sat down in the middle of a table of friends from State, looked straight at Tracey, and said, “So, T, that was totally your phone, wasn’t it?”

  Tracey grinned sheepishly before she raised her hand—and Elise leaned back in her chair and howled. Hearing her laugh like that was almost like a signal that let us know it was okay to carry on as usual, so for the next hour we reminisced and talked over each other and flat-out guffawed until we were in actual physical pain. We covered, among other topics, Tracey’s recent sighting of an ex-boyfriend who did not remember her even a little bit, Marion’s junior-year term paper about belts (“There are all sorts of belts. Some belts are made of cloth. Others are made of leather. Belts can even be made of metal. And there are many varieties of buckles, as well.”), our profound level of gratitude that we’d gone to college before social media was even a thing, and an episode in the parking lot behind Elise’s freshman dorm when my car emitted such a large, black cloud of smoke that I thought for certain we were witnessing the second coming of our Lord and Savior.

  Eventually it was time to leave the church—Elise had a couple of appointments in Paul’s hometown—and when Elise’s daddy looked at us with a little gleam in his eye and told us that if we said another word to Elise it had better be bye, I felt tears well up in my eyes.

  None of us wanted to leave her, and it wasn’t because we thought it would make such a big difference if we stayed. We just wanted to postpone the moment when she walked back into her house and there were only four people who lived there, not five. We wanted to protect her from having to deal with everything that would be waiting for her when she got home, and we wanted to stay close by to help however she needed. But real life—well, it wouldn’t let us.

  So when I gave Elise one last hug, I pretty much just wanted to crawl into the fetal position and stay there indefinitely. That seemed like a way better plan than leaving.

  But then something snapped me out of my I-really-want-to-stay-here funk.

  I turned and looked back toward the room where we’d been sitting, and the sight of all those sweet faces from our college days stirred something way deep in my heart. We’d left Starkville as friends who loved one another completely and unconditionally, and we’d continued to do that through good times and bad. The next chapter of Elise’s life, while not at all what any of us expected, wouldn’t be any different as far as those relationships were concerned. Elise’s friends would stand with her and walk with her no matter what. Whatever might be ahead, she had her people. And her people might be going home, but in the ways that matter most, we weren’t going anywhere.

  Neither was the Lord, for that matter. And He does tend to make a difference, you know.

  Elise’s daddy probably would have told me that I could have saved myself a whole lot of bellyaching if I’d just reminded myself of that last thing a little sooner.

  Better late than never, right?

  THE HOUSE WE live in now is a long, rambling ranch home that was built in 1974. Over the years we’ve learned a little bit about the family that built it: they had three girls, they owned a flooring company, and they loved to entertain. I probably could have figured out that last piece of information even if no one had told us; every single room has two ways in or out, and if I think about the house in its 1974 incarnation, I can’t help but picture the lady of the house passing a tray of canapés as she swept from room to room in her Pucci hostess gown. Or maybe the Pucci hostess gown would have been passé by then. Maybe she’d have been wearing some bell-bottoms with a sassy Maude-esque duster.

  Either ensemble would have been rock solid in my humble estimation.

  Our house wasn’t technically on the market when David found an old “for sale” listing online, but we were frustrated after a months-long search for what we hoped would be our “forever” home (or our “for as long as the Lord keeps us in Birmingham” home), and he decided to take a chance. When he called the owners to ask if we could look at it, they agreed. It happened to be in the part of Birmingham where Aunt Chox and Uncle Joe’s friends had lived—the neighborhood with all the pine trees and crape myrtles and mimosas.

  The neighborhood that reminded me of my hometown.

  It was a drizzly, damp October afternoon when we first went to see the house. Wet leaves plastered the driveway, so I held Alex’s little three-year-old hand as we shuffled our way to the front stoop. I had already rung the doorbell by the time David caught up with us, and as soon as the owner cracked open the door, I caught a glimpse of the living room.

  I knew, almost instantly, that we had found our spot.

  Windows ran the entire length of the back of the house, and the canopy of trees in the backyard created the most gorgeous filter for the sunlight that seemed to pour in from every angle. And then, when I saw that the sunken living room had steps on three sides, I turned to David and said, “If we buy this house, I want someone to come play the guitar in the living room. And I want people to sit on those steps and sing. DO YOU THINK AMY GRANT AND VINCE GILL WOULD WANT TO DO A SHOW HERE?”

