The Road Home

by Donna Poole

Of course it was raining. I’d forgotten how muddy these backroads get in the rain. I’d forgotten many things, how to laugh, how to love, how to live.

The May lilacs drooped heavily over the country roads leading home. I’d once loved their scent. Now, all I could smell was myself. I smelled of the pigs I’d been sleeping with, animal and human, and I smelled of shame. You think shame doesn’t have a scent? You’d know better if you’d been where I’ve been, done what I’ve done.

I never expected this ending. Since I’d been a little girl, family and friends had remarked on what they’d called my unusual talent and radiant beauty. Convinced I could make fame and fortune my own, I’d fixated on one thing. Money. I needed money to get my start. Farm-life would wrinkle my skin, make me old before my time, and suck the life out of me. I had to get away from home.

So, I begged Dad for money, and I was relentless.

My brother, Eliab, was furious. “How could you! Do you know how Dad got that money he gave you? He cashed in his life insurance policy and gave you the half you would have gotten when he died. I heard him sobbing last night. He hasn’t cried since Mom’s funeral! This might kill him!”

I tried to care, but I was too excited. City lights were calling, and I had more money than I’d ever dreamed. Why try to explain to Eliab? He wouldn’t understand me; he never had. I edged passed him with my suitcase and headed out the door.

“Marion! Don’t leave like this when Dad’s not home! At least wait and tell him goodbye!”

“It’s better this way,” I said.

It was a beautiful, sunny September when I left. Hitchhiking was exciting, and contrary to all the warnings I’d heard, no one robbed or assaulted me. Not then.

My dream city job never materialized, but I was having so much fun with my new friends I didn’t care.

It’s amazing how fast you can blow through a hundred grand in the fast lane. The night life, breathtaking at first, eventually left me feeling so empty I almost didn’t care when my cash ran out. I wasn’t worried the first night I couldn’t pay the tab; my new friend would pick it up. He did but not willingly.

It’s amazing how fast you can blow through friends when you’re broke and need a bed or a hot meal. I was too proud for a shelter or the mission, and I vowed I’d never go home. I’d die first. And I almost did.

You don’t need to hear how I ended up on the streets and the things I did to survive that cold winter. No one would hire me. I didn’t blame them; I wouldn’t have hired myself.

One night I met a group of men who taught me quickly that not all farmers were the gentlemen my dad and his friends were. I’d already learned too much about men from sleeping on the streets to trust easily, but when I saw those farmers in a bar, their flannel shirts and jeans made me nostalgic for home and lured me into a false sense of security. When they offered me a ride and a place to stay, I went with them, like the idiot I was.

I don’t want to say much about the nights I spent with them in their shack or out in the barn with their pigs just to keep warm.

One early May morning, I woke from a nightmare. The men were still sleeping when I left. I tried hitchhiking, but no one would give me a ride.

So, I walked. Over and over I rehearsed my speech, “I’m not worthy to be your daughter. If you’ll just let me sleep in a clean bed, I’ll do anything! You can fire the cook and housekeeper; I’ll do all their work, and I can help Eliab do his chores. . . .”

I scratched at the lice on my head and dug at the flea bites on the skin I’d once admired. Once I’d worried about wrinkled skin, but now I shrunk in horror from my scarred soul.

When I didn’t think I could take another step, I saw it, the place I’d once called home, a white farmhouse with its wraparound porch. It looked so clean. I wouldn’t blame Dad if he shoved me away and shouted at me to go back to the filth I’d come from.

I saw a man push himself out of  the porch rocking chair. It couldn’t be Dad; this man was older, stooped, and weighed about fifty pounds less than the strong father I’d left. He shaded his eyes with his hands, looking at me. Then he started running and shouting for my brother.

“Eliab! Eliab! Come quick! It’s our Marion!”

“Dad,” I choked out, “I’m not worthy to be. . . .”

Dad was laughing and crying. He smothered my words in his hug.

“We’re going to have the biggest party this county’s ever seen! Eliab, you have to help me. We’re going to take Marion shopping for new clothes, and I want to give her your mother’s diamond ring. Hey! Why aren’t you hugging your sister?”

He stopped, shocked by the look of hatred on Eliab’s face and the venom of his words.

“How can you even stand to touch her? She smells like trash and worse. You’re going to have a party for that slut who squandered your money on booze, drugs, and who knows what else? What about me? What have you ever done for me?”

“You’re the most faithful son a man could have, and all I have is yours. But can’t you rejoice with me? We thought your sister was dead, and she’s come home!”

