Pecan Tree

In the middle of the vast south pasture of my Grandmothers farm stands a Pecan tree. Picturesque, graceful, dignified.  It stands alone above the gentle rise of the field.  Year after year it produces its bounty of sweet nuts.  They go mostly uncollected. Occasionally someone would notice the tree and run to collect her gifts to carry home for sticky pecan pies or to lace their chocolate chip cookies and candies.  However most often she stands alone, giving and giving.

My Mother was like that tree.  I both admired and pitied her for her selflessness. Everyone in her life, including me, grew to expect it, depended on it and took full advantage of it.  Like the Monday morning garbage pick up.  You never thank them or even appreciate their hard work, you just set your garbage out at the street in the morning and expect it to be gone when you get home from work in the evening.

I watched her disappointments and her sadness growing over the years and hated it.  I hated to watch her dreams vanish like the steam coming from the pot of greens she cooked on the stove.  I hated the lack of purpose and passion in her life because it had always been tied up with others; her husband, children, cousins.  Others.  She always spent herself to help them fulfill their dreams, or rather, her dreams for them, but they never realized them for themselves or for her.  The pain in her heart would drive her to bed.

I swore to never be her.  I loved her and admired her but I could never be her.  Never sacrifice all that I am for others who do not deserve, appreciate or even acknowledge it.  Hell no!  This is why my relationship with her became strained; because it was like someone dying a slow death that you could do nothing to help and watching them die was more than you could take, so your visits become fewer and fewer, shorter and shorter, more and more uncomfortable, because greater than your pity, is your selfishness.

Therein lies myself; selfishly striving to look like Mother without being her. To display her graceful dignity without the giving. To have her appearance without her substance. So who is the sadder one?

I had to drive down home this week because Uncle Leon had died.  He was my mothers’ uncle, the oldest living member of the family, while he lived that is. Of course the responsibility to make all the arrangements fell on Thelma Jean McKinney, and yes, that’s my mothers name; and what a name, one full of family history.

You see Thelma Washington was the name of her maternal great-great grandmother who was the first black woman to own land in her own name in the state of Arkansas in 1894. Jean Dupree was her paternal grandfather who graduated from law school with Thurgood Marshall but died of pneumonia at the age of 35 leaving his widow with four children and no money. They moved down south to live with relatives to help raise the children. McKinney, the family name of her husband, my father, Miles McKinney who's lineage is traced back to a free black landowner from Maryland who moved south to open a school to educate freed slaves.  Thelma Jean McKinney; my mother.

My name is Starling, like the bird. Starling May McKinney.  Not so much history to it because I was born in a time of new thought and hope. Starling because mother noticed one building a nest in the magnolia tree outside the house as she was on her way to bring me into the world, and May, because of course, it was May. May the second, 1969 to be exact.

“Mom?” I responded as she answered the phone, “I’ll be getting on the road in a little while. I should be there about three.”

“There’ll be rain when you come through the junction at the 64, so be careful. Did you find someone to ride along with you?

“No, mama, I’ll be fine. Are all the plans finalized?”

“Everything but his suit. He didn’t have anything nice and nobody got anything to give up for him to wear.”

“What about Charles?” He just put on all that weight and he doesn’t have to wear a suit for work any more. Does he have an old one to donate? It’s his father for Christ’s sake.”

“You know he lost everything in Katrina, baby.”

“Yeah, I know. Betcha he wouldn’t give it up even if he did have one.”

“Don’t be that way. He is hurtin bad over this. He blames his self for not checking up on him.”

“The man was damn near a hundred.” I could hear the south creeping back into my voice as I spoke. It happened every time I talked to anyone down home.

Angela grabbed my hand and snatched me up from the chair where I had been sitting.  There was a mirror in the hall an old antique that a neighbor had given my mother when I was about three years old.  She pointed me at the mirror and said.  Are you sure you are running off tho go find your self or are you running away from what has made you who you are.  Do you remember Granddad’s famous parting line?  What he said every time he hung up the phone or left the house.  He said ‘Bye now, and remember, where ever you go… there you be.’  We just thought he was a crazy old man being his funny old self but what he said is true.  You cannot run away from your self.  You need to take a good long look in the mirror and find out who you are and what it is that you want before you go running off into the dark.  How are you gonna find something that y6ou do know even know what it looks like?  Stop hating and start forgiving whoever it is you need to forgive or you are never gonna move forward.  You will always be stuck in the past thinking you are running somewhere.

