Wisdom Seeds (2 page)

My dad's voice was stern as he flung open the back door. “I refuse to condone his sin with silence.” His veins protruded from his neck and his eyes were fixed on Nana.

“You're angry with yourself David, not Noah and not me.” Nana's voice remained calm as she continued to squeeze lemons.

Mom continued to stir the sugar water in the pitcher.

Noah looked at the floor.

My dad cleared his throat, raised his voice and banged his fist on the counter. “Woman, that's what's wrong with the world – everybody wants to do their own thing with no accountability!”

Before he could finish, my mom's neck jerked and her head turned ten seconds before her body. She stepped between her mother and my dad, maintaining eye contact with him. With the spoon less than half an inch from his nose, she reminded him that yelling and addressing her mother as ‘woman' was unacceptable. It sounded like my mom was crying.

I wanted to go in the kitchen and was trying to work up the courage to get off the swing when Nana came outside with Noah and hurried us down the steps. Noah and Joey mocked my parents as they went running up the hill behind the house. Nana and I started picking flowers. It was April and the flowers were beginning to bloom.

We walked in silence and without breaking her stride she said, “Dani, never say things you will live to regret.” Then with that serious look I had come to know, she asked, “Do you understand?”

I said yes even though I didn't. Her wisdom seeds were still only good stories. I followed her along the fence as she continued to pick flowers. Without looking back she said, “I'm going to plant the wisdom seed of love in your heart.” She stopped, leaned against the fence and looked up the hill where Joey and Noah had run. “Words spoken in anger can never be taken back. Although someone may apologize, the scar of their words will remain forever.” She
paused. “And how do you remove a scar?” She asked, looking down at me.

I looked up squinting because the sunrays came through that big oak tree like a spotlight in my eyes and shrugged my shoulders.

As she bent down to pick up another flower she said, “You can't but if you focus on the scar you'll be miserable for the rest of your life. Miserable people have no love in here.” She pointed to her heart. “Love and hate can't live in the same heart. The only way to have love is to forgive. God said we must be willing to forgive people when they hurt our feelings. God forgives us when we sin and hurt His feelings.” Nana turned and began walking back toward the house. “Repeat after me,” she said without turning around.
“And be kind to one another,”
she paused and waited for me to repeat after her. I obediently obliged through the verse.

“. . . tender hearted,
forgiving one another
even as God in Christ forgave you
Ephesians 4:32.”

Nana planted the third wisdom seed in my heart during the summer before my sophomore year at Penn State. One Saturday morning while we were sitting on the front porch snapping beans she said, “Dani, hand me my Bible.” Nana never lost her pace snapping beans and, without looking, tossing them into that old tin bucket. The same bucket she said she used to wash my mom when she was a baby. I tried not to think about that as I watched it fill up with beans. We had to eat them for dinner.

Nana wiped her hands on her apron and took the Bible from me. She turned to II Corinthians 6:14.

“Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers for what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?”

She read as if she were a famous orator, pronouncing each word with emphasis.

“Remember that scripture.” She handed me the Bible and put two handfuls of beans on her lap. “You're away at college and you've got to make good choices about people. Not all people are good, even though they might look nice on the outside. Everyone smiling at you is not going to like you and some people are just plain mean and will take advantage of you.”

It felt like a lecture, but I was captivated. Nana spoke with authority.

“No one likes to be alone – the happy, the sad, the good or the bad. Look at people who are loved, you will see that they are loving and they surround themselves with others who are like-minded – just as the scornful like to avoid joy and keep a disdain for those who are happy. If you find people who are unhappy and unable to maintain friendships, stay away from them. And since we are known by the company we keep, then you must make a decision. What kind of people do you want to be around – the friendly or the scornful?”

She resumed her beat snapping beans. I stopped to concentrate on the question I had never thought about before.

“Dani, who are you walking with?”

Unsure of what to say, I sat there with a dumb look on my face. Childish as it seems, I was thinking I wasn't walking with anyone. I was sitting on the front porch snapping beans with her.

“Make sure you surround yourself with good people, Dani,” she said breaking the silence. “Walk with good people. That's a wisdom seed for happiness. Keep good
people and happiness in your life.”

I understood, although not clearly. There was some big life lesson in what she said and I was sure I was missing a piece. My mind raced to respond, but I had no words.

Nana sat up to get another handful of beans off the table. “You like Tony, don't you?”

“Yeah, he's nice.” I tried not to smile.

“You can smile,” she teased. “I already knew.”

“It's not like that Nana, we just went to the movies.”

“Are you going out again?”

“Bowling on Saturday,” I tried to say with a straight face.

“He's a nice kid. He and his friend, Jeffrey, left New York to give themselves a chance.”

“I know, he told me.”

“That shows he has a good head on his shoulders. A good man knows how to get away from and stay out of trouble. Sometimes when boys grow up without a father it's hard for them to learn how to be good men. But God done blessed them two with good men that cared about them.” Nana smiled. “God done planted a lot of good men all over the country.” She paused. “So you don't have to settle.”

“Yes Ma'am.”

“You just wait on your blessing from God. Keep your ears open so you can hear God talkin' cause your own eyes might deceive you.”

“Yes Ma'am.”

