There are no coincidences

(This post was originally published on thesabbaticalchef.com on October 31, 2016.)

One Girlie I am particularly fond of likes to say “Mrs. E, there are no coincidences.  Things happen for a reason.”  I completely agree.  But I am still astounded sometimes when I run across what, on the surface, seem to be totally unrelated facts or events.  Here is what happened to me yesterday.

Saturday, I went up to the mountains to check on Mama Mildred.  She has not been feeling well for a couple of months.  And when Mildred misses Sunday church services it’s serious. Last week, she saw a specialist in Asheville who did blood tests and discovered that her liver is seriously out of whack.  A blood clot maybe?  A tumor?  More tests, a scan, and a biopsy followed.  With a promise from the doctor to call her on Saturday with the results. We waited.  And waited. Mama finally gave up around 9:00pm and went to bed.  She is exhausted all of the time, but she only said that she guessed the results hadn’t come in yet and she was sure he would call on Sunday.  The phone rang at about 30 minutes later. Sister Moo answered. (She and my mom live together.)  Lo and behold, it was the doctor.  It seems that the medication Mama had been taking for an infection has caused liver damage.  Thanks to my friend Google, I found this on WebMD–

This drug may rarely cause serious (possibly fatal) liver disease, blood or nerve problems. Tell your doctor right away if you notice any of the following rare but very serious side effects: persistent nausea/vomiting, dark urine, yellowing of eyes/skin, unusual/persistent fatigue, fast/pounding heartbeat, numbness/tingling of the arms/legs, muscle weakness.

The fine print.  And as I have heard more than one mountain person say “If the sickness don’t kill you, the medicine will.”  I am not that cynical and am thankful for modern medicine, but still…

Mama Mildred will go back for more blood tests this week and enroll in a study through the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill medical school for others like her.  At least her oldest daughter has told her to. The doctor running the study will be in Asheville next week and hopefully she will go meet him.  (If she considers backing out, I will drive back up there, put her in the car and take her my own self.  Not that I am bossy or anything.)

I left Spruce Pine Sunday afternoon and decided to drive back through Linville and Boone instead of down the mountain to Marion and straight to I-40.  I wanted to see the scenery. It is good for my soul to see that stretch of road.  US- 221N and NC-105N.  Mitchell County to Avery County to Watauga County.  Through Linville, at the foot of Grandfather Mountain.

I spent three summers working at Eseeola Lodge in Linville.  They hire college students to work in the summer.  At least they did in the late 70’s and I hope that they still do.  Those were amazing summers.  I worked as a waitress and met some wonderful people.  Mr. Pottle, who ran the Lodge at the time, took me under his raspberry-colored jacketed arm and designated me as waitress to the folks who came and stayed for the summer.  Major and Mrs. Lane particularly stand out in my memory.  She had to have baby gherkins on her table.  Not much of a tipper at the end of the summer, but what a character.  I stopped at the Lodge, now quiet, and wandered around, taking lots of photos, picking up some beautiful red leaves and a couple of rocks.  (The BFF always insists on a rock.)

I got back on highway 105, heading towards Boone, with an eye on the clock and a desire to get home to Durham before dark. But as I drove past St. Bernadette’s Catholic Church something made me turn around and go back.  I had it in my head that this is where my high school French teacher, Mme Buchanan, went to church.  But she attended St. Lucien’s.  Anyway, I drove up the steep drive to the church, just to see what was behind the church.  Maybe a cemetery?   At least a great view of Grandfather Mountain and the Mile High Bridge, if nothing else.

I wandered around, went into the chapel dedicated to St. Anthony of Padua, said a short prayer, took some photos, and went back to my car.

I left an offering and took a little packet containing a prayer and medal.

I am not Catholic.  I am a reformed Southern Baptist, as I like to say (but absolutely not in front of Mama Mildred).  I do believe in a higher power or powers.  I think that this Power wants us to help our fellow man and that He/She could care less about our politics or who wins a football game to be perfectly honest.  Mama was raised in a serious Baptist home. She is a bit suspicious of Catholics, but we can’t hold that against her.  She did go to the Catholic church once for my cousin’s son’s baptism. I may not be Catholic, but I light candles in every cathedral I enter and offer up a little prayer for the safety of my loved ones and thanks for the life of Mme Christiane Roze Buchanan, my beloved French teacher.  I filled in the blank of the prayer above with:

“Obtain for me good health for my mama.”  