  To his credit, he did not tell me I was crazy. He just grinned at me. And I knew that he could see us there too.

  Our neighborhood was one of the first subdivisions outside the Birmingham city limits, and when a large corporation developed the land back in the early seventies, lots of folks thought the company was crazy to create a development so far out in the boondocks.

  I’m laughing as I type that, by the way. Because if you could see the sheer quantity of businesses that border our little suburban oasis, you’d know that we’re certainly not in the boondocks anymore.

  Back in the seventies, though, our neighborhood was marketed as a place for Birmingham businessmen to retire—and, well, they did. The area also started to attract younger families, and when we moved in some thirty-five years later, that first wave of younger parents was, on average, around seventy or seventy-five years old. That meant we had a lot of older neighbors, which was totally fine by us since David and I are the kind of people who like to eat supper at five thirty, change into pajamas by six, and be settled in front of the TV by seven or seven thirty at the latest.

  Seriously. You could move us to a retirement home right this second, and after about four days we’d probably decide the living environment was way too fast paced.

  So while the demographics of our subdivision suited us just fine, we weren’t sure about how Alex would adapt to a neighborhood that didn’t seem to have many kids. Ultimately, though, the house was such a great deal that we decided maybe some scheduled playdates could provide what the neighborhood could not, and we took a chance.

  For the first year in the new-to-us house, our neighborhood stayed largely the same. So we went to the park and invited Alex’s friends over and in the summertime spent an inordinate amount of time in our kiddie pool. But then, slowly but surely, families with young kids started to move in, and after all the grown-ups got to know each other and the young’uns were old enough to walk from one house to another, our street became host to a big, roaming pack-o-kids in the afternoons. And it still is now, more than five years later.

  On any given afternoon I watch Alex and his buddies march up and down the street carrying foam swords and plastic shields before they stage an epic battle in the cul-de-sac. Sometimes the girls want to jump in and fight with the boys, but they’re more likely to practice cheers or ride bikes or beg the boys to run through sprinklers with them. When it’s cold or rainy, the kids will gather round the glow of an iPad screen or set up a board game, but their absolute favorite inside activity is a VERY LOUD variety of indoor tag that they’ve christened Elmo vs. Zoe. I don’t really understand it and only allow it on days when my nerves are enjoying a significant amount of margin, but oh my goodness, the laughing. A herd of pigs would snort and wheeze less than those kids do.


  And while I certainly can’t be the spokesperson for Alex’s childhood, I think it’s pretty safe to say that he has enjoyed the fire out of all our neighborhood fun, because he is growing up in the company of some pretty phenomenal kids. In fact, about a year and a half ago, David, Alex, and I were on the way home after Sunday lunch, and after we turned into our subdivision, we talked for a few minutes about how pretty everything looked: the fresh spring green of the leaves popping against the turquoise sky, the branches of the Bradford pears sagging with the weight of crisp, white blooms, and hot-pink azaleas peppering the rolling hills. The scenery made me fall in love with Birmingham all over again.

  We were only a few yards from our street when Alex, who had just turned ten, spoke up.

  “Well, here we are,” he said. “My favorite street in the entire universe.”

  “Why’s that, buddy?” David asked.

  “It’s home,” Alex said matter-of-factly.

  I didn’t say anything, but my heart nodded in agreement.

  Our first house in Birmingham had almost no trees. In fact, the only tree that escaped the developer’s backhoe was a gangly sycamore that stood (sort of) proudly in the backyard. We planted a few other trees while we were there—some crape myrtles, a couple of peach trees, a Bradford pear (which, by the way, my brother calls “mall trees”)—but we didn’t live there long enough to really see them take off and grow. We saw them bloom over a couple of springs, but that was it.

  At our current house, however, we’re surrounded by big, sturdy trees. I’m sure my daddy could tell us the name of every single one, but the names don’t really matter to me; I just know that they’re pretty and that they put on a show all year long. Every room in our house has a view of leaves, and David and Alex would tell you that I can watch those leaves like they’re a TV show. There are even a couple of branches in the backyard that look like they’re waving to me when the wind blows.