“Everything that looks good is not good for you.” She hesitated and added, “But that don't mean your blessing can't be cute!”

Nana knew how to make me laugh, even when she was serious and teaching me a life lesson.

Tony met Nana when he volunteered to help paint the
church. Nana had prepared lunch for the students and Tony complimented her cooking. She invited him to dinner the following weekend and he volunteered to cut her grass. In return, Nana began cooking for him all the time – sometimes cakes and pies and sometimes dinner.

Although Tony had asked me out a few times, I wondered if he was just doing it for Nana. Even though he was very nice, and cute, I wouldn't allow myself to believe that I was his type. He wore his short Afro tapered around his face and rolled the sleeves on his tee shirt to display his muscles. His jeans were always starched and creased. He also wore sandals with his shorts. I was still waiting for my body to develop and wore my hair pulled back into a ponytail. My cotton sun dresses and matching short sets from Sears made me look fourteen. Anyway, it made Nana happy to think she matched me up with a nice young man.

The summer with Nana ended too soon and I wished I didn't have to leave. Nana promised to visit me in the spring. I believed her, but still cried on the bus all the way to Pittsburgh.

My sophomore year started out dragging. I wrote to Nana diligently every Saturday, anxious to return to see her again. She replied insinuating that my anxiety was in seeing Tony, not her. I wrote many letters trying to convince her otherwise. Even her stationery smelled like Jean Naté.

Eric Wilson came along during the first week in October and I fell in love with him by the end of the month. I was looking for that magic love Nana had shared with Grandpa Booker. Eric was a romantic and wrote me poems. He even wrote me a song and sang it to me in the cafeteria. I shared pieces of the poems with Nana because I wanted her to know how romantic he was. Nana wrote back telling me she doubted his sincerity. It took me two weeks to write
asking her why. Eric said everything I wanted to hear. He thought I was cute and I wanted to be in love.

By the time Nana wrote me again I was ready to burn Eric's sonnets. He had shattered by heart, broken up with me because I wouldn't have sex with him and lied to his friends telling them he had. Nana had been right about him. I thought about the wisdom seeds – never saying something I would later regret and walking with the right people. I surmised the seeds must not have taken root because I regretted having said I loved Eric and had totally misjudged his character.

My letter to Nana was pitiful. Penn State no longer seemed like the place for me and I wanted to transfer to West Virginia. I suggested we discuss how to tell my parents when she came to visit.

Spring break came but Nana didn't. Her arthritis had flared up and she thought it best to stay at home. Our visit would have to wait until summer.

As the end of my sophomore year approached, I made plans to join Nana in West Virginia. I was able to get my counseling job at the Youth Investment Program again, too.

I arrived in Wheeling in time to help Nana bake sweet potato pecan pies for the Memorial Day Veteran's Luncheon. Nana had lost about twenty pounds and she walked with a limp – it was frightening and I worked hard not to focus on it. During my senior year in high school I requested an application to West Virginia University and now I regretted never completing it. While I was in Wheeling for the summer, I planned to inquire about graduate programs. I made up my mind to attend WVU for grad school.

West Virginia was my summer respite where Nana
and I enjoyed a ritual of activities. We attended Prayer Meeting and Bible Study, faithfully, every Wednesday evening. Most of the fifty member congregation also attended and Deacon Grady opened with the same three songs each week – Jesus on the Main Line, Blessed Quietness and What a Friend We Have in Jesus.

Our Monday evenings were spent with the Home Missionaries, of which my grandmother had been the President for fifteen years. We prepared dinner and provided a hot meal and fellowship for all that came. Some were homeless, some were poor and some were just lonely. There were families, children, young adults and the elderly. During my first year I stayed in the kitchen serving and cleaning. My second year was spent playing games and reading stories to the children. I also studied Nana as she sat with her visitors, talked with them, prayed with them and sometimes hugged and cried with them.

Nana could talk for hours about the earthly ministry of Jesus and how He showed His love through compassion for people. As she taught the Beatitudes, I committed them to memory.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:3 – 10.

I had yet to come to a full understanding of the wisdom seeds Nana taught me.

Nana masked the severity of her arthritis well. She was up every morning making breakfast, even after I would hear her moaning at night. On my second Sunday back in Wheeling, she invited Tony, Jeffrey and Vicky to dinner. We spent most of the evening listening to Nana's tales about the ‘good ol' days'. Her stories were never complete without making us repeat scripture and sing her favorite hymns.

Two weeks after I arrived, Tony left for Hartford to complete his internship. My social life plummeted from minimal to nil. I let books consume my time and leisurely read the novels I had collected.

One Saturday Nana taught me how to make black-eye peas and rice with ham hocks, sweet potato pies with a shortbread crust and stewed turkey legs. These were her favorite recipes that she had never shared with anyone else except my mother.

On our way home from church one Sunday, Nana asked about my plans after college. I hated admitting not having any. My goal was to graduate and do something. I promised to begin exploring my options. Graduate school at West Virginia seemed like the perfect choice.

That evening, after dinner, we retreated to the porch swing and the cool night air. It was then that Nana began to tell me her time to rest was near. I refused to believe her because I wanted her to live forever. Nana said she would be watching from the balcony of Heaven to see the fruit from the seeds she planted in my life.