Oh, how big is the world! Every child thinks this. Chairs are unclimbable. You see the hems of skirts sway. A tulip stares at you eye-level and wasps are big as B-52s.
Mom’s cat, a giant, really was bigger than I was for a while. Mickey’s purring thrilled me. I tried to purr. He’d roll over and display his major tummy; I’d roll over and display mine. He’d jump. I’d jump. He’d climb up a tree and taunt me, but he always crawled into my crib at night and I’d wake up with Mickey staring at me, purring like thunder.
One warm May day the lilacs bloomed. I must have been two. Yellow swallowtails, black swallowtails, lovely blue butterflies and viceroys fluttered over the delectable blooms. I remember the colors, I remember the slight brush of air as the butterflies flew next to my cheek. I remember Mother pointing them out and giving me their names, which was a switch since I was usually the pointer. I’d wobble around, point and say, “Deeze.” In fact, “deeze” was my favorite verb, noun, adjective and adverb. Until the day her parts finally wore out. Mom would look at me and say, “Deeze,” or I’d say it to her, and we always knew exactly what the other was talking about.
Mother, a dedicated gardener, planted lavender lilacs in the yard, with white ones closer to the house. Mother would drop into one of the Adirondack chairs and inhale the fragrance.
Mickey lurked under the biggest lilac bush. I flopped down on my stomach to see him. I think that was the first time I realized that butterflies are different from cats, but I didn’t know I was different from a cat.
On that day Mother picked me up so I could see more butterflies. Aunt Mimi drove up, and our neighbor, Peggy Cook, called Cookie, was there, too.
Mom and Dad were the hub of a wheel of friendship whose spokes radiated in every direction. I don’t remember one day under their roof that someone didn’t drop by for a cup of coffee, a lemonade, a Co’Cola or stronger spirits in the evening. No one said “a drink.” That was “common.”
Laughter. I lived in a world of their cascading laughter.
Mickey and I would sit side by side on the floor and look up at the adults, who occasionally looked down at us. We thought we were the center of attention because someone would scratch Mickey or kiss me. He’d get handed a sandwich scrap and I’d get puffed rice, which doesn’t sound like much, but I loved dry puffed rice right out of the box, and still do.
Mom and Dad’s friends ranged from my age to the nineties. Great-Grandpa Huff was pushing one hundred. He’d fought in the War Between the States as a child; at the end, the South would take anyone who could hoist a gun. He was so old his skin was translucent. Like all the Huffs, his mind raced along. No Huff ever went crazy, although they could drive you nuts.
Great-Grandpa Huff would put me in his lap and tell me about the war. I don’t remember one thing he said. I just knew it was important and the wrong side won.
It was because my mother’s people had fought for the South that Juts, born in Maryland, still thought of herself as southern. But if she hadn’t been southern-born, she’d have come up with some other way to be different.
Aunt Mimi kept her own salon. The two sisters competed in everything. Aunt Mimi, more Catholic than the Pope, busied herself with moral uplift more than Mom and Dad did.
Daddy’s brothers and their wives often stopped by. The Brown men had deep voices. His mother and dad visited infrequently. When they did, it was a state occasion. Mother would be down on her hands and knees scrubbing the floor. Aunt Mimi would be right there with her. The Buckingham girls fussed but they stuck together and worked together.
On those rare instances when I thought I might not be the center of attention, I would sway and clap my hands, my version of dancing. Then the adults would clap their hands and Mom would say, “Dance!”
Reports are that I fell down more than I danced, but I was happy. I do remember people saying, “Fall down, go boom!” But everyone says that to a rug rat.
By some miracle on Mother’s part I had learned that I was not the center of attention in church. Jesus was.
The problem was I never saw Jesus. I saw a gorgeous painting of him behind the altar. The Ascension.
Christ Lutheran Church is a stunning example of early Georgian architecture. The restraint and chaste beauty of this structure might even make a believer out of an atheist. I was generally quiet, so my parents took me to services. Matins, the big eleven o’clock service, or vespers, my favorite.
However much I loved the airiness of the church, the throaty organ and Pastor Neely, truly a man of God, I wanted to see Jesus. I began to search for him behind the curtains at home. I’d bend down and peek under the stairs, where Mickey hid. Seemed like a good place to me. I’d wiggle free from Mom and Dad after the service—I knew better than to even move a muscle during the service—and I’d look for Jesus.