Dad kept one arm around my shoulder and led me toward the house. Eliab didn’t follow. Would Eliab ever love me again? I didn’t know, and my cold heart melted with warm tears. I looked up at the joy and undeserved love in my father’s face.

If Dad could look at me like that, was he a figure of the True? Could my heavenly Father still love me too?

I fell to my knees, sobbing myself clean in the mud. God did love me still. He loved me with a beauty only the broken see. And I could love Him; I would love Him with a depth no righteous elder brother, only other forgiven sinners like me can understand.

“Daughter! Marion, come inside. Soon we’ll have you smelling as sweet as the lilacs. Aren’t they beautiful this spring?”

I took a deep breath. The lilacs were lovely that spring, lovelier than they’d ever been.

This narrative is based on one of my favorite Bible stories. You can read it in Luke 15:11-32.

Community

By Donna Poole

November 12, 2019, 9:00 A.M.

The sun is turning the snow-packed gravel roads to diamonds on this frosty November morning. After the funeral we will drive down a diamond road to lay Anna May, one of our own, to rest in the Lickly’s Corners Cemetery.

The next stop will be the “Corners” where two dirt roads meet. Neighbors and family will sit around tables in the old one-room school where Anna May was part of the last graduating class back in 1948. Anna May was also part of the community club that met in the schoolhouse for many years. So was I.

We opened each community club meeting by singing, “Sew, sew, sewing on our quilts, helps brighten someone else’s world. We are happy as can be, because we’re community clubbers, you see….”

I wish I could remember the rest of the song. Sadly. of the twenty-four members there were then, only one other is still alive to ask. Perhaps I’ll see Sandy today and ask her if she can remember the words to our club song.

The community club sold the building to the church at the corners for $5.00, and the church has used it for potluck dinners ever since. For many years, Anna May was part of that church, our church.

Our church ladies will serve the funeral meal, a turkey dinner, at the old schoolhouse. Two of our women offered to make turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, and corn. The rest of us will fill in things like salads, rolls, meatballs, calico beans, and a dessert table worthy of the name. There will be  lots of hot coffee to warm frigid hands and laughter to warm hurting hearts. Fixing food for others is one of the things the church at the corners does best. It’s one way we can show our love and the love of Jesus.

“How do so few people make so much food?” someone once asked of our church ladies. The question surprised us. We just do; doesn’t everyone? I suppose they don’t, but sharing food, love, and support is still a way of life at our Corners, and I hope the same is true in many places.

“Little House on the Prairie” knew the value of community. We’re lost, isolated, stranded without each other. You don’t have to be back roads country the way we are to cultivate community. It can happen anywhere. It just takes one person to realize we all need each other and to do something about it. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if someone needs you where you are right now.

We could talk about community today as we walk together through the snow on my gravel road and listen to the snow crunch under our feet. But first, I have a funeral dinner to help serve, and a few hugs to share. I might need a hug myself. I’ll dearly miss my friend.

Just Go

By Donna Poole

“Just go for a walk.”

How many times has John said that to me when my brain tangled around a writing assignment or my heart knotted with the pain of a friend?

The rhythm of a singular walk on a country road isn’t a panacea, a cure-all, but it sure is a great detangler.

Not all roads detangle thoughts. I walked in New York City once with our Maine-Endwell High School Band. We visited the 1964 World’s Fair, and we walked downtown. I remember the exhilaration and shock I felt when the light changed and the massive crowd moved as one to the other side of the street. There was no room for individuality at that point. Turning back would have been impossible. The crowd carried me forward whether I wanted to go or not. I loved visiting the big city but knew even then that the rhythm of small town and country would always call me home.

At home, I listen to the rhythm of my steps on gravel and hear what the seasons say. The winds erase extraneous thoughts, and my mind clears enough to try to think God’s thoughts after Him. I may be singular on my walk, but I’m not lonely.

God and I were almost to the bridge where the St. Joe River, looking more like a meandering creek, passes under the gravel road. It was a quiet day; I saw no neighbors, and no tractors hummed in the fields. Started, I heard footsteps pounding behind me.

I whirled around. A young deer was running right at me. Deer don’t run toward people; they run in the other direction. She looked into my eyes. I held out my hand, and she nuzzled it. Would she let me touch her? I barely breathed. She wasn’t as soft as I thought.

