Chapter 2 Blessed
Blessed
Lydia Brown
In the flatlands of North Carolina, we raised tobacco and tended a hundred beehives in white boxes lined up like soldiers.
My people planted and worked an orderly garden that bore a bounty of food, and for generations this rich patch of land yielded more than enough.
Then, while the good countries of the world fought to save democracy to the west and to the east, the Browns created a haven that was safe.
Even when two German POWs came to work our tobacco fields and bees, they became changed men because of their time with the Browns.
Summertime was the season that stretched the longest in my childhood, and it was mostly lived outside.
Our hundred-year-old witch elm was an imposing presence in the front yard, and it spread its arms over the tin roof of our porch which ran the length of the house.
As if by magic, on the hottest of days, that tree could conjure a breeze and bring relief from sticky heat.
In the evenings, a line of rocking chairs held tired bodies and creaked on warped boards while we listened to adventure stories and fairy tales, and snapped beans and made butter from clabber in mason jars.
The population of my world was ten, and it was a mighty universe.
In the weight of oppressive heat that started in April and stayed through October, we watched to the west for the coming of the rain.
When that happened, everybody paused to pray that the wall of wet would cross our property line and quench parched fields.
That silent plea was granted so often that I believed the power of prayer was our birthright.
I believed there was an unbreakable tenet between heaven on high and the Brown family below. Back then, God answered our prayers.
Once there came fierce clouds that brought a deluge of rain that fell for days, and that flood lay on our land like a wide lake.
Everything looked off-kilter, like the barn and the house and the witch elm had up and moved somewhere different.
When the storm clouds left and a billion stars came out of hiding, Daddy took us outside to stand at the edge of that still water that had swallowed our field.
In place of dirt was a vast bowl of brittle stars in perfect reflection.
I was scared that if I stepped forward I’d fall into space, so I clutched Daddy’s hand and he didn’t let go.
After, while we slept, the world righted itself again.
Being born into the Brown family was a safe and solid thing.
It was winning the gold ring at the State Fair.
Being born last in a line of bright and promising children was proof that luck isn’t made but bestowed.
When I was single-digits old and untested, I thought I would live forever in the bosom of my family’s protection where I wanted for nothing and feared even less.
I thought it was how life was meant to be.
But even the best of the lot can get it wrong.