Because The Bible Tells Me So

Yesterday, without any sort of trigger, I thought about Mrs. Helie.  She was the mother of Ginny Cobb who along with her husband Ralph and their two daughters Cynthia and Marcia and their cocker spaniel, Taffy (seriously, how do I remember this stuff?) lived next door to us when I was a child.  Mrs. Helie moved from Florida to be closer to her family and to that end built a garage apartment in their backyard to live in.  She was a lovely lady with perfectly coiffed blue gray hair that was the fashion among older women of the day.  She had dimples that would come to life when she smiled, which was often, and her eyes always had a twinkle about them. She wore colorful paste earrings, drove a prosthetic beige 1959 Rambler with front seats that folded all the way back to make a bed, played the piano and had the sheet music for “Around the World in 80 Days” which she taught me to sing.  She was like Auntie Mame Lite so it’s not too surprising that I was drawn to her.

Another thing that brought us together was church.  Religious  indoctrination was kind of an expectation for children back then, and still is for some folks I suppose, and given that my father was a lapsed Catholic and my mother had a pretty big gap in her religious resume it was determined that I would attend First Presbyterian Church though there was no Presbyterianism in my family tree.   As it turned out, Mrs Helie was Presbyterian also and so we attended church together.  She sang in the choir and I think may have taught Sunday school for a brief time.

Actually, everything about Mrs. Helie lasted all too briefly.  She had only lived next door for a couple of years when she was diagnosed with cancer and passed away shortly thereafter.  I was too young to understand what it all meant, but was saddened that I was no longer able to go over to her apartment after school and have her accompany me on the piano while I belted out show tunes.

This morning I was rearranging the books on the shelves and glanced at the “tiny book” section.  Again with no trigger, I picked up a 3″x 5″ copy of the Illustrated New Testament that I have had since I was a child. 

I opened it and found this inscription:

I have no recollection of her giving it to me.  And she would have had no idea that exactly 57 years later she would reach out and fill me with such warm and wonderful memories of her.  Not all gifts are fully appreciated at the time they’re given and I have no doubt my reaction to being given a small copy of the Illustrated New Testament for Christmas in 1964 wasn’t nearly as animated as my reaction to the new Hot Wheels track I received that year.  So, a very belated and heartfelt thank you, Mrs. Helie. 

Around the world I’ve searched for you
I traveled on when hope was gone to keep a rendezvous
I knew somewhere, sometime, somehow
You’d look at me and I would see that smile you’re smiling now