FRONT-PORCH GOSPEL: This life story begins in 1973 (kind of) – part 41

Mama was awake when Corrina and I walked in. When I rushed home from work earlier that evening and showered to get ready to go to Corrina’s, I had walked into Mama’s room before leaving to tell her that I was going to bring somebody to meet her after church. I just grinned at her when I said it, so I think she knew who it was. I am sure she had been watching the clock and making sure she stayed awake around eight p.m. because that was when she knew church would let out.

I could feel Corrina’s anxiety just through holding her hand, but I squeezed it a little as we came to the bedroom door and gave her an encouraging look to help her feel at ease. I had been taking a thousand deep breaths throughout the summer and for all of the events that were stacking up one upon the other, but that was the first time I remembered Corrina taking a deep breath.

I hesitated at the door, to make sure she had plenty of time to collect herself. She didn’t need much ‘collecting,’ I didn’t think, because she always seemed to be in complete control. Of course, she might have said the same thing about me, had she not watched me sweat blood from afar way too many times after any one of a hundred very minor, hardly-even-noticeable miscues out on the brick job. I mean, pouring a whole wheelbarrow of mud out on Mrs. McClain’s newly-planted bush out by the driveway isn’t so big of a deal, certainly not of the magnitude for Doocy to rant and rave and say,

“Pup, if the Cool Breeze didn’t stand right heah, right heah in this spot, and watched what ya done done, pourin’ thet mud right slap on top of the missus’ azalea, the Breeze wouldn’t’ve believed it,” and that was just the beginning of his dissertation. He gave the ‘Pup’ – to use Doocy’s third person – a behind-chewing that made it hard for me to sit down for a week. And that was only one of a hundred such occasions. And though the average person could see sweat pouring down the Pup’s face from a mile away, Corrina never once acted as if she noticed.

Funny thing about people, you can be churning inside like the “Toilet Bowl” in that white-water Colorado river we rafted in many years later; but the observer who has some degree of admiration folded away neatly in her mind – well, she would see you as calm as a little kitten purring in your lap. Funny thing.

Having gathered ourselves, we walked together into Mama’s room.

“Hey Mama,” I said as cheerfully as a body possibly could, “I have somebody I want you to meet.”

I walked Corrina up to the side of the bed, let go of her hand so she could grab Mama’s, and Mama took Corrina’s right hand into hers and held onto it, then grabbed it with her other hand; and, before I knew it the tears were flowing down Mama’s sweet face like rain off the roof of the house.

In such moments of these, you can think you are prepared for anything. You can shore yourself up, gather up your courage like putting hay in the barn, give yourself a really good talk-to; but then you come to the moment, and it hits you.

Through all of her sickness, I never saw Mama cry much. She was as stoic as a person could be in her condition knowing that she would soon be leaving her four children behind, including her ‘baby.’

I turned back to Cheyenne to make a point.

“Yes, son,” I said, “your Popman was as wet behind the ears as a tenderfoot on a cattle ranch, like the narrator in the ‘The Virginian.’” Cheyenne knew the reference well. About the time he turned about the age I was in the story, we read many novels together, all aloud, and discussed life often from the vantage point of the greatest of writers, from Harper Lee to J.R.R. Tolkien. Those reading experiences are a reason why I shared the story we’re telling here with Cheyenne even before sharing many of these details with my own children. Much of that also had to do with one’s tendency to suppress difficult events from deep into the past, a psychology we would learn more as time went.

Cheyenne understood the value of what he was hearing and continued to listen intently. I could tell that he understood more and more that this scene with Mama was another step into a part of history where the Lord had been weaving our lives in His own mysterious ways. I began right there taking Cheyenne back to these key moments.

“Your great-grandmother didn’t often let all of that emotion show,” I continued. “Part of it was her faith – that was the biggest part of it – and part of it was knowin’ she needed to be strong for the young man with, you know, the moisture all back of his ears.”

I knew I had to get out of that room as quickly as possible, I continued.

So, I said, “Corrina, you want a drink?” and I turned away quickly from Mama and Corrina and started toward the kitchen. I don’t even remember what Corrina said, and I don’t know if she could feel what had come over me when Mama cried. I am sure she did, and she probably never even answered my question.

But something amazing happened that night. By the time I got to the bedroom door to go into the living room, I heard Corrina say, “Ms. Louise, I’ve been wanting to meet you ever since I met Billy Ray,” and her voice was as calm as the waters of Pine Lake where we used to swim down the Whitesville Road. The moment I gave that analogy to Cheyenne, my mind went back to that lake, which was one of the most serene places we ever went growing up. If we were ever there at sunset, the colors of the sun reflected off of its waters without a single ripple in the water disturbing the picture.

That’s how I saw that young dark-haired girl that night, and her calmness made me gather myself, too, and swallow my emotions. I have learned through this last half of a century that life is a bitter-sweet miracle.

That night it was.

For Corrina to meet that moment with such courage, not to flinch, not resist the moment, was a great miracle.

I rehearsed in my mind what Corrina had said to me earlier that night about our friendship, and thought: She, too, was a good friend, regardless of anything else, she was that, and she was a gift from the Lord.

Ah, it’s true: “God moves in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform.”

I went on into the kitchen and poured two glasses of water from the water jug we kept in the fridge and went on back into Mama’s bedroom. When I walked in, Corrina already had pulled up a chair beside Mama; and, with Mama still clinging to her, she was talking to her as though they had known each other their whole lives.

I stopped at the door and just listened as Corrina told Mama about her parents, the house we were bricking on the top of that Alabama hill, how we had met and “hit it off right from the start,” and how blessed she was to have a son like the Pup.

When she said, “Pup,” Mama laughed, and it was so good to hear that. It seemed a month since she I had heard her laugh. It was such a sweet moment of our Summer of ’73. It gave Mama something that night, and it gave Corrina something, too. There are things you cannot quite describe.

Turning back to Cheyenne, I said, wistfully, “Cheyenne, the gentleness in that room that night, I think it outshined anythin’ I’d ever seen.”

Coach Steven Bowen, a long-time Red Oak teacher and coach, now enjoys his time as a writer and preacher of the gospel. And, after a ten-year hiatus, he’s also returned to work with students at Ferris High School as well.

In addition to his evangelistic travels, he works and writes for the Church of Christ of Red Oak at Uhl Road and Ovilla. Their worship times are 10 a.m. Sundays and 6:30 pm. Wednesdays. Email coachbowen1984@gmail.com or call or text (972) 824-5197.