Two years and three months had passed, and I had still not left my parents’ home in Alabama. For the first time in my life, I felt as if I had actually taken control of a situation and accomplished something worthwhile. I wanted nothing in my way to thwart that success.
My mother was, for all intents and purposes, a different person. When Tina smiled, she now seemed to expect the world to smile back. And if they didn’t, then screw them. I felt I was the catalyst for that change, and walking away from her at this delicate time didn’t seem right.
Weeks flew by as quickly as the hand on my travel alarm clock ticked off seconds, always set just past dawn. This way I could log in my daily diary on my laptop, an undertaking that had become the most important part of my day.
The drought continued across the southeast. Lakes and rivers were drying up. Two-hundred-year-old oaks were dying at the root. There were times we had to run for cover in the heat of the day to avoid the swarms of thirsty bats coming to drink from the swimming pool. Naturally, it fell on my shoulders to net out the furry dive bombers that didn’t make it. Allergies were at a peak the medical community had never seen. But we no longer had allergies. Colds and flu, Justin and Marsala said, would be a thing of the past.
I had never seen an unshakable faith like Tina’s. She never cried, never worried, never questioned. I fed my faith by staying in constant motion. I was always bringing something new to the table. I felt like the buck stopped with me, and it was my task to keep all of the balls in the air.
Tina wanted to go see her doctor to request he turn over her files so she could burn them in effigy on our next visit to the Village. A few days before the appointment, we heard through the grapevine Rose O’Sharon’s only child had been killed in a terrible car accident on her way home from college. I wondered whether the incident would affect the nurse’s worldview, not to mention her bedside manner.
When the day came, I was entering the medical center from parking the car after having dropped Tina off at the door. As I rounded the corridor, I saw a strange sight. Tina was holding a withered Rose O’Sharon, who looked like she’d lost everything she held dear. I watched for a moment, feeling very uneasy. Rose O’Sharon pulled away from my mother, reeling. She must have been on some sort of tranquilizer to help her cope. After an unbelievably kind and understanding Spielberg sent us on our way with his blessing, Rose O’Sharon stuck her head out the door. “Y’all take care, now,” she said empathetically, with a slight smile, before hollering down the hall in the other direction. “Hey, Wanda, we need a death certificate on Mr. Lo, stat!”
Ah well, guess some things never change. But to say things were through changing around the Stalworth house would be an understatement. Only two years in the business, Sis was suddenly selling more houses than she could count but still spending every other weekend with us so I would get a break from my duties. Her Brittany spaniel, once an aging layabout, was now eating an informal version of the macrobiotic diet. Vacating her doghouse at dawn, the revitalized mutt disappeared to chase squirrels and didn’t return until dark.
The phone started to ring. People wanted my help. I was asked to pay a visit to the ex-wife of a local politician. Laura Holden was bedridden, desperate, and in a great deal of pain when I arrived. Her family was at her side: her son, daughter-in-law, sister. Her husband had divorced her months earlier, and soon after she was diagnosed with advanced stage pancreatic cancer. She motioned me to sit at the foot of her bed.
Clearly once very beautiful, the disease had left her weak, brittle, and bitter. “He asked to come back after I got sick. I told him I didn’t want anything he had. That included him.” She winced, looking longingly into my eyes like she thought I held the power to raise the dead. “I’ll do anything to get rid of the pain.”
This wasn’t anything I had planned—to minister the sick? Still, I offered what I could. The family looked on as I shared stories of those worse off than Laura Holden who had bounced back, prepared a simple meal in the adjacent kitchen, and unloaded stacks of books, one of which translated the word Macrobiotic into Big Life on its cover. Her mother sneered like I was a high priest in some Tinseltown cult.
I left the house on cloud nine. I was officially spreading the gospel. Not only was I guiding Tina’s life, I was now guiding the lives of complete strangers!
Shortly thereafter, a morbidly obese cousin began dropping in to watch me prepare my food. An old friend from high school who had prodded me into sharing my macrobiotic knowledge called at six a.m., nattering on over the ear-splitting racket of a vacuum cleaner. “I just have one question. Does your head ever feel like it’s gonna blow off ’cause you’re gettin’ so clear? ’Cause mine does. My whole damned body’s vibratin’. I feel like I have the gift of prophecy. And it’s telling me if I eat one more fermented soybean, I’m gonna leave that sorry-assed husband o’ mine. You know what? I think I’ll do that anyway, as of right now.”
Big life indeed.