FREE ENTRY

I Believe

Debra Kelley Richardson

“I believe Sweet Jesus, I believe” said Ganny as she laid her blue hands on the red words of The Bible.  Ganny was seated at the formica table in the center of the kitchen that had fed, prayed and talked through three generations and had the battle scars to prove it.  This was grand central but the screech of the female Carolina wrens and mountain blue birds as they prepared breakfast chimed the early morning hour.  Soon Rosie would be in from the barn with eggs and milk which signaled the official start of the day.  “Jesus, I know you have a plan, I know you have my heart and I know You will guide me to a decision that is wise, fair and within Your will.  See me through Sweet Jesus, see me through” Ganny prayed as she reverently closed the big black Bible that was inscribed Reverend Evan E. Kent.  Her late husband’s Bible.  The very one he was holding when his heart gave away to a joyous journey ten years ago leaving Ganny alone until Rosie arrived.

Betty and Evan Kent had been blessed with six wonderful children, five boys and one girl.  The fifty years since the joining of two completely different cloths to form one merged seam were surreal and ordinary in the same breath.  Evan had known he would preach the Gospel since he could talk and Betty had the flame of mischief burning from her soul outward.  Somehow the cogs in the machine of time had fit together to form the most perfect connection.  Not the gold dusted fairy tale, because trials had been a daily occurrence, like a check mark on the calendar.  But the overwhelming beauty of the simple quality of life, like a lace tablecloth over a plain white sheet, was almost like asking for too much.  The family had lived on forty-two acres of farmland that had belonged to Betty’s family for seven generations.  The gift of the forty-two acres was the water to the flame of Betty’s desire to see, do, experience, live and feel anything life had to offer outside the city limits of the small country town.  Evan captured the energy Betty felt into understanding that life is about giving, storing up for the future outside this world.  That while they lived here and life could be filled with blessings, setting aside treasure for the timeless home in heaven was essential to breathing.  Thus Betty became known in the small little town for her kindness, generosity and tender ways beholding the wife of the preacher.  But the tiny embers of mischief were still glowing when on occasion the preacher would be the recipient of a form of retaliation that always had a lesson but turned into a great joke, like with Belle the barn cat asleep in the pulpit one bright, sunny Sunday morning when Evan had promised to make the congregation believe in hell.  It was a good thing Betty could sew. 

Each flower that bloomed during the first 15 years was as precious as the last.  Five boys, a mother’s dream!  Each with the complacency of Evan’s warm character and molded in his steadfast morals, they were her own football, baseball and basketball team.  The could hit a homerun and pick vegetables on the way to home plate.  Score a touchdown and deliver a calf during halftime.  Shoot a free throw and bring down a bale of hay when the rubber met the cork.  And, then, came Rosalyn.  The most angelic cherub ever painted by the masters could not compare.  The description of God’s most perfect messengers in their gossamer wisp of gold and pink glow that pronounced innocence, perfection and beauty not of the world were molded from the cast of Rosalyn.  Flaxen down covered her perfect head and lips the color of full summer strawberries in the raised beds out back.  Her cheeks, her cheeks were the dusting of pink angel dust that begged you to cuddle against or brush with lips and linger to sing a tribute to her sweetness.  Daddy’s angel, bearer of anything pink and mother to all babies with cardboard cribs.  She could also out ride, out run and out fight any boy within a bike riding distance and rumor was, as far as the next town.  But Rosa had Mama’s flame.  And the older she got, the brighter it burned.  On Rosa’s eighteenth birthday, Reverand Evan E. Kent was buried in the little cemetery beside the little white church.  On the day after Rosa’s eighteenth birthday, she was gone.  A white note on the white lace was all Betty found the morning after Evan’s funeral and she grieved.   The bold writing on the note was all she could see but she knew the words.  Evan was Rosa’s glue and his death had loosened the molecular makeup that kept her at home.

Nine years later, Rosa came home.  But only to deliver a package and as history repeats, the next morning she was gone.  The package was tall, gangly, blond and cherubic and her name was Rosie.  She became the star in Betty’s sky.  At Rosie’s arrival, she became the thirteenth grandchild and while Betty cried for the lost Rosa, she thanked God for the blessing of Rosie.  Now, a year later, Betty had begun suffering mini strokes and for the first time in her 79 years, Betty was afraid.  She knew that if she died she would go to heaven, no concern there, her mansion was built and crown lay on velvet.  She knew if she went away five wonderful young men would fight, literally, over who would be the chosen one to care for Rosie.  And Rosie adored each of them.  No problem there.  The problem lay with Betty.  Rosie had found a home with Betty and her contentment was evident in every phase of her life.  She enjoyed the farm work, appeared to find solace in the simplicity of everyday living.  She had a way with the animals and the earth’s produce seem to be miracles to her as she worked the garden and canned it’s evidence of her loving care.  She produced above average in her school work and absorbed the wisdom of her teachers by filtering what was given and fashioned her own bank of needed knowledge to carry her to the next level.  It was like watching a construction of the perfect vessel of a young lady with purpose.  Betty wanted to continue as the architect, because she felt God leading her to help fashion her for a more divine purpose.

As Rosie came in the back door, shiny bucket in one hand and Betty’s old woven basket in the other, her smile backed up the morning sun that had begun drifting through the yellow and white curtains shading the kitchen window.  “Good morning for eggs and milk Ganny!!!  This will keep you busy while I’m at school!” Rosie exclaimed as she carefully set the morning’s bounty on the kitchen table.  “But save the butter for me.  I want to try your mama’s butter mold with the swan when I get home.”  Such excitement over an old butter mold.  “Rosie, I have something to talk to you about this morning” Betty said with a degree of solomness that had Rosie turning her head in surprise.  “Ganny, I can see your eyes and your worry.  You will be fine, God has not called you Home and He still has work for you.  Besides, Papa told me I would be your angel here and that my job would be you.”  Rosie spoke with wisdom way past her 8 years but something she said lingered in my thoughts.  “Papa” or the Reverend Evan E. Kent had died ten years ago.  And Rosie’s eight years would not have allowed her to know her Papa.  How had he told this blessing anything?  The answer to all my questions lay in front of me in the form of a gifted little girl, sent from heaven, to carry on my work.  Placed in my hands to mold and shape in the ways of the sinless One that was also sent to this earth.  To carry on as a breath of tender air in a gasping world.  God would be through with me when He had prepared her.