We talked without words for awhile. I told her this is how it will be someday. She won’t have to fear anything then, and neither will I, because God promises nothing will hurt or destroy in all His holy mountain. We told each other we can’t wait for that day, when death and her sickly children of sorrow and suffering are forever banished, and our God makes all things new.

For now, sorrow and suffering are still with us, as is death, the defeated enemy, but the enemy just the same. We said goodbye this week to a friend of forty-five years.

“Just go, Anna May,” we told her. “It’s okay. We’ll be coming along soon.”

Anna May left behind these gravel roads she dearly loved to walk when she was younger, and she went Home. I hope she finds some gravel byways up there with some wildflowers and a deer that walks right up to her, and I hope she waits for me there. Because I don’t imagine Anna May will like streets of gold any better than I will.

Just a Little Cake

By Donna Poole

As we walk each other Home, not all our meanderings will be on sunny paths. Will you journey with me awhile in the darkness, my friend?

Huddled in the darkest corner of my empty house I sit on the floor, rocking back and forth, head on my knees, arms wrapped around my legs.

I don’t have to open my eyes to know it’s dark; it’s the midnight of my soul. Is this coldness what it feels like to die? If it is, why can’t I just get it over with? I’m too exhausted to cry, too numb to call for help, too bone-weary to look for my bed. Is it even here any more?

I feel someone shake my shoulder. “Make me a cake.”

“Make you a what? I have nothing in my house. Look at me. I have given the last ounce of my love, sung the last note of my song, written the last word from my heart.”

He studies me, and He smiles. “Make me a cake. Just a little one. Make it from your weariness, your bitterness, your loneliness, your despair.”

My bones chill. Who is this monster alone with me in the dark asking me for an offering of my deepest pain? I shrink in fear.

“Are you the devil?”

“Look again.” The voice is mellow and strong.

A light, soft at first, glows and fills the room. I bend and hold His feet. “My Lord and my God!”

He laughs, a beautiful sound. “And now, my cake!”

He lifts me. Surprised I can even stand, I begin mixing all I have, exhaustion, heartbreak, loneliness, fear, pain, and despair. I hold it out to Him.

“Too dry! I have nothing to dampen the batter.”

“Try your tears.”

I shake my head wearily. “I ran out of those years ago.” He puts one hand on each of my cheeks, bows low with grace, and kisses my forehead. Suddenly, I’m sobbing healing tears, bursting from a place in my heart I thought had died with my long-lost saints.

I stir the batter and pour it into the pan. Still, I’m sad. “I have no fire to bake this little cake for You.”

“Thanksgiving always works.”

“Thank You! Thank You, Lord that You can use the emptiness, the grief, the suffering that is me.”

A fire begins within. It’s no longer cold and dark. I offer it up, all I thought was nothing but ugliness and pain. I give it with thanksgiving, and He wraps His arms around me and gives me words to sing again.

Dedicated to Lois Pettit with love, and with gratitude to Elisabeth Elliot and Amy Carmichael, because everyone we love and everything we read becomes part of us and makes us who we are.

Getting Off the Interstate

By Donna Poole

We punch the address into Waze and choose the fastest route, because that’s how life is for all of us. We have too many places to go and too little time to finish what needs to be done. So we take the interstate, the four-lane highway, or at least the best available two-lane. And if a detour sends us down a gravel road, or we find ourselves trapped behind an Amish buggy, we fume, sigh, and sputter. How are we going to finish that to-do list now?

Do you ever get tired of the interstate? When I was a little girl Mom used to sometimes beg Dad to take us for a ride. We’d all pile into the station wagon and drive slowly down country roads looking for wildflowers. I miss those days. Even though we’ve lived on a gravel road in the country for forty-five years, life is too often a hectic whirlwind for us. I love long walks down these country roads, but we don’t meander often anymore.

I’m tired of the interstate. If you are too, join me here when you get a minute. We’ll walk together down gravel roads in all of life’s seasons. We’ll listen for the first frog to sing a welcome song to spring and look for the first red-winged blackbird sitting on a tall, dead weed. We’ll watch for the winter wheat to green, a sight so bright it will hurt our eyes. Together we’ll enjoy the scent of the first cutting of hay, and watch crops and gardens ripen in the mellow summer. We won’t regret the coming of autumn but instead dance with the rhythm of the falling leaves and pray that our later years will be as lovely. When snow comes we’ll walk together just long enough to hear it crunch under our feet and then retire to a warm fireplace with coffee, tea, or cocoa and talk about what it all means.

I hope you’ll meet me here often at “Back Road Ramblings,” and we’ll walk each other Home.