Once I stood in the vestibule and warbled “Holy, Holy, Holy.” I didn’t know any words to the hymn other than the “holy” part but I thought maybe if I sang pretty, Jesus would show up. He didn’t.
Then I wondered, what if he had shaved off his beard? A friend of Dad’s once shaved off his mustache and when I saw him for the first time afterward I cried. Maybe Jesus was right in front of my face but he had shaved off his mustache and beard. That troubled me.
I’d ask Mom and Dad, “Where’s Jesus?”
First they tried the usual explanation. “He’s in heaven.”
I’d point up to the sky and say, “Where?” I wanted to see him. He could peek through a cloud. Jesus could do anything.
I evidenced some curiosity about the Blessed Virgin Mother too, but not nearly as much as about Jesus. For one thing, she wore powder blue robes, and Jesus usually wore a red cloak over his white robe. I loved red. And no one told me that the BVM, as Mom called her to torment Aunt Mimi, loved children. I figured she was fixated on Jesus.
Aunt Mimi’s explanation of why I couldn’t see Jesus was so complicated that I don’t recall a word of it. It was wonderful that she could remember her catechism, but as a toddler, I wasn’t impressed.
Frustrated, Mother finally told me, “Jesus is in our hearts.”
I wailed, “But I can’t see him there and it means he’s tiny. I want him to be big.”
Inconsolable, I cried myself to sleep. Poor Mickey wore himself out licking my tears away.
The next Sunday, Daddy took me to Pastor Neely’s private chambers after the service. Pastor Neely was in full regalia: he wore the green surplice for the season of Trinity. He had a voice that could roll back the tide. He must have been in his late thirties then. Children can’t judge age but I remember a man of great warmth and energy. He smiled and laughed and shook people’s hands as though he was glad to touch them.
Whatever he told me satisfied me. I stopped crying when I couldn’t find Jesus. That doesn’t mean I didn’t still want to see him. I did. I just stopped bothering the adults about it.
Looking back, isn’t it amazing that a busy man, running a huge church like Christ Lutheran, would sit down with a very small parishioner and treat her question as though it was worth his attention?
One time I asked Pastor Neely if cats, dogs and horses went to heaven when they died, because if not, I didn’t want to go to heaven either, even if Jesus was there. Mother nearly passed out. When Aunt Mimi got wind of what I’d said, I heard the word blasphemer for the first time.
I do remember Pastor Neely’s answer: “God loves all his creatures. All souls are dear to him.” He reassured me that if Mickey died first, I’d see him when my time came.
It may not be correct Lutheran dogma, but Pastor Neely eased my heart.
Aunt Mimi began a campaign of subversion. She and Mom battled over religion daily. It added spice to both their lives. Whenever Mother was busy Aunt Mimi would tell me her version—the Church of Rome’s. She’d drag me to mass, where I adored the candles. St. Rose of Lima burned more candles than Christ Lutheran.
However much Aunt Mimi wished to guide me to the One True Faith, her ardor cooled on a memorable Good Friday.
By now I was three and a half. My vocabulary had exploded. I had begun to read easy stuff like newspaper headlines. It scared Mom so, she took me to Dr. Horning. He told her to give me every book she could find. Mother was terrified that I wasn’t normal. In those days normal children didn’t read until the first grade. Dr. Horning told her normal children grew up to be boring adults—“Give her books.” Bless that man. Mother, a rebellious soul herself, worried that I wouldn’t fit in. Of course I wouldn’t fit in. Everyone on either side of the Mason-Dixon line knew I was illegitimate. Well, maybe that’s why she didn’t want me to call attention to myself.
However, she did get me books and I roared through them. Daddy read me newspaper editorials. He said there were two sides to every story, so in the morning he’d read me the Democratic point of view from the York Gazette, and at night he’d read the editorial from the Republican paper, the York Dispatch. He would simplify the issues, but he was determined that I learn to think for myself and to gather information.
Back to Good Friday, when I distinguished myself by upstaging my invisible friend, Jesus.
The difference between a Catholic, an Episcopalian and a Lutheran is the difference between tired knees and happy knees. Theologians can froth at the mouth about church doctrine, married and unmarried clergy, priestly intercessions and other items worth hundreds of years of bitching and moaning. For me it’s how many times you want to kneel.
