Happy Birthday Out There
Saturday was my birthday.
My family understands that KAREN written in pastel icing across a vanilla cake is essential. So that’s never a surprise.
Still, I did get surprised this year. Maybe shocked would be a better choice.
That morning as Cliff and I sat on the porch, Rob and Beth walked over with a birthday gift: a plate of sugar cookies decorated like watermelon slices. Labor Day weekend has been a festival since forever in our town with carnival rides, games of chance, food vendors, and a parade with the Melon Princess riding a plastic cantaloupe slice.
Totally down home. I love every minute.
But in all my life, from city to city, no neighbor had given me a birthday gift. Ever.
I had another surprise in store.
Fundraising meals highlight each festival day, so Cliff and I walked down to the catholic church pancake breakfast. Because I sat at the far end, being part of our table’s conversation was challenging. I could more easily hear the voices behind me and leaned back in surprise when I heard the word Muslims.
An elderly woman announced that if you’re in India, and the Muslims find out you’re catholic, “They kill ‘ya right on the spot.” Her table mates expressed horror and admitted they’re afraid to travel very far because “those Muslims hang around everywhere.”
Although we live in a small town, big cities are filled with people who assume difference is wild, complete with machete-swinging rampages against white decency, catholic or not.
I know this thinking. Sometimes I say, in certain circumstances, that I’m from a long line of racists.
Years ago, my mother eagerly told me her sister, who lived in a broken-down Oklahoma oil town, had changed her opinion about African Americans. When I asked how she knew, my mother reported they’d stood in line at a restaurant with “nice black ladies” from a church choir. My aunt announced to their director that “her people were to be commended for their excellent behavior.”
“Oh, Mom, no,” I said. “She’s no different. Do you think she would have said that to a white choir director about her white members?” She saw my point.
My aunt believed African Americans spent their time planning how to rob and/or kill white people. Once they had that figured out, they danced around campfires, getting drunk on cheap whiskey. Or maybe she thought that’s what Indians did. Oklahoma harbored plenty of stereotypical slurs.
As I finished breakfast, I wondered about this woman behind me. I knew she was like my aunt. Fearful. Wrapped in self-serving arrogance. And criminal ignorance. Their hateful pronouncements betray a toxic unhappiness. Once upon a time, something deeply damaged them, crushed them. Spoon by spoon, they’ve boiled their empty souls in a bitter soup they hope to make all of us drink.
As it turned out, we left the room when she did. Ahead of us, she hobbled slowly on her cane and stopped in the middle of the sidewalk when we’d all passed through the door.
I could have been impatient as she blocked our exit. But I waited. Realizing we were there, she motioned abruptly for us to go around and sighed, “I’m slow.”
“My goodness,” I said brightly, “I just thought you’d taken up your rightful place as the garden hostess. You match these pretty petunias perfectly.”
She looked shocked.
I thought she would.
I figured she hadn’t received a compliment in…forever. Then she saw her purple clothes matched the flowers and looked happy to be noticed. She smiled at me.
Maybe it was my birthday, but for a minute, I made it hers. You never know about the effects of sudden kindness.
It’s worth a chance.
