Embodied Belonging

I don’t remember the first time I met Walsie, but I’ll never forget her. She came into my life by way of my Pappaw. Both widowed and needing companionship, they married sometime during my college years.

Theirs was a second-chance love, an opportunity to love and be loved differently than before. She moved into his house in Killen and immediately made it feel like home again, and he and she quickly settled into a routine. Pimento cheese and bologna sandwiches during the week with fresh peaches for dessert, fish fry at the community center on special occasion Fridays (the special occasion being a visit from me), Walsie’s chicken stew on Saturday, and Jim’s buffet after church on Sunday, until Jim had to close his doors for the last time.

College life was good to me, but those weekends of simple living, good southern eating, and becoming something of a pro at cards were total bliss. Walsie worked her way into my heart quickly, with her unintentional hilarious one-liners; a quick wit that could keep up with Pappaw and still manage to be proper and befitting a southern belle.

The time the three of us went to the aquarium was so much fun. That day, we set out to Chattanooga by way of a hundred or so mile yard sale. We went to the aquarium, had lunch and headed back home after a full day of fun and learning. Walsie wasn’t really much for fish – live ones anyway, but she managed ok.

She was hospitality to the core. After Pappaw died, I continued to visit her regularly until just recently when life started piling up. Walking into her home, I could smell the familiar smells of simple living. Waiting for me each time was bread in the cabinet, bologna and pimento cheese in the fridge, and a lemon ice box pie.

The last time I saw Walsie, that I remember anyway, we had a really good time; a packed weekend of visiting folks and playing cards, watching The Gaithers on TV, and shopping the farmer’s market. We came home that Saturday afternoon loaded down with okra (or, okry, if you’re southern), plump and juicy tomatoes, and a big ole mess of field peas. We shelled the day away into the evening before supper, piling field peas into a big pot and watching The Lifetime Movie Network.

I left that Sunday after church with her recipe for fried okra, and her best wishes for a safe trip home. The most important thing I learned from Walsie is the value of family. She worked hard to reconcile differences and bring people together, she introduced me as her granddaughter and I her, as my grandmother.

A very special lady walked among us for eighty-however many years. I’m so glad we crossed paths.