Mother and Aunt Mimi vied for the greater show of devoutness. Aunt Mimi won, since Mother’s sense of humor and fun sidetracked her from perfect Christian purity. But she didn’t break Lent and rarely missed a Sunday or an important feast day. On Good Friday, a very holy day, Mom’s butt was bound to be warming the fifth pew.
Of course. Aunt Mimi would attend the first mass of the day, usually at 6 A.M., then return for the special afternoon service, since Christ is reported to have died at 3 P.M.
Both Christ Lutheran and St. Rose of Lima, as well as every other church in town, swarmed with people dressed somberly. It wasn’t until Easter Sunday that the big hats broke out like measles.
Since I usually behaved in church. Mother had no reason to believe this Good Friday would be any different. Perhaps she forgot that I had slept through the other Good Friday services of my life, all two of them. I was big enough now to stay awake.
I’d seen Aunt Mimi and her daughters that morning as they returned from mass. Every day Mother and Aunt Mimi either called each other on the phone at 6:30 A.M. or stopped by for coffee. Except at their places of worship, they were inseparable. Mother showed them my outfit for the Good Friday service. She also showed them my Easter outfit, pale yellow with ribbons interwoven on the bodice, a beautiful straw hat with a black grosgrain ribbon, little anklets with pink roses embroidered at the top, and a tiny pair of black patent leather Mary Janes. The praise turned my head. I wanted to wear the Easter ensemble to the Good Friday service. It took all four of them to explain that just wasn’t done.
I bet I heard that phrase a million times: “That’s just not done.” Or else it was the more pointed “Our people don’t do that.” I finally calmed down, agreeing to be dressed like a sorrowful sparrow for that day only.
When we walked down the aisle to our pew I noticed that everything was shrouded in black velvet: the two-story windows, the altar, lectern and pulpit. Pastor Neely’s vestments were black velvet as well. And there were no flowers.
At three o’clock, just as Pastor Neely’s sermon ended, the curtains were drawn and the candles on the altar were extinguished. The organ burst into the most dolorous sounds and rumbled beneath my seat.
“Jesus is dead!” I bellowed at the top of my not inconsiderable lungs, and burst into sobs. Mother surely made an effort to stem the tide of my grief, but then I shrieked, “Mommy, turn the lights back on.”
No amount of cajoling or threatening promises could stop my crying or my commentary. Finally, Mother picked me up and carried me out into the sunshine. Glad though I was to see the light, I was afraid I’d never hear of Jesus again.
She explained that he’d be back on Sunday. I didn’t want him back on Sunday, I wanted him right then. When she told me the angel would roll away the stone from the tomb, I howled.
Finally, she hopped on the bus in York Square. I made myself exceedingly popular by announcing that Jesus had been crucified and then crying all the way home. Even the promise of an ice cream sundae couldn’t quiet me. Poor Mom, worn out from apologizing to the bus passengers, was bedraggled by the time she pushed open the back screen door of our house.
I knew you died only once. We lived out in the country. I’d seen chickens die, and no dead chicken ever got up and walked. How could Jesus do it?
Mother implored me to stop crying. Sunday morning I would rejoice, she promised, for Christ would rise from the dead.
The phone lines hummed in Hanover, Littlestown and York. My Good Friday performance aroused the natives. Mother bore criticism for taking such a little child to a frightening service. She should have known better. Of course, there would follow an exhaustive discussion of Julia Ellen Buckingham Brown, the original flapper.
Others felt that I was a sensitive child.
A few felt I must have been touched at an early age by a religious calling. Aunt Mimi secretly hoped I’d find the One True Faith, natch, and become a nun. Not just any nun, mind you, but a Dominican. Aunt Mimi had a thing for Dominicans.
Mother Brown was, of course, appalled.
Dad worried that I cried so much I’d make myself sick.
I couldn’t have known it at the time, but this incident showed me how people respond differently to an event. People look out the same window but do not see the same tree.
Well, the big day came. I attended the Easter service in my finery. I had been instructed by Mother, Aunt Mimi and even Big Mimi about my deportment.
I was perfect. Everyone made a point of speaking to Mother and to me after the service, which was a riot of color, rejoicing and flower arrangements as big as hippopotami. This was my first taste of conscious celebrity. I didn’t much mind it.
However, I wanted to know when I would rise from the dead. Poor Mom!