While the World Watched by Carolyn McKinstry Read Free Book Online Page B

at my grandfather’s church. The words always gave me strength and courage:
    All along this Christian journey,
    I want Jesus to walk with me.
    I want Jesus to walk with me.
    All along this Christian journey,
    I want Jesus to walk with me.
    In my troubles, walk with me.
    When I’m dying, walk with me.
    All along this Christian journey,
    I want Jesus to walk with me.
    I want Jesus to walk with me.
    I had never seen Mama Lessie like this. She was only fifty-four years old, but she looked much older. To pass the hours, I counted the beads of water as they dropped from the pipes. Then I counted the redbrick squares on the floor and thought about my life with Mama Lessie and all the wonderful things I’d done with her and learned from her. I didn’t want any of that to end.
    * * *
    Born in Columbiana, Alabama, my grandmother had a gentle nature and soft-spoken ways. She never yelled at me—not once. She never punished me either. When I needed correction, she instructed me in a gentle and loving way, always teaching me lessons about life and love and God as she disciplined me. Mama Lessie was a good writer and organizer. She had the ability to sound out words and then write them down correctly. I have been told by family members that I inherited my gift of spelling from my grandmother.
    My grandmother had told me I was precocious. I had no idea what that meant, but she said it with a smile on her lips and a twinkle in her eye. I spent most of the summers at my grandparents’ house while my mother took classes. Together each summer, Mama Lessie and I worked at the vacation Bible schools in Granddaddy’s two churches, as well as other churches that had only occasional guest pastors and no full-time pastors. We taught the children how to make pot holders out of yarn and how to glue rice, glitter, and tinsel to paper plates to make collages for their folks. We also created the final programs, held after each session.
    When all the vacation Bible schools ended, I would watch Mama Lessie sew at her old sewing machine. She made clothes for her five daughters throughout their lifetimes, and she also made curtains for the windows and sewed quilts for the beds. Afternoons with my grandmother meant picking greens, cabbage, okra, and tomatoes in the small garden my grandfather planted in the backyard each spring.
    “Why do you and Grandfather always eat so much cabbage and okra?” I asked her once.
    Mama Lessie smiled. “It’s because we both wear dentures, Carolyn, and we raise and cook the things we can eat.”
    Oftentimes, Granddaddy came home from work, put us grandchildren in the backseat of his car, and took us to pick wild strawberries and blackberries along the roadside. We’d take the berries back to Mama Lessie and eat them as fast as she could wash them.
    Sometimes my grandfather took us into downtown Clanton. He had befriended just about everybody in that city, both black and white. He was the person folks called for advice, prayer, and practical help when someone got into trouble or ended up in jail. He was the one people went to when a baby was born or when someone in the community died or when a couple wanted to get married or when someone needed food or money. At that time in the South, black preachers represented God’s own voice and guidance. My grandfather was respected for two reasons: he was a preacher, and he had a college degree.
    “Come meet my grandbabies!” he would call out with pride to Clanton’s barber or grocer or dry cleaner. Then he would call out our names, one by one, and introduce us to his many friends.
    I especially liked those summers in Clanton when it was just Mama Lessie and me. She would walk me across the street to Miss Daisy’s beauty shop and sit me in the small room built onto the side of Miss Daisy’s house. Then she would stay beside me while Miss Daisy washed and pressed my hair and put real curls in it. Like my father, my grandparents never let me walk anywhere alone. Not even