I stood looking at that mirror.  I remembered my mother telling me how the old Asian man from down the street was moving and gave her the mirror.  He told her to place it facing the front door for good luck because it would keep the demons out of our home. Right now I felt like it I was the demon or that I had one on my back.  I think its name was Guilt, or maybe Resentment.  Maybe for Dad leaving maybe for never telling my sister that I loved her before she died.  Maybe for letting Marcus leave never telling him how I felt.  Maybe I resented feeling obligated to give up my own dreams in order to be here, for Mom, all these years.  All these thoughts ran through my head as I stood staring into that mirror.  I was imaging that those feelings were ethereal figures, lifting off my shoulders and dancing around my head. 

I turn and looked at Angela.  She reached out and wrapped me in her arms.  I had tears on my face but had not recognized that I had been crying.  I let it all out at that moment and the sobs wracked my body.  Resentment slid down my left cheek, shame followed the same path, guilt welled up in my right eye, the weight of fear sending it down the side of my nose, and blame nearly choked me…all of it pouring out of me and onto Angela’s collar.  After a few moments I stood up straight and looked her in the eye.  “I have to go,” I said.  “Thank you.”  I grabbed my coat and keys, kissed her on the cheek and went for the door.  There were some people that I needed to talk to.  Before I left town.

He stumbled up the porch steps, inaudibly yelling something.  Aunty Pearl just looked at him her eyes squinting wearily. He raised his fist as if to punch her in the face but stumbled and instead fell hard against her chest.  The rocking chair she had been sitting in spilled them both head over tail onto the porch. He rolled onto his back and crashed into the wall underneath the front room window. She did a complete flip, out of the chair and landed in a squat position, her quaintly flowered skirt up around her waist.  She shook her head to get the sense of what had just happened then she reared back and slapped him near sober. Then she stood, got her balance, straightened her dress and kicked him in his ribs with her black patent leather pumps that she had worn to church that morning.  When she swung her leg back for another kick I had to step in and calm the situation down.  He would be up on his feet again soon and all hell would break loose if some distance wasn’t put between the two of them. Uncle Lester was a mean drunk. Aunty Pearl bore a scar or two to prove that but Uncle Lester had his own share of battle marks as well.  She stayed with him all these 40 years because she called herself a good Christian woman and besides he at least kept food on the table and the mortgage paid and wasn’t half bad a man when he stayed away from the liquor store.

I took Pearl into the house to get a cool drink. The fellas helped Lester up and put him in the front seat of his pick up truck, careful to take away his keys, while he slept off the ugly. 

My mouth flew open in disbelief. I ran to help Aunty Pearl up from the damp grass; adjusting her clothes and brushing dried leaves from her skirt.

“What the hell is his problem? Why would he come at you like that?”

“Just mad I guess.” Pearl sneered a bit then chuckled at the image of her tumble from the porch.

“Mad at you, what about?” I had to ask even though I knew the answer.

“He don’t need to be mad about nothin’, liquor just make his blood boil.”

“A few nights in jail might teach him a lesson”

“Ha!” It was a mirthless sound. “How many night? Two, Five, fifty? He done that and more and it aint done no good for neither of us, just put us behind on the mortgage note a time or two.” She just shrugged and smiled at my concern and naivete. “He gonna drink himself to death or pick a fight with the wrong man one day and that will be the last of him. Not that I wish him no harm, God forbid, he’s just dead set to on that path to hell.” “Your Mama use to worry herself sick about me and Lester until she just learned to let be what be. Some things you just cannot change and God give you the serenity to keep on livin in spit of them. Ya hear?”

“No Aunty Pearl, I don’t hear.” I was shaking my head a sad smile on my face. I could not just let some things be. The one person that I had any power to change was me and I was determined to fight for my life.