Where Eastern Meets Southern
"Milly," the coworker I often prayed for finally fell after a 3+ year battle with cancer. She had worked up until two months ago.
And so today we found ourselves at the lovingly developed, cozy baptist church, just about in that point of DC where Southern Ave. meets Eastern, for a "Home-goin' Service." It was everything you'd expect at an Aframerican proceeding with plenty of "Amens" and "uh-huhs" and "Yes he dids!"
The choir didn't have robes, but the Reverend Pastor had a black get-up that was almost papal in regality. "Milly" was at rest in a $20K box finished in Holy-Ghost white, trimmed in Ark-of-the-Covenant gold. It's a place where one feels the urge to clap after each hymn. I'm going to have "I'll Fly Away" going around in my head for a week. Such tabernacles are indeed the cradles of American popular music.
What really impressed me was the willingness of this community to engage in fraternal correction. "Milly's" cancer was actually a ticket out of a succession of heartaches. Her son is a druggie who stole everything out of her house. Her ex-husband is a bum who left her with not even an old-junk car to drive to work. Her niece stole the little dog that was her companion.
A lot of this happened because Ann wouldn't set the law on them. Yet, the Reverend, in his sermon compared Ann to the man rescued by the Good Samaritan, saying she was "beat up" and then "passed up" by her family, only to be rescued by the Good Samaritan, Jesus (Amen!), this with the bums sitting right in the front pew. "Bozo" the husband was pretty choked up. On her deathbed, Milly said "Son, get straight!" reported the pastor and I could see him giving the fellow a final talking-to at the graveside.
"Can I get a 'Amen' for Colonel Brooks?" I asked my carpoolers as we Fort Lincoln. Our Hindu coworker can't understand why we stick people in holes.
I have a feeling an era is coming to an end. "Milly" was a great contributor to the mirth at the office, sometimes unintentionally. I'll never forget her hopefully declaring, one gray winter day, that "de bes' urologis' in town say it's gonna snow tonight!" Another time she said she was going to the clinic for an "autopsy." She could also sleep sitting up in her cubicle and look like she was at work to passing-by powers-that-be, but occasionally she would start snoring or roll forward onto her keyboard whereupon one of us would have to get her up with a psst or a MAC-quack.
Copyright © 2003 by Neal J. Conway. All rights reserved.