Brave Belles

      

          It is one of those things you just never forget…. I suppose from the outside looking in, it wasn’t at all funny, but to those of us who knew her, it was a hoot!  My friend Mitzi had lost every stitch of hair on her head due to chemo from breast cancer.  She was the “hat diva” and had one for every occasion as well as an adequate supply of wigs of every variety when she chose not to wear one of her flamboyant hats.  I suppose every southern belle secretly wishes to be able to rid herself of the curse of hair spray and southern “big hair,” but Mitzi had a way of causing us to be grateful for even the most annoying of rituals.  On this particular night, she wore a denim smock, fun tennis shoes and a bright pink floppy hat that rested on her head like a lamp shade.  We were attending a singles karaoke night at our church.  We all took our moment of “fame” in the spotlight as we picked the best possible song to make us either look like a star or a “blooming idiot” as my grandmama might’ve said!  No one before or since, however, could top Mitzi’s performance that night.  The music started and all eyes were on her.  She began swaying to the slow country rhythm as “stand by your man” bellowed out of her weathered lips.  Before we knew it, that vivid fuchsia covering for her bald head was snatched off, and she was waving it like a seductive feather scarf dancing on stage, laughing between phrases!  My goodness gracious!!!  That was our crazy, funny brave Mitzi…

            One Sunday morning, I walked passed her on my way to the choir loft – as she sat on the front pew.  She was sporting a new cast from her shoulder and down her arm, and her arm was in a sling.  I spoke to her and asked what happened.  She had rolled over in the night and broken her collar bone.  The cancer had made her bones as brittle as old pine needles.  As she replayed the night’s events, she said “honey you are gonna walk by me one day and have to pick my arm up off the floor!”  If I’ve ever looked courage in the eye, it was each time I caught a glimpse of the sparkle in the eyes of my friend.  It was a sparkle I’ve come to know quite well over the years through other brave belles in my life.  I think about my sweet Aunt Betty, who fought the bravest battle with breast/bone cancer for so many years.  I still see her in my mind... remembering her on a Sunday morning playing an organ and singing for her husband the preacher man when she was really too weak to even sit up.  I picture her driving that long stretch from her country home to visit her husband in the hospital who was also fighting for his life.  She had a devotion and determination that she “came by honest” as we say here in the South, because her mama, my Maw Maw Weeks is another one that is in the “brave belles” hall of fame.  At almost ninety years old, Maw Maw tended to Aunt Betty, her “baby girl” until the day she took her last breath.  Years before, she sat by the bedside of her husband, my sweet Paw Paw for years as he was bed ridden by a stroke and heart disease. 

            Then there’s my Aunt Joyce.  What a jolly woman she was!  She loved to laugh.  One day the irony of life tried to slap that smile off her face as she suffered a massive stroke while only in her fifties.  For over twenty years, she was completely bedridden, but never stopped believing for a miracle.  Of course her “baby girl” was raised a southern belle too, and she understood the value of family; my cousin Cathy took care of her mama through the years all the way to the end like Maw Maw had Aunt Betty.  I’ve seen many faces of what a “brave belle” looks like.   There’s my friend Sharon who lost her husband and one of her children in a split second when lightening struck them on a cloudy beach one day.  Sharon “carried on” as they say, taking care of her other children, working in places most southern belles wouldn’t dare be seen in - like in the transportation industry as a dump truck driver around a bunch of red necks.  To me, my sweet friend has more class in her pinky finger than the biggest socialite in town!  What a brave belle!

            I reckon each of you, my sweet belles can name a few “brave belles” that have been in your life also.  Truth is, I imagine that you just might be in familiar company because being a good wife, a mother, a sister, daughter, employee, neighbor or friend requires a courage that the men folk might not quite understand.  Southern belles are raised to understand the “calling” of sorts that rests on your shoulders just by virtue of being a belle!  Early on, we stand on stools to be tall enough to reach the stove or the kitchen counter; we step into shoes that we know one day, we too, will most likely “walk a mile or two” in.  We study by a candle that often burns at both ends and rest at the feet of “experience”  learning the southern way of doing things – all while donning a smile from a head that is held high because it is proud to be “southern born and southern bred!”  Brave belles breed brave belles, and make their mamas and daddies proud!

Love y'all!
Starla