Sweet Home

Her name was Annie and she was born to hillbilly stock in the hills of northern Alabama. She was raised about as far back in the woods as you could get and still have some semblance of civilization – well, depending upon your definition of civilization. I was a city boy, traveling the roads seeking my fortune as men sometimes do, when I first saw her. I can’t explain the feeling that came over me at that first meeting any more now than I could then. She wasn’t the most beautiful woman I had ever seen or the smartest or even the most interesting.

She was pampered and spoiled by her parents and three older brothers, who treated her like a princess as she grew up--but she didn’t seem to take to the spoiling. She lived in the tiny Alabama town near where she was raised, having passed through the little high school as Miss Everything, with medium grades and not much future to speak of. It was a major event when Annie went off to college in Montgomery, and her years there passed uneventfully – a boyfriend or two, and more Miss Everything.

After graduation, she came home, took a job far beneath her college education and moved into an old house on her family’s property. Move-in day was like a community barn raising. Almost everyone helped make the place livable. No one around there had much money, but paint and curtains from Wal-Mart suited Annie fine. Her cousin built a swing for the big front porch, and Annie seemed especially proud of that.

I began making frequent trips through Alabama, and she taught me how to sit on the porch swing. Maybe that sounds silly, but I found that sitting on a porch swing was a learned skill. At first, I thought too much time was wasted on that porch, just sitting and sometimes talking and sometimes saying little at all, looking out over a green field that sloped down to a line of pine trees with nothing – or maybe everything – beyond. It took a while, several sessions of her training, to understand why we were sitting there and not doing something.

Seldom did I arrive at Annie’s house and find her alone. Often there were cars parked under the big pecan tree in front of the house, and family or friends visiting. At times Annie was in the kitchen cooking, but most often I found her on the swing. She was content to sit and listen, and that is when she seemed the happiest to me – wrapped up in others, talking about a little of this, a little of that. To my mind it was just empty chatter, but Annie always looked as though she was completely enthralled with what was being said. She loved life and she loved people, and I think that is why they loved her so much – because she loved them first.

That lifestyle was strange to me at first and still is to some extent. I never was able to fully suppress my city upbringing or the fast pace at which my heart had learned to beat. In my life, there was too little time to sit and talk and no front porches with slow-moving swings. Maybe that was part of my fascination with Annie -- she was a piece of something I didn’t understand. I looked down my city slicker nose at the Alabama lifestyle for a time and, except for her, I would have driven on through, shaking my head, thinking what a backwoods people and place that was. I could have explained away the lifestyle, but I couldn’t explain Annie.

She was happiness, joy and life all the time. Never once did I see her moody or irritable, and I found that almost unbelievable. There was always at least a partial smile on her face, with a little dimple in her right cheek, and a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. When her laughter came, it was the most beautiful thing this side of heaven. She was the most genuine person I had ever known.

It was obvious that Annie had me hooked when I began using vacation time to go to Alabama. I would fly into Birmingham and drive up Highway 78 through Jasper with the windows down and Southern rock on the radio, taking in the smells and the feel of Alabama. The fresh breeze blew the city out through the open windows and from my consciousness for a while. After my third trip I began to feel almost as if I was going home. By then, I had really begun to look forward to sitting on the porch, floating on the swing, swatting flies, laughing and talking about relatives and telling ghost stories after dark. It was nothing -- and it was everything.

One Saturday evening in early June, Annie surprised me by saying I could pick her up for church Sunday morning. I tried to wiggle my way out of it by telling her that I had only brought jeans with me, but she laughed and said that most of the men wore jeans or overalls, so I couldn’t use that old excuse. I didn’t really remember the last time I had been in church, but it must have been when I was a little boy. The memory was not pleasant, but since Annie had invited, we went to church. It was much like the rest of Annie’s life - amazing. Those people talked about God as if he was real and, for the first time, I began to understand Annie and to understand Alabama.

Seven months later, we married in that little church. Much of our wedding day is a blur to me now, but a few memories remain perfectly intact like snapshots in my mind. Annie’s Dad cried. I saw him when he first glimpsed Annie as a bride, and the sadness in his face and tears coursing down his cheeks were shocking to me. I didn’t understand then, but I do now.

As they walked down the aisle, my eyes were only for her in a beautiful white dress her mother had made. Her hair was up the way I loved it best – off her shoulders, twisted in a simple knot that highlighted her dimple and eyes. A day that would be special to any other woman – her wedding day – appeared to be no different than any other day in Annie’s life. She was happy, but no more than was common for her. She enjoyed such a complete gathering of family and friends, but not more than when she sat with just one of them, alone together on the swing. Though she was the center of attention, she was still able to make everyone that she encountered feel like the most important person there – Annie’s particular favorite. That is the memory of her that I most treasure.

Including our courtship, I had the pleasure of Annie’s company for a little over four years. When we didn’t have a baby after the first couple of years, we saw a doctor in Birmingham and that’s when they found she had cancer. It was already pretty far along and she lived only another year after that. Just as she had taught me about life, Annie taught me about death. Her demeanor never changed. The disease destroyed her body, but it never touched her spirit. We spent many hours on the swing holding hands and doing what she said she liked to do best – “just be”.

She died two days before Easter, curled up in her favorite quilt. Holding my hand with her head on my shoulder and one bare foot peeking out from under the covers, I felt the life go gently out of her. I don’t know how long I sat there and rocked her and cried.

I left it all behind. Staying in Alabama without Annie was not possible. The commotion of the city drew me, and I returned to the world with which I was most familiar. God, I miss her. I miss her laugh and the sparkle in her eyes and the dimple and the never-ending smile on her lips. I miss sitting on the porch with her, sharing a bowl of homemade peach ice cream and doing nothing -- together.

It all happened over ten years ago and I still have an Annie-shaped hole in my heart. She will be with me forever, and so will Alabama - the people and the life that she loved so well.

Life must go on they say, and mine has. But one thing has kept my wounded heart alive. As I held her with all my strength, trying desperately to cling to the life that I knew was slipping away, she looked at me with those lovely, bright eyes and whispered ever so sweetly, “I’ll see you again soon.” It was the last thing she said to me.

I’m counting on it.