Mincey’s Musings
Year One, Week Forty-Five

My church had a revival last week. It began on Sunday morning and continued Sunday through Wednesday nights. My wife was ill, so I sat next to Ms. Dot Johnson each evening. On Sunday evening, Ms. Dot offered me a cough drop just as the preaching began, not that either of us had coughs.

I must admit, I sat next to Ms. Dot each evening for the rest of the revival to see if she would give me another cough drop. Each evening, at the start of the preaching, Ms. Dot graciously offered me a cough drop, which I appreciatively accepted.

Oh, how that simple act of Ms. Dot’s took me back across the years, to my childhood years at Maynardville Baptist (later the First Baptist) Church.

A kindly elderly lady, Ms. Dramma Ousley Beeler, began giving me candy each Sunday morning. In the beginning, I would be sitting with Mother and she would motion me over to receive the treat. As time went on, I began sitting with Dramma every Sunday. I would wait for her to emerge from the T.L.C. (Timothy, Eunice, Lois) Class just off to the right of the altar of the sanctuary and move to her side.

Like most things in my life, I hung on to a good thing too long. I was still sitting with her when I was high school age. Looking back, I’m sure I became a nuisance to her, as she would have undoubtedly have liked to spend time fellowshipping with the other elderly ladies.

The candy eventually became a roll of Life Savers®. There would be Sundays when she would tell me, “I didn’t bring you anything this week.” I would reply, “That’s all right, that’s not why I sit with you anyway.” And that was true. I really loved Dramma.

But on the Sundays when she did, I timed the preacher’s sermons by the length of time it took me to eat the roll of Life Savers®. If the preacher preached longer than it took me to eat the entire roll, he was “long-winded”. In those days, I was usually through before the preacher was.

Dramma taught me to sing the hymns. She would explain how the men were supposed to sing the bottom notes. In later years, Dramma encouraged me to join her grandsons in the choir. She told me later that she got ashamed for me to be sitting with her when I got so big. That hurt my feelings, and though I know she did this partially for her own sense of propriety, she also knew it was best for me to be with younger people.

There came a time when Dad was diagnosed with cancer. He insisted that Mother accompany him to the hospital, and for me to continue classes at Horace Maynard High School, it was necessary for me to stay with someone in the community. All I know is that when Dramma’s name was offered, I readily accepted. She later told me many times that she was shocked when I showed up on her doorstep with my suitcase in hand. I don’t know if she initially offered and anticipated refusal, or if indeed the offer of her hospitality was never extended, but there I was! But she didn’t turn me away.

From this experience, I learned one of the greatest lessons to be learned in this life—you never know a person until you live with them. I was never a breakfast eater, and Dramma took it upon herself to teach me to eat breakfast every morning. She would cook me eggs and bacon, and I tried for some time to eat them to make her happy, but truth was I never was a breakfast eater. I eventually revealed to her that eating breakfast made me feel bad the rest of the day, and the poor lady was most offended. At a later time, she complained about cooking for me every evening, and I told her that I was just as happy eating sandwiches. Curiously, that also seemed to offend her.

What I now know if that Dramma was “set in her ways”. Dramma spelled her name with two m’s so it wouldn’t be confused with the word “drama”. Her husband had died at a young age, and her only daughter Mabel had been married for many years to Maynardville businessman Rina Shoffner. They had four grown children and several grandchildren. Dramma insisted on calling her grandchildren by their full names—Douglas was “Doug” to the rest of us, and Elizabeth was “Libby”. Even their mother, Dramma’s daughter, called them “Doug” and “Libby”, but Dramma would have none of it.

And into her settled home life entered “me”, a teen-ager who thought I knew more than Dramma could give me credit for. The actuality is, Dramma knew more than I could ever give her credit for. If I had been half as mature as I fancied myself, we would have had a wonderful relationship.

But I could only focus on my own troubles, my dying father, my being away from the home and the mother I loved, my own inconveniences. I never realized what an inconvenience I myself was, a young intruder into the peace and comfort of this woman’s home.

Dramma must have had lots of troubles throughout life—raising a young daughter alone after her father died, living a lot of life alone, without the companionship of a husband. She worked for several years as a custodian for the church. I was told a few years ago that her landlord, a leader in the church, lobbied in business meeting for Dramma to receive a five dollar per month raise. Once it was received, the pious gentleman raised her rent five dollars per month!

Living in the same house showed each of us the human side of the other, and I think in many ways we were a great disappointment to the other. I visited her in the nursing home in the latter days of her life, and we talked comfortably with each other, and I allowed her to think that I had made my peace with her. I am glad that she died not knowing that I still harbored resentment for some of the things she said and did that I couldn’t understand. Ashamed though I am to tell it, I carried such a grudge into my young adulthood that I declined the honor of attending and being a pallbearer at her funeral.

Whatever misunderstandings might have occurred, Dramma shared with me what was probably her most cherished material possession on this earth, the house she rented from her son-in-law, across the street from him and her daughter. Dramma and the house she opened to me have been gone for many years. All that I have left are two small colonial pictures and a testament that she gave me. The pictures hang to this very day on my home library walls. Now that I have gained some maturity, sadly too late for me to tell her that I now understand, I occasionally visit her grave and bittersweetly focus on the love she gave so openly to me, even when things between us were not good. Dramma has faced her Maker and answered for the deeds done in the body, and my appointment is to come.

Until next time, here is a saying to ponder:

After a quarrel, a husband said to his wife, "You know, I was a fool when I married you."

She replied, “Yes, dear, but I was in love, and didn't notice."