Faith, Folklore, and Friends

The news came that time was short. My father’s brother’s wife, a sweet gentle lady who constantly had snuff juice in the corners of her mouth, was in the last stages of colon cancer. My father asked Hub and me to take him and my Mom over to Georgia, about two hundred miles, to see her one last time. It was a hot, dry summer, one where plants or patience did not prosper. Come early Saturday morning, we packed up our two sons, picked up my parents, and headed for Georgia. About five hours later, we found the hospital, the biggest building in the small Southern town. Hub stayed downstairs with the boys, and I went with my parents to locate my Aunt’s room. Southern rituals seem to illuminate an obsession with death, where friends and kin gather around the bedside to see the dying one breathe their last. When we arrived at the small, stuffy room, it was packed. The weariness of the trip must have shown on my face, because the preacher, there to do his duty, rose from his seat and kindly off...