Short, sweet and to the point, St. Anthony, Saint of Miracles.  He was a Franciscan monk who lived from 1195-1231.  He was canonized only a year after his death.  It seems his body was exhumed 336 years after his death and his tongue was found to be totally intact although the rest of his body was “corrupted.” He was known for his “simple and resounding” teaching and taught occasionally at the universities of Montpellier and Toulouse in my beloved southern France.  He is the patron saint of lost articles and was known for his undying devotion to the poor and sick.  Mama Mildred is both, dear Anthony, so send her some love, please.  How can it be fair that a woman such as my mother can work for at least 50 years of her life, at mostly minimum wage jobs, raise four children plus a mostly lovable but irresponsible alcoholic husband, finally retire and try to live on her social security check?  Answer that one, politicians?  How was she supposed to save for retirement?  You try it and see how easy it is, Senator or Congressman Whomever. Anyway, I digress.  Back to my story.

As I got in my car, I noticed what looked to be a statue across the parking lot.  I decided to walk up and check it out.  It turned out to be a grotto dedicated to St. Bernadette, the namesake of the church.  As I approached it, I realized that this is why I felt the pull to turn my car around and visit this spot.  St. Bernadette of Lourdes.  I have never visited Lourdes, in southwest France near Spain, but I have read about her.

Bernadette lived from 1844-1879.  She was beatified in 1925 and canonized in 1933.  She is the patron saint of illness, people ridiculed for their piety, poverty, shepherds and shepherdesses.  Thousands of sick people flock to Lourdes every year, hoping for a miracle cure.  We can’t make the trip to Lourdes, but it felt rather holy at this grotto yesterday, as I lit a candle and said a prayer.

As I researched Bernadette this morning, I found the quote below, written by Dr. Comte upon the 1928 exhumation of Bernadette’s body.  He published his findings in the Bulletin de l’Association medicale de Notre-Dame de Lourdes.  A coincidence?  I don’t think so.

“What struck me during this examination, of course, was the state of perfect preservation of the skeleton, the fibrous tissues of the muscles (still supple and firm), of the ligaments, and of the skin, and above all the totally unexpected state of the liver after 46 years. One would have thought that this organ, which is basically soft and inclined to crumble, would have decomposed very rapidly or would have hardened to a chalky consistency. Yet, when it was cut it was soft and almost normal in consistency. I pointed this out to those present, remarking that this did not seem to be a natural phenomenon.”

A pumpkin muffin (baked in a jack o’lantern mold) with apple butter from The Orchard at Altapass.  Yum!

Bon appétit and Happy Halloween to all.  All Saints Day, Toussaint, is tomorrow.  Say a prayer for Mama Mildred or send up good thoughts to whatever higher power you believe in.  

Happy Birthday, Mama Mildred

Today is my mama's birthday.  I love this photo of her.  I think she had it taken at church just a few months ago.  I seriously have more wrinkles than she does.  My mom is my hero.  Not because she has won the Nobel Peace Prize, written a best-selling novel, found the cure for the common cold or worked with orphans in a third world country. She is my hero because she is the best person I know.
Mildred's life has never been an easy one.  She was born in Spruce Pine, to Tennie and Jess Gillespie. She was raised on top of a mountain on a farm in the Estatoe / Penland section of Mitchell County.  I didn't know my grandfather very well.  He was very quiet.  He had been a coal miner and he always wore overalls.  I think he died of emphysema.  Coal dust and cigarette smoke.

I did spend more time with my granny. She could be tough.  I remember being sent to the farm when I came down with German measles. Mama didn't want the younger ones to catch them.  Granny made sassafras tea for me and made me stay in a dark room with no books to read.  The measles could ruin my eyesight, I was told.  I also remember going blackberry picking with her.  What I wouldn't give for some of her blackberry cobbler.   She worked for a while at my elementary school selling ice cream and cleaning.  She would bring home books for us.  I taught my sister Cindy to read using those books.  I wish that she could see me now.  I did make something out of myself, Granny.

At Granny's we weren't allowed to listen to music other than church hymns or play card games.  We spent most of our time out playing in the woods, warned to stay away from mine holes and not get mica in our eyes.  Granny and Pa had a wood cookstove and no indoor plumbing until I was in middle school.  I can even remember taking baths in a metal tub in the kitchen of their house with water heated on the cookstove.  It was really tough on her when her son was sent to Vietnam at the tender age of 18.
Mama ran away when she was 15 years old to join my dad in Louisiana.

He had joined the Army and was stationed there.  They got married on the base, by the chaplain, I think.  (I actually asked to see their marriage license once during a suspicious phase of my life- just making sure they really were married when I was born!)  My sister has a letter that Daddy wrote to Papa, his dad, explaining the whole elopement thing.  After Daddy was discharged, they moved back to Spruce Pine and my dad built our house on land right next door to his parents, Christine and George Bell, Sr.  On Bell Street.  Tommy and me.

They had four children in the space of four years, beginning with me in 1958 and ending with my sister Moo in 1962.  With a son, David, and another daughter, Cindy, in the middle.  Four children by the time she was 21 years old.  Lord have mercy.

Moo is crying.  Cindy probably pinched her from behind.  The bald-headed kid in front of me is my cousin, Scooter, I think.  At least David and I are smiling for Ma's little Brownie camera.
My dad was a plumber and could build anything with his hands.  He remodeled bathrooms and kitchens and built furniture.  My mom worked in factories mostly.  And raised four children, five if you count my dad.  He was an alcoholic.  Ma left him a couple of times and took us kids to live with my grandparents on the farm.  She always went back, though.  With four little kids and no high school diploma, there weren't a lot of options.  My dad had cancer and she cared for him for four years.  I realized today that she was my age when he died.
Ma remarried a couple of years after Daddy died.  Bruce, bless his heart, had never been married.  I tried to warn him about what he was getting into, but he wanted to do it anyway.  My sister Moo, Mama and Bruce live together, still on Bell Street, but not in the same house.  Someone else bought my grandparents' house and the house I grew up in.  I never go out there.  It all looks different.  They built a highway that took the backyard and our garden.  Papa's shop is gone.  So is his hosiery mill.  Gone are the strawberry patch, cherry tree, apple trees and rhubarb plants.  And the creek I used to cross to get to the Blevins' house.  I used to fall in regularly trying to jump over it.
Mama got her GED, high school equivalency diploma, a few years back.  She was very proud of that. She now works at Ingles grocery store, in the deli.  Yes, at the age of 73 she is still going strong.  She helps care for her sister, Marcella, her only surviving sister, who was recently moved to an assisted living place.  Sadly, I don't think that Marcella recognizes her baby sister anymore.  Mama has two brothers who are still living, but her other four siblings have passed on.
I have always felt unconditional love and support from my mother.  She shaped my life in more ways than she knows.  I know that my love of books and reading comes from her.  She read to us a lot when we were little and took us to the public library to check out books.  When I was a junior in high school and trying to make up mind about going to college, Mildred got me a summer job working at Blue Bell, a factory that made Wrangler blue jeans.  She worked there for several years and they hired high school kids in the summer.  I had spent previous summers working as a waitress at a restaurant in town, named Baker's, and running the gift shop next door to it.  I could make more money at the factory and spend more time with my mom.  Boy, was that a wake up call.  Hot, hard, repetitive work.   I learned to attach belt loops, put in zippers, bar-tac, and put in rivets.  Women were paid by the hour and were paid more when they earned production, which I think was completing a certain number of pieces in an hour or a day.  If I remember correctly, too, it was standard procedure to change a woman to another task once she hit production.  Think Norma Rae, if you've ever seen that movie.  I ate lunch with my mom every day and we would stop for an ice cream cone on the way home sometimes.  I decided to apply to college.  If that was Mildred's evil plan, it sure worked.  I decided that I wanted out.  Even if it meant paying for the whole thing myself, I would do it.  I worked there the summer after high school graduation, too. I didn't venture very far from home for college, but it was a world away.  Mildred would come to visit me in Boone, at Appalachian State University, sometimes.  She would always come get me when I wanted to come home.  She supported me when I took off for France for the first time in 1978.

I never lived at home again, though, after my freshman year in college.  I got a job at a golf resort in Linville, once again not far from home, but a world away.  After I graduated and got my job teaching French in Durham, Ma would introduce me to everyone as her daughter the schoolteacher.  She came to stay with us after the birth of Son #1 (she thought I would never have kids-- I was 29 when he was born, the day after her 47th birthday) and again almost five years later after the birth of Son #2.  I don't see her nearly often enough, but I think about her many times during the course of a day.  I hope she has a wonderful birthday and that she knows how much I love her.  There is an extra bedroom upstairs waiting for a visit from you, Mildred!

This is one my favorite cakes that Mama used to make for us, her little crumb-crushers, as Daddy called us.

(I am just eating them out of the box, Ma.  I didn't make the cake.  I would have made it for you, though.)

Vanilla Wafer Cake

2 sticks butter, softened
1/2 c. milk
6 eggs
1 box (11 oz) Nilla wafers, crushed (easy to do if you put them in a ziploc bag and roll a rolling pin over the cookies)
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 c. chopped pecans
7 oz. shredded coconut (2 2/3 cups)
2 c. sugar

Butter and flour a tube or Bundt cake pan.  Preheat oven to 300˚F.
Combine butter, sugar and eggs until creamy.  Add vanilla wafers and milk.  Mix well.  Add nuts, vanilla extract, and coconut.  Continue beating until all is combined.  Pour into pan.  Bake at 300˚F for 1 1/2 hours.

Bon appétit and bon anniversaire, Mama Mildred!  I hope I got all my facts straight.